Can you be in a relationship you think is great but is actually abusive?

[evanescence]

My counsellor told me today she felt my ex was abusive, my captor in fact.

I never saw him that way - I saw him as my best friend, partner and the most loving partner I could think of so what she said has be caught off a bit.

Is it possible I was being abused and still thought our relationship was wonderful?

Basically he was a very loving partner, affectionate, always talked about everything, kind to me, shared chores, looked after me, never said bad words to me once and treated me in a way that made me feel extremely loved. All my friends and family liked him very much and thought we were so happily settled until he left me which suprised everyone. Especially me.

The convo with the counsellor today was bringing up some things that niggled at me as I have been quite broken since he left me. The reason he gave for leaving me was basically that he didn't love me anymore because I wasn't the girl he first met. I'd had some depression and gotten a bit down (nothing bad or just a bit down)

I got ill because I was very isolated in our life together. I had to move overseas to be with him and left behind everything. We had young children (some his some mine) and I found it hard to adjust.

Basically he didn't include me at all in his life once I moved and nothing was as he'd promised.

He was very loving to me, and when we were together it was fantastic but he was away quite a lot and quite selfish really.

He went to work, I was a SAHM for the first time ever. I had no friends locally, but he never invited them over. We had my children all the time, and his children every weekend and he would never get a babysitter (he said it made him feel guilty to have his children and get a babysitter) so we never went out. We never had a weekend off from his kids so I think in the four years we lived together I went out probably 3 times and he invited his friends over once.

He had quite an active life...sports clubs, social activities with his old friends and even weekends away with his mates occassionally but because these groups were mutual with his ex wife I was never included as he felt it was arkward and he did not want to cause problems with the kids Mum.

We lived in a very isolated place (I am a city girl so that was hard on me too) and while he said we could not afford a second car for me, he spent a lot of money on silly things that were less important.

He never expressly told me I could not go anywhere or do anything- in fact when he saw I was down and came home to me crying he would tell me to go and have fun and do whatever I wanted but but the lack of money, car and him being at home and the fact I didn't know anyone made it so difficult so I became a bit of a hermit.

He wasn't ever mean...in fact he always asked if I minded him going to things, but basically I loved him and wnated him to be happy so I said it was ok. Sometimes I asked him to change things or include me more and he'd cry and tell me that he really loved him and he'd die if I lieft him but that his kids had to come first.

He was always making me feel like I was asking him to choose me over his kids.....and I wasn't. I was asking him to treat me like his partner, which he didn't. I felt excluded from his life even though we were meant to be a family.

I never ended up with any sort of life, and I know I was largely responsible but I do feel like he made it really difficult and I am not that good with new people and I'm not sporty or into any hobbies and I get quite shy around people I don't know. In the end it just got me down.

I got fat, I got depressed and then he left me and told me it was all my fault because me being down had drained him and I had become a burden.

My counsellor says he was abusive and manipulative.

If that was true why did I feel so lucky and so loved? I'm very confused.

[BertieBotts]

It might be that there is something in his personality that blocks him from seeing how one sided it is himself, like a form of narcissism perhaps.

It's hard to believe that he was totally unaware of what he was doing, just because it all seems so calculated... I made a realisation a few years ago, that some abusive men justify their abuse because they genuinely believe that women are lower than men in much the same way as we generally consider dogs to be lower in status than humans. So say that you had a pet dog. You take the very best care of it. You buy the expensive dog food that your vet recommends. You take your dog for long walks, you genuinely enjoy their company, and you are always fussing over and loving it. You might even let it sleep in your bed and buy it a Christmas present. But you don't think twice about leaving the dog in kennels while you go on holiday without him. You wouldn't consult him on the purchase of a new car. You'd happily shut him in the kitchen when your dog-phobic friend is visiting. It's a dog. You know? You can be a great dog owner and give your dog a lovely life but you don't treat them as a human, and you wouldn't at all feel guilty about that, or think there was anything wrong in it. And I really think that is how some abusive men see women, especially "their" woman, they don't really value your autonomy or your personhood or your opinions because their view of you is so superficial that it is as though those things don't exist.

