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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Heads a confused mess. Don't know what to do anymore.

122 replies

Celestria · 08/12/2014 10:36

I'm sat on my couch this morning, feeling utterly lost. I just want to sleep. I really really need help.

Is there anyone I can talk to, to try and sort my head out? A help line or something like that. I need to try and make sense of everything.

OP posts:
dadwood · 08/12/2014 11:04

He won't let you have a valid opinion of your own?

CogitOIOIO · 08/12/2014 11:05

You can't rationalise with someone who irrationally blows up over something tiny because their motivation for blowing up is to make you feel insecure and unsure .... which it does very effectively. Bullies like to create conflict over nothing at all because they like to see people sorry and crying. It's how they derive their twisted self-esteem.

If your Mum has been supportive and also works for a charity that assists abused women, please talk to her. That's what 'unconditional love' for a child means. You're still there, even if they mess up again and again. I'm sure she'd want to help and... with her experience... actually be in a better position to help than most.

MorrisZapp · 08/12/2014 11:05

Obviously you have a stack of issues going back many years. But I think we can all guarantee you that your life would improve beyond measure by ending this abusive relationship.

What help do you think you need to achieve this?

HamPortCourt · 08/12/2014 11:05

Is this the guy who refuses to live with you thank God but throws a huge wobbly if your cat has been on your bed?

Celestria if you have grown up with an emotionally abusive man it might seem like your "normal" if you see what I mean?

I don't think you should analyse this so much. Are you happy in this relationship? If not, then you do not need anyones permission to leave. You do not have to have a full post mortem about who is in the wrong, who is abusive, all that shite.

You can say I don't want this any more, it isn't making me happy.

Quitelikely · 08/12/2014 11:05

Can you give an example of one of your disagreements? And how it goes afterwards........

Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:07

Not if it goes against his. One row I remember, we had a lovely night with his friends. On the way home he started telling me one of his friends had been banned from seeing his son because the ex partner had raised concerns with the police that the son of the ex partner was being abused by another son of his friend.

I asked if my DP thought there was any truth in the claims and he went ballistic. Told me I'd made a big mistake, that I was accusing his friend and the son, that I was out of line and he would never have anything to do with me again. And he said 'you know the problem with you celestria, you have too many fucking opinions, you should learn to keep them to yourself'

OP posts:
CogitOIOIO · 08/12/2014 11:07

"Then I get myself in knots because I'm trying to work out what he wants me to say or do"

This is a pretty typical stress response to emotional bullying. When things are so bad that you are constantly second-guessing someone else's reaction before speaking, it will effectively render you mute.

CogitOIOIO · 08/12/2014 11:12

"I was out of line and he would never have anything to do with me again. "

I'm guessing he never follows through with these threats? I haven't read your other threads. What's the set-up with regards ties to this nasty little shit? Do you share a place? Finances? Children?

Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:12

I don't have a relationship with my father. When I was growing up, I was his golden girl because I was smart and like him. He used to beat my brother and I'd try to protect my brother as out of everyone apart from my children, I love my brother. Yet he would never lay a finger on me. If he was unhappy with me, he would ignore me. Refuse to talk to me. Until I would be in absolute tears begging him to.

My problem is I'm scared to leave him. I haven't been without him since my breakdown in the new year and I'm scared I won't cope. In that link it says that they become your sense of reality. That's what he is. I'm scared of what life holds for me without him. If I will go back to that horrible time where I felt life had no purpose and struggled to grasp what reality was. I was very very unwell. Being with him, despite how he treated me made me feel safe.

OP posts:
Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:13

No ties. My children are my own as are my finances. We were going to move in together but he liked to use that as a carrot. One minute he would be saying that's all he wants. The next that he can't possibly live with someone like me.

OP posts:
Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:14

Yes ham, same guy.

OP posts:
dadwood · 08/12/2014 11:15

He said : you have too many fucking opinions !!

Argh! I agree strongly with HamPortCourt Trying to worry about whether your behaviour has been perfect in the context of this relationship is a waste of your energy. His behaviour is very emotionally abusive, so the relationship is toxic and you couldn' t get your behaviour right for him no matter what you do, he wouldn't even allow it, it would reduce his power.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 08/12/2014 11:16

If you do just one thing resolve never to move in with him, no matter what carrots he dangles and empty promises he makes.

