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Relationships

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

Worried/Scared, advice please.

106 replies

RyVeeta · 23/03/2016 11:18

Going to see someone about the emotional abuse I have been coping with, with an aim to leaving in due course. I'm not terribly good at explaining things and am concerned it'll all just sound trite and trivial. Would it be an idea to print off some of my threads from here to take. I'm far better expressing myself in writing and they would hopefully make it clear how long it's been going on and to what extent. I'm really worried I'll be dismissed or told that I am heartless because of dh's disabilities. It's taken me years to get to this point and I don't want to mess it up now.
Thank you.

OP posts:
EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 14/04/2016 15:15

That wasn't how I meant it to come across Grin

I meant that you have to learn to trust in your own feelings and to own those feelings and realize that you're entitled to them, just the same as no one else can have an opinion on whether you're cold or hungry, need a wee and so on. Just because we're talking emotional issues doesn't mean there's a clear one's right ad the other's wrong.

Think about the difference between responding to someone 'I'm sorry you feel that way' as opposed to 'It's unfortunate/regrettable you feel that way' That may come in handy in the future.

Good luck tomorrow Flowers

seventhgonickname · 14/04/2016 17:42

I have known my OH 18 years,married for 16.5 years in and he got depression and has not been right since.I am finally getting out,my DD is 13 and has started self harming,that was my wake up call.Like you on 'good'days I have convinced myself that things were OK,I go out of my way not to rock the boat.I am not having such a bad time as you as OH is not otherwise I'll but he has driven away my friends and even alienated family when my dad was ill and at the funeral,was charming himself but made up so shocking things that I had apparently said.Now I am finally leaving and he has begun to really snipe away at me but this time I have enough energy to not give up.He will probably continue when I have left through my daughter but once out I am going to rebuild my self esteem. I'm sorry this is about me but I totally get how you feel and why you are still i there,keep your eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel as slowly walk towards it.Good luck xx

seventhgonickname · 14/04/2016 17:43

Excuse the spelling, my predictive text has gone bananas

RyVeeta · 14/04/2016 21:10

I didn't think you did Enrique, just my take on me!

Flowers seventh. We'll get there. x

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Dragongirl10 · 14/04/2016 22:32

Just thinking about you RYVITA....please listen to the objective and helpful advice here....you will be so much happier once you have left, think of all the lovely time and energy you will have for your dcs and yourself when you are not dragged down by anyone.

Some people suffer illnesses that tragically shorten their lives, you have yours ahead to fill as you chose with people who love you (your dcs) please do not waste it ....life is short , grab the good things and get rid of the bad and don't look back.

I wish you much strength and focus for your plan.

seventhgonickname · 14/04/2016 23:22

We will do it,I don't think I realised how controling OH was until the decision to separate was made.As you know the quiet days weaken your resolve and the bad days have you feeling so worthless ,so how can leaving be worse.? I'm glad you've found support and something to aim for,keep positive .
Also ,just a thought is the money issue because he knows you may leave and he is reducing your financial ability to do so?
If I can do it so can you.xx

RyVeeta · 15/04/2016 10:18

Am feeling shit. Support worker has cancelled. again. I really needed that today. I'm in tears. I know it's only a matter of time but I'm not very good with short notice stuff and I needed to talk today after a particularly bad night. Stuck indoors with no excuse to get out whilst he lies on the sofa complaining about how awful his life is to nobody in particular!

Sorry, feeling really sorry for myself today.

OP posts:
Dragongirl10 · 15/04/2016 12:22

So sorry Ryvita,

Can you decamp to a coffee shop and regroup? Make your plan/list of documents you may need/search housing options on rightmove/ job possibilities... anything towards your new life?

Please, please just get out and go somewhere, anywhere and focus on yourself...read all the great advice here from people with experience of what you are going through you are not alone, we are all holding your hand.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 15/04/2016 12:33

You don't have to have an excuse to go out. If it makes you feel better though, something you need from the shops, a library visit?
Log on and talk to us, there's always someone to listen.

RyVeeta · 18/04/2016 15:16

Sorry. Just letting everyone know I'm okay. Sorry, was a busy weekend. I have calmed down. Having just been called a bitch as soon as he got up because I walked away from him this morning, my resolve remains unchanged.
Thank you for all your support, everyone!

