Controlling/abusive behaviour

[chemistc]

Hi,

Just wanted to get some objective opinions on my relationship with my husband. A bit of background - we have been together 10 years, married for four. He is a very strong character and often talks about himself as 'the name', he is non-compromising and is very self-assured, confident.

We had a LDR and despite us only dating for 6 months he had the phone numbers of my close work colleagues/friends. I was teaching so always had my phone on silent. If I didn't reply to a text or answer a call he would call my friends to see if I was with them and check I was ok.

I wont catalog every incident as I fear it would become war and peace, only the incidents that have really made me doubt things.

The second major concern was during an argument we had where I swore at him and he grabbed me by the throat and told me to never swear at him again. This is the only time he has been physically abusive.

Then there is not letting me socialise with friends on my own. There was this one awful occasion where I had a reunion with 5 gf's from Uni and he came along. I felt so humiliated like I was a child not allowed out on my own. Not being willing to see my family as they live too far away and he gets too tired with all the travelling.

During my PhD if I needed to work late in the lab or at the weekend, he would come with me, this made me feel like shit because I felt so guilty about having to work on my PhD outside of his 9-5pm hrs.

The latest big thing was him not allowing me to take a job I really wanted as he was not willing to relocate despite not having a job himself.

There is a whole more examples I could write here, including me trying to commit suicide knowing that there is no way out, being in counselling, going to RELATE and being in contact with LWA.

I don't know what I am asking for..... this recent thing has perhaps opened my eyes to how selfish he is.

Only he is responsible for his happiness.

It's not like he cares about yours.

Unfortunately yes this is domestic abuse. Your husband is a very bad person and has succeeded in isolating you from family and friends.

It is not your responsibility to try to fix him, make him happy or constantly try to prove that you love him and are committed to him. Whatever you do, you will not be able to do any of those things.

Sadly your husband has are away at your confidence and self esteem and now you are struggling with the reality of who you are. This is because he has taken away your identity, all of your external support systems, removed the fun from life.

And he will let you go, he has to.

Have you got any family you could confide in? I know you say he doesn't like travelling in the car but that is a lie he just doesn't want you seeing your family.

Can you start imagining your future without him? I think if you can't get the courage to leave right now, you need to start emotionally preparing for it.

Life without abuse can be amazing. Family, friends and living without anxiety can be amazing things.

Don't delay, start planning today.

This is very severe abuse.

Re the guilt, I too suffered huge guilt at leaving my abusive ex. I remember one afternoon when I felt totally bogged down in guilt at having left, when I thought to myself: I've feeling bad about his misery. Why am I trying to feel his feelings for him/instead of him? Is it relieving him of the burden? Why don't I spend one afternoon just feeling my own feelings instead of his? And quite literally, I felt a heavy weight go off my shoulders.

Why not do a little thought experiment for yourself - try adn work out what your own feelings are, and stop trying to feel his feelings instead. (This is what abuse does, by the way - you learn as a survival strategy to spend all your time focusing on what he wants and what will make him happy/unhappy).

If he can only make himself feel good and big and safe by crushing you underfoot, why should you offer yourself up on the sacrificial altar? Why does his wellbeing matter more than yours?

Thank you all for your responses, I have read them carefully and they have given me a lot to think about. Deep down I know he will be fine without me, after all he rarely shows me any tenderness or consideration. I can't promise that I will leave him, all I can do is try.

My ex isolated me from my family, btw. Found every excuse not to go. The cats - he was so allergic to them and my parents didn't do enough to protect him from that. They didn't celebrate Christmas right because they're atheists (his parents were the church once a year types). He needed to go to his home town and catch up on old friends and it wasn't like I was in touch with any of mine, as I'd only lived there about 18 months before leaving for uni, so that didn't matter.

I left him. Despite the threats, he didn't kill himself. He started seeing someone else within months of me leaving. And they even got a cat.

