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.

[evanescence]

Garlick, the conversation went exactly like this...

Him: i can't do this anymore (started to cry)
Me: what's wrong honey? what are you talking about?
Him: I'm sorry. I love you.

Then he left.

I got a letter a week or so later telling me that he had been trying for six months to live with the change in me, that he felt I was unhappy and is had drained him, that he had tried to be the perfect man for me but nothing worked and that he was not coming back because my illness had sucked away the love he had for me and there was none left.

I sent so many letters back (he wouldn;t ever see me face to face even) asking why he'd never said anything before, why he'd not helped me or gone with me to the doctor, why he'd kept telling me everything was wonderful if it wasn't and listing all the things he could have done that would hve made me better.

He ignored every letter.

My illness went away within a week of him leaving, despite how unbelievable devastated I was.

I've spent all this time unable to attach to anyone else. Fearing quite a lot that (a) people can just stop loving you overnight and disappear, (b) I failed him and our mutual children (c) If I was ever with someone again and got sick, or got fat, or got anything at all that they might do this again.

I've found it so hard to just move on because I didn't really understand how someone is on their knees in tears one minute begging you to stay with them, then doing that a few weeks later- so coldly.

I've never been able to get properly in touch with the anger I should feel at him for how unfair it all was on me (and the children!) and how I was owed an honest conversation wheer he gave me his gripes and we worked on them together.

He didn't want to work on them.

He knew to make me better he'd have to let go of his ex wife and his old life and his clubs and his desire to be the international man of charity and he didn't want to.

He didn't love me enough.

[Garlick]

... though I'd bet my housekeeping money he did lie. He's a misogynist; he had to have been putting his marks on some other women, somehow.

[evanescence]

I don't love you anymore because you're sick is a ghastly thing to say! I'm sure you know this now. More than anything, it encapsulates a belief that love is only given to those providing cost-free benefits.*

this Garlick is why I can't attach emotionally to anyone else.

Deep down in my most inner self I now feel this to be true.

[Garlick]

How could he love you enough? He only loves himself.

And HE DID NOT TREAT YOU DECENTLY. This is why there's no need to let this dreadful experience mar your relationships going forward. You know you deserve to be treated decently. Sure, there are things within yourself you could do with fixing - like most women, you've been short on assertiveness and you're in the process of fixing it. You're in the process of fixing your self-love and self-worth, too :) That's a hard job after two spectacularly abusive relationships but it's clear from this thread alone that you're maing great progress!

[BertieBotts]

Did he always call you honey or did he ever use your name? I've read that that is sometimes a symptom of a person (specifically a romantic partner) seeing you as a role rather than as a person.

My ex used to cry too. He didn't bring it out until right at the end of the relationship. It was a source of pride for him. He would go on about how he didn't even cry as a child when he was hit (which he went on about a lot,) he didn't cry when he fell over and hurt himself and his grandmother had told his mother there was something weird about him. But right at the end of our relationship, whenever I tried to talk about what I needed from him, or about leaving, he cried on several occasions, and then he'd turn it on me, saying "Look what you've done now! You've made me cry and I fucking never cry. I can't believe this...."

I just used to crumble. It must have been like gold dust to him. I totally lapped up this idea that he was Mr. Stiff Upper Lip and I had broken through that with my sheer horribleness and gone too far, and I didn't talk about leaving again. I remember two more times I tried to bring it up - once in an argument, which he turned back quick as a flash and said "No you wouldn't. You wouldn't leave, I'd kill you." As he'd never been violent ever I laughed it off but I was unnerved. The next time was when DS was eight months old and we were supposed to be going out for a nice meal but he objected to the fact that my cousin (who had never met DS before) was having help from my mum and sister to babysit and he never got help when he "babysat" (for his own son.) We got to the restaurant and I was so unsettled from the argument I said I didn't want to go in because it was a waste so we drove around in the countryside for two hours as the argument escalated and he forced out of me "Mumsnet says you are emotionally abusive" and demanded to know who else thought he was abusive (all of my family and most of my friends, the few I had left). But I was terrified because he was driving us on these A roads and fast country roads, it was dark and I was just conscious all the time that he could turn the wheel and smash us into another car, or a tree or just stop and leave me alone in the middle of nowhere, and I had no credit on my phone and no way of telling where I was.

They have ways of shutting down discussion. Like you say, they make you police yourself. When I finally left six months later I just left him a note because I couldn't have a conversation ever.

FWIW the relationship that you described is definitely possible and I do believe it will be in your future. Just don't expect it to happen any time soon. We need time off from these losers to actually find ourselves and get that confidence back. Wanting space from the guy you are dating at the moment is quite natural and probably means you're not ready to date yet. One thing that I found it hard to get used to is the idea that guys who are decent and capable of the kind of relationship that you want are not actually a super-rare breed. You don't need to hang desperately onto the first person you find who might be like that because others will honestly be along. It's really okay to be picky about relationships (and about timing for relationships, too) and to just say nope, not right now.

