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.

Every tiny little thing is designed to not take responsibility and it's crazy making.

Today he's taking the children to a party. I told him where and when.
He texted back to ask which softplay it is A or B.
B doesn't isnt even in the part of town that i told him (and yes i did tell him which soft play)

So how do i respond?

1. don't and let him figure it out. He doesn't dare get it wrong, or deliberately gets it wrong and kids miss out. I'm a bitch
2. resend original text and sound snippy. I'm a bitch
3. make a comment. I'm a bitch and he was only asking
4. one word answer with location so I'm being arsey and a bitch (i chose this one)

YEARS of experience have taught me that the reason he didn't read the original text properly was because
A) he wants me to be
B) he wants me to look like a bitch so he can be a victim

And he can look oh so innocent and say ' sorry i didn't think/didn't read it properly/will read it next time'

AND NOBODY WILL UNDERSTAND WHY SUCH A TINY THING TURNS ME INTO A SOBBING RAGING CRAZY WOMAN

EVERYTHING is a set up. Even tiny little things.
I finally know I'm not paranoid or a bitch but the pain and anger are exhausting.

I didn't want to leave though.
I wanted my children to grow up in a living family with all good things.

Now they have a mum who's broken and a freezing home because they live in poverty.

I disagree that i don't have to understand who's at fault. It was precisely because i thought there was fault on both sides(mainly mine) that i stayed so long.
That's why this type of abuse is so damaging

I totally get this. I had similar to this whenever I wanted to do somethi g and our conversations would go like this:

Me: Oh I was thinking of going christmas shopping with a friend

Him: Oh (in a disappointed way)

Me: Is that ok?

Him: Yes fine, do whatever you want.

Me: What's wrong? I don't have to go if you don't want me to, it was just an idea is all.

Him: No it's fine, you go. Don't worry about me.

Me: No seriously, please tell me whats wrong.

Him: Well it's just... You didn't think to ask if I wanted to go shopping with you

Me: I'm sorry, well do you want to.

Him: No no it's fine, you go off and have fun with your friend

Me: Ok well if you're sure

Him: I just said it was fine didn't I, I won't stop you. huffs and walks off to do something for a few hours

I could carry on.....

I'd resend the original text. No further comment. Don't get drawn into it.

Mine would quite happily let my DCs miss the party though. In fact he would have already wormed his way out of doing it anyway.

usedandabused that looks very familiar. My first husband would do that. It was unbearable and constant. Also the stopping me from doing something and then going off and doing something himself.

Wilhemina, I didn't mean it doesn't matter who is at fault, just that you don't need to pin down the details of fault before you take action. You have done all you can to change the dynamic, now you need something different. I believe you. Completely. And even if I didn't you should still end it. Even if you were wrong you should still end it. And you are not wrong, and I think time and distance will show you that. I believe you.

pklme RTFT - not even the whole lot, just the first post! OP has ended the relationship.

I believe you. Well done for leaving. And you are still you, it just takes a while to build from the rubble.

No one believed me either. I think a lot of people still I was dramatising. That is until they experienced his behaviour themselves. I still feel bitter about that.

I had my own little mantras too: 'Is it me?' was one. It felt like madness.

So many times he would say something and I would just reply: 'I have no sensible response.' Because there was none. I was constantly thinking wtf??

I was actually relieved when it became physical. I had proof and a real reason to leave.

Don't try to make sense of something that doesn't make sense. Let him live in his own crazy little bubble. Distance is key.

I always sigh when I see people say: LTB
The cost is so so high to do so. You lose so much. Money isn't everything but Gosh it affects everything. I'm free yes but so so poor,which wouldn't be so bad except for struggling to raise children. It's soul destroying and everyday is a struggle.

I also retrained as a counsellor and it saved my sanity.

