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!!

Ah, decision making. We were a crap decision making team - I used to be so afraid of getting it wrong - I don't mean cos of FW reaction, but had always been like it (AS with an AS DF will do that to a girl!)

This meant FW could easily shoot down any ideas of mine in flames, without offering his own suggestions. But mainly he was just non-compliant, and never led on anything.

When the DC and I wanted to get a cat, FW thought he should have the veto. I considered him outvoted, instead, and DCat is still here 17 years later - though FW isn't! Of course, FW made it clear that all cat-related stuff was to be done by me, as he hadn't wanted the cat.

Thanks colin Hope you enjoy your night out. So lovely to hear you sounding so positive. I feel so bad about hurting him and upsetting him, and like you've said in the past, keep remembering the good times and forgetting all the crap.

tweedle yy to rewriting history as it suits them. I heard him calling me some names last week. If I shut my eyes I can picture it and see the whole scene but he is denying it totally. It's so confusing.

I'm trying to take someone on here's advice ( pussycats maybe) and do nothing, make no decisions, just live for 3 days and see how I feel then.

tweedle - they really do have an answer for everything, don't they?

Sontaran - :o at cat outlasting FW. But at a FW not getting the casting vote.

bounty - I think I said that, too, only I said 3 months! Which is admittedly maybe further into the future than you can see right now. Are your parents looking after you well? Sending you lots of strength, , and whatever else I can lay my hands on.

And bounty, remember that no matter how hard it was to leave him, it could get way harder if you had to do it again. xx

Oops, forgot also to say yay! to Colin's new perspective and feeling fab.

I know charlotte Thanks for the [tea] and . It just seems so unfair I've told him once that I'm leaving and done it, and now he's going to make me kep reenacting that over and over again. And it seems just as hard each time.

I'm not sure what you mean, bounty. Do you mean because you tried to tell him before, or because he's not accepting it now?

Well as I left he said that if I go then that's it, no chance to come back. So I went and now he has texted saying please can we meet up and talk about it. He doesn't think it's the right decision. And it hurts just as much to say it the 2nd or 3rd time as the 1st :(

And it will be just as pointless. He wants to keep the conversation going, because then it's not yet over, even if the conversation is about how it is definitely over!

Don't meet up to talk about it. Even if you want to, don't do it yet. Give yourself time. Your silence says much more than a hundred conversations could, anyway. Haven't you said enough before to tell him what he needs to know?

Good advice. He wants us to meet to decide what we tell DD and then tell her together. She is only (just) 3 and quite used to him being away for weeks at a time and for me to be away on the odd night so I'm not sure we need to say anything specific just yet.

No, absolutely. It's just a pretext.

Hope you are treating yourself kindly in all of this, lovely girl.

I feel awful that I've hurt him. If I could do this without hurting him then I would. I suppose I do still love him. And I keep imagining the 'nice' version and forgetting the 'nasty' version. It's like my mind is playing tricks on me. I've looked at some of the links at the top and kind of half questioning whether he actually was abusive or whether we'd just ended up in a vicious circle of hurting each other.

No texts or emails at all today, which is a blessing, but then I find myself thinking well he can't be abusive as he is respecting my desire for time and space.

BOUNTY I've told him once that I'm leaving and done it, and now he's going to make me kep reenacting that over and over again. And it seems just as hard each time.My FW is making me do this too. 4 weeks of saying over and over "I don't love you, I don't want to be with you" He will NOT get it through his THICK skull because it is not what HE wants to hear. Its like he enjoys the fact that it hurts me to keep telling someone I don't love them. He smirks every time like I am demented even telling me I am lying.
Your mind IS playing tricks on you because you have not known your own mind for so long. That is how I have felt today. Like I am causing a big fuss about nothing. But it is not nothing, it is just not anything tangible, nothing you can show someone. it is mind games, they are invisible.
Went to see some friends who have known all that has been happening and they lifted me out of my glum-feeling. Still very tired and very drained but getting through. Might pack some boxes to make it real again.

bounty just let these thoughts wash over you for the next couple of days. Also, try thinking about things as if you were watching yourself and FW on the telly - this will distance you a little from your feelings while your processing goes on. And dream about a future with you and DD as the centre.

bounty much of what you say resonates with me, re. finding it hard to remember the nasty and focussing on the nice.

