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!!

she can phone, thats huge. she has an ally Noregrets. as long as she doesn't stay there worrying alone. I would suspend overnights tho and request an explanation from him that you can understand before you allow her over again, because this is causing your DD such distress?

If she is worried about getting in trouble tho, he should probably need to do some reassuring and if he won't then she won't want to stay will she?

really feel for you xxx

sorry I've not had the wherewithall to read through all on here, but sending my best wishes to you xxx

Floating do you have any kind of proof? And do you know what he's done with the proceeds? If the money involved is large, then it might be worth talking to your solicitor about getting a forensic accountant.

Noregrets that sounds serious. Surely a 9-year old should not be left in charge of someone who can't be woken? I'm assuming alcohol. And suppose he choked on his own vomit or something. Sorry to sound scary, but it is scary.

tweedle you are sounding so in control of stuff :)

Sontaran - yes, found the details on Rightmove's sold house prices, and checked with the land registry. Rather "bizarrely" it has been sold to someone with the same surname.

It's not a huge sum of money, but it has been sold at a ridiculously low price. Think the price of a car, rather than a house...

Floating what stage are you at? Form E exchange? The court won't look kindly on him hiding stuff, if you can prove it, I think it might even be contempt. If it is at Form E stage, you can challenge him at the next step, on the Questionnaire.

Yes, shortly to exchange Forms E. Need to just plough on with mine but feeling consumed with the fear he will stoop to any depths to destroy me.

Floatingfree your nn resonates with me too . I'm not quite at your stage. We are separated under same roof (have been for long time and I briefly left last year but got sucked back into house by kids' reactions to his appalling manipulation and their consequent anxiety). I have informed him of divorce. But he keeps going bonkers everytime I make any sort of move, think suicide threats and, bizarrely, beating himself up. Nearly there. Mentally completely there.

Noregrets that does sound serious. He is manipulating your dd into minimising her anxiety, discomfort and need for rescue in order to prevent his anger. That is worrying on many levels, obviously in the here and now, for her safety and anxiety levels. But also it's setting up a pattern of appeasement for her that we all know all too well. It's so hard standing up to this, as I know all too well. But as an outsider, my advice would be to get a court order on the basis of this, for her own welfare, asking for supervised visiting and no overnights. Tough to do, though, as we all know, from being manipulated and controlled by these men

Fill yours in with the facts, and with a realistic forecast of your future needs (my sol made me add money for a replacement car - she said courts don't understand people managing with £2K bangers ). Focus on that, but at the same time, draw up your own rough list of what you believe him to have, including recent assets and your evidence of his disposal of them.

When you get the copy of his Form E, go through it with a fine tooth comb.

Floating I think it may be illegal to sell a house for below it's market worth as it is seen as stamp duty evasion. Definitely worth talking through with your solicitor. Don't panic. He cannot outwit the lawyers they have seen all this hundreds of times before.
And he can't destroy you without first getting past the MN kitchen army with our sharpened utensils and polished frying pans!

Pussy I like my 2K banger very much! And today FW asked to borrow it as it has a tow bar which I kindly allowed. And got to drive his sporty nob car instead. HAHAHA

My FW is trying to alter the mediated agreement on agreed costs of supporting the DC after the house sale. I knew he acceded too glibly at the time. But I would actually go back to the solicitors and stir up trouble if he tried to change it. Cos I am stronger now!

They are only human. They don't have any power over us and we don't need to be afraid. Especially when we know we have right on our side!

Still got my 2K banger, well it's worth less than that now as that's what I paid 4 years ago. Not really a banger, a lovely and quite reliable Clio.

thanks all for your comments. He is an awful sleeper, and works shifts, so it's honestly 50/50 whether he's just overtired or made worse by drinking. I don't have a residence order in place, presumably that would have to come before one re: contact? Sorting out finances is ruining me, money wise, I was really hoping to sort this bit without the courts.

I'm going to speak to him about it tomorrow. He doesn't even know there was an issue at the moment. I just wish he could see that I'm not doing this to break him, but to make sure DD is OK when she's with him. He needs to make sure he has slept before he looks after her, and not to drink. DD is not upset about going there, still wants to stay, but I think it's only a matter of time.

But also it's setting up a pattern of appeasement for her that we all know all too well.

Yes. My father was an alcoholic, I remember putting him to bed when he was drunk. Hey, look at me now.

It is not about whether DD is upset going there, it is about her physical and emotional safety. If he can't guarantee that, she should not be going. See how the conversation goes, otherwise I would say yes, you need to consider breathe's advice, at least as a potential sanction if he doesn't sort himself out.

noregrets hope you can have a productive chat, poor dd to be put in that situation! It is tricky though, I hope he won't be too defensive when you speak to him.

FW is being awful again- I think true to type it's in response to my new job, he won't let me speak of it, put his fingers in his ears when I tried to tell him what I'm working on ( which I'm excited about ) and i decided that this is the week I need to start taking action. Called WA yesterday to arrange counselling.

I am just too much of a pushover! Why can't I just move out?

Noregrets - good luck with your chat. I know what you mean re. trying to avoid the courts for 'this bit' - I tried to do the same (also being ruined by legal bills!). However I have just put an application into court and after having wasted loads of money trying to make him see sense using solicitors I am now representing myself on the children matter. My lawyer checked over my application forms and is supporting me from the sidelines. Try to be guided by what you think is right for your DD. I totally get the internal wrangle between trying to sort things in a 'decent' way and then being concerned about doing the right thing for the DC. It's this internal debate that makes me most feel like I'm losing the plot!