Perhaps he was unaware... but he'd have to have a very skewed vision of his own importance and a great lack of real empathy. Which I suppose is shown when he would offer sympathy but then his solutions were actually meaningless and superficial.

He is not your typical abuser, but it's most definitely charming and cult-like and manipulative, it IS those same abuse techniques, just dressed up in this wonderful package. Must be a total mind fuck.

[evanescence]

To be honest, I have sat here so long, crying, feeling lost without him and feeing like he was the one for me and me getting ill and doing nothing to help myself drive him away.

I've been feeling like he is the most amazing man in the world who loved me until I became a fat house plant and that it is my fault this happenned to me (and the kids) and have hated myself.

I had such a high opinion of him that it made it very difficult to even be angry at him or to see the part he played. I want to get him down off the pedastal so I can move on and see he was never that great and that I can be happpier with someone else and won't drive them away eventually too (which is how I feel)

[evanescence]

Hmm...Bertie. I don't think he was narcisisstic because he didn't worship himself or think himself superior or above the law or anything like that.

It was more that he went about getting what he wanted in subtle ways because he was not brave enough to be upfront or ask directly / negotiate like an adult.

He was a very gentle person, very scared of rocking the boat or upsetting anyone. He'd actually make himself ill if he had a confrontation with someone.

If he wanted something, it was quite often for reasons that were seemingly quite charitable so it was hard to see them as selfish. For example he would often attend events that were "for someone else" -like funerals of a distant friends parent who lived on the other side of the world. totally unneccesary to go, but he'd convince himself it was. He would always volunteer to help a friend have a BBQ and then suddenly we'd need to buy and pay for hundreds of pounds of new BBQ equimpent and accessories which had to be the best. He'd always sign up for every charity walk or mountain climb or triathlon. Those things would often require many days and hours away for months on end, leaving me mroe alone, as well as often needing financial contributions that were often quite large or expensive new equipment. Like a bloody canoe once to raise money for children.

You see...it was hard to be angry, because he seemed selfless, but I see now that it was selfish because he did these things because he (a) enjoyed it and (b) loved being liked! He loved admiration! He lived for it.

So I can see now that a man who puts a charity canoe race for sick kids over his partner having means of transport has his priorities mixed up but never saw it at the time.

Him excluding me from events was always framed as him genuinely being afraid to rock the boat with his ex wife which I think was genuinely the case. He was afraid of upsetting anyone and became quite panicked actually if he felt like he was being criticised or disliked.

If he did not get what he wanted by being given it, he would often lie or go behind people's backs and just take it. For example if I told him that drugs were a dealbreaker for me and I could not be with someone who did drugs, he would just lie and sneak them. then beg me not to leave.

So it was hard to see him the way he was. He was probably abusive now I look at it, but I think he was a very screwed up person too and he acted like a normal one.

[BertieBotts]

The thing that strikes me is that it's either extremely calculated, pitched just right to get you to think it was all your idea etc, and hence he knew exactly what he was doing all along OR he's astoundingly detached from everything. (Or now I think about it, could that be an 'and'? Could the detachment facilitate the manipulation? Or maybe he was just detached and the fact that none of it inconvenienced him was just a bonus.)

Talking about how he is worried about money and then not doing anything about that himself is astonishingly detached from his own reality. And suggesting a totally impossible solution to a problem you are having and considering it solved is extremely so. I mean, it's really, really bizarre.

Likewise saying depression is not a problem and we can sort it, but not actually taking any practical steps (checking back up on you, helping you get involved and active, noticing the changes which need to be made) is really emotionally detached. It's superficial. Suddenly turning around and saying "Wait, but now you're all boring and sad all the time? Well I can't cope with that!" is really detached.

It's cold. Frighteningly cold and it puts me in mind of sociopathy, actually.