It has really helped me to focus on two or three things that mine has done that were extraordinarily vicious, that I have a unanimous verdict on from other people that were totally and utterly unacceptable and not normal. I distilled them into a couple of short sentences and repeat them regularly to myself.

I'm sorry that I'm new to the thread and therefore don't really know much of the backstory, find it hard sometimes to give any credible advice. But no matter who the partner is, when you're ending a relationship you have the right to not have to explain it endlessly. It really doesn't benefit anybody to keep going over the same ground if you have made your decision, and in my experience people use lots of excuses to try to forge an arrangement to meet.

I also really 'get' the feeling you describe of wondering if he was abusive or whether the relationship wasn't just a vicious cycle between the two of you. My FW tells me this is the case repeatedly, and I think surely anybody would ask themselves that question unless you know that you really have been a passive party to it all, which hardly anyone would ever be - relationships just aren't like that most of the time. My head is so full of the noise of FW's allegations - he's always going on about my anger problem for example. But I've never done any of the things he's done to me, slapped me in front of the children, punched holes in walls, hit objects, thrown things at me, called me a stupid cunt over and over and over. I couldn't do wrong for doing right. God I hated living with him :( My FW used to tell me repeatedly that he "chose" me precisely because I stood up for myself. His previous girlfriends had been much more passive characters and he told me openly that he felt massive guilt at the way he had treated them. But I think my assertiveness meant he could blame me for his bad behaviour, and therefore take the guilt away from him for what he did to me.

As for me today, had handover this morning. But not before FW texted me just before to say that he has been having heart attack symptoms this week and that I must not leave town while he has the DC and must have my phone on at all times in case he has to go in an ambulance to hospital. One minorly questioning text from me unleashed his full fury. But there we were again, 3 hours later, having lunch with the DC (something I find very hard not to do despite the urging of everyone who knows the situation, as the DC just love seeing us together amicably so much). And of course that leaves me as confused as ever about his hot and cold behaviour.

bounty enjoy the time and the space. Use it to build your strength and concentrate on you.

I think one of the very symptoms of being in an abusive relationship afterwards is ruminating over whether it was abusive or not, and everything that happened. It is like you cannot switch off, if they are not there in person, they are still there in your head. And it is stressful.

And then there is somewhere called peace, which is where you (finally) get when you can go a day without thinking of them and you enjoy being yourself and DCs. And that place called peace, it needs very strong walls around it, because they know how to get in and they know how to disrupt it.

Of course he can go a day without contacting you, he is so much in your head, he doesn't need to contact you. He knows you will feel awful, because he knows you and how you think. Try to start thinking about you and what you need; about dd and what she needs; in other words, start thinking differently.

something I find very hard not to do despite the urging of everyone who knows the situation, as the DC just love seeing us together amicably so much

Does that not confuse them, though? It confuses you.

If you are trying to put boundaries in place, having lunch together like an intact family/couple, even with the best intentions, pretty much nullifies them at this stage. That is what you aim for when the boundaries are in place, everyone respects each other, and things have settled down, and it is just lunch, it is not an emotional maelstrom of confusion. Really, truly, try not doing it - if for no other reason than it is his time with them. You don't need to make it obvious, you can have some other appointment you need to get to.

wow, so many things before which have hit the spot tonight. thank you. so amazing to see the words of women who know the utter confusion of this type of person. I hope for the peace inthequietcoach You fill the future with hope.
Wondering if the FW and I for the last 2 days going through the is he abusive questions. I need to keep remembering that this is the abuse continuing. Thank you for saying Think Differently, this is good advice.

bounty/tweedlezee, oh I so get this being trapped breaking things off again and again. Am trying to say to myself to do things in writing, to increase the gaps between responding to his idiocies, not to let him colonise my mind any more, to detach.