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RyVeeta · 19/04/2016 10:17

Just heard from support worker and will hopefully be seeing her this week.
Just updating.

OP posts:
LisaMed · 19/04/2016 10:25

I've no advice but sending hugs.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 19/04/2016 11:50

Keep your chin up Ry and stay focussed.
You're on the right path. No one says it's easy, but as the old proverb says, the longest journey starts with a single step Flowers

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 19/04/2016 11:56

I thought of something else that might help you. It's the advice I always gave to DCs when they were talking about relationships and it's advice that worked for me.

When you want to have a really hard think about whether or not you're in the right relationship for you, consider your partner and think only of their negative or unattractive qualities or how they treat you. Don't worry about the positives because they speak for themselves and will be a no brainer. If the negative issues aren't too bad and you're happy to live with them without the prospect of change, then fair enough. If the negatives are too bad to live with, then all the positives will never make amends for them.

RyVeeta · 19/04/2016 14:28

Just over a year ago I was lying in a hospital bed having had a suspected heart attack (turns out it was stress). I was fending calls from my dds who had locked themselves in their bedrooms because their father was kicking off and screaming at them through the door, I could hear it. I had to 'phone him and tell him to leave them alone. I was in a fucking hospital bed.
Does that answer things Enrique?
I don't understand how you could possibly do that to your own family, no matter how worried and concerned you are about the person in hospital.

OP posts:
EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 19/04/2016 15:10

Well, the real question is does it answer it for you, not me. It would've answered it for me a year ago I'm afraid, although from what you've said before, I couldn't have lived in a relationship like this.

That kind of behaviour is not something I could forgive or forget regardless of his situation. I find it wholly unconscionable both toward you and towards your DDs and any sympathy for his health concerns would fail to negate his attitude and actions.

I'm just very concious that it's much easier to tell people what they should do, than for them to do it, but I do think it would be worth your while going over some of these experiences again with your Support Worker. No doubt talking here is bringing back all kinds of memories and events will be coming back to the surface after you've pushed them down deep.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 19/04/2016 19:29

Just for clarity my opinion above isn't in any way judgemental, it's just straight up what I'd tolerate and what would be a deal breaker for me.

RyVeeta · 19/04/2016 23:06

I know Enrique. I was furious at the time but you think you're doing the right thing for other people by keeping the peace, which, when I got home later that day, is what I did. I do know I should have gone then. I know I should have gone at least a couple of years ago. I'll get there.

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MiscellaneousAssortment · 20/04/2016 18:00

Flowers thinking of you.

I wrote a post to you last night about your terrible experience last year, but my stupid phone decided to 'refresh' the page for no reason and wiped my post. Grrrr.

Hope you're surviving. Be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up over the could have beens. Keep yourself pointing forwards and give yourself a massive pat on the back with each tiny step. It counts, even if it's a flash of defiance to his ill treatment of you. Or a quiet voice inside saying 'no, he's not right', when he calls you a name. Every tiny bit of you that you can store up to give you strength and certainty.

You are no bitch. You are a compassionate, patient, loving and caring person. I can tell that just from a few basic facts of your life and how long you've been sacrifing yourself for him. Not. A. Bitch.

RyVeeta · 20/04/2016 21:31

Thank you so much Misc I really need that this evening. I am inhuman apparently!
He's doing his nobody loves me and what's the point in being here thing and I never give him any affection. I do keep trying to explain that people don't want to give affection to those who are unkind to them, but that goes nowhere. I tried to talk to him, got nowhere, he doesn't want to talk he just wants someone to hold him whilst he's low. He knows I'm pulling away a bit and I guess this is the consequence of that. Make me feel guilty (I do) and hopefully feel sorry for him and that will get me back into the same routine of him being number one and looked after. I suspect, from what I've been able to read, that this is normal. It does make me feel awful, I do care and I don't want him to be in pain, but I can't be called names every day, I can't go through my life where each day nothing is ever good enough . I can't be in perpetual competition with his illness which surpasses all. If I say I'm in pain, well he's been in pain, daily for years, much worse pain. I can't keep being woken up, night after night after night, and if that makes me selfish, so be it.

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MiscellaneousAssortment · 22/04/2016 03:02

You ok? Surviving?

