Feeling sick. Abusive “ex” and his wife and child have moved to my small home town. What happens if I “speak out”?

[LundyBancroftwasworththeread]

I had a very brief “relationship” with this man at University many years ago. (I use inverted commas because it was very short-lived; around two months and we never actually went on a date, just visited each other a lot in halls of residence). He was emotionally abusive from the start although I didn’t recognise this until I discovered mumsnet a few years ago. He did a huge amount of damage in that very short time.

After we broke up (he ended it) he treated me with absolute contempt while I was desperate for us to get on as we lived next door to each other and were part of the same social circle. There were so many occasions when I bent over backwards to be friendly while he treated me as being unworthy of even the most basic respect. It was the most awful year of my life and it took me years to feel I’d properly got over it.

After not giving this man a second thought for ages now, I have just found out that he is living in my small home town with his wife (who I also knew) and young child. I have woken up every day since finding out feeling sick to my stomach at the thought I might run into him/them or find out that he has become friends with people I know. I thought this feeling might fade but it has been almost a month and I am not feeling much better.

The only way I feel I can deal with this is by being completely open and honest about the situation with people. I don’t want to be sitting in a restaurant and not be able to explain why I have suddenly gone quiet and started shaking were he to walk in or why I need to leave somewhere quickly if I have to. I don’t want to have the whole traumatic conversation with people under such conditions; I’d rather they were up to speed on the basics so I can just say “he’s here” and they’ll understand what that means for me. I have started telling people already and it has definitely helped and I now have some real life support but at the same time I am incredibly uneasy about the situation as this was something I didn’t ever intend to discuss with anyone other than those closest to me.

My main issue now is how to behave if or more likely when I bump into him/them? I can’t very well be civil when I’m going around telling people that this man is an abuser. And the last time I saw him I was falling over myself to be friendly and I worry that if he were to approach me he would be expecting the same. I don’t want him to come anywhere near me and I don’t want to so much as even have to acknowledge him if I pass him on the street but he won’t know this and may try to approach me any way. I would be ok with telling him I don't want to have to so much as acknowledge him and the reason for this if I came across him on his own but this would be totally inappropriate if he had his child with him or something. I can’t avoid him forever either and even if I could, it would eventually get back to him/them that I have been telling people about the abuse. I am worried what will happen when they find out. Should I write to him to make him aware of what I am saying? He will find out somehow someday any way. I am just feeling totally lost at the moment. Please could someone offer some advice?

Nobody is saying you should be "silenced" at all. But neither should you be going in all guns blazing and telling everyone either. From what you've said, he's not approached you or attempted to bully or manipulate you. You don't have to "pretend it didn't happen or it wasn't a big deal." But neither is it appropriate to shout it to the rooftops.

I feel like the problem would be solved over night if I was just allowed to say "he did this to me and it wasn't my fault"; to my friends and family and to him.

And this is exactly why so many are saying you need counselling to deal with this. You are looking for validation and confirmation that he was an arse. Everyone on here has agreed with you, you know he was an arse... you know he treated you badly.

But OP, if you are thinking that you can confront him and he will confess to being shitty and he will feel guilty about it... you are going to be disappointed. He will most likely deny it, say you're crazy and obsessed to to bring up a 2 month relationship after all these years, and tell you to go away. Then he will tell everyone you're crazy and obsessed over him.

I could easily "out" my ex on FB or in person to a number of people with proof of his abuse and his horrible behaviour, but what would be the point? It's not going to make me feel better about myself. I have to do that by myself - and counselling helped that immensely. I've had to come to terms with the idea that 1-I'm never going to hear him say "you're right, I was awful, I'm sorry." and 2-I'm never even going to get him to understand that his behaviour was wrong. So I focus on my life and my dcs, and I detach from him and his behaviour.

You need counselling because you obviously have struggled with how this relationship affected you and you need to come to terms with it. Outing him as an abusive wanker will not help you in the long run - coming to terms with it and getting help in moving on will help you much more.

Excellent post by Alice.

The trouble is that other people don't respond in the ideal way.
Different situation but I had a problem with harassment from someone where I used to work, it ended up with the police being involved as management wouldn't deal with it effectively. The police took it seriously enough to come in and talk to management and the person involved (shows how serious it was!) and I got an "apology" and a promise that it would discontinue. The harasser told everyone that I had called the police because of being called a few names. As if they would have come for that! (Not racist or hate speech, and it was over 20 years ago anyway) but still, do you know, they believed that.

