I need someone to believe me

[Wilhamenawonka]

This is about abuse. Not sexual financial or physical or even verbal in ways that are generally understood.

It was covert passive aggressive abuse over 17 years and i finally got him to leave 20 months ago. I now know that it involved all the above but so subtly that even now it feels like a fog trying to penetrate it.

Although I know intellectually that it was abuse it's only This week that I've started to get it emotionally and now I'm broken.

I'll never be in another relationship because i can't trust myself to stay safe and also i have vaginismus which ideveloped due to his approach to sex.
Every day more and more things hit me and break my heart all over again.

The thing is that i can't even give examples because I'm so scared of people not getting it and making me question myself again.

I'll never stop questioning if it was all my fault. I'm broken.

Please say you believe me because he is such a master at subtle passive aggressive abuse no one (except my counsellor and close friend) would ever get it.
I'm not a drama queen making this up but thats what I've been telling myself for years.

I feel sick all the time and just need to get it out.

Maudlin the more you tell the more I am convinced we were married to the same h.

Maudlin he sounds dreadful. How did you bear it without going mad

Mine had and still has a talent for not addressing anything. We can be arguing over text and i can provide 5 issues that i have.
His response will be to reply to half of one od the points
E.g. i find it really disrespectful when you don't let me k know you will be home late with the kids which has been every week for months.
Answer - ok I'm sorry i got them home late today. I'll make sure i don't do that again (but he does a few weeks later)

THAT'S NOT THE POINT!
AND I'M NOT THE BADDIE!

All i ever wanted from him was communication. We could have had a relationship that way

Of course it works the other way as well.
I now recieve a text everytime he's left work, or the train i's two minutes late, or one of the kids need the loo before coming home.

Cock

I believe you.

I believe you.

But argue for your limitations, and they are yours. You made them.

"Mine had and still has a talent for not addressing anything."

AAAARGH. And not necessarily in an argument - just something you need to know. And then you are the bad guy for insisting on crunching though till you know what you need.

Three slightly related questions in an email. A vague answer to one of them. A laboriously sweet request for more information. A snippy repeat of the answer to one of three questions.

AAAAAAARGH

Maudlin I believe that.
I have someone I have had to have dealings with who does that.

That is a horrible kind of control and it makes it impossible to deal with the person at all. I don't know if it's intended as control, or a mental inability to concentrate enough to understand the 3 questions and why they are different and what the implications are..

Wil what you have now is better, if irritating.

Maudlin you put it so much better than me.
That's why i refuse to engage now.

Kind I'm 100% sure it's a kind of control especially when the three questions are put clearly ín an email where they can be reread.
It's the insidious idea that maybe the poor lambs don't know what they're doing and can't concentrate etc that leads us to feel bad for getting frustrated. After all they can't help it can they?
Then you end up back in the angry parent role.

It's better now because i refuse to engage at all although that puts me in the baddie role. It's less of a mind f* though this way.

Yes, I 'm sure you are right.

I always thought that it was because the email was from me, he just tuned out. it wasn't that he thought "oh right, I'll mess with Maud's head by ignoring the questions she needs answered." More "oh there's Maud again, I'll ignore that, she'll be boring me or putting pressure on me about doing something again; I'll just ignore her and she will go away and take care of it herself"

I just remembered something else which he always does, which he did to me today and I had forgotten about (haven't spoken to him or engaged with him for weeks so I forgot about this). If you ask a "would you like x?" question to which the answer is no - even if it is something he often likes, like coffee, but just doesn't feel like right now - you don't get a "no thank you". You get a face - an actually disgusted face, as if you'd said "what about a warm shit sandwich?" and a shake of the head as he says "no!" and sometimes actually puts his hand up as if to ward off the invisible thing he doesn't want (which isn't actually in his presence). It is really fucking insulting, it really bugged me for years although I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I felt so small so much of the time, till I tracked it down to this - it makes me feel ashamed and stupid for quite a few minutes afterwards but I don't always know why

Please can you give me a hand hold this morning.
I've woken up and it's like the whole 17 years are rushing down on me like a tidal wave.
So many memories and realisations and now i finally KNOW it's not been me but the implications of that are too much to cope with
It's been lost in the mists of time but i used to be pretty vibrant, enthusiastic, energetic.
He spent all that time slowly squashing me under his relentless negativity and my world became smaller and smaller and smaller.
Then i started to collude in my own squashing by blaming myself when i got angry or upset.

