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!!

bounty lovely to hear you had a good Christmas.

But you have no way of knowing if the account from FW is true. I say this because my FW did this too - part of his counselling thing and us talking and 'trying' involved him going over family issues. He told me some stuff his parents had done and said to him as a child - if true, awful behaviour. I felt really bad on his account. Also, he told me how his mum was basically not supporting him even though he was now on his own, not supporting him. I felt awful for him. But. All that may not have been true. It was FW telling me, remember. He also had previously told me I was a slut, a psycho, a bitch, etc etc. He also told me lies about his family - eg told me his sister was giving me evils for being over-friendly with her fiancee (I wasn't, he was obvioulsy the one not liking me being touchy-feely with people), that his BIL was making comments about me being too cuddly with DS1 (I am sure he didn't, it was FW who was trying to get me to stop cuddling DS1 as part of his campaign to stop us being so close), etc, etc. They will say anything to manipulate you into the position they want.

And even if it was, then she is a not nice person. But my family can be troublesome sometimes too, and I haven't reacted to that by being abusive to others in order to make myself feel better.

Sorry for chuntering on, but your phrase 'no wonder he's so messed up if that is his family's attitude' just made me pause because I said exactly the same thing to my mum, in trying to excuse away some of his terrible behaviour.

Oh bounty, my first reaction was that is a shame for FW and DD. My 'family' exclude me (long story, they are toxic so am okay about it), so I would have sympathy, but my second, much louder reaction is why has he told you this??? He didn't need to, really. He either wants to to relent and go, so his parents will come, or he is simply explaining their absence when dd is there somewhat tactlessly. But by telling you, he is drawing you into his family saga.

Besides, what if they said something else, which is being misrepresented?

Yes I agree totally Mink

I have spent the day with DP and his laid back happy family who have welcomed me in. And tomorrow I am going to take the DC over to visit my DPs where all my easy going happy family are gathering.

Today FW has kept all my DC close and begrudged me any time with them. But he fails to understand that he cannot buy love or measure it in hours. I know how much they love me and how his controlling ways stresses them. He will push them away if he doesn't understand that.

Bounty I do hear you, what a shame for FW. It chimes for me too because I've seen with my FW's family how absolutely crap they are on support for him. I remember telling his mother years ago that we were having difficulties and were about to separate, - she let her husband pat her (not a hug or anything for me) and never even phoned him to check in or offer a listening ear... I have kept anticipating that if my FW's family knew how bad things were for him, they would step in to offer him support. Now, having been very clear with them, it is very clear they will never offer (him or anyone) any support. Nonetheless, while I feel very sorry for him, it doesn't mean its my job. Nor yours. But I do share your sadness, it is a crying shame.

Here I had an ok redmaple-shaped day. Quiet, a good box set, nice food, and the firm intention to go on a long walk which I turned my back on in favour of lounging in my new onesie in front of the tv. Made a good start on my form E. A phonecall and some texts with the DCs. I was sad a bit, but do feel slowly things are getting better.

redmaple good for you, doing what you want to do. Have some me time and the dc will be back before you know it.

SOrry i didnt see this post when i made my original post.. plesse can you help me .. i am so lost and i dont know if this is all in my head or is my husband emotionaly abusing me? i am the strong one and so outspoken usualy and he looks like the quiet laid back.. so i dont know how this could have happened.. il repost what i posted as a thread here please tell me honest opinions
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My husband is someone who when we met i thought he was so calm and sweet. But certian things have been happening and i dont know whether this is normal or not..

He is neve violent. But I am always on edge to ask him anything infront of people because he always snaps at me, sad

Always says " its you" always my fault and i thought it was i got on tablets for post partum depression started doing more around the house tried to change myself but nothing is working, everytime i talk to him he signs and says " no ones listenting" when i say hes being horrible he says sacastickly " yes everyone is horrible to you i am sure" he says " no one cares" in arguments he calls me a freak weirdo,. i call him stupid , when i ask him a question he cuts me of and says no not talking about this. he always cuts me of with a " YES STOP NOW " now my daughter shouts " stop mummy!!" at me sad when i ask him to do something he always says " yes got it yes yes yes" so i cant finish my sentence and i say please let me finish!
around the kids if i just say have you packed nappies " he will say YES FOR F SAKE OBVIOUSLY" or something similer..

i just feel so uncomfertable and i used to be so confident. but i really cant say anything to him and yest i want to say something and he said " why wont you just speak up" and i said " i used too.." i feel misserable everyday. around family i try to make sure i dont ask questions because if i ask more than 2 he gets snappy as if i have asked him lots.. i keep telling him that i am sick of all the arguing he says he is too but then will say something horrible then say " i dont want to argue its you doing this"..

i know these examples seem like nothing coz i cant think of them. but 24/7 he is interupting me and making me feel worthless. he says he doesnt mean to.. he is a good man other wise. but i am sick of this. anything i say hes done ive done it worse he says. if i ever want to say something i have to say " please dont shout at me but" early today when i said something just normal convo he said " i dont care about what ur saying im not listenting. then later when i mentioned it he says " i dont remember saying that so whats the problem?" its still a problem because i remember you saying it and he says " im not getting involved in your drama game here we go again yes yes yes whatever.