Oh, the text thing. My XP tries this every now and again - sometimes I get drawn in, when my guard is down, because he knows which buttons to press. If you don't want the DC to miss out, take a deep breath and just re-send the original text otherwise just ignore. And please don't be hard on yourself about your reaction, it's completely natural.

pklme sorry just super sensitive right now and thank you

Another thing was cooking.

Now i do love cooking and I'm ok at it. But somehow i did it all for all those years. Anytime he tried he manufactured getting so stressed and flustered that i felt bad for upsetting him. And of course he always f'ed it up.

But he tried so hard so how could i possibly be upset with him
It must have been me putting too much pressure on the poor lamb.

When i had the breakdown i was pretty unwell and eventually lost my job. I was unable to look after myself and remember that the days i was able to make a piece of toast was a good
Where was he? Why was a piece of toast the best i could get when i was so ill.

It makes me so sad to remember these things

Wilhamena I didn't mean it dismissively either. I am in the middle of it and I know exactly what you mean. I have also plenty of these examples. I think I am going mad and I think it is me all the time. It is only sometimes that I remember that this did not happen in other rel. otherwise I am pretty much convinced I am a bitch from hell. And that he is always a victim and the one who struggles ...

I cannot wait to be free but I also dread the tzunami of emotions you feel. But there must be another stage after that... one in which we fly, perhaps?

OP, I believe you.

Two parts of your posts made my blood run cold:
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.

And also:
If i don't respond I'm a baddie if i do I'm opening myself up to more abuse.

My late father was - as I have come to realise - a narcissist (or, as my DH would say, 'a total shit') who pretty much controlled my mother. He didn't do it by being 'nice' all the time (there was a lot of shouting, especially when DM stood up for herself), but my God, he could lay on the syrup with a trowel, darling this and my love that and 'you know I didn't mean it' when he'd said something horrible. He also made a her feel that she had to be nice to him because of the terrible time he'd had when younger (and he did have a terrible time, I'm not denying it). I know from relatives that my father changed DM hugely. I also know how much I changed after I put some space between me and him.

But he really did fuck with my head. That feeling that you're manipulating people by letting them think you're nice or whatever: yup. And that if you avoid this person who is doing you harm, you're the baddie: yup. You will get there, OP. And you have done your DC a HUGE favour by putting some space between them and their father.

Oh, and that bit about the abuser running their partner down in public. God, yes: my father did that to DM too, always very jokey, all-mates-together, while she stood there with a rictus grin and everyone else looked awkward.

Sorry for the essay

pippi I'm sorry you're going through it too.

I won't lie I've found it really tough hence this thread and hopefully you and i will fly again.
When he left (which took a year! ) i felt nothing but relief and i still feel that now. However hard it is at least the mental confusion isn't in front of me all the time.

I always felt more clear headed when we weren't together, even at the beginning which in retrospect was a bad sign.

amble hell yeah to the sensible answer thing. What it took me so long to realise was that i would never find the words to help him 'get it' because the whole point is to mess with my head

lumela

Yes to the having to come back from nights out after baby 1 when i was finally getting a few hours to myself. I never went out again.
Of course when he went out his eta was always out by quite a while.

And the finances. I had to do them. At one point we had nothing extra. He wanted pocket money like a bloody child. But here's the thing, instead of saying ' I've take a look at the accounts and i think we can manage x per month each' he made sure to ask me like i was his mum.

Either i played along and treated him like a kid with pocket money or i said no and was a bitch.
If i suggested he acted off his own back he'd be so unreasonable and take so much that I'd have to be the angry parent again and then feel bad for infantilising him (which he claimed to hate)

I just couldn't win

Wil I always felt it was easier when he went away. I thought it was because I am very independent. After a while I knew it was because it was easier. After another while I realised it was better. I always tensed up knowing he was back.
But not in the beginning. In the beginning I really wanting him to get back from work so we could have some time together. It never happened becauseI was never welcoming him with a smile.

When We are in and he walks in he expects us to stop whatever we are doing and greet him, when he is in he expects us to come into the room he is in and greet him. If you do not comply you are a bitch.

