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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

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?

OP posts:
springydaffs · 02/04/2015 12:42

Right.

He has disempowered you, Wait. He has taken all your power away. Systematically, over many years. So now you believe you have no power, not even to work hard. Not true, Tis all a lie. You have worked very, very hard keeping him sweet... with zero reward. So you came to believe even your hard work was useless, of no worth.

All lies

StaceyAndTracey · 02/04/2015 13:19

You are not putting your faith in a book

You are thinking . And reading revelant information . Thinking is good.

Working out what you want, how you feel, it's all good .

Previously it was all about him - what he wanted you to do or not do, how you should act, when you should smile. You don't even get to choose what you do with your own face

You're not an actor in a play, with a director telling you how to read the lines someome else has written and how to sit in the chair . This is YOUR LIFE

chocolatefingersandtoes · 02/04/2015 13:27

God, this man is so, so bloody entitled it makes my blood boil!Angry You get treated nicely when you treat others nicely. Christ OP, what does he expect! I don't know how you can bear it, he is so awful!!Sad

StaceyAndTracey · 02/04/2015 13:36

I am laughing at chocolates post.

I know it's not mean to be funny . It's because I can hear Wait thinking ......

" oh no chocolate, that not fair. You are reading too much into a small thing. He's not a monster, he can be really lovely , I bet you would like him if you met him . It's just me, I'm over reacting , I should have been nicer to him. I don't really mind taking him a coffee, it's just a little thing to do for him and he works so hard . He's right that I'm lazy "

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 13:44

Ha!! Rumbled there Stacey.

OP posts:
Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 13:48

He's doing injured poor man now. Being very
Nice from a slight distance
Because of course his wife is crazy today.
It's alarming I can see it... But I cant see it too.
My brain is melting

I have to sit in a car for five hours with him now. From 3pm. As we travel to the back of beyond to visit daughter at uni.
I can do five hours of quiet.
I cannot do five hours of any shouting.
The only time I have briefly thought the only way to stop him shouting is to kill myself was in a car when I thought I have to jump out to make him stop.
You bet my rational head is somewhat nervous he will get me to that point again.

OP posts:
pocketsaviour · 02/04/2015 13:52

Tell him you're very tired and pretend to be asleep in the car?

chocolatefingersandtoes · 02/04/2015 13:52

I don't know what advice to give you OP, perhaps tell him you are not feeling well and would like some quiet if he starts ramping it up...this will test your detaching skills like they've never been tested before! Remember no tears or emotions, he thrives on that shit!

StaceyAndTracey · 02/04/2015 13:59

Can you sit in the back because you feel sick / have a migraine ?

Wear earphones and listen to music/podcasts?

Wear foam earplugs ?

Whatever happens , You do not need to jump out the car . You can pretend to vomit and he will almost certainly stop the car . Preferably at the sevice area and not on the hard shoulder as it's very dangerous .

Tell him your period has stated and you will bleed all over the seat

Tell him you have the runs . Anything.

Never EVER think of jumping out the car.

What woudl happen if you just said that you have a tummy bug so won't be going to visit DDd this time? Could you catch a bus or train tomorrow to see her instead ?

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 14:39

He will happily leave me here and take the others. But then both they and I would be miserable without each other.
Yes. Ear phones. Sleep. No emotions. Got it.
Thanks ladies. This is a lot of handholding and you have no idea how much it means.

OP posts:
springydaffs · 02/04/2015 15:03

One minute to go! I'll pray for you if that helps at all
Now it's one minute past - took me 2 minutes to pray Grin

You could tell him to stfu because he's boring?

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 15:21

Ha. I could. But the kids will hear.
That's why I get to the point where I just need to make him stop

Can I offer advice to anyone else btw --get your kids to pick a uni nearer home or with good transport links!!! Wink five hours one way in a car would surely search most relationships....!

OP posts:
Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 15:33

*stretch even!

OP posts:
StaceyAndTracey · 02/04/2015 15:44

I hope it's going ok Wait

I am shocked that your Dh treats you like this with the kids in the car !! He shouts at you for hours !!! I wonder what your kids are learning about how a man should treat a woman ?

