Low level emotional abuse - how do I get over it?

[NightOfTheCactus]

STBXH and I were together for 10 years, 8 years of it married - and I finally got the courage together to end it a year ago.

My feeling is that our marriage was pretty toxic, and I feel that it robbed me of a lot of self confidence and made me ill.

When I was married, I used to read up on what emotional abuse was, and I decided that I wasn't being emotionally abused, because I was never told what to wear, I wasn't stopped from going out and having friends/interests, I was never hit and STBXH never broke things around me, so I never feared for my physical safety. We always backed one another up on parental decisions around DD and didn't undermine one another, he doesn't drink or gamble...

However, I always felt that he was angry. There was always a nasty energy around the house. He would sulk a lot. I'd ask him a question and he'd say "what" in a really aggressive way. I suffer from OCD and am not in any way the easiest person to live with, but he would rant at me when I was having panic attacks. On a couple of occasions (though only a couple over the years) he did things to deliberately trigger my OCD because I had annoyed him. He didn't want to spend time with me. He wouldn't consider date nights or trying to have quality time together as I was "no fun" because of my OCD. Throughout our marriage, we had hardly any sex life, and when we did have sex I felt like a blow up doll and he would look at my body with utter disgust. When we got together I was a really slim size 12, but I put on 4 stone, and he made comments like I looked like "a trucker with your gut hanging over your pants". He didn't want to kiss me other than a peck hello and goodbye because he said he didn't like breathing in another person's breath. He rationed hugs, because he said all his emotional energy was used up at work and he didn't have anything to give me.

I am a terrible housekeeper - really messy, and it was difficult for him to do housework because of my OCD issues, but it would make him angry - he would come home from work and aggressively tidy up. On the occasions I did make an effort with the home he would sneer at what i had done and belittle it for not being particularly worthy of praise. I cooked a meal from scratch every night but it would often be on the table late, which made him really angry.

As our marriage went on, my illness got worse, I became more panicky, I stopped paying any attention to my appearance because it wasn't worth it anyway. My weight ballooned, I became a shadow of my former self.

Then last year, we split up, and suddenly I was optimistic, full of energy, started making myself look nice for me when I left the house. I had friends who said I'd never smiled all the way to my eyes before, who commented that I'd always seemed so downtrodden and I was a different person - so I know I did the right thing splitting up.

The thing is, now, it's like I have flashbacks. I'm in a new relationship with someone who thinks I'm great, who really fancies me (despite the fact that I'm not a skinny size 12), who wants to spend time with me, but I'm constantly on edge, because I'm waiting for him to respond to me as my STBXH would have done, even though he's nothing like him at all.

I'm starting to have panic attacks. Obviously I have to deal with STBXH - who is sometimes nice, sometimes does something really shitty and controlling - I have to be on my guard.

The thing is, I always stood up to STBXH, despite how ill I was getting, but it's almost like now I've relaxed, I'm turning into a complete mess about it.

I get therapy for my OCD, but it's very specifically for that.

I feel like I need to find a way of processing what happened to me in my marriage, but don't know how to go about it. I thought of going on a Freedom Programme - but having read the book, what I went through was nothing compared to what I should imagine most women on the programme would have been through - as I say, I was never subject to violence or imprisonment or "obvious" abuse". I don't know if what I went through even was abuse or just that I was with the wrong person, so I'd feel like a fraud on something like that.

Just I'm feeling really vulnerable right now and want to stop the memory of my marriage turning me into a wreck.

Thanks if you've read this far!

Night - this is not low level abuse, it's full on emotional abuse. Glad you're out of it and I think you should get some counselling. STBXH sounds nasty, you're well rid

He controlled your every blooming move, such behaviour on his part was and remains abusive.

You were horrendously abused and likely also from the early days of your marriage but such abuse like he displayed within the marriage is insidious in its onset. Red flags get excused or minimised. Many intelligent women have been fooled similarly and you will not be the last one to be so duped in this way.

Such controlling men do not let go of their victims easily; he will still try and control you even though you are no longer together as a couple.

