Support thread for those in Emotionally Abusive Relationships 30

[CharlotteCollins]

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!!

at 'ciggie' Silvery - nice to know you are still with Lovely Man. That makes me . And yy to this thread being a life-changer. My D.I.V.O.R.C.E. finally came through this week, all a bit weird but another step forward.

pony that sounds very final :)

girl I agree with pony. Keep a diary. It is amazing how much your mind edits out and down plays things. I've read somewhere that we do it almost as a coping mechanism. But the diary forces you to remind how bad things can be. FWIW I used to wish that my H would hit me. Not to minimise DV which is awful but at least I would know it was wrong and everyone would understand that. sugar is spot on. EAers are so controlling that they are nearly always in control. Which then makes you realise that the nasty things they say are not them lashing out, but carefully considered comments designed to wound.

nini Hope you can manage to make a little den to retreat too.

Things with me are OK. I am being firm with H. He's not a DH yet and might still be a FW, just weighing it up. But as I've said before, I now feel so much less lonely and have so much more RL support that I feel ok. Often H is nice, slightly down about work, but can be thoughtful but now and again he makes a little comment that just sets off a little alarm bell in my mind. I'll keep you all posted.

I'm feeling like my experiences have not been in vain though as I helped a colleague and work leave an abusive partner. She told me just a few things about their on off relationship and I just knew that there was so much more than she was saying. Everything she said was familiar to the old me. So I was brave - told her about my relationship, and lent her Lundy. She read the whole thing in a night and came back and said to me yes, yes , yes! Fortunately for her she wasn't living with him and no children and has been able to walk away. But surprise surprise flowers, grovelling phone calls, turning up at work (he lives 3hrs + away), turning up at her parents. I've been able to warn her and we've been one step ahead of him each time :) So one lady saved, although that "FW on the loose" alarm should probably be playing loud and clear somewhere.

Well done on the finalised divorce Pony. a chapter ends and another begins!

I am FW free for the weekend so having the run of the house.

SillyOldFox - keep posting lovely. Glad you've been able to help someone else, that in itself is a big thing. Glad H is sometimes nice, but remember that EA can still be classed as DV. You don't need to be hit for it to be DV. It's another way that EA is minimised, by saying there's no actual physical violence involved, but it can still be a criminal thing. Police can arrest for threatening behaviour without a finger being laid on a person.
How are things with H? How are you?

nini enjoy having the house to yourself!

pony I wasn't saying that EA isn't domestic abuse. More that when there is actual physical violence it is much easier somehow to draw a line and say that that behaviour is clearly wrong. I agree that EA is equally (perhaps more) damaging.

I'm not sure how I am if I'm honest. I know I feel a million times more positive than I did 18months ago, and a whole lot less lonely. I don't really feel able to make long term plans. I'm living each day at a time really. Sometimes I think that I should just give up and go it alone, but then things are better other days. I keep telling myself that he is a lot better than he was. Which he is. But that in itself isn't necessarily enough. I think it's that old thing of becoming grateful for what is actually just normal behaviour for most men.

So things are better but still not right. I think at the moment H has lost a lot of his control (he's not working, he knows that I have support, he knows that I am capable of leaving - something I don't think he ever thought I would have been able to do) and that is probably, in part, why he is very low. He says he's not depressed but he is something like that.

He seems content to just let things drift, so that staying married is his main goal, whereas that alone isn't enough for me. If we are to stay married then it needs to be a good marriage (I know that no marriage is perfect), and that isn't going to happen by chance -we are clearly going to have to both put effort in and work it, and talk about things that are maybe uncomfortable.

At the moment it is always me that brings up the chats about our relationship and he is clearly not comfortable talking about it. I struggle to get any sensible answers. He often says that he can't say what he is really feeling for fear of me leaving again - which in itself suggest to me that he has no real understanding of why I left in the first place. It trivialises it a bit, as if I walked out because he said one thing that I didn't like.

