why is it that people living with an abusive partner cannot see it do you think?

[jimijack]

I am very frustrated with my dsis as is our mum.

Her partner isn't physically abusive, it's more a mental and emotional abuse.
We can all see it, it's so obvious and yet sis really genuinely can't.

They have been together for 17 years and have one child, he has always been this way so it's kind of the norm for her I suspect.
It's bad at the moment though.

So upsetting and frustrating. Why does she not see how draining and bleak her life is with him?

absolutely, totally,

and if you've put up with being called lazy and selfish for years, then he ups it to lazy selfish bitch, then it would seem dramatic to take a stand because he's slotted bitch in to it. Is it any worse, in real terms? then next it's lazy stupid selfish fucking bitch, is that any worse really? is it worth leaving because he put the word fucking in front of the words that have the actual meanings. It just seems to be ludicrously dramatic to suddenly take a stand, when you've been tolerating almost as bad in the past. you can hear how ludicrous it sounds in your head. right! that's it, i could take being called a lazy stupid selfish fucking bitch but omg, you've just crossed a line there calling me a lazy fat stupid selfish fucking bitch, that's it, that's the line.

He never hit me, I believed it was all in my head. I couldn't tell anyone what he had done because I didn't know. I was going to leave him if he ever hit me.

My friend has recently left a similar relationship. We went to a BBQ at her house after she'd left and one of her local friends said "don't believe what she tells you" I told her I didn't need to because I know what she means. To her friends she was playing down, but I get it.

manysmallvoices.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/but-he-has-never-actually-hit-me/

And it starts so simply.

My exh was my best friend at school. He used to tell me that he wanted to keep me safe and protect me from the world. My childhood was desperately unhappy and that sounded so blissful.

So when he told me I was too beautiful and delicate and shouldn't drink pints. I didn't. Because I believed I was ugly and cumbersome and I wanted to feel beautiful and feminine.

And when he made me promise not to go into certain parts of town because he wanted me to be safe and couldn't bare the thought of losing me, and besides, it was selfish to do that to my son... I promised.

And when he told me that he didn't want to have sex with me because I deserved better than to have that done to me...

And then when he called me a "fucking cunt", it must have been my fault because the above points showed just how much he loved me...

That's how it happens. And the comment upthread about being in the belly of it, well that's a perfect description.

I think also people slowly forget that things can be different. They forget what freedom, what being un-controlled, feels like. It becomes normal. They are unhappy but think it's their own doing

You get used to it. You think it's your fault for not being fill in the blank. You have no sense of your self worth. You've seen very few healthy relationships.

It's also if you have grown up with parents who should not have stayed together but did, "for the kids", and whose relationship had bits of EA mixed in with sulking, antagonistic behaviour and martyrishness. Hardly a model of a loving relationship, so I didn't know what was reasonable to expect of a partner.

Also in my case he was my first LTR and I desperately wanted to make it work because I was sick of being the only one of my friends who'd never had a serious relationship.

There are myriad reasons. The boiling frog analogy, though untrue (sorry!) is true in some cases. You do put up with more and more, try to be 'better' even though they are moving the goalposts the whole time and you can never meet their increasingly high expectations. When your self-esteem is shot to shit, you can't bear the fact that the person you love thinks you are useless/selfish/insert a.n.other horrid adjective and you do anything you can to try to make it up to them.

In my case I eventually realised he didn't love me, nor me him. I had lost all trust in him and he'd killed off any affection I had left. But had anyone tried to make me leave before that, I would have refused.

And if you believe somehow that life should be a challenge. I was raised Catholic and believed in crosses that have to be carried. The idea of being happy in this life was alien to me. My ex and my bad marriage was my cross.

Normalising the abnormal, learning to live with situation like it were a chronic health condition, minimising it until it doesn't seem so bad. Thinking this is what life is like. Finding it hard to imagine life being different.

In my case because they were very good at seeming very nice, and by the time you realised they weren't you were in a situation that became quite difficult to leave. And because I have HFA and sometimes don't realise certain things are wrong.

nfk, you're on to something there. I used to ask myself if I were happier than say, my grandmother, and if I had a right to be. so much analysis of just being unhappy.

Yes to being raised Catholic and having low expectations of happiness. My first BF was a bully and made me so unhappy that XH seemed lovely in comparison. At first It was exam stress and long working hours then the wedding planning Then it was having small children, then the stress of his work. But looking back he was controlling and a low grade bully all through. Once your eyes are open it all becomes clear.

Trying not to accept the reality of it all because I didn't want to confront what facing the reality would involve. Training myself over time to accept things, thinking that I 'was tough' and could handle it. Wondering whether stuff was 'normal' and therefore 'ok'. Fear of being alone, shame of having to admit to admit to others what I had put up with for such a long time. Worry that actually there was something wrong with me because I had put up with it for so long, and the fear associated with opening up about that and dealing with other people's reactions.

I also couldn't quite see that leaving would mean I would be free of him. I can't explain that properly because it doesn't make sense logically.

What made me leave in the end was some amazing friends who took me out of it, without ever criticising him, and showed me how good life could be without him. I had no money because he kept me with nothing and they would pay for me to get where ever we were going and then split bills so I didn't have to pay. There are things they probably don't remember that I told myself over and over whilst I was struggling. It's what I would tell anyone who is friends or family in that situation, don't criticise, don't ostracise, just show them there's still a life out there and they can enjoy it.