[Garlick]

Deep down in my most inner self I now feel this to be true.

Well, bollocks to that

Is it true of you? Hardly. It isn't true of me, either, or of 90% of the folks in the world.

Something you might want to put on your therapy list is "unconditional love". It's a bigger topic than two words would suggest. Adults don't share unconditional love - that's for children and pets - but this means we need to figure out our own boundaries for conditionality. It also means we don't offer love unconditionally. I used to be co-dependent, and my love was embarrassingly short on boundaries. Now I know I deserved to be loved as well as I love, and I know what kind of boundaries I have.

It looks like you, too, were over-prepared to love unconditionally. And that this ex required your unconditional love, whilst offering something very conditional indeed.

[evanescence]

He never, ever, ever, ever used my name.

In fact after he left I alwys found it odd when he said my name as I'd never heard him use it before. I don't think he could even pronounce it properly.

He wasn't really like Mr Sensitive. Actually he was always saying he was fine and actually putting himself last in day to day matters. It was always "no problem honey" and him bending over backwards for me and the kids and everyone else. If I was upset, he would not sleep until he'd talked me through the problem on my mind and helped me find solutions.

it was a very convincing picture of an immensely healthy relationship! It very much felt like one! I never felt dissatisfied. I forgot that I had no car and no friends. it didn't even bother me, almost like I blocked it out. That sounds bizarre but it was how it was. I was unaware.

He had a bit of the victim about him, but then he never overtly made himself so. Instead he allowed others to do it for him. Someone else was always raging on his behalf at how he'd been taken advantage of and he'd actually always defend the offender.

It was like a switch went off in him and he just couldn't do it anymore and wanted to be alone so he had no one left to please all the time but himself.

[evanescence]

Garlick, yes I know it's irrational, but it's there - that feeling that this could happen again to me. That there's something wrong with me that makes me not good enough to stay with if I am sick.

Yes, I loved him unconditionally, and yes you are right I should not have. Certain actions should have been required.

I moved on the promise of a life together that never occured. On the promise of a wedding that never happenned. On the promise of a baby that never materialised.

I should have left, but didn't know and probably would have lacked the courage even if I did.

I do know all this has made me stronger and wiser and more assertive in so many ways. I observe people's behaviors in a much more savvy way now and see things like mind games and manipulation for what they are and I do think I loved in la la land before.

I observe the relationship of my newlywed friend, and her DH is much less overtly adoring than my ex ever was. He touches her less. She gets fewer gifts and drunken declarations of love...............but he loves her properly. everything she needs is jointly prioritised. HE makes sacifices for her. She is his equal. They are a family.

In ways i never got from my ex and never saw.

I'm ashamed to say all the nice words, hugs, affection and big displays really made me believe i was loved.

[Garlick]

That's not your shame, darling. It's his. He's a con artist.

[evanescence]

I try pretty hard to imagine some of the women on here arriving in a new country and being basically asked to pretend they weren't living with their partner, then to not come to social events with him, not being introduced to friends, not having any social life while the partner had a great one, not having any money, not having any transport or just putting up with even one little bit of it for even 10 minutes.

I am so annoyed at myself for not saying "fuck off" and getting on a plane instead of staying all those years and competely losing the fabric of who I was. It was like I disappeared.

then he fucked off when I was finally at rock bottom.

I never thought of myself as that sort of a person.

[Smilingforth]

Stay strong

[Garlick]

I think I disagree with your reading of Mr Sensitive.

You seem to be hurting his feelings constantly, though you aren't sure why

It'll be good for me to lose weight too though. I really want to get fit. If you really don't want me to do it honey I'l tel that I can't. ... You sure? I really won't if you don't want me to do it.

I really feel I should go. would that make you uncomfortable honey?

It was clear he'd be hurt, upset, unfulfilled, sad, if you asked him not to go. So you kept not asking for decent behaviour, because it would hurt him!

When your feelings are hurt, on the other hand, he will insist on brushing over it quickly. He may give you a stream of pop-psychology language

Me: I got this book on panic attacks and what causes them. Will you read it with me so you can understand?
Him: Sure, but you know the real problem is you just worry too much.

(then he'd instigate sex and the convo would be forgotten)

He literally did what Bancroft describes, word-for-word. He brushed off your plea for understanding, told you what "your problem" was, and fucked you.

It's deeply unsurprising that the panic left along with him.

I would say that all of the central attitudes driving Mr. Sensitive apply in spades to the man you describe.

[BertieBotts]

I think that you acted, simply, in a very human way. When you've done something drastic like move to the other side of the world you encounter something called the "Sunk cost fallacy". It has cost you a significant amount (in this case literally, in money) and in time and emotional input. Hence there's a real feeling that you have to give it time and this brings an enormous motivation to skim over or ignore glaring issues because you've put all of this stuff in already.