Here's a trite saying for you :)

"If you're going through hell, for goodness sake don't stop! Keep on going to get to the another side"

Sorry I should have prefaced that with, it may be one of those trite sayings BUT I've been through a hell of a lot over the last few years (become disabled, abusive husband, family deaths etc), so heard quite a few 'bright side' bollocks ones.., and this is the only one I've ever heard that has some truth in it, and doesn't make me want to forced feed cupcakes and rainbows down the neck of the well meaning eejit who sent it!

It's kept me going even when all I wanted was to lie down and never get up again because it's all awful. But it's true, you stay in the awfulness unless you can keep trudging onwards. In my mental image of it, it's not trudging steadily, there's some darkest bits where you have to drag yourself along one finger nail at a time, or a daily mm was all you've got to give.

But, to wedge in more triteness... Every little helps!

(Sorry, I'm tired and slightly bonkers now, sleeeep I need sleep!) xxx

RyVeeta · 22/04/2016 19:10

Bad day today. Saw support worker, she says it isn't me, but I'm muddled and confused and apparently this is normal.
He decided he wanted to talk which resulted in him saying we all gang up on him and that he tries even if we don't recognise it and that he loves me and I'm torturing him and I'm the most abusive person on earth.
Life feels really shitty right now.

OP posts:
EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 23/04/2016 10:32

He has a very strange way of trying.

Don't let this wash, you know how the land lies. It isn't you
You're the 'most abusive person on earth' you 'torture' him, but he loves you? Right Confused

This piece has been linked to on MN before, it's for people who are dating, but is appropriate I think.
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200812/are-you-dating-abuser

also here www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/emotional-abuse-invisible-marriage-killer?page=0,1

The Profile of an Emotionally Abused Wife
Women who find themselves in an emotionally abusive situation often have low self-esteems even though they may appear confident and in control of everything. An emotionally abused wife “looks to her husband’s acceptance of her as the measure of her worth” (White)>The abusive husband is also emotionally dependent on his wife; that is, his feeling of self-worth comes from being married. Most emotionally abusive husbands are unable to look at and examine themselves and why they engage in such spirit-killing behavior against a person they have avowed to love and cherish

MiscellaneousAssortment · 23/04/2016 16:43

He has pushed all the accountability for his whole world into you. So by his warped thinking, yes it rained today - you evil beep, how could you let it happen. Yes, he had a headache today, you evil beep, how could you MAKE that happen. Yes, he wanted peas with dinner, you should have known, you evil beep.

And you also are not entitled to any needs and feelings yourself. So if you dare to have them, you are stealing all that time and attention and resources directly from him. Because only he is allowed to be ill. Only he is allowed to be a flawed and imperfect human being. And it's an attack on him if the world shifts even a tiny bit.

So, you need anything, like, a jumper, a rest, a hug... That's you being abusive to him. And if you dare be poorly, be in pain ... Be having a potential heart attack. That's you tipping his world upside down and deliberating taking his right to rule his tiny world and take take take without end. You bitch!

Look, this is how you have abused him. You are threatening the world he has created. And so he's kicking off big time. He wants you back where you belong, supporting his whole existence.

Don't give in, don't go back into that world he has created. It's fucked up and terrible, it is destroying you, and actually, isn't making him happy either. His world is basically a terrible terrible failure.

His perception doesn't allow him to admit what a cruel and selfish abuser he is. How he needs to destroy you and have you as a broken slave to his every whim.

He is wrong.

One of the most difficult bits about trying to leave an abusive relationship, is that your whole life, brain and heart is oriented on him. You use his reaction to steer your world, it's a survival tactic. But that puts you in the position of needing him to acknowledge the reality of your relationship and the abuse he puts you through on a daily basis. And if he acknowledges it, you can leave. Except of course, he won't admit it, he has a million reasons to live in denial, and to be brutally honest, he cares a lot more about himself and his world, than he does about you.

This is the trickiest bit you have to go through. Separating your reality from his reality. And moving him out of that position of being lord and ruler of reality.

Keep clinging on to what you know deep down - you deserve more than this life. He's the one doing the damage here, not you. Every time he try's to enforce his 'reality' on you, keep breathing and keep centred, keep remembering, you don't have to live in his fantasy world, you don't have to accept his lets pretend part for you of 'evil abuser'. It's just a part, just a character he needs you to play, it's not true.

Flowers
EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 27/04/2016 22:48

Thinking of you.

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