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.

He admitted that my career made him feel emasculated
Then when i was at home with dc1 after a hideous birth he was jealous because i was watching dvds and he couldn't. She was feeding every hour 24/7, i was physically recovering, hadn't made any mum friends yet and was desperately lonely. Yet he was jealous because i watched lord of the rings.

He's an angry petty teenager. No wonder i didn't want to boff him. There would have been something wrong with me if i had.

Wihamena I was in a similar relationship. He managed to persuade people that I was the crazy bad tempered one, and he was the calm together one keeping everything together.
When I finally plucked up the courage to leave, he refused to accept it, wouldn't leave the house and he forced me to go to relate.
I was so so so lucky with the counsellor - she saw right through him straightaway and I got th best support from her. He flounced out of our second session because she wasn't 'fixing me' She told him I wasn't a car, and I wasn't broken anyway! I continued to see her by myself - it was her who gave me the strength to carry on because she believed me. (She also told me he'd never let me go properly because I was his failure, and to keep a bag packed outside the house with a set of car keys in it so I could always leave if I needed to - I did need it)

I think what I'm longwindedly trying to say is that people WILL believe you, YOU are not the abuser here, he is. Just because someone is clever enough to manipulate you into thinking you are the 'problem' one, doesn't mean that you are - it just means that he's really really good at manipulation!
Well done on getting out. It does take a while to 'reset' yourself, and it's baby steps all the way.
YOU need to believe YOU. He still has you doubting and analysing. Don't let him give those doubts headspace. You're so much stronger than you think you are at the minute.
You will get to the stage when you can see his manipulation and laugh at it, and it won't get to you. And that stage is AWEsome!

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

Oh God this. Drove me to insanity. But I did it. Then, when I started to detach I would take the piss and make welcome home banners.

They don't like being laughed at either, do they...

No they don't. And since laughing at someone is bullying you become the baddie again

The banners thing is crazy though and that's what happens. You become crazy and then of course that confirms everything to them and you.

I believe all of you.

Crazy yes. I remember once when the children where little and I asked some cooperation as every chore was left to me amd the kitchen was a tip and I got an arsy reply I was so hurt and do mad that I tore all the newspaper and spreaded around the house. Clear show of my madness and hysteria.

Of course he acted like nothing had happened and I had to clean it.

I know in my heart that we will look back with sadness but also with joy for having set ourself free and for knowing we were not mad. But I guess there is that stage in between where anger kicks in... because it was not fair and bevause it was abuse passed for love.

I am a year out of a similar relationship and I'm still shocked how bad it was. Nobody knew. Literally nobody. When we split up everyone (including me) expected me to fall apart - he was so good, kind, understanding of my anxiety. It wasn't until a month later and the expected devastation hadn't happened that I started to really question the relationship.

The worst for me was that he would say or do something nasty and I would cry. Then he'd get upset that I was crying so I ended up comforting him and apologising. He had me convinced by the end that I was crying on purpose to get my own way. I really wasn't.

Turns out the anxiety and crying stopped the day he moved out. It wasn't a coincidence!

You know the thing on mn where they say that the husband is being a xxxx because the wife is the only one he's horrible to.
You know 'if he can control himself at work etc then he's choosing to be a xxxx to you'

Well he was the only one i was horrible to and that confusion was awful.

I'm worried about posting things life the above in case someone who's going through an abusive relationship reads it and starts to worry that they are really the abuser.
PA abuse is soooo insidious and nebulous that it can flip all the normal rules on their head, make black look white and turn day into night.
It's fucked up and exhausting

So true. I feel guilty now for 'slagging off' nice dh to a bunch if strangers. Feel unloyal and bitchy. I am Convinced it is me having being abusive... and the swinging from one to another prooves I am the one who is unstable.

It is really hard. And seems neverending...

How do we escape the spiders web? Especially when we have to have contact because of the kids.

I feel like I'll never be free

I'm worried about posting things life the above in case someone who's going through an abusive relationship reads it and starts to worry that they are really the abuser.
PA abuse is soooo insidious and nebulous that it can flip all the normal rules on their head, make black look white and turn day into night.

