Financial control - Part 2

[AngryMo]

Just starting new thread. Hopefully can kickstart it with details of my CAB meeting.

Thanks for the compliment but please know it took me years to learn to respond like this. I'm maybe not dissimilar to you - I try to be relentlessly fair and I used to explain and excuse and 'try try try'. But I finally realised that it was so wasteful of me to keep giving and trying and being reasonable with someone who doesn't give a fuck. Now I think of not wasting words and I try to use them sparingly. First I would write huge long emails and then edit them. Now I just write as leanly as possible. It's like not leaving the tap running when you're brushing your teeth. No waste. It's just a skill. You will learn it too.

Yes send what Kittybiscuits said but leave out the "sorry".

I want Kitty in my corner

I am fairly eloquent. But it's dawning on me that no matter which way I put it, civil, blunt, with swear words, sugary .... It all falls on deaf ears. Every single time.

Brief as possible and shut it down fast!

I'm trying my best but I am still occasionally prone to heat of the moment stuff. I won't truly be able to detach myself until I can clearly see what's going to happen to us, where I'll be living etc.

Four weeks have passed and we've only spoken once. That has never happened in the whole time we've been together, obviously. He just can't be expecting to come home and carry on as normal. Just writing that my stress levels are rising. I just want him out of my life.

Twice this weekend two friends kindly paid for things for me before I realised...amazing gestures like that just put everything in perspective. The arse over there doesn't give a damn about us. Wouldn't know kindness if it tonked him on the head.

He is a stranger to kindness. You are learning every day. It takes time to detach. How do you want your future to look? How do you want to live? How can you work towards it? He will be shitting himself. He knows the game is up. And still he does nothing. All of these days, turning into weeks, where he could have turned things around. And he posts that he's living it up on facebook. It's truly pathetic. You deserve so much more. You and your DCs are worth so much more than this.

Thanks Dung . Sometimes it's the only way.

Kitty...He is so desperate to 'win', he is happy to risk losing his own family, his little, beautiful children. Except that he really must believe I am so well controlled I would never actually do it. But we clearly do not love each other. He, in his own warped way, can only 'love' me if I am earning money and if I am fit and well do take care of all the things he doesn't do or want to do.
I am luckily not very prone to illnesses but the one time I did have flu and couldn't get out of bed he told me to stop exaggerating, get on with things, and didn't even offer me a cup of tea or anything else for that matter. Just ignored me and waited for it to go away. Exactly the same as his reaction now, thinking about it. By not complying I am inconveniencing his life and his plans and now my behaviour doesn't suit him he doesn't know what to do.
I so want to scream at his friends can't you see what he's doing, who he really is, through all this stuff?!! So frustrating. None of his friends (or friends' partners) have contacted me at all which I thought maybe they might have - just to say hi - so wondering if he's said something. God knows what though.

I know all this stuff is very repetitive now. It's such a slow process.

No cup of tea when you can't get out of bed! It's like taking sunglasses off indoors when you look back and see all times where it was maybe just odd or just him. Then when you write them down its so blimey obvious how wrong wrong it all is. It's amazing how you didn't notice. But that's condition for you.

It's not that he's immature and selfish. What he is is in a whole other league to that. What you're seeing now is the tip of the iceberg - what's underneath ain't pretty.

I've just seen the film Room and your account of your life is not dissimilar. NOT an exaggeration (if you've seen the film or read the book) - yes that story is the very extreme end but your husband is in that ballpark.

Talking of accounts: please please don't tell me he is s/e. If so you have sent him every possible warning to give him time to make his income vanish. If he is s/e please please keep quiet and pretend you've seen the error of your ways... for the foreseeable while you plan your exit on the quiet.

Sorry to be serious. But this IS serious.

Your description of him when you're ill or in any way "not fully functional" just put the lid on it for me (not that I needed any further convincing).

I've read here on Mumsnet the analogy of the toaster. When your kitchen appliance fails to perform how you'd like, you get angry at it, and why not? It's just an object. When your friend/family member gets ill, you cherish them and help them get better, because that's what decent people do for each other.

You know how your STBX sees you, right, Ms DeLonghii?

PSE is right (so is Springy, and Akire) but at least you are Ms DeLonghi and not Ms Britax

And seriously, like Springy says - because it is serious - don't give him any more ammunition or warning. Now is the time to keep your cards close to your chest, and let him think you're nice and uncontentious and functioning normally again. Let him think you've left it now, he's won, and you're defeated. Don't waste your 'breath' asking him about money etc any more. You had a blip but have come to heel again.

