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!!

[arthriticfingers]

Tweedle - sending you strength, too - one day, soon, this will all be behind you. Double yey for your Dad
Fi hope things are ok

[tweedlezee]

He came home earlier talking about some direct debit that I cant afford to pay, trying to get a rise out of me goad me, I just refused to speak to him because I knew what he was doing. he followed me around, I was thinking I have to get out. I am shaking now. I went to get DD out of bed and he followed me, he started calling me names and DD wanted a cuddle from FW and he refused to take her.
He carried on saying I should find somewhere to live (DUH) and that I was a stupid ***. All the time I am thinking out to get out. He has gone, he said he was taking the kids to his sisters this weekend, maybe. I did not react (I wanted me to).
Now if he does do that, then I will use the time to get stuff out of the house and take to a friends. He has a spare room. I am going to take them to his on Monday when FW is at work and we are going to spend the next 9 weeks there.
I just have to keep the peace until Monday when he is at work. I will get a key from my mate Saturday night.
Please all, will this along. I can do this. the only step I need to make now is getting out of this house. I know we will be better somewhere not here even if it is sharing a room in a house. Woman from crisis team will hopefully ring this evening.
I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid - for the kids sake.

[FairyFi]

one thing I can say arth, is the FWittery becomes much clearer through dealing with other agencies. I didn't believe him to be a liar, and what a liar he has shown himself to be.... bluuurgh! disgusting FW.

Does it become so apparent to all once out? I am guessing so... .and so the fog starts to clear....

thanks arth.. all good wishes xxx

[arthriticfingers]

You will do this,tweedle
If the Women in Crisis don't phone you, phone them when he is out and talk through your exit plan step by step.
When the time comes, make sure that people know where you are and what you need them them to do.
and, as silver said: Breathe

[redmapleleaves]

tweedle I'm willing you along too to do this. How great your mate has a spare room. Well done for all this solution finding. Just one last push now.

I've been lurking and briefly delurking for months now, but am posting now because I'm just amazed by my FW again and losing my perspective. I managed to get a job back in UK (we had been living abroad), and moved myself and kids to a new bit of country where we know no one. FW also got new job in different country. He always denied we were separating, and I had to keep correcting him, including, the last time infront of DD. 'We are separating'. He still hasn't told his parents (its been since June). He was just dire in the last days in the old place - ended up with all our things, special things which had memories for me and none for him, because 'I can't get anything in the new country and you're going back to Britain.'

Now two months into his new job in new country he is finding it tricky without us. He is resigning, coming back to UK, applying for jobs here (something he would never have done when I was unhappy but dependent and unleashing massive costs - he had just bought an expensive car amongst other things which he'll have to sell at a massive loss, from our joint money). I did manage to say to him last time he was back that I wanted a divorce. He definitely heard me, but then blanked me for the rest of the week he was with the kids. I followed up in writing last week, attaching my grounds for divorce. So now he is saying he never expected this, he will be moving back to UK soon, I can't act while he hasn't got a reliable address or access to a lawyer, he will move 'back in' with me and wants a settled home with us (he has never lived in this house, its in my sole name). Its as if he can't hear me. Total denial. You can't just move into my home because its what you want.

And the way he is dealing with the grounds to the divorce is quibbling with little minor non-essential details, not addressing the key fact. Oh. She wants a divorce, she is going through with it. She has got a solicitor, what do I need to do.

It makes me howl his trampling over what I am saying very clearly and just inveigling himself back in. Its not that he's coming back to move in, over my dead body, but like you all, I like to be kind where I can. its ok for me to have had enough, more than enough. I can choose on my own to divorce him, he doesn't have to agree. But somehow it doesn't feel like this. And he has this hurt little boy face of, 'oh my god she's chucking me out, where will I go', - and no inkling of, well a pretty good warning is her saying she wants a divorce, moving countries, packing up her stuff, and putting it in writing. And you're an adult. Sort yourself out.

And when he is back in Uk he has been staying in a hotel close to where we are, but is always at the house when I get back from work, to be with the children. Which I do get, and had agreed to. But he never makes the least effort to engage with me, even to say hello, when I trail in from new job. And I'm cooking for myself and the kids, so I cook for him too. And he just sits there on the sofa like he's never left. So I have just put my foot down about christmas too, and said you take them for a week, because I can't bear you being in my space and not engaging with me, - but I'm sure this is going to be the next battlefield.

I don't know why it is, I'm not like this with anyone else I don't think, but him being so certain he is right, makes me doubt myself.

[FloatingFree]

Can I poke my head around the door?

I am currently divorcing a dreadfully abusive man. Well, sometimes I think that, sometimes I think it must be me; or at least he tells me that over and over till I don't know if I'm coming or going. Am I still eligible for this thread? We have young children and so the contact is ongoing. It is this ongoing nightmare of trying to arrange contact with the children that is tipping me over the edge.

bibliomania - just wanted to say my FW is also apoplectic over my application to the CSA. He is now taking them to court and cancelled his last scheduled contact with the DCs so that he could concentrate on his CSA appeal application. Cuuuuuuuuunnnnntt.

I'm off to bed after yet another week in which I wonder what on earth I would do with the energy expended upon his vile nonsense if he were to be knocked down by a bus wasn't around to cause non stop mayhem.