Trust me, not being believed is WAY worse than not feeling able to say anything - the sheer injustice of it burns far more, IME.

It was two months!!!! Two! 8 weeks! 60 odd days. What the merry fuck is everyone on?

Two months over a decade ago, in a "relationship" she didn't even realise was abusive until she read mumsnet relationship board and feminist blogs. This is quite honestly the most bizarre shit I've ever read

I do hugely sympathise with the very difficult situation you are in, but going around telling a lot of people in a small town that a particular person is an abuser could backfire on you very messily.

Unless you are able to prove what you are alleging, he could accuse you of slander. If you make any of these allegations in writing, he could take action against you for libel. Not that I don't believe you - I do - but sometimes discretion is called for and perhaps the fact that someone was an utter git and nasty piece of work many many years ago is insufficient justification for you potentially damaging his current reputation and networks.

You probably need more counselling - once you are properly over him he won't have this power over you any more. Remember that you aren't the same person you were back then and in all probability neither is he.

Dealing with seeing him

My advice is to take a deep breath and remove yourself from the situation. I think it would be worth talking through some other options on here. I think, should he speak to you, it would be perfectly reasonable to say, "actually I'm not going to talk to you. How you behaved wasn't ok".

Not being silenced

I think you should direct your energies in to protest and supporting survivors, rather than making this very personal towards him.

georgepig I'm not quite sure how that comment was meant to be helpful. Yes, it was two months, over a decade ago. Yes, circumstances are not the norm. But the OP feels how she feels. She is entitled to feel badly over it. Most of us are simply encouraging her to focus on some counselling to deal with how she feels about it and how she deals with it. Is that really that big a stretch for you?

Loads of people do not realise that the relationship they are in is abusive in nature, particularly if it's mostly emotional abuse and especially if they have had abusive situations in the past, such as in childhood with EA parents or in previous relationships. It becomes a pattern that they don't understand and often cannot break, until they come to the realisation that there is abuse involved and get help in breaking that pattern.

If this is all too much for you, perhaps try another thread, rather than attempting to make the OP feel shitty, eh?

I won't repeat my previous post but really, get some decent therapy to help you step out of the victim role that only you are keeping you in.

Hmm, or maybe people could stop enabling this pity party?

Yes, emotional abuse must be awful and I agree with your second paragraph whole heartedly. But....
IT WAS TWO MONTHS!!!!!!!
Over 10 years ago.

How does berating her help?

HOW? Seriously? YOu post to berate the OP that the duration of the relationship was 2 months. No understanding at all of the complexities of the relationships with mutual friends, feelings of being betreayed / let down by mutual friends etc..

Well if she did go to a psychotherapist the therapist would get that that's not the point is. The point is she allowed herself to tolerate it, it badly effected her self-esteem and she can completely let it go.

georgepigsdinosaur, I got told off by MN for my posts! Just sayin'!

OP, even if your story was on the front of the local newspaper with a picture of him entitled "utter abusing bastard" it wouldn't make a hot of difference because you're looking for external validation and what you need is to sort out how you're framing this internally because it's abnormal and atypical, and THAT'S why there's a universal suggestion of counselling.
By looking for agreement with your point of view, you risk facing the very distinct possibility that a lot of people will think "so what?"

For some reason which a decent counsellor will unpick fairly quickly, you are choosing to define yourself as his victim, as a woman wronged and silenced.
OP you can make other choices. You have that power, don't give it away.

and I felt happy and didn't think about him smile. I even laughed quite a lot.

And
feel I can't go out locally until I have decided on how I'm going to approach this.

But
i don't feel I need counselling

OP why do you think that?

The only way I feel I can deal with this is by being completely open and honest about the situation with people. I don’t want to be sitting in a restaurant and not be able to explain why I have suddenly gone quiet and started shaking were he to walk in or why I need to leave somewhere quickly if I have to. I don’t want to have the whole traumatic conversation with people under such conditions; I’d rather they were up to speed on the basics so I can just say “he’s here” and they’ll understand what that means for me.

And this is an 18/19 year old kid you tried hard to get along with for the rest of the uni year after he shagged you for eight weeks, said some weird and cruel stuff that you can't let go of, and then dumped you?

And you didn't even realise it was emotional abuse until after you started reading MN and some feminist blogs and now you might have an emotional breakdown on the spot if you are in the CO OP and he walks in, yet you claim to not have given him a second thought for a few years...

