pregnant, shocked and a bit lost.

[sugarcoatedthorns]

I don't know what to do!

I have just found out I am pregnant and am so confused about what to do. My DH wants an abortion and I'm horrified that he doesn't want the DB. It wasn't planned and was despite precautions. So i know he doesn't have to want a baby, but he always refuses to talk to me about anything, anything.
The trouble is I feel scared of having a baby with him! He seems to keep setting traps for me to walk into and sits back and laughs at me, he takes the piss out of me a lot and I feel reaaly down about everything now.

One thing I do know is how much I want to keep this baby and cannot bear to think about going throygh the abortion he wants me to have. I would hate to feel that he had stayed with me because of a baby, but I cannot have an abortion and I told him this, but now he is telling people and making me look stupid about it.

He is telling people as a joke that we are having a baby when we are both out of work (I have just given my notice at a very well paid job because of constructive dismissal so yes it is the worst situation) and he had already decided to leave work to start as s/employed. but hes using this i think to ridicule me. When Ive been upset abouut the terrible work situation and try to talk about it he calls me boring and negative. I kind offeel that all the time I am happy and doing absolutely everything he is ok, but he gets very angry if I am having a bad day or anything. like i'm not allowed to worry or be upset.

I have got so down about it all and when I told a friend that i was starting to worry and feel a bit scared about him getting angry she told me that I probably need to get onto some antidepressants fro m the doctor. I think i am going mad, and i feel like a bad person for having any negative emotions.

Am i just scared because of being pregant? should I have antidepressants to help me cope with him because I don't think i am coping with him and don't feel allowed to be unhappy for fear of being accusedof being negative and him getting in a mood and shouting at me.

The only thing I do know is that I want this baby. because he won't talk to me how will i know whether hes still with me only because he will look bad to others if we did separate? He is very fo the do the right thing in front of others, but hes so differrent indoors, but he jjust keeps making me look stupid in front of other people and then saying its just a joke.

Please call woman's aid and let them help you escape.

You could always leave, cut contact and bring up the baby without him knowing. You'd get no financial support, but no hassle/control issues either.

Ay, orangefusion is right.

Without going into too much detail here, my sister and her daughter are perfect examples of that. My sister fled to a refuge with her daughter when she was 3, but it has meant that he has had an iron grip over their lives ever since, and he loves exercising his control. They have lived in fear, and daughter bows to her dads every command, against her better judgement again and again. She is too scared of the consequences. Now we see, aged 19, that she bows to every person she concedes some authority, and boys, too. Of course, it would have been much much worse and she stayed with him, and lived under his thumb with her daughter daily. The 3 first years of her daughters life was a nightmare, he delighted in putting them both in harms way.

italic fail above - was supposed to be a copy of what you'd said mindreader

Emotional abuse will make you feel like you are stupid/useless/thick/incapable, you won't see any thing clearly until you leave him/he leaves. Believe me I was there 18months ago, I honestly believe you are in a toxic relationship, and regardless of what you decide to do about your baby (by the way you would very much cope) you must remain safe, both physically and emotionally.
You won't recognise how strong and empowered you become when you are without him, honestly xx

You feel stupid and horrible and down about yourself because he is making you feel like that. He is telling you all the time, not just with words, but his actions, that you are worthless and stupid, and he always moves the goalposts so that you are constantly wrong. I bet the things that please him one day are horrible, thoughtless things you're doing the next day, yes? Stuff like that? You have very little self-esteem because he has systematically destroyed it. You are depressed because it is entirely normal to be depressed when someone is treating you this way. Many women who have been diagnosed as depressed, even severely depressed, find the depression almost instantly disappears once they leave an abuser, because he is the cause.

i am horrible. if i believe in what you all say, and i want to, it does mean that i am not to blame and that doesn't feel right because it all seems to stem from me. Op, you're not horrible. You are the victim of years of pretty serious abuse. This is how the victims of years of abuse think, feel and react. It is how you learn to survive.

It's easier to blame yourself, isn't it? Accepting that it's his fault means having to face so many difficult things, and make so many changes. Your description of your mother and family is heartbreakingly predictable. You just want to be loved, don't you? You want to feel noticed and special and wanted. In a horrible way, being the focus of such sustained abuse is a very negative form of attention and being singled out for 'special' treatment. You are so used to being dismissed, overlooked, having your feelings treated as though they are nothing, being told you are mistaken about your own feelings or needs or worries, being told you're wrong to have them, etc., that it's be stranger if you hadn't ended up with an abuser. The way he treats you is familiar, because it's just another version of the patterns of your childhood.