[arthriticfingers]

FloatingFree Welcome and :( you have to be here.
Which you most certainly do as it sounds like you are having to deal with s loads of FW shite.
There is a train we have chartered for FWs; its destination is the far side of f.

[FairyFi]

wondering whether anyone's playing FW bingo at the mo, couldn't see any going on anywhere?

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

Just skimmed but wanted to wish you luck and a fair wind tweedle. you have to go from the sounds of it. glad you Are getting support. you Are doing the right thing.

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

fi waves..hope you are feeling a little better. and to you.

I have been experiencing what I am going to call hallmark fwittery.. that is any occasions for which hallmark make a card brings out the worst in FW in a most baffling way. i think he finds these events stressful so everyone else must suffer. but this too shall pass.

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

fi yes you know I am mad about bingo. so I try to get out as often as I can.

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

Sorry for the multiple posts. just catching up on bits of the tread biblo floating yes I am very much in the same boat. CSA fury and manipulative use of contact or no contact. it sucks. so yes you are mostly certainly eligible. sadly abuse does not end when the rs does. so pull up a pew, grab a and rant away.
I am considering mediation but without much hope he will agree to attend. (never married so not a legal separation iyswim) he sees seeing his dcs as some massive favour he bestows on us all.

[TheSilveryPussycat]

name that sounds awful. If he makes threats of suicide to you, please call the police, who will send someone round to him. It isn't your responsibility - best to pass it straight on to those whose responsibility it is. I always advise this, even if it seems like manipulation by a FW, and in this case it's all the more advisable.

I got divorced when DC were grown, but there's lots here with younger DC who can support you re contact etc.

[KouignAmann]

Well done name for posting here You will find lots of folk who understand only too well what you are dealing with.
You are right to protect your DC. I said in the other thread to ring the Police 101 for advice about him if you are worried.

Anyone for a in the Vixens tonight? It's been a long day clearing out the family home with FW but he behaved nicely. His GF was helping too with her kids which helped keep him in Mr Nice mode.

The only weird bit was sorting out the albums and looking at lovely wedding photos of us thirty years ago. We were happy then!

Have a good evening everyone

[arthriticfingers]

name just to say how sorry I am for what your FW put you and the children through and what he is still putting you through.
Please do keep the distance you have fought so hard for and, as silver suggests, call the emergency number and pass on the messages - they are not for you to deal with any longer.

[MrsMinkBernardLundy]

name sending what others have said.emergency number if he is making suicidal threats. also 101 to get your status logged in case he comes round. I think you are right to keep a suicidal unstable individual away from your dcs- I don't see what good it would do them to see him and you cannot be sure they would be safe.

Also contact WA. you sound like you could do with some understanding people to talk to, they May have safe guarding advice and it may also be time for the dcs to get some counselling.

And mostly just offering you a bit of support. x

[tweedlezee]

Eeeurgh! We didn't end up going (failed exit plan) though it is still in place if we need it. After talking to him he seems to have some grasp of what is going on and that I am leaving.
Today I am full of cold and I am glad he is here with the kids.
I know I am doing the right thing. it is hard being here but I do not feel any less like the choices are right but the adrenaline is wearing off so I am getting tired. Also the sofas I have slept on this week are not that comfy.
I do hope the next 9 weeks fly by and that I remain strong.
Reading the posts above make me feel sad for all these men out there who use fear and guilt as a way of 'keeping' women in their lives and holding their family together.

[MuffCakes]

Oh I had a tarot reading yesterday first card that came up she said you are in a very controlling relationship or addicted to something. Then the next card came up I see you surrounded by arguments and its hurting you. Then the devil came up and she said your not meant to be whether you believe or disbelieve the spirits are pushing you apart there's more for you then this.

I have never met this woman before now she didn't even know my name but knew this [shocked]

[tweedlezee]

wow muff sometimes it takes someone outside of it all to tell you what you need to hear.
I think I need one of those!!!
its hard when you know what you need to do but its the 'doing it' which is the hardest part

[ponygirlcurtis]

Hello all, not posted for a few days. So sad, as ever, to see new names, so sad for what you are all going through, but welcome to each and every one of you. And have some

tweedle just read about your plan, and have to say I felt pretty relieved on your behalf. Glad you have rung WA and are getting some advice and support. Hope your weekend is passing without too much incidence, roll on tomorrow.

[ponygirlcurtis]

Oh sorry, cross-posted (from a couple of hours ago, how'd that happen?). tweedle so are you not going to go tomorrow? If not, what's stopping you? If he knows you are planning on leaving he might starting behaving even worse. Stay safe.

[MuffCakes]

I know tweedle

It isn't so much the doing part it's being strong and not just giving in and going back. I h e managed to keep him kicked out he would move in with me again in a heart beat if he wasn't worried about his stuff in the bin and street for the 50th time LOL.

Am really feeling like I just don't give a fuck no more, what he does or doesn't do meh fuck it doesn't concern me.

Now it's sorting out contact I'm struggling with. Not so much set days and times but my dd doesn't want to go. She's almost eight and knows her own mind. He came to pick her up yesterday morning and she refused to go with him as she wanted to spend the day with me, compromise was made and he picked her up in time for dinner and a sleepover at his but she doesn't want to see him every weekend and now she's saying eow is to much to.

I do so want my dd to have a strong Bond with her dad but
I don't want to push my dd into seeing him he is a prick and he isn't the best dad ever.