I had an awful Christmas Day. My DSs were with their dad and although I spent it with parents and brother and his family I felt lost. I spent Xmas eve texting the FW as I'd drunk too much round at my friends (having hardly eaten anything all day) and was an emotional wreck.

Not regretting my decision to end this relationship but it still isn't easy. 6 years is a long time and many of those years were happy. Hard to let go.

My boys are due to arrive soon and I can't wait to see them!

dreaming have a look through the links at the top to help make things clearer for you.

louby it's the bloody loneliness, I to felt lonely and wishful once the dc went to bed, it's only one day of the year but it does highlight the worst.

The funny thing with loneliness I find is when I was with fw I craved to be alone!

Hello everyone, I'm back again - I think I was here on the very first EA thread!

He suggested himself this morning that we separate.

After years of not being able to let him touch me he has finally accepted that this is not going to get any better. I have told him what to do to make it better (not hurt me emotionally) but he never hears that bit.

But he is already pretending nothing has happened. How do I keep this going?

Really struggling today. Evil FIL is here - brought nothing with him, sat in front of the tv all day eating the huge amount of food FW bought specially for him. And FW is acting the whole 'hard working, hard done by dad whose wife is mean to him'. They deserve each other.

A special hug for dreaming. When the penny drops it seems the worst point but it does get easier. Be gentle to yourself and read through the links at your own pace.

Hi horse, I recognise your nn! I dont know your situation but I guess you need to keep telling him its over? If hes going to ignore it theres no better time to keep pressing. Take care.

well done ladies for making it through/surviving the Christmas period. life is bitter sweet. got the DC's with me now and had loads of fun opening all their lovely presents. I felt proud that I had been able to give them presents myself and they were really happy with them. we played all afternoon and ate lots of food. they were really wonderful all day! dropping and picking the kids up was painful (DS said "daddy say hello to mummy" as he had refused to) and FW's mum was obviously stand-offish. but I did it. Christmas eve was harder than Christmas day as I missed the excitement of Christmas. but I keep telling myself that I will have them next year but it still hurts.
when dropping the kids off a MIL house, she decided to take the time to tell me about FW father and how she accepts his odd (he can be really odd) behaviour and that she just shrugs her shoulders and laughs. FUCK OFF!!! When I mentioned this to my dad, he said "she may have chosen to accepts it but that doesn't mean you have to" indeed! it is hurting the idea of being away from the kids for another week from sunday because I miss them SO MUCH! but I am looking forward to the final break before the true madness of moving begins.
dreaming your post could have been extracted directly form my life 9 months ago. well done for acknowledging your own needs. it is never going to be easy but life doesn't need to be as hard as it is with a FW. can you have space to go and stay with family/friends? I found time away was so refreshing and allowed me space to look back/into my own life from a different perspective.
nine sounds like a step-toe and son episode.

horse I remember your name but no details.

You don't need his agreement or permission to end things - or are circumstances complicated?

tweedle, loving your dad's response

horse, I remember the nn too, although I had a different one. I guess the question is why you need to keep the marriage going? I am sorry I don't remember the circs. Are you still feeling you want to make things better? (Just because you say you have told him what he needs to do to make things better). I remember my counsellor saying to me, about four months after I left, when I was saying, well he should just do x, y or z, that you can't work like that, you can't change someone or their behaviour because of how you would like it to be. He was behaving very badly post-split, and her point was I could not change his reaction, only the way I responded. My responses were so ingrained, almost automatic, that it has taken me a long time to begin to actualise that.

Even out of the marriage, I have had to realise I can't fix it, or make it okay. I can only sort things for me. Which is a long-winded way of saying, you can't make him change and do things, the motivation needs to come from him.

dreaming, it is very hard to work out what is going on when you are in the situation. Mine would forget conversations and turn things back on me, and you do end up feeling confused or stupid for bringing things up again. I read a lot and it took a long time to make sense of.

Coach, yes I know he won't change, we've been there over and over again. But now we are separating he also wants to keep everything the same. I can sense it, he's spent the day doing what he would normally do. He's keeping his head down thinking that will make it better. I have always been the one to make any changes in our lives, when we moved, school decisions, holidays, he never initiated any of these things or objected if they were wrong. The only thing he keeps repeating is 'we will have to sell the house'. This leaves me in a position where we have to take a massive drop in lifestyle in terms of accommodation, from 'normal' to 'desperate'.

But there IS hope, I have seen a few flats that are a bit further out but on the bus routes to schools etc. I have a crap credit rating and no referees so not sure how the rental agencies will see me.

I think this might be the only way round it - to move away from him. We are bogged down by tons of stuff here, 24 years of mementoes and clutter. It is draining just to think of going through all this stuff.