Lumela, I had the narcisistic dad and now I got the H. Another person may have been able to spot the signs, I couldn't... I was so comfortable in feeling unconfortable that I felt home.

Wil I feel like a bitch all the time and my head goes round snd round every single event all the time. I have been going to see a therapist for 4 years and I am so sick of tslking sbout this all the time. One readin for splitting is to have a break from selfanalising.

Do you ever think, "how did I get here?" "Why did I not stop it?"

Making plans was always left up to me. Left to himself he'd have spent his life in a book but always claimed to enjoy the things we did together.

I used to beg him to even just come up with an idea but if he did and i said anything but 'yes brilliant let's do it' then i was putting him down. (Him victim me baddie )
NO! I was trying to have a conversation!

And of course once I'd explained that to him and he pretended to get it then he just became more subtle next time.

I've been played haven't I which is totally ironic given that i always thought i was the manipulator

No i never think why didn't i stop it because i was too busy focusing on how to stop myself from being ungrateful or a bitch.

Sigh.
You have to hand it to them. These guys are good.

And of they start therapy that's a whole new level of head fuck

I believe you.

Its going to sound stupid but his way of controlling me was to abdicate all control or even input meaning that he was a victim of a controlling harridan.
He could be the poor put upon one by virtue of never doing anything and me looking controlling.

This is my STBXH down to a tee. I've wished that he was physically abusive at least then I wouldn't have wasted years blaming myself for his fuckwittery.

bagpuss

One thing that really hurts right now is the realisation that everything i say gave him more ammunition (and i talked a lot to create the illusion of communication )

If i say a behaviour hurts me. ..
Or that something annoys ...
Or if i need something ...

Everything i did which made myself vulnerable was used against me.

I need communication. Fine he won't communicate
I need help with the kids. Fine but he'll do things in a way that cause more problems

Arsehole

YY. Everything is fair game to be used against you.

I started having panic attacks after spending prolonged periods with him. "How will you going to cope without me"....There's no acknowledgement that the situation he's put us in has added to my anxiety.

Detach. Detach. Detach.

It's the only way I'm getting through the divorce whilst still living with the fuckwit. Funnily enough he's husband/father of the year atm. Expensive gifts, trips away and meals out all in an effort to show everyone on the outside that he's trying to save his marriage and I'm the ungrateful bitch intent on splitting up the family.

I believe you.
My husband is the nicest guy to the outside world, the life & soul of the party. But he's completely different to me, I dread the weekends when it's just us as that's when his true personality comes out.
I feel like a fog has lifted this past month or so & im seeing things for what they are. I've had a few counselling sessions which has helped.
It's exhausting living like this. At times I've seriously contemplated installing cctv in our house so I can play back our conversations / interactions! Conversations we had months ago swirl around my head as I try to make sense of them. Is it me? What can I do differently?
Lots of the examples you ladies have given all ring true. I'm just so so tired of it. I don't feel relaxed around him, I'm always trying to gauge what mood he's in. I don't want the rest of my life to be like this...but I'm stuck for the time being.

Well... if I opened the flood gates again my contribution would be several pages long. All I shall say at this point is:

YOU ARE MY PEOPLE. ALL OF YOU. YOU'VE BEEN THERE. YOU GET IT.

I was the oppressor, I was financially controlling, I was bitchy and snippy to a gentle, supportive, kindly man. You know why. The main reason I left was that I was turning into someone I didn't want to be. After 8 years I'm nearly me again, and guess what? I'm quite nice sometimes. But not all the time. I'm a human being. I'm allowed not to be perfect.

Cut yourself some slack. You may not feel it yet but you are doing well.

It's all flooding out now sorry...

When other people say 'ha ha how do you put up with her'
He was able to look like a victim AND get annoyed that people were patronising him so i felt sorry for him too.
Plus it sowed conflict between me and other people because i stood up for him making me even more dependant on this good person who would put up with my nastiness