DP stayed out all night

[Wellfuckit]

Just that, really. We had an almighty row over how he refuses to make allowances for our child's SN. He told me, in front of the neighbours to fuck off out of his house since I've threatened to leave on several occasions.

I left the room. I could hear him ranting out in the garage to our neighbour. I came back downstairs after a while and he wasn't anywhere to be found. I messaged him time and agin but nothing. Called his parents because he was in dark clothing and hadn't taken the car - was worried he'd gone for a walk down local country roads.

By the early hours I started to pack a suitcase. Things have been bad for a while. Both stressed and over worked. I'm very snappy. Every time I try to talk to him about our situation it's met with sulking, stonewalling, blame shifting, kitchen sinking, tears, rage. He takes any attempt to talk as a personal attack and I then end up losing my temper because I feel manipulated and guilted into shutting up.

He finally walked through the door later in the morning, saw the suitcase, flew into a rage about it and about my increasingly angry messages. No apology, said he fell asleep in the car (the car was checked and he wasn't in there)

I just don't know what to do anymore.

You have strength you do not realise

It takes a lot of resources to live like this. Most of them are used simply getting from one day to the next and managing this arsehole

Freeing up headspace by disengaging from the drama and planning your exit will mean you will tap into abilities you had forgotten you had. The ones you had before you got tangled up in an abusive relationship.

I'm trying to keep my sense of self.

He tells me I've driven him to it and no wonder my mother and ex-husband treated me the way they did.

I have been stressy, snappy, shouty. I've been dealing with a lot - I know I need to learn to respond differently.

These rages of his started at the beginning of last year: his attitude had really changed towards my DC after our toddler was born. He became very intolerant a of him.

After a year of trying to gently address it with him I started to go downhill and became depressed, exhausted and moody. My DC's behaviour understandable became difficult to handle.

I finally snapped early last year and told him that if he didn't change his attitude towards my DC I would leave and he wouldn't see the children again.

I know I was wrong to say that - what Si should have done was simply tell him it wasn't on and that we were leaving and we'd work out contact arrangements.

I've not said it since and have apologised time and again for it. His rages started shortly after that.

Before that if I tried to talk to him about something that was bothering me he would sulk, have a bit of a cry, joke with me of change the subject.

I can't help feeling that this is all my fault.

There's no 'fault' and it's not really productive to think like that. You're both with the wrong person basically, and it's toxic for the children.

You CAN manage without Shouty Guy and I think some time on your own without him (but with the DCs) would help you recalibrate your life tbh.

Why the hell are you with him OP? Pls get out - he doesn't deserve any of you

There is nothing to be redeemed from this relationship, OP. And even if he treated you like a goddess, you have your child to think of and defend.

But he is treating you like shit as well.

You should also think about taking the Freedom programme as you seem to be going from one abusive relationship to another, thanks to your mother.

What af is saying is so true
I was involved with an abuser and trying to cope with it left me doubting my own sanity and struggling to cope with other areas of my life.
This is a few years ago and I'm still having counselling to sort out why I got into that mess. I am in a happy relationship now and the difference is like night and day.
Please get out and start living your life.

Looking back I think he may have been undermining my confidence for a very long time:

We met shortly after ExH abandoned us, he has said in the past how he rescued is from poverty, he frequently 'affectionately' calls himself my PA because I can be absent minded when under stress. Treating DC as a bit of a 'joke' - but it was so subtle I managed to miss it I think until it became much more obvious.

I've been taken for an utter fool, haven't I

It sounds like you were vulnerable when you met him & he clearly like to be in charge. Put yourself & your DC first. Life is so much better away from a bully, especially if he's being resentful of your older child. That will only get worse. I second the freedom programme - it's a real eye opener & so helpful moving forward. The problem isn't you, it's him. for you.

Yes, you're right. You're all right.

I'm getting myself in the Freedom Programme.

I also need to learn that if someone doesn't think my feelings are important enough to at least listen and engage in adult conversation instead of becoming offended with me then that person isn't going to change and I need to walk away instead of clinging onto hope and becoming more and more resentful.

I think what I'm doing is repeating my childhood relationship with my parents over and over again - I suppose I'n subconsciously trying to fix the past instead of accepting that it wasn't my problem to fix?