There is barely a woman alive who hasn't had a bad experience with a horrible guy at some point when she first starts exploring relationships. In the nicest possible way you really, really need to get a grip. You are sounding like a neurotic Catastrophiser of the highest order. People's eyes will be rolling so far back in their heads if you go around 'bringing them up to speed' on your history with this man, just in case, that you'll become a total, total laughing stock.

Are you aware of suffering from any mental health issues at the moment or struggling with very low self esteem or symptoms that may point towards a personality disorder? If not then I think it might be very useful to explore that possibility.

You seem to have a bit of a problem with perspective and scale.

OP said she has had counselling before and didn't find it beneficial, because clearly the type she had didn't suit her. So she's reluctant to do it again because it was ineffective.

What OP needs to do is find a different sort of counselling, which is why I suggested she looks into PTSD counselling.

Thumbwitch she says she doesn't need it.

I think she does…...

I do think you need to try a different type of counselling, and find something that works for you because he should not have this power over you after all this time.

I'm drawn to your comment that you don't realise when friends are upset. Do you maybe think emotions have to be big and spelt out in bold or they aren't valid?

How about feigning indifference until you make it? You don't have to tell everyone you know everything about him, as I feel you won't get the validation or solution you want/need because people either feed the drama or run from it.

Lundy how did you find out he's moved to your town? How big is the town, and how far away does he live?

I think its about perspectives. You see him as being emotionally abusive. He might see it as being cruel to be kind by blanking you. Or he could have been just cruel to blatantly let you know you guys aren't getting back together and you are being stalkerish.

If you start telling people the past and now he's a decent guy to everyone, they are going to believe his version vs. yours.

Telling people that you guys were in a short relationship and it didn't end well could be just enough. People understand that not all relationships end up well and they go on to be friends.

I find the comparisons with rape on this thread disturbing and upsetting. A massive dose of perspective is needed.

OP, with reference to your comments about emotional abuse becoming illegal, it's actually coercive control. Here's some more detail.
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11244275/New-domestic-violence-law-will-outlaw-coercive-control.html]

Sweetheart from everything you've said, this isn't what he did. Or even could have done given the time you were together and which involved just one date.
But his ghost controls you now, and that's nothing to do with his coercion.
I do wonder whether the blogs you're reading are in any way helpful as they seem to enable you to stay in a "victim" mentality when you could choose something else.

The man you knew sixteen years ago may not be the man he is now, which could mean your pre-emptive strikes could backfire if people start judging you, instead of him. So what if you shake, collapse into a puddle of your own tears and/or bolt the minute you clap eyes on him, you are ALLOWED!

You're trying to convince the wrong people, the only person who needs to understand what happened to you, is you. Looking for external validation will result in disappointment, look at the polar reactions you've received on this thread so far. Posters are repeatedly screaming counselling because that can be a safe non judgemental environment to air your fears and unfortunately you haven't yet had the right mix of therapist and therapy. Despite your tough talk, theres obviously still a vulnerable little girl inside who was never heard and you really should start a dialogue with her.

Nearly five years ago my Ex tried to kill me in front of DD, I will never ever forgive him for making her see that but I will not let the act of a pathetic man define her childhood or my present and future.

Be kind to yourself.

It wasn't just one date. I saw him 3 to 4 times a week every week for two months so between 24 and 32 times we were alone together and there was emotional abuse on almost every single one of these occasions (there was no real nice/abusive cycle; he was abusive 95% of the time unless he had just made me cry at which point he would become nice). And just because I didn't have a label for his behaviour at the time doesn't mean I didn't find it hugely upsetting when it was happening. It wasn't like this was some happy experience that didn't cause me any issues until one day I read a mumsnet thread. I haven't gone into the details so far because I didn't want the initial post to be too long and I also thought most mumsnetters would be up to speed on what emotional abuse consists of. And then people advised me not to give too much information since some people were being unhelpful. But I will give some more examples now since some people seem to think the fact I haven't described the abuse means it didn't actually happen.