The kids are waking up and it feels like I'm about to have a panic attack

Oh, Wil I am so sorry.
I think now you realise it's true, yes he did do that: sucking out your life year after year, that you may be feeling powerless and in a vortex because it wasn't you, it wasn't something you were doing or had control of.

But you are out now. Can you chose something lovely for your self today, however small, ( a vibrant coloured bunch of flowers) or do something you like?

Maudlin You have described that so well I can vividly imagine that reaction to the simple, kind "Would you like...?" What horrible habit of his!

I know what you mean about just not bothering to answer, though it can be an arrogant I don't need to bother too I think.

I feel sick and shaky. It's too much. It's the difference between knowing something with your mind and knowing it in your heart.

It feels very very upsetting and unfair. Why couldn't he just love the alive part of me instead of being so jealous of it that he had to crush out.

I want to be sick

Wil you sound so very unhappy and distressed. Do you have anyone you could talk to or just spend a few hours with to give you some relief?

I think you said you already tried counselling, but perhaps now you have moved to e different phase where you are not just blaming yourself it might help to try again for yourself.

Can I give you a fresh example of headfuck?

Comes home. Problem with his phone becomes immediately our problem. (This happened once before the night before i had to hand in an essay for my MA - I was selfish for not helping him set up his new phone!)

Dinner is on the table. Questions to me, who has no idea, about what he has lost on the phone (when I lost my whole phone and stuff in it nobody cared).
We agree it is annoying that all photos are on some invisible cloud we know nothing about.

Then I say "well when I'll have my sabbatical next year I'll have time and I'll print the family pictures and make albums for us"
Out of nowhere comes His sarcastic reply "oh you have never even made the wedding one!" (Bullshit! i have. I just not stuck them in. And He has not looked at it once in 12 years! And I have done pict calendar for him snd each member of his family, including bitch sister, for the past 10 years , every single year - no present from him to my family.)
Me, surprised but still normal "Because I never had time or money."
"Well YOU wanted a photographer!" (My dad paid for it).

WTF??

Conversation ends with my silence. (And me thinking "you are a fucking twat!)

What else can you say? In front of the kids. Like you say will you are a bitch whatever you reply.

Wil, so sorry you are feeling like this. I think talking to someone in real life would really help you, too.

Pippi - deep sigh.

I do have a counsellor who lets me go on an ad hoc basis when i can afford it.
If I'm going to ever move on there needed to be a point when i actually got it but it's so painful.

You know the worst thing i ever did was earlier this year . For 24 hours i treated him exactly the way he treated me. .. didn't answer questions, was a bit funny about his contract with the kids - nothing concrete he could pin on me because there was always a good excuse. I gaslighted, pretended that i wasn't doing anything, that i wasn't annoyed.

He was sat in a park crying over the phone begging me to stop by the end.
24 hours!
And of course i felt awful for doing it.

The innocent act, the injured innocent act, tge incompetent act. The negative act. The victim act. Even the ' sorry i hurt you' act. It's all control.

My mind keeps making links but then shying away from them because it hurts

pippi yep, the misdirection Is classic. I learnt as a child that the best way to win an argument with my brother (and reduce him to spluttering incoherent rage) was to throw a couple of curve balls in which really had nothing to do with it. I grew out of it.

How ironic that I'd choose too marry that

maudlin In my case I think I did a sort of deal in my head with inadequacy because I was trying to avoid avert alpha male dominance and sexism.

