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Relationships

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

How to fix me...

903 replies

WaitWhatOh · 08/03/2015 17:46

I don't know where to start, except I know I need to say something or go crazy overthinking. I am struggling massively and pretending it's all fine. I feel so very very unimportant and somewhere around priority 257 on everyone's list. I know -how fucking needy I sound/am. DH is very busy. Works hard, always on the phone even on evenings/days off. Very stressed very important. Kind of pat me on the head attitude towards me. He's far too busy to do much with me, he is home only to work from home or sleep or eat. so I threw myself into activities and hobbies. Trying to keep busy but feeling desperately lonely underneath. Occasionally I attempt to say how I feel and get caught up in some row that always ends up being my fault and me apologising. That man can seriously sulk!! Today he gave me the lecture about being so needy, insecure and 'fucking mental' I needed to hear it apparently. :(
Despite thinking he's an arse for speaking to me quite like that I know he has a point. I am lonely I do want to spend more time with him and I do wish I was fabulously important to him and top of his list some days. What a shallow needy creature I am. What do I do... How do I feel better? how do I fix me?

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WaitWhatOh · 27/03/2015 18:01

The whole world is having a lovely day. Fresh air sunshine and laughing. And yet it stops when I come home. I can't handle it. I know I shall break. I know I will take his olive branch and just make my life easier any day now.

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WaitWhatOh · 27/03/2015 18:43

Nothing back from FP yet. I know they are only funded to be open some days tho.
A message from the counselling people to call them back. Now just the time and nerve to call them. I honestly can hold my own in lots of areas in life.

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CharlotteCollins · 27/03/2015 19:36

Hi, OP. I've been reading through your thread for the past few days - there's a lot that is very familiar to me. I'm another one who's been where you are and eventually made the decision to get out.

First thing I want to say is to reassure you that there is no fixed way through all this. There is no right or wrong path. You steer your own ship; you make your own decisions.

FWIW, I think taking the olive branch and making your life easier is a good idea. Reading through, I have been in awe of your strength the past few weeks. You've got out of a night out with him that you didn't want; you've gone to the GP and told him about it; you've told him about what you've been learning and tried to open his eyes to what he is doing.

And his reactions to what you've done tell you a lot about him, don't they? Just the thing that you just said: "I know I shall break." Isn't it awful that that is indeed what he wants you to do? What kind of a partner is he?

Anyway, you have a lot to process, you know that, and whatever the future may hold, you're not thinking about leaving at the moment. Absolutely understandable. Your decision, in any case. So give yourself that time to think, release yourself from the sustained attack you're experiencing.

Act the person you've always been in the past: hold out the olive branch, do what you gotta do. And through everything that happens for the next few weeks, detach and watch it as though you're outside the situation. Keep a diary so that you don't sweep things under the carpet. Play along and pretend everything's ok. It doesn't mean you're a failure; it means you're a fighter.

You know the big thing you need to do is build up strength. This is a great way to do it.

WaitWhatOh · 27/03/2015 23:08

Thank you Charlotte. That's a much needed bunch of words. Really helped. Thank you.
I know he thinks I'm taking the olive branch ... Mutual friends are taking us out tomorrow (arranged ages ago) and when he texted to see if I still wanted to go he knew my easy option was to say yes. -no means another row, him explaining something to the friends, him hating lying to friends, turning that to me etc etc. So I've said yes I did it for all the reasons you just said. It was to make it easier for me. Not him. That's what's changed.
I don't believe a word he says anymore either. That's chsnged. Perhaps its tiny steps that help make me a better person who is happier with or without him.
I'm so sad there's no change in him or his patterns. Still hoping to get to the counselling and maybe the FP too. See what they teach me. That's good right?
Hate feeling so hollow Sad hard to mentally snap out of it.

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CharlotteCollins · 28/03/2015 09:54

to make it easier for me. Not him. That's what's changed.

That's a brilliant summary. I never thought of it like that before. To him, it looks the same, but it's very different.

