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.

Wilhamenawonka

If i don't reply to individuals it's not because I'm not reading.
I cant really cope with what's going on in my head right now so although i asked people to believe me really i feel ashamed for manipulating my information to trick you into being on my side.

Does that make sense? I'm so aware of the things i could say that put me in a bad light but that I'm not sharing

That describes what has been going on in my head for years. And because of this i have felt like because i have not mentioned the bits that would show me in a bad, then DP is most probably right and if i didn't manipulate information and told people everything, then they will also say yes you are being sensitive, yes you are domineering, yes you have OCD, yes you are selfish, yes you are a bad mother, yes everything is always about you, yes you like playing the victim... and because of that i stayed.. and stayed.. working on myself..counselling after counselling.
OP, i can totally see where you are coming from. You have already done more than i have...you have left. Your thread is one of the threads i am reading to give me the strength i need to leave. I relate with so much of what you have said. You are so strong, so resilient.. and i admire that. Wishing you all the best.

I believe you. I've been there. The proper turning point for me was when a friend gave me the Susan Forward book. I was reading about him! He ticked every box. He was very clever though and his abuses would ebb and flow. I see this afterwards as his keeping me on the hook. He was financially abusive and physically abusive but mostly it was relentless mind games that I didn't recognise at first as I had never met anyone like him in my life. I am older and wiser now and recognise him as an intelligent high functioning psychopath. I am also capable of seeing this in others. In real terms I have done better than him in the long run though despite his pointing out all my failings. It took me a long long time to get my mental health back but I did OK in my jobs and kept on earning and saving a bit and made some good investments whilst his recklessness lost him his home ultimately. There were loads of red flags waving but I was mesmerised by his personality. He was an interesting person and I was dazzled by him. If I met him now, he would be OK for a while and then he would slip in a neg. I would tell him to get tae fuck immediately now. I am so far beyond all that, I see him as part of my education only but at the time and just after I left him, I felt like a shell only too. You are apart from him. That is a really good start.

You are still in the early stages of recovery.
Be kind to yourself, every day. Give yourself permission to find moments of joy in unexpected places. I was told by a trusted friend it takes about 5 years to work though this type of abuse.

The you trapped inside is mending. You won't appreciate how far you've come yet, your progress won't be even registering.
But, you have. You have recognised the abuse. You have acted and got out.

Each day you'll process tiny new bits of informative about the way he treated you. It's because your mind is strong enough to start to address things.
Before this time you may have been in total denial , shutdown and with memory loss. It's the minds way of coping.

Even if it feels like you are losing your mind, you are moving forward.

One day you will find yourself strong enough to feel angry. This will be your turning point. Because at this point you'll truly recognise the abuse you suffered.

It's an incredibly painful process. One that will constantly catch you unawares. Just when you've got one memory worked through another appears. Have you got someone you trust, that you can share moments of fear, guilt, doubt and bewilderment with?

A huge well done, you are on your journey in the right direction. Every day is a tiny step further from your past. Walk towards the light, be kind to yourself, every day, you are healing.

Thank you for writing this!
I'm so glad you did, I feel like you've written about my ex who was very very similar!

Can I ask, you people who have been in these relationships...what are the external signs? As you say, it is often engineered to look as though you're the unreasonable one. How could someone outside the relationship see what's really happening?

You lot are my safe venting place. My friends try to understand and they can see that something isn't quite right but they can't get it.
I don't blame them as its taken me so many years and even now i miss things.

I'm guilty of so many things myself. I've been passive aggressive, verbally abusive, sarcastic, cruel, contemptuous. ANYTHING to get any kind of response.
I've also begged on my knees in tears, tried to encourage, support, praise, taken the lead, given him space, tried detaching, tried understanding.

Nothing broke through.
He just didn't want to have a relationship with me. The very act of me trying to relate in any way gave him the power to reject and punish me.

It still happens now. That's why the only way i can stay sane is to not engage. He can even use that against me because he pretends to engage in front of the kids.
If i don't respond I'm a baddie if i do I'm opening myself up to more abuse.

It's clever

Youre getting lots of help re the relationship which is brilliant. Sorry if i have missed this but are you getting any counselling? Lots on here recommend the freedom course.

I would like to recommend a book for discovering who you are again. How to do everything and be happy. Not everything in there will apply to you but the wish list of how you want your life to be I think would be really helpful. You could use your free weekends on it when dd is at her dads.

Sheba, it's really very hard for someone to tell from outside the relationship.

But one thing I can think of right now, is for example:- In a party setting or gathering if someone is slating the OH in the presence of DP when the OH is not present..they rarely say anything in defence of their OH..but should the OH be present, they then half heartedly make a defence with jokes which afterwards, if one thinks about it are actually put downs.

This is just thing amongst many and I struggle to know how to put them into words.

The truth is that it's very hard to spot from the outside because social perception matter very much to these sort of people.
This is just my opinion

Wilhamena, in my earlier post, I failed to mention I Believe You.

Sheba, if you happen to be close to a couple where one is complaining of this kind of abuse, you will observe that in social settings the DP tends to be more affectionate (either physically or verbally) than the OH may have confided in you.

Sheba - i dont think you can spot it, I didn't even know it was happening to me. Like the OP says, I always have that 'is it me?' Voice in the back of my head.

For example, Someone mentioned the time keeping and faffing about to make you late. Mine used to do this but I hadn't connected the dots and realised it was on purpose until a couple of weeks ago. We've been together 20 years. I believed the 'you're always late' line.