Just remember that he is abusing because of his childhood and you are his victim because of your childhood, and then think of your unborn child, and the implications of them growing up with parents stuck in this horrible, damaging dynamic.

unfortunately my DM is not one for any sympathy, saying 'you made your own bed' and so on. i have never been able to go to her for support. i was vomitting in pain with a back injury as a teen and she still wouldn't call the doctor, and says things like 'oh don't be so stupid' if i feel upset about anything. Which just tells me really that its me getting upset about nothing and being stupid and overreacting, or being over-sensitive. i wasn't allowed by her to feel upset, and if i was happy or celebrating I would be told 'how can you be so happy when you know how awful things are for me right now'

This. ^ This is why you accept this treatment from him. Your mother laid the foundations for how you would expect to be treated in life and he is fulfilling those expectations. Baby or not, I think you could do with some help for yourself. is there any way you could get some counselling so that you can work through these issues, feel better about yourself, feel so good about yourself that you won't accept this type of treatment again?

This man sounds vile. I'm very sad for you that you believe all this crap he tells you and I'm very sad for you that you seem to be stuck in believing this stuff. Perhaps it would be better to be alone than to endure a life like this.

What do you actually get out of this relationship?

People do shout at each other, but it is not habitual to be raged at in decent, healthy relationships, and it is NEVER normal or acceptable to be shouted at so much that you are terrified and ask your partner to get psychological help for it. That's abuse.

And yes, if he shouts at you for the reasons you've given, he is guaranteed to shout at your baby, and worse. A selfish abuser like him will not be able to take a baby crying, will be insanely jealous of the love the baby gets from you, would no doubt demand you didn't breastfeed, and so on. He'll tell you at every turn that you're getting every mothering act you do wrong, and tell people you're struggling, he thinks you have PND, make himself look like father of the hear, and so on.

BTW, about the shouting - all the examples you give of him making you fee like he 'has' to shout at you, are all things that wouldn't even exist as issues in a non-abusive relationship. And no-one makes someone else behave the way he does. Do you treat him that way when he pisses you off? No. So there's no excuse for him to do it to you. Keep remembering that.

one of the things that really made me think in amongst all these amazing threads from all you amazing women, was about how i'm a flawed human, as we all are, and that being flawed is no excuse for him to take the piss.

I feel like i'm truly disabled emotionally/psychologically if all this is true and i cant see it. Even though i know i have said things in the past to him like abuse, it wasn't real? I almost didn't know what i was saying, but it made him mad. one thing he did that ew nearly split up over he then bought me a laptop becuase 'this was deserving of a big gesture' when normalllyhe never makes any gestures.

I think i have a part missing, a blindspot.

i'd be making myself homeless and pregantn and homeless! This is my brother's place that i live in, my brother lives in singapore with his wife and wants to sell this place. I dont get on the wrong side of my brother.

those are such sad horrible awful stories, are the men in any of these stories somehow receiving high negative consequences for trying to destroy those lives? and seeming to be successful at causing huge harm? Why are women having to change their whole lives to get away and have to hide. I kno the police can't do anything because someone takes the piss or shouts at you, but several have said the same on here about bascially fleeing?

You have been emotionally and psychologically disabled in a way, by your own childhood. The way you describe your mother was a childhood almost guaranteed to see you end up being abused as an adult in relationships. You have a blindspot because you were taught lies about yourself and your feelings; you were blinded to the truth about what's acceptable and what's not, and most importantly, what love really is.

Men are getting away with this shit and women being the ones who have to make massive changes because we live in a misogynist society that minimises or excuses or normalises abuse, and makes women (wrongly) responsible for men's behaviour,and which refuses to do anything about the fact that shitty childhoods are likely to create future victims and abusers. And so much more.

But also, you have to take responsibility for your own life too. Better to be the one who leaves instead of staying stuck with an a user because you're determined it be him who leaves. Unfair, yes. But that's life.

Also, you thinking about that sort of thing is a way for you to use thinking about others as a way of avoiding your own situation. Be wary of that. Just worry about yourself and your baby right now.

x-post again

no i don't treat him that way when he pisses me off, i don't understand it,how can it be my fault and not my fault. im remembering things from way back by writing, and my writing when i read it back sounds fucking awful. I keep trying to read it as if someone else had written it and well, just yeah, shit oh shit. he tries to protet me, pinned my boss to the wall of a nightclub to tell her to lay off me, thats someone that is worried about me and cares about me - i hated him for doing that though and certainly would never have wanted or expected him to. i was getting upset recently at being woken so ealry by a car revving its engine outside and my sleep hasn't been good, he chased the car down the street shoutin at the driver and throwing his shoes at him. I was mortified but he did it because i was upset and so exhausted, you see - I STRESS HIM

Actually I am slightly concerned about this now.

He works in IT? He took the hard drive out to keep everything you've done. He bought you a laptop.