I think you would be an ideal person to do Womens Aid Freedom Programme. At the very least read "Why does he do that?" written by Lundy Bancroft if you have never read that tome and seek counselling from an organisation like BACP.

Agreed. He sounds deeply unpleasant. Well done on getting out.

You know, I would have said XH was 'slightly' abusive but, as time went by and I learned more about relationships, things started coming back - or, rather, I started to see them in a more reasonable light. He raped me, fgs, but as I'd glossed over it at the time for my survival, it was years before I really grasped the horror of what he'd done. It wasn't just that, either, it was a whole mass of abuses I'd not seen clearly. The Freedom Programme exists precisely to help us accurately name the things that happened, understand how they are wrong, and clarify our boundaries. This both protects us from further abuses and frees us to enjoy relationships with nice people. I think you're right; you'd benefit :)

I agree that it wasn't low level. In fact, you could say that there is no level of abuse that is low. It's designed to intimidate and control and therefore the severity is almost unimportant, it's the effect on the victim that is key. You've been left nervous, suspicious and feeling unable to trust your judgement. Abusive people don't stop being trying to bring you down just because the relationship is ended - they remain bullies. I'm glad you stand up to him but you probably need some other ideas how to reduce the stress. You say 'obviously' you have to deal with STBXH but there are ways to do that close down the bullying opportunities better than others.

Thanks for replying. Of course in my opening post I'm just listing the bad things, so it is heightened when I lump events all in together like that, and as I say, I am not the "easiest" of people. I am a bit intense, and having OCD makes things challenging also. It would be unfair of me to blame everything on STBXH. In fact, when I tried to talk to my parents a few years ago when I was every ill about wanting out of the marriage, my Mum pointed out to me what a difficult person I can be (at the time I was ringing her at least twice a day having panic attacks and she was finding it very hard-going), and that he was doing his best in a bad situation. Funnily enough though, now we've split up, my parents want nothing to do with him, and my Mum now says that she always found him "intimidating"...

Also, most of the time we were able to rub along OK - I just had to get an idea in my head that I was living with a housemate with shared child-rearing duties - and then I wouldn't get so upset about our lack of friendship and intimacy.

Most of the time dealing with him we can do it in a business-like way for DD's benefit, though now and again he will chuck in a controlling curveball - but that seems to be every few months, and then I'll front it out and deal with it and be very no-nonsense and calm about it. I can cope with it, it is irritating more than anything else, and in a way it is good that it happens now and again, because it reminds me that I am best off out of it.

I suppose the reason I minimise it is that the things that happened didn't turn up on the emotional abuse "checklists" that I would read, so I put it down to lack of communication.

I have read some of the Lundy Bancroft book, and I did find things in there that I recognised but hadn't realised were abuse at the time, and they were really insidious, subtle things. Reading the Freedom Programme book presents a far more extreme person, and there are whole chapters in that book that don't describe my relationship at all. The one thing I got from the Freedom Programme book (if this doesn't sound daft), was the chapter on "the bully", where it says that the bully doesn't smile with his eyes - it is such a small thing, but that really resonated with me. I don't remember STBXH ever smiling at me with his eyes - but I don't think he smiles at anyone with his eyes - whereas, that is something I really notice with the chap I'm seeing now - that he smiles with his eyes and talks to me with genuine warmth in his voice.

There is one incident from my marriage that sums it up for me.

It was Christmas day about 4 years ago. I worked hard making a Christmas dinner, though it took longer to prepare than I had intended. When it was ready, STBXH and my daughter came in. We ate it. Conversation was stilted. Because I'd been dishing up, I finished my main course after him and my daughter. While I was still finishing the first course. STBXH got the pudding out of the fridge (it was just a shop bought cheesecake, but I got it because I knew he liked it). He dished it up for himself and my daughter. They ate it, then left the room as I was just finishing my first course. I then dished up my desert, sat and ate it on my own, then washed up on my own. No one commented on the meal or said thank you.

It sounds so petty - but for me, that one incident encapsulates my marriage for me. How worthless and lonely I felt. However, I find it hard to class it as "abuse".