And despite his protestations to the contrary, I was fine without him. In fact, life had never been better.

Realise you can't promise to leave. Realise as well that maybe some of the responses here have come as a shock to you. Being the victim of coercive control is a very crushing experience and the whole objective of your abuser is to make you feel that you have to stay close. So it's a two way trap.

I hope you find a way to reach out for help

If you have already lodged some things with the abuse centre, you're already on your way out the door.

Keep going

Good luck OP. It is a shock to realise you really are in an abusive relationship. Despite the fact that he ticks all the boxes, it still might feel as if this is all happening to someone else.

Talk to someone in real life as soon as you can. Maybe ring Women's Aid from work. There's lots of stark truths on this thread, but behind that is a lot of women who care a lot, cheering you on and hoping that you find a way to lose this guy - he is not good for you.

Thank you all for your replies.

I really thought that things were getting better, since the OD almost 2 years ago now, I felt like he was really trying to change. But then what has happened this last 2 weeks has made me think again. I think the whole job thing, him refusing to consider relocating, even though the job was amazing and practically dictating that I take this job with my current employer despite me not wanting it has made me realise that he will always control what I do.

I am still afraid to ask him if I can see friends and he stills tells me what I can and cant wear and still wont visit my family but he has allowed me to have my own car. He used to drive me to work and pick me up from work so that he knew where I was all the time.

I think probably the most controlling thing he has said to me was that if he could have me chipped he would. He says it is just because he is worried about my safety.

Chemistc your posts are absolutely chilling, he is literally holding hi prisoner. Only you can get out of this and you ARE strong enough to do it, please please just leave. You have no DC, you can just leave, so GO.

You only have one life to live, please make it a happy life. I am battling cancer at the moment, with no idea how long I have left - I hope it will be many years, but the diagnosis has made each day so much more precious to me. I hesitate to say this but my life - with a mastectomy, a bald head, no energy and in the middle of chemo with all the worry and fear about death and disease - is much happier and more free than yours is right now. Grasp your life and live it for yourself.

Thank you for your kind words elportodelgato, I am so sorry to hear about your cancer and I hope that beat it and have many happy years ahead of you.

I think that maybe it sounds more dramatic than it is. I go to work, I come home, I cook dinner, clear away, watch telly browse the net, everything that other people do. It's just if I want to see a friend or something it takes me a few days to build up the courage to ask or say I wanted to go shopping or have my hair cut or nails done, I just need to give him enough notice.

I left my ex for a lot less than you're being subjected to, btw.

You shouldn't have to ask to see a friend or pass it by someone else to work outside normal hours when you don't even have a load of kids to consider.

Chemistc, thank you for your kind words

Do you not think it odd that you need to build up the courage to ask permission to go out? I am pretty typical among my friends and my conversations with DH go like this: 'I am planning on seeing friend A on Thurs night after work, are you OK to see to the kids that night?' Before we had DC, I wouldn't even have bothered to tell him my plans tbh, other than to say 'I am out on Thurs, what are you up to?'

Similarly haircuts and manicures and having your own form of transport. He is treating you like a child, as though you are incapable of making your own choices and decisions. You mention you are doing a PhD and have had a great job offer, I really think y should take that job and move away and get your independence back

chemistc

build up the courage to see a friend

enough notice to get a hair cut

This level of control is nearly absolute. You don't seem to grasp what this lack of autonomy is going to do to your self-esteem. You'll be a shadow creature of you don't leave. Leave and feel the sunlight!

As an aside the law was changed today.
What your husband is doing to you is illegal
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30532087

I can't explain even to myself why I feel like I can't leave him. Even though now since this whole job thing has happened and at the moment I feel like I don't even like him. I cant explain it, I guess knowing that I will hurt him so much makes me more sad than living this way.

Here's the thing Chemist...

My husband loves me, he tells me so and I believe him. I am his world and he is mine (along with our daughter). He has never stopped me going anywhere or doing anything. The only reason I consult him on my plans is just to make sure he doesn't already have something planned himself - that is a common courtesy.