Sontaran - yes, ploughing on with my Form E today. I think it was the sinking realisation that he has already stooped so low as to try dissipating assets that shook me yesterday; god only knows what will be revealed in the actual form. He has been tormenting me for months with the fact that there is some dreadful 'thing' lurking behind the scenes that will all be revealed during disclosure and that it will mean we lose "almost everything". Exchange of Forms E happens a couple of days before DCs birthday party which he is meant to also be attending - somebody stop me stabbing him with a cake fork!

Breathe - sending sympathy/empathy re still being under the same roof. I had that for five months, on and off. It was horrendous, and in my case consisted of FW constantly calling the police and trying to get me arrested for "abusing" him. Well done for mentally being there already. Do you have any plan in place?

Kouign - "They are only human. They don't have any power over us. Surely you mean "partly human"?

I still struggle with the whole 'am I the abuser?' question. My FW reads all the books about abusive relationships himself and throws the accusation back. After reading Lundy he told me he couldn't possibly be the abuser because he was the one who wanted out in the relationship. I was just so co-dependent I stuck my head in the sand about the bad bits and focussed on the DC to get through. As soon as he screamed that he wanted divorce though, I accepted it and felt instant release. He still throws back in my face the fact that at one point very soon after we separated, I said I wanted us to try and sort things out. I was in absolute pieces after he had pulled my personality apart saying I had no moral backbone and was a total lost cause. I was so weak I believed him :( I think in the case of my FW he has some sort of personality disorder that makes him regard me as either his salvation (cue the over-nice, fake behaviour) or his nemesis (cue trying to get me arrested). It is all just such a headfuck, I feel like I can't cope with it at times.

So long story short, an ex (who is now married with 2 kids) of mine from over 13 years ago lives in our village and is my brother's best mate. We see him nearly every day on the school run and I always say hello. Dh hates it and we argue about it every time. He tells me if I want our marriage to get better wrt to this thing (I have a 'chequered past', which he has trouble dealing with sometimes), I'm to stop saying hello. What do you think of this?

it's in response to my new job, he won't let me speak of it, put his fingers in his ears when I tried to tell him what I'm working on ( which I'm excited about )

Do you know, you keep reading things and you just lose more and more faith in humanity. WTAF? Seriously?

Floating, I also said we could try counsellling and then after two or three very stressful phone calls which were just him berating me, I starting pulling back from any kind of discussion, much less counselling. Re the dreadful thing lurking, from his point of view, maybe it is your freedom. I would probably work out how to support yourself and dc and then let him do his worse, knowing that you will be fine. The less you depend on him, the less he can mess with your head. It all does so much damage.

There comes a point where you have just had enough of it all, really.

I would love to be more self-sufficient, quiet. I'm working on it! I've been a SAHM since having the DC 4/5 yrs ago and unfortunately really don't think my old career (freelancer working stupid hours mostly away from home) will work around children, particularly if I'm on my own. I've recently been doing some p/t work for a friend although imagine that'll dry up after Christmas. Am desperate to retrain/ start again although feel so bloody knocked about by this at the moment it's hard to do more than try to keep on top of what I'm dealing with in the here and now. In my ideal world I'd be awarded some sort of spousal maintenance if only to help me reboot my career for 2/3 yrs.

lookout - sounds horribly controlling to me. What does he think is going to happen by you saying hello to someone..? It's completely irrational. I don't think it's ever good if somebody thinks you have a 'chequered past' and doesn't ever let you forget it - it's good justification for them keeping a tight rein on you. Unnecessarily.

oh I know, I'm sorry, it is all so much easier said than done floating. Plus, there is the fairness aspect, you have given up earning potential to have DC and he is salting away the assets of the marriage.

Yet another wonderful - Not - piece in the paper, today!
WTAF!
What kind of shit is this awful man pulling and who is he paying - apart from The Guardian?
If getting assaulted in public was not enough, Nigella Lawson now has this:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/26/nigella-lawson-cocaine-charles-saatchi

all's escalated today. DD confided all sorts of concerns at school, who made a referral to children's services. Don't want to give so much information that I out myself! Ultimately the advice was no more overnights for the time being, just daytime contact. I went to speak to FW, and he has declared if she's not staying overnight, he doesn't want to see her ever again, or speak on the phone. She adores her Dad, I can't believe he's doing this to her. I don't know how to explain it to her. I'll make excuses for the time being in case he changes his mind.

WTF - so thats alright that he assault her then and that the Grillo's help themselves to other's money!!!

Oh! ok then.

Oh Noregrets - what the fuck is wrong with these men? God it makes my blood boil on your behalf. Who exactly is the child in this situation?!! How do you feel about children's services being involved? In a way it might be better coming from a third party; at least he can't say it's you blowing things out of proportion.

I skim read that article earlier arthritic. The journalist seems to have forgotten his moral compass when writing it.

noregrets, DD has done the right thing, it has taken her lots of courage to speak to someone, praise her for that. Be clear her father's reaction is not her fault. I would explain in age appropriate language that he is acting badly, if he does not come round, because she needs her own sense of judgement validated. That was a scary position she was in last night. She has done the right thing. How does she want things to proceed?

Noregrets I entirely agree with what quiet just said. Brave of your dd, and also possibly a relief that the matter has gained its own momentum. However hard this is for her, it's better than her personality being warped by appeasing him for years to come. Your fw's response sounds like what mine would do. Right now he's saying if he can't have me, he'll never see dcs again (he adores them in his own personality-disordered way and they love him).