Yes, your mother in particular taught you some really damaging lessons about relationships which you have simply absorbed and carried over into present day. (If she for instance is narcissistic in nature and your dad is her willing enabler then that is a truly rotten combination for a child to grow up in). Your own relationship template at their hands became warped.

I think she may be. No matter what the issue was, who was involved somehow it has always managed to be about her: eg - I fell pregnant to a long term partner but wasn't ready for a child. I confused in my best friend. Mum was angry with me because she was worried people who knew our family would find out and it was a case of 'what will the neighbour's think'? She was more interested in her reputation than she was in the fact that I had chosen to talk to a friend rather than my own mum - which is pretty telling of how I felt about our relationship.

My father most certainly is an enabler. I grew up frequently being told to mind what I said to mum because 'you know what she's like'. Hell, she threw a hissy fit because I'd said how much I liked my former PILs house - a simple comment like that she took personally and dad had to come and have s word eith me because she's been offended and was bending his ear about it.

Your parents have failed you utterly here. Your dad is really her hatchet man who sacrificed your emotional wellbeing on her alter. He got what he wanted out of that relationship and that is why he has stayed. In a straight fight he would choose her over you, such weak men as well often idolise their wife.

BTW are they still together now?. He is likely to be just as narcissistic as she is. Women like your mother cannot do relationships so the men in their lives are either long gone or just as narcissistic themselves.

Think very, very carefully

Have you ever attempted to persuade your own children to modify their behaviour to appease him ?

Certainly you will have been doing that yourself so, just like you did, your own children will absorb this shit

Depressing stuff. But it's never too late to make different choices.

Quit doing drama lama stuff like packing suitcases in the early hours, leaving them for him to see. but having no intention of following through. He knows you won't go at that moment in time and why should you ?

Use your energy to plan your exit so that if you do go, you go without a backward glance

Otherwise, this title for tat bollocking gets no one anywhere and your kids witness the dysfunction

Stop engaging with his stupidity. Stop lowering yourself to it. Decide what you want and make sure every action you take has that as your goal.

*tit for tat bollocks

Must proofread...

Attila - in a straight up fight my dad has chosen me over mum every single time including the last time where he witnessed my mum demanding to know how I felt about her childhood and when I told her and asked for her to please try to understand she booted myself and the children out of the door. I've spoken to him since and he has basically rewritten in his head what was said and what happened.

Any - that wasn't the first time I tried to leave so you're right - he knew I wouldn't go through with it.

And I have been trying to get DC to modify behaviour to stop him having a got at him all the time and vice versa - none of it works, it is incredibly damaging, I can see it and have gotten upset about it time a and time again and have had horrible rows with him about it trying to get him to see it cannot go on. All I get in response is anger, indignation, kitchen sinking, blame shifting and being told he's tired of hearing his efforts are not good enough.

I know this is toxic and the children deserve better and we are out of this environment - I've been saving money on the pretext of house improvements and I have access to our joint bank account.

I just cannot stop this nagging inner voice that it's all my fault and I haven't tried hard enough - I'll deal with that through the Freedom programme though.

Do you mean your dad chose your mum over you?

Yes. He always has even when it is scree hungry obvious mum was in the wrong. My whole family tiptoes around her

What is kitchen sinking ?

It doesn't matter how hard you try to appease a person like this. Even if you "solve" one aspect of your behaviour or personality that displeased them they will just make up another one

They don't want you to change or for your relationship to improve. There is no fun in that ! This is sport to them. Even if you were completely subservient they would find another way to unis you

This is not your fault and you cannot change the dynamic. All you can do is remove yourself from it. The only mistakes you have made so far are to engage with it.

Kitchen sinking - when a person in a confrontation brings absolutely everything they can think of into the exchange instead of sticking to the issue raised

Ah. I would call that bamboozling. A common tactic employed by a person who must win an argument at any cost. Often a high degree of inadequacy is demonstrated at the same time < files new term away for future reference >

It sounds to me, lovey, that you have him well sussed. What appears to be much less well developed in you is the concept that you do not deserve this shit

It's not your fault.

Tell yourself, I deserve to walk away from this shit. All of it. Fuck them and fuck their inadequacies. I am me.

I think it's deeply ingrained in me - to accept people being unreasonable with me.