Thank you for that. Fortunately left ex before in too deep, but when he started nattering about being a SAHD in future I realised that I'd be expected to work full time, keep the house clean (he lives in filth), do the DIY... and probably childcare in the evenings too.

That's good you have a counsellor you could see WIl. Just let yourself off for doing the same thing back to him for 24 hours. You see it all so clearly. No one could be more self-reflecting than you are as evidence from what you have said here, and it seems to be exhausting you. You deserve to be happy and free with afresh start.

I think the more people say what happens these sorts of relationships the more pennies drop, like WomanAt Work says! That avoiding Alpha male dominance Woman and Maudlin mentioned happens more than anyone realises I think, especially if someone has had a bad experience with a nasty A man, then it's out f the frying pan into the fire.

Typical Pippi he never even mentioned what you did for his family. As for what happened when your MA essay was due, that was horrible - he should have been helping you. I am sure he was jealous of your success in getting your MA done too.

Kind he was I am sure and instead of saying it he hurts me. Like yesterday, reflecting on it I think he was a sudden attack when he saw I had no wedding ring on. Instead of asking about that he decided to swirl the conversation into attack mode.

The thing is, and with this I do not mean we are in anyway responsible for it, the way we respond to it is indicative of our own past suffering. Re the MA essay I did end up helping him setting up his phone at the expenses of my own work and filling myself up with resentmemt and hatred, at me and him). I took the bait. Yesterday I didn't at all. I left him to it. This doesn't mean there are ways to make it work, not at all. I could not keep up with avoiding and eggshell walking etc. It just meant that it did not hurt as much, that his behaviour was his choice and It didnt trigger pain.

Will yy, the misdirection has always been there. It took me YEARS to realised what was going on. Now when I see that I drop the conv.

I cannot wait to be on my own.

My weekly therapy is my salvation

I believe you, I really, really do.

I still love my husband (he really has tried, inadvertently, his very best to kill that off, honestly), and I am so sorry in advance, as this is very long, but I hope that it helps you get things back in to perspective from your side.

My husband is an Incompetent Boy Husband. I have only recently had the 'Penny Drop' moment where I have worked out how Passive Aggressive he has been throughout our relationship (15 years, now), and I totally understand how 'Crazy-Making' it can be. BUT, he has now finally listened, and is starting to recognise his behaviour, rather than play the long suffering victim, and is doing everything in his power to make big changes, whilst still managing to be almost comically 'Incompetent'. It has been exhausting. I have been really shocked at how common this behaviour is. My own MN thread was my 'Lightbulb' moment.

I also totally understand that until it finally clicks, that you blame yourself and think that you're the one in the wrong the whole time. The most angry I have ever been in my entire life was when we went to a good friend's party, and without discussing it with me or even asking me, my husband offered our spare bedroom to a notorious womaniser we barely knew, and gave my set of door keys away to him.

I am usually the one that has to leave parties, dinner parties etc. to go home and pay the babysitter, often walking home alone in the dark (A Real Gentleman, isn't he?), so he can continue enjoying himself late in to the night, and he gave my keys away, to someone I had never met, so I couldn't leave the party without him, though I was exhausted and I wanted to, and I could not get in to my own home. It sounds so petty to be cross about, doesn't it, and I still feel so GUILTY for being so angry with him, but I was furious, therefore the uptight 'Unreasonable One' in the wrong, poor long-suffering him.

I was so furious that I shouted at him in the street (something I have never done in my life before, or since, even when I was trapped in a really bad relationship with a man who physically abused me, and did so in public with no fear of anyone stepping in) and I didn't care who saw me.

Apparently, I tried to hit him with my hand bag, although I don't remember this, so I am 'An abuser'. I swore at him, too, which is a bit un-lady like for a well spoken English Lass like me, so I am also 'Emotionally Abusive'.

I couldn't believe that he didn't 'get' why I was so upset with him for what he had done. I still don't know whether I was being unreasonable or not, on balance I think I was, because my patience with him finally ran out, and he is not a child or silly teenager. He is a grown up in his mid forties, behaving like a child or silly teenager. I am an adult too, and I snapped and lost control of my emotions. There is, in my mind, no excuse for how I treated him. That's how scrambled my head still is, and this was a couple of years ago now.