You know you cannot trust him to safeguard your mental health. At least at the moment you and your kids have your own space to retreat to. Please keep it that way.

Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:16

His typical pattern used to be to go to his house and cut all contact with me for a few days. Until I was hysterical enough and apologetic enough. Then he would send me texts saying how bad he was and damaged and a fuck up and I would reassure him and we would get back together. Then one time I finished with him and managed to stay finished for nearly two weeks. Now he doesn't ignore me, I think k because he is worried I will actually manage to leave him. Instead he gets angry and says things that just tie me in knots.

OP posts:
CogitOIOIO · 08/12/2014 11:17

You really do have to reach out for support to people who can help you IRL. You may think you feel safe with this person but your mental health is being severely damaged by his behaviour, day in, day out. Your life may have been drifting before you met him and you may have been unwell but those are things that can be addressed much more easily when the abuse is taken out of the picture.

Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:17

I won't let him move in AF. I think the only reason I considered it was because he used to say that if we lived together we would be okay.

OP posts:
sadwidow28 · 08/12/2014 11:19

But he doesn't really make you feel safe because you are walking on egg shells, trying to best-guess his reactions, suppressing your true self and opinions.

Perhaps you have normalised abuse because of your DF. But that isn't 'feeling safe'. It is simply what you recognise.

You CAN walk away from this abusive relationships and make better choices next time.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 08/12/2014 11:20

You know you need to end it, don't you love and for it to stay ended. Identify what help you need to achive that, and make that your mission.

The best way is complete cold turkey, go total non contact as it is clear you are too deep into wanting to understand and will keep on falling for his bullshit.

You will never understand why he acts as he does. A reasonable person will never unravle the unreasonable and it is pointless and damaging to even try.

MorrisZapp · 08/12/2014 11:20

How old are your kids? Do they live with you?

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 08/12/2014 11:21

It would never be ok i he moved in. He would destroy you.

dadwood · 08/12/2014 11:21

Celestria If you moved in with him, he'd probably cut off your friends and RL support and step up the EA. I've seen that happen to a friend

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 08/12/2014 11:22

Have you heard of the Freedom Programme

dadwood · 08/12/2014 11:24

Have you got the Lundy Bancroft book Why does he do that? ?

Original poster
Celestria · 08/12/2014 11:27

I became unwell partly because of him. And partly because of huge family issues.

Just before I met him I had a cancer scare. I'd been walking around with pneumonia for about four months, thinking I just had a bad smokers cough. It's only when I developed pleurisy and went to the doctors that I went for an X-ray. There was a moderate to large area in my left lung in a place that they said was 50/50 likely to be lung cancer. It ended up being scar tissue from having had pneumonia for so long.

That really scared me and previous to that I had felt happy on my own. It made me scared that something could happen to me and worry about my kids. He was a customer at my work and I felt like I could talk to him.

After we got together things went downhill within a matter of weeks. He started finishing with me, usually jealousy issues. Then December came around which is a terrible month for me due to the loss of my brother and by January I was an utter mess. At a party with him, I took some pills. I'd never done that before but I was so miserable I thought maybe it would make my happy. As it was it nearly killed me. He left me alone in a horrendous state and thankfully my mother found me. I was under a crisis team for a good few months and totally lost grip with reality. He started messaging me and telling me my family were jealous of our relationship and were trying to keep me ill so they could control me.

He knew my relationship with my family was on a knife edge because I was abused as a child and things had happened a few months before to do with that which had me in bits. I started falling for what he was saying and we got back together. For a few months things were fine. Then we split after another stupid row and I said we were done for good. He took an overdose. We ended up back together. It's all such a mess and I know I need him gone. That's why I'm such a conflicted confused mess. I want him gone but I'm terrified of him going.

OP posts:
Millie3030 · 08/12/2014 11:29

If the kids are your own and you have your own finances and you live on your own, you are in a much stronger position that a lot of women in controlling relationships. You could end it and change the locks, does he have a key? And go not contact.

Do you love him OP? Does he make you happy? Do you want to grow old with him? Is he a good role model for your children to see? If you answer no to any of these I think you know what to do. If you answered yes to all of them, could you do couples therapy? What do you generally argue about?