And then he tends to get upset and say how much he hates his life. And I want to reply that ultimately he is responsible for his own happiness and that I can't fix him and that he needs to get help if he wants to be happier.

We have a holiday coming up so I don't want to rock the boat too much before that. We might as well try to have a nice time. But after that I'm considering giving him an ultimatum - to get help and to take some responsibility for his own life, or perhaps we do need to separate. It seems cold and callous saying that, but I need to see some action.

I know you know all that about EA/DV fox. Sorry if I came across weird there, I am feeling a little prickly and anxious and low at the moment in the wake of the big D - plus I watched Cucumber on Thursday night and found it quite unsettling to watch the abuse unfold, and the ending was quite triggering for me. So the threatening and fear aspect of the EA is quite present in my mind at the moment.

That sounds an exhausting way to live. And like you say, it's like in Lundy when he says we sometimes get so distracted by them changing a small amount that we don't see that they way things are still aren't good. Just slightly less bad.

And yes, it sounds like he is putting it all back onto you. Saying he can't talk about it for fear of you leaving again is a total cop-out - he's making himself into the victim, look how you've repressed him with your actions. And it saves him actually facing up to the things that lead up to you leaving. It's win-win for him, lose-lose for you. It's all about him - how he's feeling, how he's miserable, where are you in all of his thoughts about happiness?

I am going to be honest and say that I don't think he is going to step up and work on the marriage, he is too self-absorbed. If there was ever a time for him to show how willing he is to work hard and make things better, surely it would be in the aftermath of you leaving and then agreeing to come back to give things another go? He should have been trying his hardest the last 18 months. But he hasn't been, has he? You wouldn't be being cold and callous to say he needs to take responsibility for his own life and actually be present in working on the marriage. You're right, you need action, not just reaction that then dwindles away.

When's your holiday?

fox I think pony is speaking a lot of sense here. FFS he can't discuss it because it upsets him? I get that too, then H puts his fingers in his ears just to prove how much he really feels these things, too painful to listen! Poor diddums.

I haven't posted for ages, just going through the motions these days, some significant progress recently. I'm going to look at a flat today. We have issues every weekend. But I'm really tipped over the edge right now, I feel like he's convicted himself. I'm always waiting for him to do 'the thing' that will make it legitimate for me to leave.

I've got, potentially, a minor medical issue (borderline low thyroid) and mentioned to H that I was going to pursue this as I just found out and don't think gp will recommend any action unless I push for it. Well. H is like the cat who got the cream, he's not (yet) rubbed my face in it but I've had: 'I knew there was something wrong with you' , 'get on some pills to sort yourself out', 'I knew I was living with a crazy b* and that proves it' just as comments, just dropped into conversations. I think he'd love it if there were really something wrong with me (there isn't, not really) and my senses are tingling. This is my health at stake here, it's not his issue to take ownership of. Non negociable, I almost feel like saying 'gotcha'... I'm treading carefully, he's got some big fees coming in soon and I greedily want my share of his earnings, as I've suffered enough helped him. Secretly furious anyway!

Oops. Name changed, I'm usually thaysnotmynamereally!

Hello thatsnot - am at him suggesting that having a borderline low thyroid might be making you crazy! That's actually so ridiculous it's funny. My FW was also weird about me and health too, got really quite furious when I said I was taking iron tablets while pregnant (at the recommendation of my midwife, due to borderline low iron). He seemed to think I was lying about needing them (eh?), to get attention or something like that (double eh???). Weirdo.

Tread carefully as you say, and hope the flat viewing goes well.

ponyhope I didn't sound grumpy or offend you. I didn't mean it like that.

I appreciate your honesty. I'm wondering that myself. He's had a second chance and not really making the most of it. We have a week in cornwall booked in about 4 weeks time so I aim to get through that and then see how things are.

thatsnot his glee at your health issues is worrying. What a weirdo! My h likes to encourage me to take to bed and stay in it all day if I feel unwell, even if I don't want to. And then if I don't he's all don't expect any sympathy if you're not helping yourself!