It is very hard, wanting him to change and not being able to make it happen. I wasted a lot of time trying with my then H, believing of I could find the right way of saying it, he would listen, whatever wise MNers were saying to me! Of course, it wasn't wasted time, really, because it helped me see I was just doing what I'd always done: believing I could fix us if I found the magic formula. I also realised then how little he listened to me.

As had been said before on this thread, one way to identify an abuser is to see how they react when you call them abusive. A normal person will question themselves, and fell concern for the loved one who made the accusation. The abusive mentality is defensive and unquestioning and will most likely shoot the accusation straight back again: "Actually it's you who's abusive."

I think you have a copy of St Lundy's great book? My advice is: never show him either that book or this thread. Both can be a source of strength as long as he can't sabotage it.

And do, amongst the inevitable hollow feelings, try to draw strength from the fact that others have been through this and that we believe in you. Flowers

WaitWhatOh · 28/03/2015 23:09

Thank you. It's been a long day. He has switched from sulking to not to sulking. You can tell now -at 11pm- I have done 'something' to annoy him. I won't let myself go over the evening to figure out what. I give up on that.... Seeing as twenty minutes ago he was laughing with our friends I prob can't even begin to guess Sad
Goodnight ladies and thankyou for your support. X

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springydaffs · 29/03/2015 00:48

Absolutely do what's easiest for you. You know what you know now, you can't put it back in the box.

It's hard not to hope, that takes a while to die off. But keep up with the info yes? Knowledge really is power in this instance, it's what gradually tips the scales - but do keep on it.

Well done for not second-guessing what the sulk is about. Actually, it has nothing to do with you, what you have and haven't done; it is to control you, keep you off balance and miserable.

Disappointing that FP haven't got back to you. Have you checked the address? My FP group has a mobile number, texts picked up after a few days. Even if your email wasn't clear, you should still have had an acknowledgement of some kind.

Keep going Wait, you're doing so well - you've come a long way quickly. Go easy on yourself, facing this stuff is hard. These are hard days but they do pass as you pass through.

WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 07:26

Anything else I can read?

When ' not sulking' he left up lots of help pages he'd apparently even looking at on my computer. How he can stop drinking cure stress etc. The old me would have been touched he was making an effort. NOW I realised he has two computers of his own so no real reason to use mine, and had only left this search on mine to sucker me in. Did he stop or attempt to stop drinking last night? No of course not.
It's almost childlike.

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WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 10:45

Help. Can't find the strength to handle it today. He's comp blanked me. I'm acting like I really don't care but I'm soooo sick inside today. I feel like I need instructions to put one foot in front of the other. I hate hate hate this.

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arowhena · 29/03/2015 11:11

Can you go out for a walk somewhere?

WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 11:20

Thank you. Yes. Heading out for a lunch and walk.
Found out what I did wrong I said he snores - he does but I shouldn't have said so apparently -
That's crackers. Sad

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arowhena · 29/03/2015 12:13

You fool - his highness does not snore! It was a passing warthog on a motorbike outside. Hope the weather is OK for your walk - although it sounds rainy enough indoors tbh!

CharlotteCollins · 29/03/2015 14:03

Hope lunch and walk were both good and have given you a bit of a breather from the relentlessness of him!

You are seeing through him well - the leaving of pages on your computer. Hmm

Re stuff to read, have you seen the links at the top of the emotional abuse support thread?

pocketsaviour · 29/03/2015 14:09

Might be worth passwording your computer? Especially if its the one you use to access mumsnet.