He would twist my words and make out I'd said things I'd never said and then get angry at me for allegedly having said them. He would go on and on about this girl on his course that he would pretend I was jealous of (I wasn't jealous of her) and make me have to keep insisting that I wasn't jealous of her. When I once mentioned her by name when he hadn't been talking about her he took this as proof I was clearly only pretending I wasn't jealous of her and just would not drop the subject. He would get angry at me for asking pretty much anything at all to the extent that I spent hours and hours lying in bed trying to work out how to phrase questions like "can I see you this weekend" without setting him off. I never found a way that didn't set him off. He would deny certain conversations ever took place and then refer to them a few days later without batting an eyelid when bringing the information up suited his purposes (I could never figure out why I found this so upsetting until I realised it was a thing with a name - gas-lighting obviously). He would call in unannounced despite me repeatedly asking him not to call in unannounced, so I didn't feel I could just not see him if I didn't want to. He cancelled at the very last minute pretty much every time I tried to arrange for us to spend some time together in advance when it was too late to change my plans and I’d spent time getting ready and then if I expressed disappointment that I wasn't going to get to see him this would set him off. And then there was the headboard incident (although he had his meltdown after we'd finished; it wasn't during sex; he was not sexually abusive). There are more things too but I think you get the gist and obviously a lot of what was horrible were the specific things he said in his rants that I'm not going to go into. I think it was essentially two months of intensive conditioning to associate this person with a massive amount of stress and anxiety and this stress and anxiety has just never gone away. There was literally nothing that I could say or do that didn't provoke an angry reaction. Someone mentioned the word "trigger" upthread and I think that describes it well. My heart rate seems to go from normal to insane as soon as I think he might be nearby and while counselling might ultimately help me bring it back down to normal again sooner than it might have happened of its own accord I'm just not sure this immediate response is ever going to be breakable; it's instinctive.

I would also point out that I'm unusual in that I grew up in a house that was pretty much without arguments and my parents never really gave me rows - they dealt with things differently. I've also never had a falling out with a friend in my adult life and arguments with boyfriends have been incredibly rare. I'd say that 95% of the arguments I've had in my adult life took place within that short two month period which is probably what made it so traumatic (although to be fair they weren't really arguments, just him ranting at me over and over again and me trying to explain myself and calm him down).

I don't feel I need validation; I know this was abuse without a shadow of a doubt and I'm not planning on going around telling strangers about it. I only want to tell my friends and family and I don't have any concerns at all that people won't believe me. I don't have a reputation for being dishonest, petty or vindictive and I've almost never said a bad word about any man I've been involved with to any degree. I know I will be believed.

I'm not planning on going into the details. I just want to say "I was in a very brief but abusive relationship with this person a long time ago and while he wasn't violent or sexually abusive I still feel a huge amount of anxiety if I see him. I don't want to talk about this particularly but I do want you to know what's going on if I suddenly start shaking". If I contact him I'm not expecting him to admit he was abusive or offer any sort of apology and I don't feel I need this from him. I just want to tell him calmly that I now realise he was abusive during our very short time together and for that reason I am unable to feign civility.

Re the point about rape, I have nowhere said that I think emotional abuse is as bad as rape. The point I was making is that abuse of any kind isn't necessarily no big deal just because it was over quickly or was a long time ago. These things can leave scars and each person's reaction is different. Incidentally, I have actually been in a relationship where someone pushed me into doing things I didn't want to do sexually (not rape) despite me making it repeatedly clear that I didn't want to do them (it was always in situations where I was unable to physically get away from him). It made me lose all respect for the man involved but I didn't find it especially traumatic and it has certainly never affected me in the way the emotional abuse I have just written about has affected me despite the fact that most people would probably agree that the sexual thing was, on paper, the more serious incident. People react differently to different things.

Why not try believing that, if and when you actually see this man again, you will see an uninteresting, unimportant middle-aged man going about his uninteresting, unimportant business, and wonder what on earth you were so frightened of? That will help you feel better now, much more than focussing on 'not being silenced'. Telling your friends you might start shaking or have to flee the room is, TBH, going to make you look fairly attention-seeking and juvenile if you put it in such hugely dramatic terms - saying to a trusted friend that this bloke is someone who was horrible to you years ago and so you'd rather not spend time around him is fair enough, but making an almighty big deal of it is going to end up making you feel worse.

(I would like to point out that my post of 16.23 was an x-post with OP's one just above it.)

OP I really think you are seeking some way of punishing and humiliating this man for his mistreatement of you. Unfortunately there is no way to achieve this. All you will do if you try to confront him is give him the opportunity to hurt you all over again, and probably in a very public fashion. He will either not remember you, or claim not to remember you, or if he's really vindictive he will make a big deal about how he dumped you and you couldn't get over it.
THe best revenge on any bully is to live a happy life that the bully can't affect.