Was the flat good?

Fox it is awful to be always working towards the next event to get through, I've been doing if for so many years. I'm just fed up now! I do go back regularly over the 'events' and try to analyse why I didn't go when the important thing was over (its been DD exams, DD uni start, various social occasions, etc.) DS uni graduation last year was a huge one. I'd set July18th as the date I had to make it through, H totally spoiled the otherwise lovely graduation day by throwing a silent fit (stood facing a wall during the champagne reception) because I hadn't planned a celebration lunch with loads of people/relatives/friends (we don't have many and DS didn't want it) and we went on to have one of the worst weekends of my life. Because I stood up to him. He harassed, police were involved, I was halfway there. Why did we go back to 'normal'? Because we had a party to attend the following week, tickets were paid by someone else and I didn't want to let the down. Sorry, rambling, but just wanted to say that you may feel you need to get through the holiday in Cornwall but approach it mindfully, so to speak!

I'm wavering about taking a rental. The same old circular route! I saw a tiny house which I loved, (didn't like the flat too much). But it's very expensive, any rents in our area, basically 75% my salary, I'm only on temporary contract, but I could pay the rental out of savings. And I couldn't have the cat or dog. I like our house when he is not here but it seems a toxic situation, we need to sell this house anyway as H hates it (too suburban for him and kids have finished with local good schools) so me moving out would force the issue. It would shock H as he thinks I love the house...but it feels toxic to me now and the tiny house I looked at felt cozy.

Looking forward to my thyroid consultation today H has long insisted that there is something wrong with me and that's why I am lazy, don't socialise enough and never am keen to have sex with him. Personally I would love a magic pill that would give me more energy and make me lose a bit of weight but I'm not holding out much hope!

With correct name now. pony btw mine said the same thing about pregnancy vitamins, as a 'woman' thing were a waste of money! Well done for getting rid.

No of course you didn't offend fox, I was worried the opposite. I cringed a bit when I read my post, I knew I'd been feeling prickly when I wrote it and it came out sounding wrong. A week in Cornwall sounds just perfect - and ideally, a lovely holiday in a lovely place with someone who's on a second chance should be fantastic. Why not keep a diary while you are there so you can keep track of how things are going?

My FW also used to encourage me to take to bed when I was pregnant or when DS was little, to rest. And I would partly because of what you say, he'd get quite agitated with me that I shouldn't expect any sympathy, so it was just easier to do it. Then would throw it back in face later that day that I'd done nothing/been lazy while he did all the work.

thats hope your thyriod consult went ok. Re the flat/house - I think having your own space where you feel comfortable is so so important. You don't even need to think long-term, but if both the house and flat were not right (too expensive, no pets etc) then maybe keep looking. There will be others that are cheaper/allow pets.

By way of update, I have an ever so slightly under-performing thyroid! Dr recommends retesting in 3 months but when I said I'd prefer to deal with it sooner she said said she'd look into it and get back to me. In the meantime I had several texts from H asking for result, I've told him and he's decided I should start on pills ASAP. Of course he can't force it but subtext is he thinks I need 'livening up'. Hmmm. This is interesting, I'm looking forward to discussing it with counsellor on Wednesday. Somehow it feels like a defining issue.

I think you would be best to get this resolved asap, so that you are in the best physical and mental condition to deal with the rest of your life.

Yes silvery I need to have a proper talk with drs, was just quick few minutes on phone today. H is away for a couple of days. Bliss. I'm such a coward, I know it is bad enough to leave simply because I'm not happy but I still need a 'thing' to point to.

Just mark time and look after yourself until you know about the treatment.

You aren't a coward! Take time to enjoy the bliss :)

Feeling so so low. Just waiting for things to bottom out and end every day thinking "surely it cant get any worse" and yet it manages to. Every day there's something else to add to the crap. My nerves are shredded. He twists me this way, and that way, whether I fight it or not.