I never have to build up courage to ask if I can go out to do something, or give him notice or ask permission.

That is how adult relationships work. NO-ONE tells me I 'can't' do something, not even my beloved.

Your husband's desire to control you isn't born out of love, it's his fear and inadequacy. You aren't his puppet, you are a human being and you are entitled to do what you want, how you want, with whom you want and when you want.

Good luck OP, take that first step to freedom x

Thank you again, yes I know NettleTea. I dont think he is a bad person. I just think he is a control freak and that has extended to me.

I am free when I am in work, I am the person I used to be. No-one knows my husband. When I do see my family, he controls all the conversations. I am not given the chance to speak.

My family do know about this, but perhaps not the extent. When I ask my mum about my OH and me and our relationship. She says that she likes my OH but that I used to be the life and sole, and that she misses that.

You are trained.

I have a friend in a nearly identical situation. She feels guilty about leaving in exactly the way you do. She has figured out that he needs her more than she needs him. Considering how she is treated, there should be no guilt, only anger or exasperation, but she discounts her own needs as if they weren't there. He has trained her to do that by repetition of abuse and control.

chemistc,

What would you honestly think if you were reading your posts about someone else, would it not be screaming at you how very wrong this is?

He has allowed you to have your own car - you have to ask permission to go out with friends. He doesn't have the right to dictate what you do, where you work or what you wear.

I've been where you are, didn't take advice and get out until it was too late, I don't want to frighten you but when I crossed him and tried to move out I ended up in hospital for nearly 4 months, the Police called it attempted murder. If there had been a Mumsnet at the time, it might not have happened.

Please get yourself out of this controlling, totally abusive relationship.

Yes I would probably agree with that dadwood.

You work, he does not. He allowed you to have a car? Well, pat him on the back. He would like to microchip you? Like a pet he owns? You work, come home and then cook? While he has been, what, playing games? You have to get permission to go out, get your hair cut, nails done? He does not own you! Ditch him. But please take heed of Ithought's post.

Well the control is HIS problem, but he is destroying you with it, rather than dealing with it and getting a grip on himself.
The fact that you say you have been to relate, etc suggests that it isn't a problem that he recognises as such, so he is not going to change, in fact statistics tend to show that this kind of abuse increases rather than decreases, so you may find that he makes suggestions that will make you less able to escape and more dependant - a baby perhaps, and then encouraged to stay at home, while your world shrinks smaller and smaller and you dare not breathe without his say so.
He has trained you to think that you are responsible for his emotions and well being, because that means you won't do anything to upset him, certainly not leave. You already fear asking him for permission to do things that, in a normal relationship, would not even require a thought.
If you really want to help him, to give him a chance to change, then leave him. It's the biggest favour you could do him. IF ( and it's an if I don't believe personally, but there's a tiny chanch) IF it's just because he is horribly insecure he may take the chance to look into himself and get himself off to councilling to deal with his deep seated issues, which would enable him to have a decent relationship in the future. Not with you though, you have been together too long, and the dynamics of your relationship are already set in stone and habit - any good work of councilling would be undone as you would too easily fall back into the known routine. But with someone new, he could have the chance of happiness.
But if, as I fear, he is just an awful controlling, misogygenistic abuser, then he will rant and rage for a while, try to contact you with pleading, tears, suicide threats(not real) offers to change, the full gamut of emotions, to try to draw you back in. And then pick up with his next victim. Which is why ou need some legal support to go no contact. You have no children, and you have the offer of a job in another area. You have no reason to experience the guilt he will try to lay at your feet, so run, run like the wind.

Good! Stop minimizing this abuse!

Oh believe me NettleTea, there is no way on this Earth that I would have a child with him. I would never allow another person to live through what I do. I can only imagine it would be ten times worse with his child. I could not put anyone through that.