Meanwhile, there's that swan, serene on the surface and paddling like a mad thing underneath.

Mrs Dualit, please! Actually he can take his Dualit and shove it there. That is actually one of the things he wanted and when I said are you mad, paying that much just to toast a piece of bread? He went and bought it anyway. It's a nice looking thing but now every time I look at it, it's yet another reminder or symbol of what is wrong with him.

The flu example - I've got a list of shining of examples of his twistedness and selfishness and it keeps growing as I remember more. Things I brushed off (even if initially upset) which now I simply cannot believe I allowed to happen without consequence.

I wonder what happened to the man he was when I first met him.

When he is next in the UK can you arrange for him to take the DC away on holiday because "they need time with him" Alternatively arrange to go and visit friends on your own.

Basically make him do all the childcare, house running etc. he will probably get his mum to help but that doesn't matter. You don't want to spend time in his presence but the dc deserve to see him.

Actually I'd be tempted to lie and create a parental illness so that you have to rush up and visit and can't take the DC with you...

I think you have been given some very wise words here from springy, jux and akire

It is time the silent Assasin came out!

I hope the CAB meeting has gone well.

I wonder what happened to the man he was when I first met him.

Gaaaahhhhh! Because he Never Existed!

They all start out on their best behaviour. Hell, even non-abusers start off extra mindful of best foot forward. The non-abuser relaxes off "best behaviour" mode by, say, nose-picking or forgetting to put the loo seat down. The abuser is nothing like that. He was only wearing (uncomfortably) his human skin, and could do it only for so long before he let the alien abuser out. (Possibly been watching too much Dr Who lately, but you get my analogy, I'm sure ).

Just some advice AngryMo but you probably are already aware. If your DH works in an industry like mine (where people work abroad) he will have a large support network of barack room lawyers and accountants. All telling him how evil you are, that you are trying to steel his money.
This group may have the tools/experience to help him make "things" disappear!!!

PSE, I don't think it's true he wasn't the guy I thought he was before. People are not 100% good or bad are they. We had a good relationship at the beginning, as most at the beginning: full on, calling each other all the time, seeing each other as much as we could etc. But looking back things moved very quickly due to certain circumstances and it was quite intense.

I think his ego inflated with his job success, while I, somewhat typically, focused on my family and nurturing that side of my life rather than my career. Obviously that happens to lots of couples but maybe we are a bad combination of aggressive and submissive. I'm not taking any blame here, I'm just again, trying to analyse why things are as they are - from really good to fucking terrible.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you did. If success brought out his arrogant and egotistical side, then that's who he is. A lovely man would have celebrated with you and thanked you for everything you have contributed that has allowed him the opportunity to succeed. No one is vile at the beginning - we all show our best selves in a new relationship.

Anyway. I hope what has been said here will help you at a later date (ie when the extent of that iceberg gradually become apparent).

Honestly, you're not a bad combination. These people are all very similar, and do pretty much the same things, no matter who they're with.

Because there's actually something wrong with them (eg, little or no empathy, believing they matter and no-one else does, etc ).

Intensity, and moving quickly at the start, is how most abusive relationships begin... there's always a justification for how controlling people behave, but it's really about control from very early on.

I had to email him to ask him for money for something. He agreed but with a warning saying he needed more notice and used the expression 'in future'. That's an expression you use for an employee or a teacher to a child...but it also signifies that he hasn't a clue, has he, about what is going on in my head.

Keep shaking the fog off Mo.
That's a disgusting way to talk to you.

I expect the money was child related not Mo related?

Just jumping on to express again how much I admire your journey so far, Mo and continue to support you along with the many others here, for you and your children to live well.

Agree that a fast, intense overwhelming start to a relationship, where you don't have time or space to think about what is happening, may be an indicator of someone hoping, consciously or unconsciously, to get you emotionally tied in before you have time to think rationally.

Was it surrounded by loving words, embarrassment that he needed to ask for notice next time, jokeyness? Anything?

You see, I was thinking about how I might say that to dd, for instance, when she has left home and needs money (pretty inevitable, I imagine). I think I'd start off with "Aaaaaaargh!😄", certainly explain why I needed notice(moving pmoney from one account to another, maybe bank restrictions etc) "yes! You are lucky this time Grasshopper, I can pawn a priceless treasure for your benefit" yada yada yada, but the point would be made. Idiotically, admittedly.

But your h, your h seems to issue commands and orders, with no softening, and no invitation to discussion, let alone opportunity for discussion,