DD is feeling it, I think. Shes been getting into bed with me every night for the last week. Unheard of for her.

Hi Nini, can't add anything helpful but let's make a pact that this time next month/next year we're going to be in a better place! All going wrong for me right now as well...more low-level stuff but OMG the rants and vitriol I had to put up with last night, he went into such long descriptions of how cr*p I am, then asking me what I think I'm playing at (WTF??) as I hadn't yet gone to a private doctor to 'get myself sorted out', I finally gave up and went to sleep downstairs and I could hear him ranting away still! Anyway, commiserations and I hope your DD is OK. The way they act should remind us why we need to leave!

Well, nini and thats, at least you're not having to deal with the revival of hope caused by temporary minor improvement Which is no consolation at all, I realise. When he's going on at you, can you detach by imagining you're in a play or something?

Nini, have you tried getting a meditation app or something like that, to listen to on your phone? You can just lie in bed and let in wash over you, it might help you with your shredded nerves (which I can totally understand) and it might also help you feel like you are doing something for yourself, a little bit of 'you' time. I know it's hardest to do stuff for yourself at the time when you need it most though, but hang on in there.

How's the house sale going?

thats have you viewed any more places to rent?

nini and that's - sorry to hear you are both in a dark place. Would the 'bubble' technique work for either of you when you imagine you're inside a bubble and that all the vitriol and hurtful comments just bounce off rather than reaching you?

nini at least DD feels able to lean onto you and unburden herself with you although it is rubbish that she's being affected.

silvery I understand what you're saying - that in one way the doom and gloom of Mr Unreasonable is at least more predictable than being left thinking if only ....

Things are not so good with me on our 'second chance' just now. H actually initiated a conversation with me about how our relationship is which I thought was really good sign as he is inclined to let things drift and sometimes I think that staying married is his only aim, rather than trying to work hard at getting a good marriage (maybe). So part way through the chat he said that he doesn't feel like we're a team. I pointed out that I think it is easier to feel like a team if you are more alike (we are very different) and so both want the same little things. ie so if you both like having a clean kitchen then you'll both work at it to achieve rather than one partner feeling that they are always nagging at the other to achieve it. I didn't mean it as a negative thing, just saying that it probably is easier. He said I was being negative and just listing a whole load of reasons why we aren't compatible.

I suggested that we sat down and wrote a list of our common goals and aims in life, so that we can see in what areas we naturally are a team working towards the same aim. He got all mardy as he thought I meant to do it on our own and then talk about it and just see what cross over there was. Hand on heart 100% I did not mean this, but meant working on it together. He said that I was back tracking and changing what I said which made me really angry as I obviously know what I was thinking, whereas he doesn't. In the end I said in quite a harsh voice "don't you dare tell me what I am or am not thinking". at which point he said in a really patronising way that he isn't going to get angry with me or shout but that we can't talk about this anymore. As he walked out the room he said in a way that made me know he doesn't really mean it "this is my fault and I accept that" To my shame I shouted after him and said "yes this is your fault for not believing me".

I obviously feel guilty for shouting at him and for spoiling what was the most positive start of a discussion we've had for months. He is now being all sad and wounded, can barely raise a smile and is refusing to talk about it as he says it makes him feel like there is no hope. I just feel so rubbish and don't know what to do :(

House sale goes badly Pony and it was the one thing I was counting on going well.Every day brings something else he's done to screw me over financially and its making me so angry and impotent.

My evenings are spent alone in my room which doesn't help

I cant see beyond the end of my nose right now so I apologise to the rest of you who are struggling. Heres to us and a brighter day tomorrow.

nini is he sabotaging the house sale? Have you got to the point of actually putting it on the market? Has he accepted that you are over and that you will be separating etc etc and that stalling is not going to change the end outcome. Or is he just determined to make things as difficult and unpleasant as possible for you to just prove a point. So sorry to hear that things are going so badly. Do you have any friends or family that you could get out with occasionally, just to give yourself a break from the grind.