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!!

tweedle have you asked him why he would even still want to be with you since you are clearly so unstable and mentally ill? and yes classic FW I have had the same sort of thing, he came in sat down on the side of the bath while I was in the bath, looked at me so kindly and said muff I really love you but your so emotional and unstable its pushing me away, you have all these intimacy issues I just want to help you with. Stop breaking us apart when we have such a good thing LOL

I am laughing at him tonight.

floating have you read the no contact book by that lady who does the baggage reclaim site? Its really good and it really helps with detaching even when you have to have some sort of contact with a FW.

Oh he wanted me to have counselling to sort myself out to be happy as he can not make me happy or be there for me until I am happy and stable.

I should write a joke book on things FW's say I have so many anecdotes.

Hello everyone.
I'm writing this in the dark as I have news. I might have the keys on Tuesday. YAY!!!!!!

Bad news, P tried to guilt me into sex. I feel so angry, and I'm so glad I am going. He said that "we should split up as I never consider his feelings, and he doesn't want much", of course he wants N. He also said "I'm always going out with my friends, or family, and I never have any time with him!" Grr.... . The only thing that has changed is I'm helping my friend with the wii fit. She no good with computer stuff.

Evil

Thanks for the reference to the book MC - I know of that site but haven't read any of it in detail. Will take a look. X

evil great news!

muffcakes what an unbelievable FW but yes they will try to use any authority they can against you. as Lundy says they don't believe you have the right to speak let alone raise your voice. you are doing amazingly Wl for having bed put through so much.

tweedle you sound like most of it is just bouncing off you. stick with it, not long now.

The Lundy thing that springs to my mind for all this is 'an abusive man looks in the mirror and sees his face is dirty so he washes the mirror'.

My FW is currently claiming I planned all this. He is mystified as to why I threw him out. being an lp was clearly always my dream and therefore he will not help out. he cAnnot have the kids at his house as he cAnnot afford to heat it (not sure which one of his houses it is that he cannot afford to heat) and that there is no point him even seeing his kids as my going to the CSA has made him so poor that he cannot possibly compete with all the things I lavish on them because i am coining in money of the back of the dcs. he seems to forget kids cost money.

Otoh i am laughing at how ridiculous he is and otoh i still feel miserable and stressed out by it all because it causes endless hassle with contact.

Should not have engaged in any kind of conversation with him.

MrsMink - it's gutting isn't it, because being able to laugh at it and see it objectively doesn't seem to help when things get bad again. Interestingly my ordering the Lundy book was the 'final straw' for my H, he was livid at the sheer outrageousness that I might think that. Interesting quote re. washing the mirror too. I always used to 'joke' that if my ex stopped on his way to the station to help an old lady cross the road, and then missed his train; he would blame the old lady. Everything was always somebody else's fault, although again that's an accusation he levels at me constantly.

What's your situation? The ongoing contact issues are a nightmare, aren't they? I've had to make an application to court now, am so desperate to get it sorted.

well last night he decided I must listen to him (funny how he wants to talk when I have spent 4 years trying to talk to him only to be ignored/shouted in my face!) initially when he started talking I said that I am just here for the kids and I put my headphones on and ignored him. But he kept going, shouting, not in my face but in the same room. Then i took my headphones off and I kept repeating "I don't want to be in a relationship with you" over and over. He asked why, I said because I don't love you. he then proceeded to tell me I was mentally ill (again) so I called me parents whilst he was saying these things. He didn't know I was calling them and they listened. I said if he carries on I will call someone, he did, so I rang my parents. I told them what he had said to me and my Dad spoke to him. He seemed to back off then.
I slept here last night because I want to be with the kids from the moment they wake up. I think I will sleep somewhere else tonight.

*so I rang my parents again

So true, that old lady/missing the train thing. My FW would blame the old lady, or possibly his own saintly nature in stopping to help her! He often did that: "oh, I'm just too brilliant, it makes life difficult" - not that he'd phrase it quite like that, but that was the clear impression!

14 years ago today, I would've done well to say, "I like you as a friend, but..." But I couldn't, because I had no concept of boundaries and no idea who I was. I thought my life was all about making other people happy, and I just waited to be told what to do.

Still, I'm a lot older and wiser now. I'm currently not bothered about getting older for that reason: another year older is another year wiser, and it's been a good steep learning curve of late!

14 years ago today, I would've done well to say, "I like you as a friend, but..." But I couldn't, because I had no concept of boundaries and no idea who I was. I thought my life was all about making other people happy, and I just waited to be told what to do.

Nodding along to this! Except in my case it was 10 years ago.

Still, you live and learn, right?

The old lady/missing the train analogy made me chuckle a bit I admit!

being out Charlotte is suiting you very well!

It is! And I know I'm fortunate because FW is still trying to prove how blameless he is!

I suddenly realised how full of fear my life was before: not bad, especially, just everything was a problem. I was nervous before the DCs came home from school, because there'd be so much to deal with; I worried about weekends from about Wednesday onwards. Whether FW was around or not, I felt I couldn't cope with anything. If he added one extra thing to my to do list, I toppled.

How has it changed so quickly? I used to look at others and envy their mundane lives - and now I have one of those at least half the time, probably more.

But if it's a self-esteem thing, I've no idea how I realised so quickly that I can cope so that it's suddenly ceased to bother me! Unless it was all the reminders of him and his chaos and his disapproval all round me in the house, its contents and its location, everything about it? I suppose that could be it!

