Support for those in Emotionally Abusive relationships: thread 27

[CharlotteCollinsinherownplace]

Am I being abused?

Verbal Abuse A wonderfully non-hysterical summary. If you're unsure, read the whole page and see if you're on it.
Emotional abuse from the same site as above
Emotional abuse a more heartfelt description
A check list Use this site for some concise diagnostic lists and support
Signs of Abuse & Control Useful check list
Why financial abuse is domestic violence Are you a free ride for a cocklodger, or supposed to act grateful for every penny you get for running the home?
Women's Aid: "What is Domestic Violence?" This is also, broadly, the Police definition.
Warning signs you’re dating a loser Exactly what it says on the tin

Books :

"Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft - The eye-opener. Read this if you read nothing else.
"The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans He wants power OVER you and gets angry when you prove not to be the dream woman who lives only in his head.
"The Verbally Abusive Man, Can He Change?" by Patricia Evans Answer: Perhaps - ONLY IF he recognises HIS issues, and if you can be arsed to work through it. She gives explicit guidelines.
"Men who hate women and the women who love them" by Susan Forward. The author is a psychotherapist who realised her own marriage was abusive, so she's invested in helping you understand yourself just as much as helping you understand your abusive partner.
"The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing" by Beverley Engels The principle is sound, if your partner isn't basically an arse, or disordered.
"Codependent No More : How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself" by Melody Beattie If you’re a rescuer, you're a co-dependent. It's a form of addiction! This book will help you.
But whatever you do, don't blame yourself for being co-dependent!

Websites :

So, you're in love with a narcissist - Snarky, witty, angry, but also highly intelligent: very good for catharsis
Dr Irene's verbal abuse site - motherly advice to readers' write-ins from a caring psychotherapist; can be a pain to navigate but very validating stuff
Out of the fog - and now for the science bit! Clinical, dispassionate, and very informative website on the various forms of personality disorders and how they impact on family and intimate relationships.
Get your angries out - You may not realise it yet, but you ARE angry. Find out in what unhealthy ways your anger is expressing itself. It has probably led you to staying in an unhealthy relationship.
Melanie Tonia Evans is a woman who turned her recovery from abuse into a business. A little bit "woo" and product placement-tastic, but does contain a lot of useful articles.
Love fraud - another site by one woman burned by an abusive marriage
You are not crazy - one woman's experience. She actually has recordings of her and her abusive partner having an argument, so you can hear what verbal abuse sounds like. A pain to navigate, but well worth it.
Baggage reclaim - Part advice column, part blog on the many forms of shitty relationships.
Heart to heart - a wealth of information and personal experiences drawn together in one place

What couples therapy does for abusers

If you find that he really wants to change
Should I Stay or Should I Go bonus materials This is a site containing material for men who want to change - please don’t give him the link - print out the content for him to work through.

The Bill of Rights
What you should expect as a starting point for your treatment in a relationship, as you will of course be treating others!!

frog that hand over your face rubbing thing - i had forgotten about is vile and another thing that he did that i just couldn't make sense of and hadn't experienced before.

The main thing to know about that and the other things you list, is that you hate being treated this way and its not stopping despite your hate of it! thats all you need to know?

The extra layer you require, the validation of that, is because its part of systematic abuses.

I think i might have done a massive x-post tho!

warm wishes to all for self-care and protection today xx

hi Frog

did any of that reading strike a chord with you?

I x-posted with nini oops! - its surprising/alarming! I thought it was something that happened to noone else, I had never come across such a social greeting before.

I think it was you Nini that wrote of the FW getting up excessively early and making much of rummaging for clothes, banging doors, basically waking you up? and I thought then, I was just being completely unreasonable in my thinking to be, in the end, teary about the chronically early starts.

Oh gosh yes, the face rubbing, had that too, plus unwanted hugs and kisses whilst cornered. Definitely about boundaries. Also, the face rubbing, I think it is infantilising, the only people's faces I have ever considered stroking are my newly born dcs. There comes an age where it is not appropriate any more, probably once they are mobile?

breathe I 'ripped a family apart'. Ignore. This will keep coming up even when you are out (in various different forms, as will the efforts to put the family back together).
Look at it this way, you are simply re-configuring the family into two separate parts so that it works better (family function is as important, if not more so, than family form when it comes to child well-being, and your own). He is employing the violent metaphors, not you.