Sorry, I know I'm wittering on a bit. It's just built up such a lot in my head I find it hard to know what to do with the information.

I was verbally bullied all the way through school too. I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

The checklists are just a guide because bullying behaviour takes many forms and is very often tailored. The person closest to you unfortunately knows which buttons to push and an abusive person will exploit that knowledge deliberately to cause hurt. After a while you can add anxiety to the mix because you are always waiting for the remark or a particular look. What might be dismissed as petty or trivial in someone else's life becomes supremely damaging in yours because you are now conditioned and sensitised.

What is common to all bullying behaviour is the effect on the victim i.e. complete loss of confidence, feeling of isolation, low self-esteem, self-reproach, depression, illness.

I can relate to that Xmas dinner experience.

Sending you a hug.

My one incident that summarises my relationship with my ex was during the birth of dd2. I was induced and the labour went from 0-60 in minutes. It was terrifying. He ignored me because I didn't use the gas and air in the way he was telling me. He stonewalled me. Looked at his phone. I was begging him to help, he said "are you going to listen to me then?". It was the loneliest I've ever felt.

I lived through plenty of times where he made me feel like shit but that was the loneliest.

I really know how you felt sat at that table. Awful.

Hugs and

Hugs and back to you - that sounds horrific.

Garlic - so sorry to hear about your experience too.

I'm so grateful to all of your replying with your wisdom and your empathy. It means a lot (quite overwhelming - but in a good way).

What you say about tailoring the abuse makes a lot of sense Cogito - and I do think that STBXH was very aware of what he was doing now - at the time I thought it was down to poor social skills and a horrendous childhood on his part - but experiencing his behaviour with some distance reveals to me just how controlling he can be. Apparently he is in a new relationship now. God help that poor woman

Yep, god help her. Hope she's a mumsnetter!

Naming the behaviours: That Christmas Day, he ignored (dismissed) and diminished (belittled) you - basically, acted as if you were a domestic appliance. It was an example of devaluing and withholding.

Thank you. It's good to get names for these things - and to know I wasn't overreacting, being "emotionally high maintenance" or going mad. He told me he wasn't my "empathy pillow" once when I asked for just some kindness and emotional support. I'm so scared of being back there in that position, I'm just getting ridiculously edgy. My poor new bloke. Luckily he's being patient with me...

I have to comment on this - I started another thread today about a situation I've been in for the last few years and I've realised that is definitely controlling. But reading this reminded me of certain traits that my ex husband had - I always told myself he wasn't abusive but reading this I am beginning to wonder. Some of what you have written rings bells for me - I am so sorry you had to deal with all this. The withholding sex/affection, never wanting to go out any where, making cruel comments - all making me think I need to read that Lundy Bancroft book everyone keeps talking about on here ...

ps I phoned up about the Freedom Programme today.

The Lundy Bancroft book is very good floppydisc. I found it quite an eye opener. (I've phoned up about the Freedom Programme today too! Hopefully it will help us both )

mammadigging deep - my ex husband was similar when I was in hospital having DS2. I was distressed and had just had a sweep - and we all know how lovely those are - and I really needed his support. I think maybe I got a bit emotional or something - hazy memory - I remember female doctor was in the room too - and I must have said something to ex husband that showed I needed support - and his reply was a terse 'I just want to get my baby out'. I remember seeing the look on the female doctor's face and a few nights later after the birth one of the night duty midwives showed me my records and it was obvious they'd flagged up possibility I was in an abusive relationship because of things I'd said to them when I was feeling down. He was also all about the children all through the marriage - sounds great that, doesn't it, but it was actually to the extent that I was completely sidelined, and he kind of used to monopolise them, sideline my role as their mother - all very hard and a bit weird too, looking back on it. Often wondered if that's another way some men control - via the kids? I have heard that many abusive men get even worse when their partners are pregnant :(

That's brilliant NightOfTheCactus, I am so glad you phoned the Freedom Programme too - I'd send you flowers too but I havn't worked out how to use the icons on here yet! :)