It will be temporary anyway as the house will have to be sold within 6 months (before benefit stops) and we will have to move properly then. But it will have to be a big move as I wouldn't be able to afford to buy anywhere decent in London for 3 of us. My problem is I wouldn't get a mortgage because I don't earn enough money and I can't get HB (for more than 6m) because I have capital in a property.

pussycat I remember you too - pink? Anyway, I am not a remarkable 'case', just very long term, not married, learning a lot, we met when I was 21 and he was 28. I'm not even sure it's EA, I have sought help and was told it was 'low level' and I wasn't an urgent case. Then life took over again as I lost various family members and my own life went on standby. So here I am again.

horse, I do think it is a case of ploughing on, regardless of how he reacts, or doesn't react. My FW actually did make a substantial investment, when we split, in sth, which he would never have done otherwise, but once you got over the shock of that, you realised, it was to keep everything the same, and simple, for him. So much the same, I can picture every detail. He has just created a new reality which does not involve him changing. At least, that is how it seems at the moment. I may be wrong.

Clutter, yes, this is my challenge, and it is draining. Nothing got sorted when we were together, as sustaining the marriage took all my energy. It is like it has silted up my life and the only response is a dredger.

I guess it is a case of one step at a time, and gradually things get clearer. Good luck to you.

He has just created a new reality which does not involve him changing

Mine has reverted back to a pre-me stage. He's back on the music scene with a new entourage - nothing will get in the way of this, I know. He is admired by the young and envied by the old. One of the things I admired about him was his sense of self-worth. He knows how to put himself first. I don't think he likes me because having children made him change, having a relationship with me made him change or feel as though he ought to. He is a solo performer and doesn't compromise.

That is an interesting perspective. Aside from the music aspects, I think it is pretty accurate here too in terms of the self-worth, unquestionable self-worth, and the resentment at needing to change/feeling like he had to.

You can't have children and not change, but mine manages this by completely compartmentalising his time, and when we were together, by the day pretty much having to be organised to his routine. I found it stifling and every shift in the routine to what dc needed a hard fought battle. Exhausting.

Yes you have put it better than me coach, it is exhausting. He wants everyone else to stay the same too. Really doesn't care about the dcs development because he is much happier when they are watching tv or doing something 'safe'. He's like an old man with an old routine - but a routine that only he knows, and it changes only when it suits him.

I always have been the exact opposite in nature, I like change and new things, I like adventure and challenge. Perhaps not so much any more but I rarely say 'no' to an idea.

Hello Dreaming, sounds like my FW. This is not you, it is him. The behaviour is wrong, you do not deserve this. I feel a hypocrite as my fw is the same. I loved Mink's phrase about "Alcohol, egg shells and sugar not mixing" That phrase summed up my Christmas.
My fw is not as direct as yours but he randomly called me a silly little cow as I was putting out presents. He claims not to remember. Idiot. You are suffering and I feel for you xxxxxxx

Horse and Quietcoach really interesting thread.

My FW is like this too. And it was really exhausting to fit into my role, which was basically managing any changes/reality out there, so he could not change, not deal with the daily stuff, not act at all. And that is really stressful, being the one to deal with reality, and then tone it down and pre-chew it, so it doesn't spook him. I had interesting revelations as our kids got older, and I realised that DS, then 7, not an emotionally mature boy, had a far better handle on reality and taking action to make things happen, than FW.

I suppose it is ok for FWs to want to keep things the same. What they don't realise is that once we are not there actively managing things, a harsher reality impinges pretty quickly.

Horse, I do hear what you're saying about the clutter, and Quiet about all the energy having gone on keeping things going. I so felt like this. For me though, once I managed to separate it from the emotional stress of keeping things going and managed to see it as piles of things, I found it amazingly liberating to manage to make a small start and that gives adrenalin for the next bit. Aim for a tiny easy win to start off. One bin bag half full. I had to declutter thousands of kilos of stuff in three weeks when I was returning from abroad to get under the freight allowance, and it did get easier, so I was quite punchdrunk by the end. When I returned I had a day before a new job in a new area to assemble all the IKEA furniture which had been in store for years. I hired a student who came with his own toolbox and helped assemble things. We got it all done in a day. It was amazing discovering that someone thorough, not very experienced, working at normal pace, not FW pace, means you actually make progress. Even DD, 13, noticed that this year when we were decorating the Christmas tree. 'But Dad used to take hours to put up the lights and we've done it in 10 minutes.' Good luck.

Phew thank goodness that's over and fw is back to work today peace reigns again..
He's still been ill over Christmas so the past two days have not been nice. He's been shouting at the kids for just about everything, and Christmas dinner was a sober affair.
His negativity has cranked up a notch. His hat is ok but doesn't cover his ears, the cakes the kids decorated are too sweet, the beef was over cooked, he liked his jacket but it's too stiff - I could go on! I honestly don't know how he does it, it must be exhausting being that unhappy all the time I've now nick named him the 'fun sponge' in my head obviously.

Thanks red your story makes a lot of sense. We had to wait a couple of weeks before he got the decorations out of the loft. I think it's called 'obstruction' and is one of the behaviours FWs use. Same goes for clutter. Mine always puts an object in front of cupboards so you can't open them. I think we are going to have to sell the house to deal with this. I think I'm going to have to move out.

Lol blue dog at "fun sponge"