In my situation we've separated, am living in a different country with DC, have told him face to face and in writing I want a divorce, and now that I am actioning it, he is suggesting we stay together for the kids and buy a house together. It keeps making me feel that I'm going mad, that I'm not articulating clearly enough - but reading everyone elses threads and Lundy I think its that he has got so used to having me make a bubble of his reality around him, he really can't relate with real reality as it is. His latest email said we hadn't discussed this at all (because I think he doesn't think what I say counts as discussing), - but also that if a decision doesn't go his way it doesn't count.

I had great satisfaction writing that unlike the rest of a relationship, which is collaborative, the end of a relationship can be unilateral and not up for discussion. Stunned silence for all of a few hours.

I've found writing a diary incredibly helpful. Last night as it all went whirring round in my head I reread from a year ago. The distress, and the bits I'd forgotten, really helpful, also to get me to see how much happier I am now in the calm without him. We can choose. They don't have to (probably won't) agree. But our views alone are enough.

I really like this thread, it is making me think. quietcoach - thanks for your post about the lunch thing. I think you are right, sort of, and you are definitely right that I could easily swoosh off if I had an appointment to go to.

But I don't think it's confusing the DC, and I do think they get something positive out of it to see us being normal and friendly. Despite all the aggro, we do find it very easy to be normal in front of them. We tell them that we live separately because we were making each other unhappy and that now that we live in separate houses we are much happier, and both still love them the same. I don't really know why it is that we find it so easy to get along even when behind the scenes it is carnage, and suspect it's something not particularly healthy, perhaps still some sort of co-dependency. I know I always end up thinking "why can't it just be like this all the time?" And I know why, it's because he has an irrational view of who I am, and reacts in extreme ways to things that I do. In his world, there is no room for me to be less than perfect. I am going to continue mulling over what you have said.

Late last night I had an email from him asking me again to consider calling the divorce off and coming to a "private arrangement". Trying to put these things out of my mind because I need total focus on my Form E over the next few days and can't be swayed with any distractions.

Free, of course, I am not meaning to undermine your judgement at all, I hope it does not come across like that. It is a question of what you can cope with.

I think, what was the eye-opener for me, was the contact weekend after our mediation, which had been carnage and had a truly upsetting effect on me, that he was nicer than nice, really, it was almost hoovering. And it seemed to me like he had dumped his emotional distress on me, used me literally as an emotional punchbag, that is what it felt like, and having got it all off his chest, it was okay. And so there is a disconnect, and it was there in the relationship, where there would be this argument which came up over goodness knows what, impossible to fathom, which would leave me really distressed and he would be lighter than light. So, there is the question of which is the true him, and which is the true situation (and I am past caring, but that is another matter); but the outcome, regardless, is that the ground is always shifting beneath your feet. I have realised that I prefer my ground to be steady.

I would agree that the DC get something positive out of their parents getting along, but for me, and I am speaking only for myself, I balance that with (given that I don't trust the niceness) what I feel I can cope with. This is a brief chat at handover. I just would not put myself in the position of anything more extended than that.

The other point is that it is the appearance of normal and friendly, or a role you slip into/back into, and then out of again. It is not real normal and friendly; if it were, there would not be carnage behind the scenes.

^not to let him colonise my mind any more*

redmaple, that is such a good way of putting it!

No offence taken quiet - I am taking in everything you say and mulling it over. Lots of food for thought, and much of what you say rings very true here.

I have an interview for a part-time job this week.

Wouldn't be considering it if I were still living with FW.

:o

Well done Charlotte and good luck. Glad you can make your own decisions/choices. It is, after all, YOUR life. Funny how they can even take that right away.
I am now in the 2nd third of my purgatory. 3 weeks until Christmas. Whilst FW was away, I considered sleeping in 'our' bed but I couldn't. I couldn't even contemplate it. Suddenly the futon is feeling very comfortable now I know it is my only option in this house. FW is returning home for his lunch, to change his trousers, to mess with the kids emotions see the children. It is all about playing about with the routine I think. He has allowed the insurance on the car to lapse too, thinking it will upset me. It doesn't. In 7 days my best friend returns form 6 months away. I know that will be the extra support I need to get me through the last 2 weeks.