It's great to be freeeeeeee! :o

Me too! Who is the strange new me that has just got a plumber in to service things and get hot water again - no dithering with FWH (we were the worst decision making team in the world), only moderate anxiety, and all in all almost a pleasant experience :)

Nodding along vigorously also Nini - except there were some boundaries I was clear about, but they were just nonsense obviously and were completely bamboozled out of existence.

its wonderful to hear, and so inspiring for all Charlotte

Charlotte I wish there was a 'like' button to like like like that post. It is great!!!!!

Charlotte - the thing that struck me, as soon as we separated, was the sense of uninterrupted calm I felt in the house. As mentioned, there was no impending dread of him coming home, or things not being 'good enough' for him, etc. I too used to dread the weekends, trying to get him to do anything at ALL was like wading through treacle. I shudder to recall trying to get the family out swimming, for example. It was hideous, and I used to feel so depressed at how miserable doing something which should have been such a simple pleasure was. He would always ALWAYS find a reason to have a go at me, despite the fact I would have got the DC up, breakfasted, ready, as well as myself, and all of us packed, and he would barely have lifted a finger to help, moaning from start to finish. Took the kids swimming recently on my own, and it was an absolute breeze. And a bloody good laugh.

On a lighter note, anyone else's FW constantly complain of pseudo-illness? My two funniest examples were recently when they got chicken pox, him complaining that he was feeling under the weather because he might be coming down with it too. Except he'd had it as a child. Didn't develop it of course. And then the time he brought the children back complaining that he had diarrhoea, saying he must have caught it off them. "Oh, have they had diarrhoea?!!" I asked, concerned. "Um, well actually no they haven't, so I can't have caught it from them." What a twat!

floating and charlotte so glad your homes are happy, calm places now. I so know what you mean about the underlying tension which casts a shadow over everything.

I've been offered a job! I start Monday. It literally fell into my lap, I think the hand of God is working things out for me, I just hope I didn't oversell my skills. H's reaction: stunned silence, not sure how long that will last!

Congratulations thats! Great news. Believe in yourself, things will get better.

Silence is golden. Well done That's and I doubt you oversold yourself!! Onwards and upwards.

Congratulations that's

Well done thats that is fantastic news!

Musing on the old lady and the train, my FW missed so many trains because they refused to wait for him when he was too busy and important to get to the station on time. He actually flagged down the old lady and asked her to drive him to the mainline station after he missed the branch train! And she did, and told me about it afterwards and what a privilege it had been...

Is it really only me who doesn't think he is wonderful?
St Fuckwit? He has a shrine to himself in his office!

That story is hilarious, because it's so plausible for The Other St FW here, too.

Mine organised his own leaving party when we had to move country, which he said was OUR leaving party, but then invited his most important business connections and discouraged me from inviting anyone. Can't quite remember how he pulled that off. Anyway, there was a stream of speeches about how brilliant he was. A friend of mine who was also a wife of one of his contacts added a brave speech about me, which was so kind, but she was talking to a room of people who didn't know me and it did little to lessen the humiliation I felt. I left my home of four years, trailing behind FW with his armfuls of presents and tributes, feeling like I'd been invisible the whole time, seen as nothing more than his fucking supporter. Which I guess is pretty much how he saw me - literally!!

KouignAmann why do I get a creepy feeling that I know your FW? he is no doubt a type thinking he is so unique and just that little bit more important than the rest of 'us'! OMG I am so fed up with FW here referring to everyone in the world as 'sheep' and he is somehow above it all. For example, Children in Need. I am happy to watch it (and secretly be in tears about some of the stories) but he is very anti-charity and spoils it all by going off on a rant about how much Wogan is being paid. The annoying thing is that I cannot disagree with him or he launches into a tirade about how he earns all the money and therefore I have no right to an opinion that is going to change!

I am really looking forward to starting my new job and wondering how he will screw it up for me. He's already decided that we will spend the weekend in the countryside even though I protested that I had to do laundry, get a week's worth of outfits sorted (for myself AND for him), clean/vacuum the carpets (long haired dog means carpet needs clean every other day) but he thinks these things should be done by magical fairies when he isn't looking.

In fact thinking about this I realized that he thinks a woman should:

• always have a clean house and immaculate children but he should never see her doing ANY work (it offends him-- as does the ironing board, he folds it roughly and throws it down if I leave it up)
• hold down a lucrative job in an interesting sector
• never demand anything of him. ie, 'could you pick your underwear up off the floor and put it in the laundry bin'
• ALWAYS have a fridge bursting with yummy tasty food but nothing that requires preparation (the number of times I've had him shouting/ranting about how there is no food in the house when he's standing in front of a fridge filled with ie chicken, fruit, vegetables-- ie he cannot see that mince+jar of sauce becomes the top of spag bol , he just wants to see a plate of spag ready and waiting for him to eat)
• be thin. But have big boobs.
• ALWAYS be up for sex
• never have gray hair but never spend any money/time dying it (real bugbear of mine because I don't have much gray but the other day he launched into a rant at me because 'all I see when I look at you is gray hair'. It happened in the car and I actually made a recording on my phone of the ensuing conversation... I emailed it to myself and as far as I'm concerned it is EVIDENCE! BTW I had about 1cm of gray roots just at the very front which is so far the only place I have any gray (just lucky at age 49) and it really was not THAT bad.)
• always look well dressed but never spend any money on clothes
• etc!

There is more-- but when I just read that back I realize what an unwinnable game I've been in! Well, I am STILL in. Plans are taking shape but priority now is the job.

oh Charlotte! Wow. That image of you trailing around after him is so powerful. I am SO SO GLAD for you now that you are in your own place!

in fact re-reading your post I want to stomp out of here (in my loudest shoes) and rent myself a little flat RIGHT NOW. Really must bide my time, situation is managable.

But charlotte you are an inspiration!