Reading threads on here and mixing with people outside our friendship group made me realise that actually it wasn't me.

I believe you.

We had a couple of sessions of counselling in which he set it all up as a relationship in which the problem was me and my anger issues. I believed him and I nodded and accepted it all.
the counselling didn't work because it didn't go anywhere near the truth. That was not the problem and no matter how long we sat listening to him describing his noble attempts to deal with a mad bitch, we couldn't get anywhere.
I didn't understand why then, but I knew deep down something was very wrong. I didn't know what and I did think it was all my fault, but something was off. I can see it more clearly now.

You are doing brilliantly. well done on everything you have done.

the problem is, that being sincerely disposed to be a good honest person to the best of your ability, with the capacity to self criticise and the knowledge that you aren't perfect - these are all good habits to have in a relationship with a nice person, but if you take them into a relationship with a PA person or other abuser, you are just not equipped to see what is happening.

I believe you.

I cant really cope with what's going on in my head right now so although i asked people to believe me really i feel ashamed for manipulating my information to trick you into being on my side.

Does that make sense? I'm so aware of the things i could say that put me in a bad light but that I'm not sharing.

If you were the type of person to do that you wouldn't be worrying that you were the type of person to do that, if that makes sense. . .

Sheba, they hide it very well. My ex was charming and fooled everyone. But occasionally you'd see a glimpse. One place where my ex let his mask slip is where he'd be visibly enjoying it if someone was taking the piss out of me and join in. Or he'd enjoy telling anecdotes of things that were embarrassing for me or situations that showed me in a bad /stupid light.

Like, to give an example, in a normal relationship if you had your skirt tucked into your g-string a normal bloke would tell you as soon as he noticed to spare you embarrassment.

My ex would not only enjoy the spectacle of me going around bare arsed, knowing how mortified I'd be when I found out, but he'd send me up to the bar get a round in to maximise on it and make sure as many people as possible saw me. And then when I discovered it, I'd be upset and embarrassed he would make sure he kept cracking jokes about it all night. And if I dared to get upset or annoyed i was in the wrong then being humourless and not being able to take a joke.

rosetime yes. But in my case when his parents took great delight inn putting me down he just kept quiet because then i was getting the flack instead of him. Plus it made him look like the good one/victim again.

maudlin and yes to being the mad angry bitch and just accepting it.

The thing is so much of what i can say makes me sound like an abuser myself which is the role i accepted for so long.
I really did spend years trying to fix myself and of course i was so lucky to have someone who would stay with me. He never even intimated that's what he thought, i was so well trained i said it to myself.

Its that which makes it so hard to pick up on.
I've come to see that it's precisely because i tried so hard to understand myself and fix myself that i couldn't have been the problem.

sheba for many years i had a great successful career and lots of friends. I seemed confident and had a reputation for an acerbic and sometimes inappropriate sense of humour. I was known for not letting him do things and running / controlling everything.
I looked like the abuser and of course that's what so many people here will say about abusers (eg controlling, openly frustrated with their partner etc)

In that case how could anyone see it?
Possibly the only way is that the one who willingly accepts that view of themselves isn't the abuser.

It's murky and confusing and layers within layers all of which can be seen two ways.

Thank you feckin. Thats the thought process I'm having to learn.

But of course isn't it his process not to see himself as the abuser? So if i see myself as a victim of his abuse doesn't that mean I'm denying my own badness and am therefore the abuser myself.

It's precisely that type of double think that gets me every time. That's why it's taken me this long to get so far.

However maybe it's taken this long because really i know he's just well meaning and innocent and I'm trying to justify everything.

That's why this thread because the never-ending questioning is driving me mad.

The real joke is that i retrained as a counsellor where the focus is on questioning yourself and understanding your own processes so i can analyse for Britain.

Layers within layers for ever

I believe you. I was there too, for 13 years. You could have been writing about my ex H. It takes a while to recover from years of abuse but recover you will.

For all the layers with is layers, and whoever's perspective is right, it is unhealthy and you need to get out. The dynamic between you is damaging and needs to stop. You don't need to fully understand who is at fault and why it happened, you need to get out and recover.

Time and distance will make it clearer for you. Staying never will.

I believe you.

After leaving the abuse, it feels like being victimised all over again when our mutual friends are out with him and his new girlfriend and many never contacted me or my daughter again. Being believed is very important. Feeling validated after someone discounting you for years is healing. Feeling like there is some fairness would help - he's still in my house with his girlfriend while me and my daughter had to move out (for now, legal process is ongoing).

I get it. I'm stuck in the same place.

I believe you.

And worrying as I've not been happy for a while and wondering if I've got a problem. I've been looking up symptoms of add and narcissism in me as I think there's something I'm doing wrong.

I'm going to have counselling as I'm tired of the head fuck but I think we (me and DH) are both the problem.

Time and distance - everything will become clearer and clearer.

When I finally left my abuser he told everyone what happened, minimised and twisted it all, I felt so confused. He told everyone that we'd had a fight when he had actually beaten me up. Even laughed about it to his friends.

I saw him in the pub a few months afterwards and I had a polite chat with him because he'd done such a number on me. I would tell him to fuck right off if I saw him now (13 years later).

It's crystal clear now and it will be for you in time. Keep talking it through, keep getting your feelings validated. I one million percent believe you.

Pklme has it spot on for me. At the core there is a rel that doesn't work for whatever reason. Part of the problem is feeling that we have to find enough reasons, enough proofs to leave as if our own mind, body and soul is not good enough.