[BertieBotts]

Narcissists don't always see themselves as superior, though. They like others to see them as superior (or good, competent, admirable, it varies of course). In fact one theory about narcissism is that the narc sees themselves as some awful non person and they are consistently terrified that others will discover that hence all of the false projection of self all the time. I mean, you have mentioned several times on this thread that you and all of your family and friends thought of him as "wonderful". Not nice, not a decent man, but adjectives like wonderful. And not only in comparison to your previous ex, but in comparison to other men or other people in general. And then in your post about how much you think he is not a narcissist you talk about all the ways he went out of his way to create this image of himself as a kind and selfless person who put others first and didn't create arguments. But he didn't put the one person first who he should have been, and going by the narc theory, that would be because the way he prioritised you (or not) would not have made any difference at all to his public image. The gestures that you describe which he made towards you seem more about projecting an image of what a good husband and father he was rather than any actual evidence of deep feelings or caring for your emotional wellbeing himself.

I don't mean to try and put some kind of label or diagnosis on him here BTW, just saying what it reminds me of, and that might point you in a useful direction re reading and healing and understanding. If it's not helpful feel free to ignore.

[evanescence]

I think he was a basically kind person who didn't want to hurt other people and I think he believed completely that he loved me absolutely, but I also believe he lacked some sort of normal level of empathy.

I think this is cognitive dissonance someone mentioned in the first post that I need to get to grips with.

I feel in my gut he did not want to hurt me, and was devastated to see me fall to bits, but at the same time he was told explicity by me what was causing it and did nothing.

I do know that if he had moved to my country to be with me, I would have made him having transport a priority. Where we lived was remote and often snowy. I was literally housebound. I would have arranged time once in a while for us to go out together, I would not have gone to funerals of distant aquantances overseas at great expense only to have no money left for him to visit his family that year. I would have introduced him to my friends and I would not have had 5 - 6 nights a week of extra curricular activities leaving him alone all day and night. I suppose I would have just thought about what he needed for a happy life instead of just myself all the time.

I am not sure anyone can be that monumentally stupid not to realise how shit he made my life.

Even if I had done all those things unwittingly, I'd have eventually seen him depressed and crying and having panic attacks, I would have tried to help. I'd have taken him to the GP, I'd have gotten counselling and done more than just hug him. If he'd told me that things like a car or seeing people socially would have helped him I would have done whatever it took. Inviting people round for dinner once a month would not have killed him.

He did none of that and I asked over and over.

I've spent so logn defending him in my own mind and today I suppose I am thinking he can't have loved me. He can't have been a loving person. He was selfish and wanted his cake and eat it. He expected me to change my entire life to be with him but was not willing to change a thing in his own.

The way he behaved when he left was absolutely detached.

[evanescence]

Yes, he very much liked others to see him as morally superior. He liked to be seen as perfect and became noticably disturbed if they didn't see him that way.

[Werksallhourz]

he would often attend events that were "for someone else" -like funerals of a distant friends parent who lived on the other side of the world ... He would always volunteer to help a friend have a BBQ and then suddenly we'd need to buy and pay for hundreds of pounds of new BBQ equimpent and accessories which had to be the best ... often needing financial contributions that were often quite large or expensive new equipment. Like a bloody canoe once to raise money for children.

Op, this is really weird behaviour. Traveling to attend funerals of people he barely knew? I hate to say this but ... something was really not right there.

And this ...

Those things would often require many days and hours away for months on end, leaving me mroe alone, as well as often needing financial contributions that were often quite large or expensive new equipment. Like a bloody canoe once to raise money for children.

I am getting blaring alarm bells with all this. Are you sure he wasn't having an affair? And what happened to all this equipment afterwards? Did you ever see it?

[evanescence]

What I feel right now is that I suppose it would be quite nice to feel like I had lost someone not worth having, as opposed to the way I have been feeling all these years (hard not to miss someone who worhsips the ground you walk on and makes you feel so taken care of).

I'd also like to know why I did n ot notice this, why I allowed myself to stay in a relationship where my basic needs were not being met, and why I did not have the balls to take my fair share of things.

Looking back I should have laid down the law. I should have had better boundaries. I should have laid out a family budget where i got fair treatment. I should have told him he either included me in his social life or I was going home. I feel angry at myself for not doing all those things.

I think I was just so scared of being alone again and losing all that love.

[BertieBotts]

This is totally (well, semi ) off topic but your name has just jumped out at me as it is the name of one of my favourite bands, I don't know if you chose it based on the word or the band name but this song has always been a frighteningly accurate description of that feeling of starting a relationship when you are in an emotionally vulnerable place which later turns out to be an abusive one.