I had assumed that the two of you were travelling alone

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 02/04/2015 17:58

Well we made it to the bridge to Wales before he had a dig or two. I have nearly bitten my tongue in two.

I wouldn't travel by myself with him at the moment. I try not to give him to big an opportunity or gap to have a go.
He does tame it down with the kids here... Yes I know that's not good enough.
I was just listening to him talk his friend on the phone about trips/car drives they are off on. I felt a pang of the life/lifestyle I'm contemplating giving up...
But then he said something horrible and reminded me this is pretty shit ..

OP posts:
ladygoingGaga · 02/04/2015 23:05

You are not giving up on anything, you are fighting to be happy, learning what makes you tick, what makes you happy, the first step in that journey is removing what is making you unhappy.

Feeling numb is common, you have such a mix of emotion I don't think we can process it all, but somehow it just feels right in your tummy, keep going OP.
As others have said, you don't realise just how strong you are now, we go through a grieving process at the end of a relationship, we have lost our hopes and dreams we had.

His behaviour is appalling, but once he realises that sulking and ignoring won't work be prepared for a change of tact.

springydaffs · 03/04/2015 01:37

I think it's natural to count the cost, to weigh up the life you could lose and to be sad about that, feel the loss.

Btw you mentioned upthread about feeling jealous. Although I had never been jealous before or since, I was insanely jealous when I was married to my abusive ex - it was a big problem, really overshadowed my life (eg at one point I had to take a week off work because of it. See how they torture us!). It's only now I'm out of it that I can see he consciously made me jealous as yet another ploy to keep me diminished and on the back foot.

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 03/04/2015 06:58

Springy - thank you. I have started to look at my jealousy... I think I am desperate to be noticed by him and be the important one so when it's someone else ... I don't handle it well. I'm still also looking for the 'logical' explanation to his behaviour, and another woman would be a good one. Pretty sure there isn't a particular other woman however.
Yes -grief sounds like a explanation of how I feel. It's killing me it's so all encompassing right now.

OP posts:
queenoftheknight · 03/04/2015 10:52

See if you can find the "teddy bear" stuff in the Patricia Evans books.....that gives an insight on this.

queenoftheknight · 03/04/2015 11:05

Once I understood this, I realised that it made me almost psychic. However he made me feel, was in fact, how he felt. Everything is projected onto the controlled partner.

They project so, so much, and once you get that, it is frighteningly empowering.

queenoftheknight · 03/04/2015 11:10

Another example.....

nomoreverbalabuse.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/teddy-check.html

Original poster
WaitWhatOh · 03/04/2015 15:08

Yes. I can see that and how that works. I'm a bad teddy bear then as I'm never quite sure of the mood.
Today I have decided to leave. To stay. To leave. To stay because of the kids. To leave. To stay ...
My head is all over the place.
He has constantly sniped at me twisted everything I said and sneered at me in front of others.
Yet he has also agreed with me on where to go walk wise, and happily booked my choice of restaurant. -not usual.
I watch him with the others and he's funny and chatty. It doesn't matter what I do or say - he's not like that with me. Which brings me back to - it IS me. I am toxic to him, I bring out his nasty side his snarling comments.
This is the first time for ages I've felt like I should just go away. That everyone, him,the kids, the big kids, would be happier if I left. I am the problem.

OP posts:
arowhena · 03/04/2015 15:27

Saying "I bring out his nasty side" is still owning some of the responsibility for his behaviour imo. You should be thinking instead, "He chooses to show only me his nasty side" because you don't deserve it or provoke it, you're just unlucky. You're not the problem, the situation is problematic. If you remove yourself you'll find that you bring out the best in other less damaged people, and that they do the same for you ((wait)).

Anniegetyourgun · 03/04/2015 15:30

You're not, though - really you're not. You don't want to leave them to his tender mercies, to learn how to treat a partner the way he has treated you. And you know they'd miss you about as much as you'd miss them, ie A LOT.

Also, it's easy to be funny and chatty for a little while with people who you don't see very often. Behind closed doors it's a different story. If it was anyone else but you, if it was a friend, heaven forbid it was your daughter, you'd know the truth. In the very darkest centre of the wood, though, all the trees get in the way...