I can see why you say this. I have seen some instances of PA husbands getting sympathy on MN. One in particular, where a PA man wrote in, and all but one person (who told him he was PA) blamed his wife, still haunts me. I hope she realises and leaves him poor, thing.

But don't worry here. It is brave of you to speak out. This is one of the most hidden abuse scenarios there is, and it helps a lot to talk about it with others who have experience of some form of it but maybe cannot quite describe what has been happening to them.

HIs attitude to you watching DVDS when you had just had a baby, absolutely says it all. Please do not second-guess yourself. Any husband who took that attitude, especially under those circumstances was not worth having. Nothing you have done, or not done, would have ever worked with a man like that.

How do we escape the spiders web?

Is the old MN mantra of 'detach, detached, detach'. It can be difficult.

I would suggest:
Trust your first reaction. If it's "you're being insane/difficult/stupid", then he probably is. Don't talk yourself out of a normal reaction.

Don't react. If he's insane /difficult /stupid perfect an "Ok." response, and carry on with your plan/life as if he's not said anything. Do not give his words or actions the power to derail you.

Surround yourself with people who agree he's a total PITA, and share his latest comments/suggestions with them. They'll laugh /poke fun. You'll feel emboldened to ignore the nonsense.

I found this article quite recently, and it's helpful for how to help the children

That is a very helpful and interesting article Lila.

There is another link within it which also is:www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anxiety-zen/201405/11-reasons-unhappy-couples-dont-break

He would never sit on the sofa with me either. He sat on the floor instead, even ate his meals there (we didn't have a table for a long time).
Everyone felt sorry for him doing that.

I really feel like I've been had.

lila thank you for the link. Very helpful. I've been doing most if not all of those and it's good to know I'm not being a cow for detaching

As far as the 11 reasons article went that was us apart from the bit where the person doing everything is the one in control. It was the other way with us (suprise suprise)

kind (such an appropriate name for you) I've read your post roughly 10 million times today. It's helped so much.

Poor thing. Sat on the floor to eat his dinner every night...

Or as an outsider would see it, what a dick. Sit on the perfectly good sofa you twat and stop showing off

lila i love you
Why didn't i have you in my life all those years? (Although i would have defended him fiercely and insisted it was my fault)

I finally broke and cried messily all over a friend today. Not only did she get it and believe me but she also laughed at his dickishness. It helps so much to know I'm not making it up

That article is very interesting. One of the things about my ex is that he is very uncomfortable with anger. he thinks to be angry is to be bad and wrong and he is never bad and wrong. He, like everyone else, does of course get angry but he has to twist everything in the way he expresses it.
He has been telling me for years I have "anger issues" but I hardly get angry at all since we split. Was it all his anger?

I come from a culture (not English) that is much more comfortable with anger and does not view it as a source of shame. I wonder if that is why he chose me - to be the angry one.

I do now, though, after being with him for 12 years and the way he treated me for daring to object even slightly to the most outrageously inconsiderate things. he treated me as as deranged, feral, evil. He would cower and dramatically block doors against me. I would sob in despair. He would generate a drama out of the simplest disagreement to make sure that the discussion would "have to" end because I was "losing it". I learnt to speak very calmly, artificially expressionlessly, and that was no better because it was "my super villain voice" which was another symptom of me being mental

So that's the floor issue dealt with

Maybe next time you're tempted to get drawn into it you could think to yourself "this man chose to sit on the floor to eat his dinner to make me feel uncomfortable..."

And then treat everything he says or does with the same incredulous response.

Maudlin YYY at the anger - I could have written it. To a tea. Even the cultural bit

Earlier was easier and I was stronger. Now it is hard and I feel a bit helpless. Too much of a rollercoaster all the time.

My h also play the part of the controlled victim. I am not going to bore you all with details (I am so bored myself) but the phrase "death by a million invisible paper cuts"is the closest I can get to describe it.

Stength to us all

I know one day all this will be in the past, this gives me stregth.

I believe you and I'm sending you as many strong vibes as I can. X