Keeping the hard drive isn't really normal tbh. I work in IT. I back up drivers etc and then back up photos etc to dvd.

Did he present you with the laptop all set up and ready to go? I'd be worried he's put software to monitor you on there. A key logger perhaps.

Whilst I don't want to stop you posting here I would advise you to be very careful and watch your back now.

No, my love, he doesn't behave that way because you stress him. Everyone stresses everyone else at one time or another and we don't behave that way. Do you behave that way if someone stresses you out? No, of course not. YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BEHAVIOUR. Or anyone else's.

Whatvyou describe is not him loving you, or looking after you. You describe a controlling, threatening man who cannot and does not want to control himself, and who gets off on making his own drama and blaming others for it. It's totally unacceptable - criminal, even - for him to do that to your boss. However she treated you, a normal, decent man would not do that to anyone, especially not a woman. It's abnormal behaviour. It's also very infatilising, as though you're not capable of dealing with it yourself; another way of making you feel shit and useless. Furthermore, it could have lost you your job, which might have been a motivation for him. And someone who chases a car throwing shoes at it is unhinged. Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised if part of his motivation was to be able to go "see? You stress me so much that you turn me into an angry lunatic!" or similar.

You grew up with so little concern or respect being shown for your feelings and needs that these things he does seem like love and protection and care and concern to you. But, oh, they are so not. People who care about you do NOT behave like this.

Again, all of this is totally predictable abuser behaviour. As is the grand gesture of a laptop. Classic stuff. As if a gadget makes up for all his abuse.

How can it be your fault and not your fault? It's not your fault, that's the anawer why. But the way he makes you feel and believe the two things at once is how he traps you - by crazy-making.

you are kind to be so concerned about the IT thing haunted just to say that l/top that he bought me remained unopened because i just cried everytime i looked at it and i returned it, but, no, it came i the post and just left it boxed up.

this Also, you thinking about that sort of thing is a way for you to use thinking about others as a way of avoiding your own situation

i'm happy to accept that i could be just avoiding my own situation, but I don't quite understand what you are saying here?

I have a really bad headache and i'm sure its my brain not being able to process all this, i am going from tears, to terror, and back to disbelief and i've got it wrong, to what else could he do, or bad for misleading such a lovely bunch of good women, he's not a thug, he works hard, really really hard, studies hard, and has had a rough deal as a child.

But that description fits the majority of all abusers. Not being thuggish, working and studying hard are basic things expected from adults, they're not plus points. Nor do they exclude that person from also being abusive. And having a shit childhood is no excuse for being abusive. It's not your responsibility to put up with it.

I was trying to gently suggest that you don't keep thinking too much about all the other cases of horrible relationships you mentioned as a way of thinking about them instead of your own. Does that make sense?

Your brain isn't processing it because it's so fucking hard to confront, and because your childhood trained you to see your needs and feelings as automatically wrong and that you should expect any shitty behaviour from others, so it feels abnormal to try to think functionally about it all. But you must.

OP - what do YOU want?
I post this on threads like this that I see - if you want space or a room or somewhere to store things, I have a room, you are more than welcome to it, any time of night, no notice needed

OP, you said it's your brother's house - what's the arrangement with the rent? Could you afford to keep paying it on your own for a while while you get your feet under you?

he's not a thug but he pinned a woman (your boss) to the wall of a nightclub. That is quite thuggish, though isn't it? Even if he did it for you.

and has had a rough deal as a child - Yes, but that doesn't make it ok for him to take that out on you.

I dont think you stress him.

He is using you as an outlet/excuse for his violent tendencies.

Chasing a car down the road yelling and throwing shoes at a person, is not protection, it is pure violence.
Ramming a woman up against the wall is not protection, it is pure violence.

He is just justifying it saying it is for you. He is also just justifying it when saying that you are stressing him and you make him do it. You dont. Normal people dont behave that way. You are not making him do it. He is chosing to do it.

Women's Aid can help with housing. Yes of course it's a worry but the housing issue is not insurmountable.

He is his dad.

I've read this whole thread and it's so sad. You really need to get away from this awful man. Will he leave if you ask him? Do you have friends who can help you, e.g. Be around to tell him to fuck off out of your life? He is relying on the fact that everyone thinks he's a good guy.. Once this facade comes down and he realises that you have people on your side he may be more likely to leave you alone when you tell him to go.
Btw do you really think people think he's a good guy when he pinned your female boss to a wall? He doesn't need to hit you because he has put that fear in you by hitting himself and other people.
Please get away from him. You will be a much better mum without him but also consider what another poster said.. You will be connected to him for the next 18 years whether you like it or not if you have his baby.
Please start telling people in real life what he is like and start making plans to kick him out or move out yourself.

how are you doing today, Sugar?