Ofcourse, the Lothario brings back a One Night Stand to our house, and she meets our DC at the kitchen table the next morning, so that was awkward.

It wasn't until I totally unpicked this particular incident, quite recently, in my own head, that I understood what it was that had made me so angry. It wasn't about the door keys at all, the keys were symbolic. It was about selfishness, thoughtlessness, power and control. It was about him putting my needs last, without a second thought, and not for one second considering the implications on our children. The needs of a virtual stranger mattered more than his family. Also he could be 'The generous, popular, easy-going, cool and relaxed, helpful charming friend' everyone knows and loves (BIG EGO Brownie points to be had there). I would never have agreed to this scenario, but I wasn't given the opportunity to even comment or have a view. I would have been 'The Baddie' if I had stepped up and put my foot down, and made him 'feel bad' by having to undo his unilateral decision, because it had pissed his unreasonable wife off (which I would now do without hesitation today, BTW). I still to this day can't quite get my head around it. He was utterly baffled by my reaction.

I sometimes feel like a fraud, posting on MN about my boy-husband, because I feel like the poor hen pecked creature has suffered enough, just for putting up with me, but in reality he isn't hen pecked at all. He can be incredibly selfish and digs his heels in whenever he wants, so he remains the one holding the reigns of power. He feels NO GUILT. He has, until very recently, run the Gauntlet of choosing to treat me badly and apologise for his behaviour, rather than put the hard graft in to understand why his behaviour has been so disrespectful, take ownership of it, and man-up.

When you feel a bit stronger and more yourself again, read this, it has been a great source of inspiration and enlightenment to me and to many others, I am sure:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2703947-Incompetent-Husbands-What-Happened-Next

I am posting this here because someone mentioned the link www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2268977-The-Abuser-Profiles

I recognise this from Maudlin, so much, 'Arrrrggghhhhhhhhh'. The inner cry of being driven continuously mad by this sort of behaviour. Now I know what is making me feel like this, though, my inner calm has returned, and the 'Me' that is the 'Real' me has begun to return, so you will become 'You' again once you get over the shock and trauma of realising that you are not to blame. You sound very strong although you are suffering horribly right now. You could try this: NHS Free Online talking therapy Tel: 01954 230 066. I picked this up in my local GP's recently, as I am in the process of getting some counselling underway for myself, and I have just called the number to check it is correct. They provide free online CBT.

I have also recently discovered the term 'Reactive Abuse'
sentientcounselling.co.uk/2016/01/11/reactive-abuse/
I haven't read this particular link, so can't vouch for the contents, but a good Google will bring up similar.

Best of best wishes to you, and lots of love, you will get through to the other side, I am sure of it. I am the stage where I still think It is fixable, but I am wobbling all over the shop at the moment, especially after reading your thread. I hope that you feel more like your old self again soon. MN is an absolute Godsend. Hugs and Flowers.

I totally get this, I have lived with an entitled cocklodger who used my mental health to justify his idleness. Without MN, I might not have divorced him 4 years ago.

Take your time. The first step for me was to allow myself to come to, gently, while being kind to myself (as best I could).

I believe you.

I've never heard/read anyone that has described anything close to what my ex h was like until I read your posts.
Unfortunately I'm still being punished years down the line via our Ds who is also being treated so awfully. The only good thing is that others can see some bad behaviour now where they couldn't before but it's different behaviour, he has an equally awful partner now and although I know she is partly under his influence she is also contributing terribly. There is no escape as although his behaviour now is shitty it's not anything the police can become involved in and DS is desperate for the little contact he has so I will never be free.

My advice if you want him out of your life is to just keep your head down with him, don't go for anything in the divorce and push for access... I would NEVER normally advise these things but I did all of that and I'm paying now and so is my DS which is the worst part about it. I wish I could turn back the clock.

Good luck and be strong