DollyTwat · 29/03/2015 14:29

I was chatting with two friends this morning about our past abusive relationships. One (of the many) things they had in common was they have to put someone down to feel big, no sense of humour at all. My exdh wouldn't laugh if you threw a snowball at him, that kind of thing

So even though you might have been having a laugh like a normal person about snoring, he hasnt found it funny

Must be exhausting being him

WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 19:11

Slight revelation for him today.
Questions from him- was I being mean about snoring?
(No)
Was I making him look the fool to get my own back?
(No)
Do I love him?
(Yes)
Do you? Oh good that's nice to hear.
(Yes. But you can love someone and not be with them. You can love someone and decide to leave them/live a thousand miles away.)
That made him stop going on. I wonder if he 'hears' me.
I did say if the snoring comment had upset him he could have handled it like a grown up and SAID something. Storming off to bed and sulking was childish and I wasn't playing mind games anymore.
I meant every word and found I wasn't crying or shouting or feeling anything very much when I was saying it. That's new- I cry far far far too easily.
He's apparently going to the Drs next week tho that makes him 'sick with fear' because he knows he is obviously unhappy. It's okay tho he knows what it is. Its work stress. ( is it hell) once he has made a million/got new staff/worked on his stress/etc he will be fine.
I think I've not only heard it all before but I can find the page where Ive read it all before. It's not him - it's me. Or work. Or stress. Or money. Or staff. Or me (again)
I hope he goes to the Drs I hope by some miracle he like the Dr and by some bigger miracle the Dr sees a chink in his armour.

I feel like a piece of my caring about him dies every time he repeats something he has no idea Lundy Bancroft has said before him.

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WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 19:14

Btw I only access mumsnet on my phone on private browsing. I am a little more apple/safari savvy than him too.

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CharlotteCollins · 29/03/2015 19:58

every time he repeats something he has no idea Lundy Bancroft has said before him

Grin

Great post. You have the measure of him, Wait.

In the very unlikely event that he listens when the dr says something he needs to hear, his defence mechanisms will kick in and he'll soon revert to self-justification, excuses and blaming you. But I don't think that'd come as a huge shock to you now.

WaitWhatOh · 29/03/2015 20:37

I must be brave or stupid tonight. Perhaps I'm fairly close to both. As he just started again with his plan of change and action I told him to shhhh. Tell me when you have done it. Otherwise I think I've heard it before.
I doubt I can keep on talking like this without some backlash but he has at least heard me today.

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FantasticButtocks · 29/03/2015 20:58

Well done! Wine

springydaffs · 30/03/2015 00:05

Wow! You're cracking along Wait. So good to hear [bravo]

If the GP does find a chink he will berate how crap they are. No, all he wants to hear is his completely fucked world view validated. He will have zero tolerance for anything that doesn't line up with it.

Re literature - if you look on the Bancroft Amazon page there will be suggested reading at the bottom of the page. There is SO MUCH literature on this these days - back when I was going through it there was hardly anything around. A book that helped me was Men Who Hate Women (and the women who love them) by Susan Forward I think? Ancient book, though - things have moved on a lot since then - but it's still a seminal book in the DA canon.

arowhena · 30/03/2015 00:15

Oh good for you Wait! Damn right he needs to shush and stop hoovering. Unless it's literal hoovering of course.

springydaffs · 30/03/2015 10:05

Were you making him look like a fool to get your own back?

NO. BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT LIKE HIM

queenoftheknight · 30/03/2015 14:23

There are a squillion books. I found the Patricia Evans books useful at the beginning of my journey, because I wanted to know why.

I also found Adam Jukes interesting, but have suspicions. Latterly, the books on boundaries, and books by Donald Dutton.

The ones that have the "look inside" options are good, as you can choose the ones that speak to you, where you are now.

They do need to feel like they have "won", or "beaten" someone. It is an indication of how awful they know they are.

WaitWhatOh · 30/03/2015 21:15

It's always a two steps back kind of feeling here. Some times I feel like I am so numb he just bounces off and sometimes I feel he's really trying to work out how he can help/be better. Other days I just feel a lot like stupid garbage he stepped over. I repeat myself a lot and he swears blind I never said whatever it is before. He gets furious if I insist no I really DID tell him this or that. That's the biggest thing right now the fact I am never listened to and often appointments or dates or things that need doing get missed or cause problems because he never heard me the first time. I am the invisible woman unless I'm being stupid or of course being made up to.
It's the invisible part that really will send me crackers.

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