Thank you to everyone who sent messages and offered support during my breakup. It has taken me 20 months and it's still not always easy as he contacts me sometimes up to 10 times a day but I DID IT. I left him. Our db's are not yet as settled as I would like them to be due to him trying to alienate them from me, all my family and friends but I am getting them support from school and I know we will get through this.
Good Luck to all of you x

well done rotool

Yep that was me Fi! FW used to do it to both DD and me, and my attempts to stop him doing it was what resulted in being hit (not that I'm saying that at all would happen in your situation frog!). In my times of weakness, I still look back at the AIBU peoples' responses to that thread. It gives me strength.

On the plus side, if there is such a thing, after I called him up on it, FW doesn't do it anymore. He's as quiet as a mouse if he gets up before me. Funny that.

Agree with quiet on the violent metaphors, breathe. The mantra is always to 'detach'. Keep telling yourself that what you've done is for the best. You can't rip apart what is already broken (by him), right?

for all today.

Hi
So the last time i saw "him" was November 1st. I went shopping today trying on new dresses and it struck me just how much confidence i have lost :-( I was so confident when i met him, not overly just in a good place really. I didnt even have the confidence to buy the dress, Im going out with friends tonight instead just felt i wanted to hide :-( how can someone have this effect. I know this is my problem now but... i cant even look at other men, I feel embarrassed :-( anyone else felt like this?

Maoam - after a weekend of fw finest tactics I can honestly tell you what I no longer have any confidence. I bet you looked fab in that dress though!

Hello all, hope you're having a good day. After a terrible weekend I have realised that something must change. Even if your experience has been ea, can I ask if it always escalates? 13 yrs in, and he started ranting about sex. He's never done that before. Classic ea, but never sexual. Will he turn physical new to time? Am I being stupid or is there any history of any bloke undergoing help and the relationship surviving? Feel free to put last hope out!

Thank you all for taking the time to reply.
Yes exterminate I read the links (thank you) and most of it is him.

The walking on egg shells, constant critism, never feeling good enough, dislikes my family, moans about the house being untidy, not letting me sleep, face rubbing, groping at inappropriate times, angry out bursts and blaming me for everything. All ticks

I was really down this morning when I posted, sorry I normally handle it better. I am just so tired. Ive had years of 'dont breathe on me in bed' counting how many times I move in bed cos its disturbing him. Dome one up thread said about banging aroung on a morning. The other morning he got up me asleep (pretending) he put the light on full, no response from me so he put his deodorant on then banged it on his bedside table five times! Still pretended I was asleep. Tbh wondering how far he would go. He came over to me and flicked my bottom lip, then prodded a spot I had on my chin. All because he couldn't stand it because I was asleep and he wasn't. He does things like this sll the time. EVERY time I have pulled him up on it he says its only a joke and I'm being miserable. Ive given up. I just let him do itnow and try and store Iit to use as one of my reasons. Sad really. Thanks again eveeveryone x

Frog you sound quite close to the point when you spring out of the pan of boiling water into a cool pool. Do you yearn for a bed of your own where you can sleep unmolested and without fear?

When I told my XH I wanted to sleep in the spare room to avoid non consensual sex he told me it was the marital bed or leave him. So I left.

You have a right to live without this low grade constant violation of your body. Be strong!

Hello Frog, I threw FW out of bed on Sunday, and I must admit it's now a sanctuary!

I sleep on the sofa due to all those things mentioned in your list frog. The last fight we had was because in 'stroking' (actually scratching my knee with his nail) my knee wasn't nice and I told him. Cue onslaught of verbal abuse about how EVERY aspect of my personality/way of dealing with my life was less than satisfactory to him.
He used to like to moan about how much I slept, telling me I should be helping him to wake up for work not lying in bed all day. Even received abuse for, when the kids were away, wanting to have a lie in with him. He was very busy that day you see, and I didn't understand/appreciate/respect this fact. A 'fact' which he had previously not made me aware of. But for not reading his mind I received a verbal shut down.

