Difficult marriage. Not ready to leave

[burgundyandgoldleaves]

I don't know what I expect from this thread, but please, please don't berate me for not leaving. I'm not saying it's never on the cards, but it isn't going to be tomorrow or next week or anything like that, I need to get my head clear first.

I don't even know what to say now.

I feel he often puts me down. I feel he often makes out I think something he thinks when I don't think it at all, or that he twists something to make me in the wrong and at fault.

He complains about housework, gets stressed about mess. I do try really hard to keep on top of everything but at the same time we have a dog and young children and sometimes thinks just get messed up. Like I've been painting and I must not have put the paint lid on properly, it's my fault but he will go on about things like that as if it's some sort of personal character flaw instead of a simple accident.

He's sometimes pushy about sex, he can be quite demanding.

I just feel quite sad about it just now. I feel in some ways life was almost easier before I knew what he was like.

Wonderful posters here to support you burgundy.

You should feel you are in the safest place ever when you're having sex with your husband, there should never be doubt or fear because it is the ultimate act and you should feel emotionally and physically safe.

Hope you find a good tree!

Oh, burgandy

Actually, I am v angry on your behalf.

This bears putting here - I know it's stickied at the top of the Relationship section, but it bears repeating and repeating: what you are experiencing is NOT normal, NOT what you are worth, and clearly NOT what you want.

Do the Freedom Program

Strength and light to you.

Your description of how he gets sexually excited made me feel utterly chilled. Not only is it creepy and horrifying, it just made me feel so sad for how you must have felt when you were scared and felt alone I want to hug you. I think you are numb as you are blocking this out and learning to feel something again is scary as you know it would be painful but it would give you so much more as well - to feel like you again. I think all the advice given about WA and the freedom programme is exactly what you need to think about.

I have experience of numbing/blocking things out myself, this in my experience is because over a prolonged period of time is exactly because of gas lighting and the fog where you doubt all your own thoughts, this is exactly how people who abuse you manage to do so for a prolonged period. They wouldn't be able to abuse you if you were strong and fighting back at them so they need to take some of the power away, and by doing that it not only becomes easier but more exciting. Many abusers want to feel the thrill of the illicit and nothing seems to be better than having all the power over someone scared and helpless. It's not the act of sex itself. You husband frightens me and I don't know him or have met him. I don't think learning to fight back is what you should do at all, I do not want you to put yourself in harms way further. I think you can start gathering your own strength again and accept that this is not normal and not ok, and also don't focus on the fact you are numb - you feel something Enough to post here, and the love for your kids is what you can use to drive you.
My main concern is that this thrill of abusing could spill out into any other number of ways and it is that you need to escape. You can and will heal in time once you begin to regain control over your own thoughts and feelings but it is very unlikely you will be able to do that whilst you are still in this marriage. You deserve more than a half life, and your kids deserve a mum who is living to her full potential too.

Please don't regret posting - things from strangers are hard to read and accept I know that but they cannot, cannot be worse than the fact that someone who is supposed to love you has done this to you

burgundy, I posted in a rush this morning, before the school run, before your OP chilled me so much.

What you are experiences just now, the awareness that something is not right, but not being sure of yourself, not trusting your judgement is the start of your journey, hopefully to liberating yourself. And your DCs - don't for a moment kid yourself that what you are feeling in your relationship is not damaging to them.
You are beginning to see that what you are living is not healthy or normal or what happy relationships are about.
He is very much gas lighting you as other posters have said and you have been conditioned to not trust your own judgement or instinctive feeling about a situation or action.

I hope you don't actually regret starting this thread and that we can maybe help you to find the trust in your own good judgement again. Believe that what you are feeling is right and true and how it is.

Thanks. This evening I feel like he's not so bad, like I'm exaggerating. I wish I could keep my head clear.

Oh lovely Burgundy, I read your posts in the early hours (and SO glad you've started this thread) so wasn't able to post.

You've had some great advice but this came up on my feed from the marvellous glosswitch (google her) and it resonated so much with what you have posted that I had to share it with you. It's a poem called He Tells Her by Wendy Cope:

He tells her that the Earth is flat—
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

Has anyone mentioned Lundy Bancroft yet?

Also the other thing that struck me and what no one else has said yet I think is that your husband chose you. You were very young and from a slightly dysfunctional family. He picked you because you were ripe for grooming. It was not accidental - he wanted to mould to you fit. His sexual abuse is to ensure that you stay in your place.

Honestly, what you've written on this thread is absolutely shocking. Even if he were nice to you the rest of the time, he is still abusive. This is not in your head. None of it

Jiggly, to be honest one of the most horrible things about all this is realising he probably did, and as such probably never really loved "me" at all.