The youtube commenter says this is a happy song but I find it quite chilling.

[Werksallhourz]

Where we lived was remote and often snowy. I was literally housebound. I would have arranged time once in a while for us to go out together, I would not have gone to funerals of distant aquantances overseas at great expense only to have no money left for him to visit his family that year.

Op, the more I read your posts, the more alarming this relationship sounds. You seem to have experienced a situation not unlike a cross between Gaslight and The Yellow Wallpaper.

[BertieBotts]

And sorry for the crappy fan-made lyric video but 99% of official music videos are banned in Germany and I'm posting from there so there isn't usually a choice.

Please don't blame yourself. I have honestly read a lot of threads about abusive relationships (left mine in '09 and have been stuck here ever since ) but I have NEVER read about one like yours before. I don't think that anybody could have seen through it.

[evanescence]

Certie I re-rea your narcissim quote and a lot of it actually rings true. I think he loved being loved by me and played a role to some degree or another. I think the evidence suggests that as a very intelligent man he did not actually care about my wellbeing.

Werk, no, no affair. He was constantly posted on Facebook at his charitable persuits. I saw every move he made. It didn't seem odd at the time, it seemed like I was just with someone who prioritizes others over himself and I never quite twigged that did not extend to me.

I'll listen to that song Bertie, thank you.

what I really want to ahcieve is moving on.

I have felt all this time terrified of being close to anyone because I think to myself if someone like him who loved me so much could do this to me or just stop loving me then everyone else will.

It'd be suprisingly comforting to acknowledge he prbably never did love me at all.

It'd also be comforting to think that I could enter into a new relationship with better skills to make sure nothing like this ever happens to me again.

It's a sort of closure

[evanescence]

Sorry Werk, yes I always saw the equipment, always saw photos of what he was doing.

Training for trianthlons or all night canoe races does take a lot of time, and he was always transparent (I did the banking remember) so he wasn't lying.

We had a shed full of useless sporting goods and expensive accessories. I honestly thought it was just a man thing. "Doing a BBQ, oh we will need one of those and one of those". I suppose the male equivalent of shoes. It was just that those things came at the expense of more important things that annoyed me.

He was just living a strange life where he was a bit like a child. Asking for what he wanted, being a bit spoiled and selfish and not really noticing I ws going without and being driven into the ground.

Money is a funny thing because without it, you can't go anywhere or do anything. It did upset me that I could not afford certain things (missed Mum's 60th) but I never once felt resentment - which is weird.

I should have gotten angry and actually just didn't see it at all.

[Garlick]

It's most heartening to see you 'getting it'! Well done! It hurts, but not half as much as feeling like you're disappearing and not really knowing why.

Wrt blaming yourself: like 90% of fellow abuse targets, I wasted a heck of a lot of energy on wondering why I "allowed" it. There are answers to this, but they're complex if predictable, and you'll be discovering your own within therapy.

The glaring fact I had not considered was this: NO decent man would want me to allow it! I wasn't wrong to be loving, giving, trusting and tolerant. HE was wrong to use those qualities against me. I got a lot more angry when I grasped this.

The next part of my self-improvement project was to make sure I know exactly what a really good relationship looks like, and feels like. The thread at the top of this board - 'Right, listen up' - is a bloody good place to start!

Good luck, and enjoy yourself.

[evanescence]

Garlick


The glaring fact I had not considered was this: NO decent man would want me to allow it! I wasn't wrong to be loving, giving, trusting and tolerant. HE was wrong to use those qualities against me. I got a lot more angry when I grasped this.

Thank you!!! that is one of the most empowering and logical single statements I have ever heard since any of this began.

It really does simplify it and cut away all the bull shit.

[Garlick]

Doesn't it?!

[BertieBotts]

Yes! Garlick hits the nail on the head, as usual! :)

She is right. A decent man does not want you to be a stepford wife or a martyr. The way you can see somebody treating you as a valued equal, or a co-pilot is very simple. He seeks your opinion and/or advice and values it as highly or higher than his own (but not too highly, he also has a backbone and his own mind and considers himself a separate person, not that you are an extension of him.)