House last night smelt like damp. Only 4 weeks till Christmas. Thank god - never been so excited about the festive period!!!!

many break their backs by sofa sleeping for months like I did, before finally kicking him out the bed (but I had to set up another place for him to be very comfortable first). Same before kicking out my lodger, I had to find another place for him to lodge as he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

oh BTW, lodger/FW one and the same

FairyFi Well done, like shifting a dead weight? This FW is going NOWHERE but id di realise I only 23 more nights to sleep under the same roof as him (maybe less).
Nearly there.
Spoke to a neighbour and good friend of mine today who mentioned he heard a couple of fights we had where he thought FW's language was very militant and he feared for FW as he knew I wouldn't take much more that.
boiledfrog your words echo mine about 6months ago. The need to try to get them to understand why you feel the way you do is strong - but wasted IMHO. FW will never see the error of their ways because there are no errors in their ways.

tweezle FW will never see the error of their ways because there are no errors in their ways this is so true. We keep coming back to this in our joint counselling that basically despite all the hurt I've detailed, it's not fw's fault. I made him do it.

boiledfrog not much to add except that we all seem to spend hours, days, months agonising as to if it really is abuse. I know I do. At times I feel quite sure, and then just a few kind words gets me doubting all over again. But at the end of the day, whether it is or isn't is not really the issue if we're unhappy. but what you're describing does sound abusive to me

We are the queens of minimising. Listening to the news tonight about those 3 women that have been emotionally abused and held as slavery for 30 years made me start thinking "that's emotional abuse. Not what I'm going through" nuts really. That I could even think that it needs to be that extreme to be abuse.

daiseehope. Don't think there are many reform stories, if any. Most of them seem to genuinely not see that they are in the wrong. Which makes it impossible for them to even want to change. Eg my counselling with fw has shown me that he is only not calling me fat because he knows hat I'll leave if he does. He still thinks and believes that I am, and that he is being an amazing husband by not verbalising it.

bounty I was reading that story of the household slaves with horror but also thinking that they are an extreme example of mind control and I think that's what EA is. People say, "why doesn't she just walk away?" but it's like Japanese knotweed of the brain, they curl around every aspect of our thinking and it's incredibly hard to walk away from it. It is like Stockholm syndrome of a sort.

I think the coverage of the three women held as slaves, there was some recognition, at least that I read that it was to do with controlling their minds as well as bodies. There was also recognition that it works because people held in this condition are initially vulnerable, possibly because of immigration status, childhood abuse, poverty.

But on it being hard to walk away: the three women picked up a phone and asked for help from a charity they had seen on TV. How incredibly brave. They had enough sense of self to realise that there was a better life and that there were people out there who were willing and able to help them. But they made the first step themselves.

tweezle
that was me as well, why wasnt I getting him him, Why didnt I tell him what time it was, no lie ins as theres stuff to do like clean all the things Ive cleaned all week because its not done right. Near the end I didnt bother cleaning (well he was doing it anyway )

Now I move this week & he has given my instructions on...
what condition he expects tge house to be left (clean,tidy,hoovered)
There better be food in the freezer. (not like he paid for it un the first place,I did
)
I better not use up all the gas and electric (not like he has put any money on them)

"Why doesn't she just walk away"

It's good question

First thing is just sad

Most of the time you were in love with that person
I know how f???g stupid it seems
Some would think kind of desperate
But it was different from the start, , really was

Second thing

They would make you feel it you who is the bad guilty one
Sometimes after an argument I thought it's me
I broke it again I said the wrong world I wanted go do something I was to clingy

It would make you feel so bad about yourself

There is a moment coming sometimes when he is starting twisting you words situations

It's a very good one
Ever since first bell in your head you are starting analysing and finally realising that
It's not your fault
It's not you
And then u start thinking

How it is even possible that I am here
How did I managed to let him do all that to me
How I culd have been so f**g blind

And then when it hits you, the things he did to you things he said , ,nasty names he called you
All the cruel humiliation

Sometimes I think he was looking for reaction
That you would explode and then he will be able to accuse once again
That you are the bad one and he is such perfect

At the moment I cannot Truelly stop the feeling of
Disgust I feel for him

Sometimes I really think he is ill
How a normal person can twist facts like that

theblindone.

the most accurate train of thought I have seen.

Recently I just keep thinking,
'how in the hell did I end up here'

my mum said it to me also.

The truth is he was very charming, he still is, to everyone else. He still doesnt take any blame in the breakdown of the relationship through is cheating & defo not abuse (its in.my head apparently)

YY to everything you say blindone, also about the charm peppa, they put on a great act.