Plus you are getting used to a new place, a new culture. It's a shock. I have moved country, and this country is pretty similar to the UK and that has been difficult enough - I imagine it's harder when the climate is different, perhaps language and even alphabet being different would add a further challenge (you didn't say which country) - it all feels isolating and intimidating and TBH you don't have a lot of brain space to be analysing your partner's actions at this time and wondering if they are fair or healthy.

And then over time it just seems normal, not like a trap or a mistake. Because of the sunk cost thing you will also tend towards noticing and emphasising the positive parts and glossing over the negative ones so you automatically have rose tinted glasses on if you like.

It does take time to understand that you are in an abusive relationship and this guy isn't even a textbook abuser - just really messed up which makes it more difficult to see.

[Garlick]

You're not that sort of person! That's not the sort of person posting this thread.

You believed the best of a manipulative bastard, and he used it against you. He created "that sort of person" from the gifts you tenderly gave him. It never was you. That's why you had anxiety; you were not the woman he was having a relationship with. She never existed! It's enough to screw anyone's head up.

[Garlick]

What Bertie said, too. Very good point.

[evanescence]

That is exactly why I did not ask for decent behavior, because I felt asking for it would hurt him, and I loved him.

Maybe you're right. I will re-read. I wonder why I see things in such a distorted way where he is concerned!!!

To be honest, when I look back now if I'd tried to move back, uproot the kids and all that I would have been villified as nuts anyway. Why leave such a loving man? What had he done wrong? Participated in a triathlon?

It was so hard to put your finger on it, nobody would have seen it.

Really honestly thinking about it, if I had not had the kids with me I probably would have left 50 times. They loved their school, they loved their stedad and step siblings. It was a shit situation.

[Garlick]

I hope you have now seen that, far from you sucking the energy out of him (with your illness), this is in fact what he did to you (causing your illness.)
That part is an excellent reverse projection.

Bertie's point about never using your name is very important. It's a sure-fire indicator that someone's not relating to the real you. "Honey", or whatever, is a placeholder partner; a template. He will create his next victim in the same image.

[evanescence]

I do see now that the reserve was true.

How odd that I never noticed that he never used my name

[evanescence]

Reading those again, he does indeed have a lot of Mr Sensitive about him, and also elements of Mr Victim and the mentally ill one.

He did have depression himself (irony!) and he directly used the statements after he left me....

• I am not responsible for my actions because of my psychological problems (which you caused!!!)

• If you challenge me about my abusiveness, you are being mean to me

• I'm not abusive, I'm just depressed (which you caused!!!!)

• If you challenge me, it will trigger my mental illness, and you'll be responsible for what I do (he alluded several times that if I pushed him he was on the brink of ending it all)

Yet strangely enough with his terrible depression he carried on a pretty normal life.

He used the depression, which he said I had caused, as a direct excuse to me and others for his appaling treatment of me. It was lost on him entirely that his whole complaint was that I was depressed.

Therefore I was depressed which ws all my fault.

He was depressed which was all my fault.

??????

He believed it 100% completely.

[Garlick]

Oh, well spotted, evan Yes! More projection there about his depression, I see.

As you say, ?????? !

It's useful to identify and name the abusive behaviours. As you do this, not only does your knowledge about the weirder side of human nature expand, but it de-mystifies a very confusing experience. You're doing fantastically well.

[evanescence]

I really am strting to feel better!!!!

I stearted off feeling like I'd lost the love of my life, the perfect man, the perfect life for me and my kids and messed everything up for everyone because I wasn't good enough.

Starting to feel like I lost a complete wanker, a total idiot, an awful life for me and my kids and that a better one is on the horizon.

I hope I can keep on feeling that way. I do go up and down on it because good memories of how nice he was to me keep clouding my mind. I maybe need to repeat and identify this over and over until there's a new reality in my brain.

It would make moving on so easy if I can just feel like that.

Thanks al of you for listening to my endles rambling and helping so much. You're all amazing and so clever.

[Garlick]

:) Hard-won knowledge all round. At least we came out of it with something worth having!!

[evanescence]

Thinking over his crazy statements (sorry more rambling) after he left me...

"this is hard on me too you know...my life is ruined as well!!"
(but I had no options or choices in any of it)

"I can't handle this any better because I am too mentally fragile".
(yet he'd just left me for alledgedly being the same)

"I was everything to you. I wore myself out trying to look after everyone else".
(but he created that scenario)

All of them are just such bullshit statements designed to push the blame onto me and make me feel like it was all my fault.

All the blame was on me or his "depression" and absolutely none was on him just being a selfish cock.

[BertieBotts]

YYY Garlick! :)

OP here is another song for you. (I am collecting music for a long drive, so I thought I would share one I found relevant.)

[sumoweeble]

I love that song, Bertie.:)

You are sounding stronger with every post, evanescence.