I wish I could find the words, I know how it all sounds and yet I look at him and I can't think 'abuser' which maybe sounds ridiculous but I just don't see him like that.

It feels like even if I did accept that then it's what twenty minutes a few times a week? That doesn't feel too bad.

The only acceptable amount of abuse in a relationship is none

I need to get that tattooed somewhere I think :)

Hello Burgundy, I'm glad you've posted here. Hope you got the tree. People here will be firm but gentle with you, so keep working your mind through things.

It's really helping, as I feel there's no pressure, to do something or act on anything. By saying how it is I'm working stuff out, I'm so grateful to people for letting me ramble on.

I know it sounds really pathetic but one of the things I'm worried about, if I did leave, would I suppose be dying very alone, after the children move out.

he needs to get that tattooed onto him

You are not an abuser, he is

Thanks :) I need to hear it too.

I have a friend, and we were talking about buying a small franchise. It doesn't cost a lot. Enough it still needs to be discussed. He won't even discuss it. Don't talk nonsense, she's putting ideas in your head, are you crazy, are you stupid.

I got really cross and said he was being really disrespectful and rude.

He made it my fault. It's so normal though, that the above barely even registered.

No way would you die alone. You sound far too lovely for that.

If you were to end it with him, the advice would be not to jump into another relationship early on

But when you are free of him, you will find there are decent men out there who would not dream of treating women like he treats you

That means a lot

I've never been confident with boys / men, at all. I know a big part of that is I was with him from a young age but I never got interest on nights out or anything.

I also worry about the impact on the children if I did meet someone else. My dad got into a really horrible relationship when my mum died and it really upset me even though I was 16 and it shouldn't have effected me like it did.

Sweetie, your children are witnessing a horrible relationship right now

Something which helped me - you do not need to be in the worst relationship in the world to break up. You don't need to wait until he does something awful. You don't need to fall out of love.

It is your right and your freedom to walk away at any time. Nobody can force you to be in a relationship that you don't want to be in.

I believe that if you stay with him you will be far more alone than you would ever feel without him. I have been there and the loneliness is very difficult to describe, as is the strange lack of it when you're without them. It's the isolation, I suppose. The way it feels like you're living a life which is not quite on the same plane that others are on - because you can't tell them. You can't quite explain it because they don't know and because there are no words, because it is not possible to understand. It's like living behind glass and just pretending to interact with people.

I left seven years ago yesterday. They say that the cells in your body regenerate slowly over seven years so there is not a cell in my body which has been touched by my abuser, and I am glad. I feel like a different person. 2009 me would not recognise me.

Here is a hand from the land of the living.

That's true.

But it feels they aren't. I know they are - stay with me - but for the most part there aren't arguments or strops. Not in front of the children anyway. Sometimes when eleven, twelve o clock comes yes. And I feel like one day DS will be fifteen or sixteen and say 'why did you throw Dad out?' And what do you say?

Glad you have rocked up, BB

Bertie thanks :) I guess what I feel, without him, is really lost, and lacking and lonely and all sorts of strange things I can't put into words.

The children are who I worry most about. I worry:

They will demand explanations that I can't give without telling them things children shouldn't hear, no matter how old they get.
They will blame me
They will side with / listen to their dad when they are older.
They will listen to what he may say about me
They will stop loving me
They will resent / hate me.

The only acceptable amount of abuse in a relationship is none.

This.

Here's another way of looking at it (stolen from MN, of course):
How much shit would you accept in a cup of tea? A spoonful? A tiny speck? Half a cup??
Easy answer, isn't it: the only acceptable amount of shit in a cup of tea is none. None at all. Nada, zilch, null.
Get your head around that.

Wrt confidence: don't think about it as 'confidence with boys/men'. It's about confidence. Confidence, full stop.
You knowing yourself, loving yourself as you are, having firm boundaries about what you accept and what you don't.

Who knows whether you will die alone or not? Who knows whether i will die alone or not??
Don't base decisions you want to make on the unknowable.

Don't underestimate your children burg (may I call you burg ? )

They know their father is a dick. My own father is a dick and he ruined my childhood. They see it. But because he is their dad, and they you doing the same, they feel obliged to pretend. That will fuck them up, believe me, much much more than if you were to split.

They see you doing the same

I really, really hope that's right, because I cannot bear to think of them feeling about me how I feel about my mum.

Sorry if I missed that, but how old are your DCs?

Your DCs will be more affected by you staying and living under those circumstances.
They will learn unhealthy patterns of how relationships work.
Whatever phases they might go through growing up, as adults there will come the time when they will see how brave their mother was - on her and their behalf