I am still surprised when DH asks my advice/opinion on something important (not a paint colour, but a career decision or friendship issue or something). I shouldn't be, but I am. This is a relic partly of relationships where I was not valued in this way and partly of not really believing myself to have worth in this way.

[Garlick]

Hmm, Bertie ... (sorry!) Both my delightful husbands valued my advice, because my advice was good. This didn't mean they valued me; it was just part of the service.

I'm not sure there is a universal test. If there was, we'd all know it and the abusers would be crying on each other's shoulders.

That Evanescence song's really upsetting! I can only suppose the fan has 50-Shades-alike fantasies. Thank you for the video. Beautiful voice & piano.

[evanescence]

I think the trap for me has always ben that cognitive dissonance thing. Two conflicting beliefs.

He loved me and said this many times / he did not act loving all the time

He stopped loving me because I was sick / people who love you aren;t meant to do that, are they?

He begged me not to leave him / he left me

All of that is really just a mind fuck and you get trapped in an eternal loop where there is no internal resolution. It's been immensely difficult for me to see any negatives in him at all because as I said, the way it was framed was that he was some sort of saint and I wore him down with my perpetual misery and refusing to help myself.

He presented a very believeable scenario and that has been damaging enormously because i did disappear and did not know why.

Simplifying all that "what the fuck" into the simple statement that no decent person allow you to slip away like that is basically obvious. It doesn't leave any room for me to have doubts or back and forth arguments in my head.

No decent person would do that.

I shouldn't have needed to issue demands or force changes by being tougher or diferrent....he should have just automatically done those things like a decent person.

I do think I need to really get to grips as you say with what a normla, healthy relationship looks like because I honestly don't think I have ever had one.

[evanescence]

I named myself today this name because I was listening to "My Immortal" on the bus. Also a very sad song, and ot reflects how I've felt all this time.

I don't want to feel that way anymore.

I really want to be with someone who acts like my life is as important as theirs.

[OTheHugeManatee]

I think I'm with your counsellor. Your ex sounds like he did a proper number on you. Hope you can find some peace. And maybe start to feel angry for the way he treated you, he deserves that.

[evanescence]

I did actually just read up a bit on narcissism Bertie and you ight well be right. He did have a need to be admired and seen as the good guy and he would do practically anything to maintain that image.

He did actually let me take the fall in the separation and definitely came across as the victim of me making him miserable.

I think perhaps I did not see the narc qualities before as I was the object of his desire / fantasy. He probably does have tendencies and he has issues with a lack of empathy.

Sometimes with the kids he's struggle to see how they felt and I had to explain it. I often felt like his coach, explaining simple emotions to him. He was veyr detached from what other people felt.

He had a very odd childhood. Affluent background where he was very emotionally distant and schooled away from his parents from primary school age and barely saw them.

I am not convinced he is evil or did a number on me but I am now becoming convinced that regardless of motivation he wasn't the amazing, wonderful man I thought he was and he had a lot of bad stuff about him.

This feel like huge progress today for me.

I just idolised him.

[BertieBotts]

Hmm I'll have to go back to the drawing board then perhaps on that one G :o

In fact it's probably just the case that it's impossible to set one infallible short one question "abuser test".

My Immortal is powerful too. I listened to that whole album a lot as a teenager. I think Amy Lee has a knack for somehow capturing an emotion right there. Garlick I think not necessarily 50sog fantasies, but just taking the feeling of acceptance/happiness at face value. I think if I'd listened to it before I understood more about abuse dynamics I might have found it romantic too. In fact it was written as a happy song. Relationship dynamics are so complex, and there is so much, SO much acceptance of abusive dynamics riddled through our culture, our shared values, our ideals, fantasies, ideas of romance. Songs. Books.

Don't expect too much of yourself. It takes a long time to unravel what is abuse and what is part of any relationship and it's confusing and there is a lot of contradiction. Baggage Reclaim (a blog) is excellent and this board also for general discussion and your counsellor sounds brilliant. You could look at doing the Freedom Programme, but I don't know if it would be helpful or not in your situation.