Getting along with spanners

[BettyFrillyKnickers]

I'm a regular mner but change my name a lot.

I'm in a bit of a quandary. Shocked and confused. Would welcome some insight, advice or just a listening ear.

I have been married a long time to a man who I've been with since my teens. We have several DC together. He was my world, my best friend and my soul mate. I put my all into our relationship. He was very often not very nice, to me or DC. Was lazy and selfish and verbally abusive. He has anger issues. I didn't have the courage to split up for a long time. I ridiculously believed i could change him, make him a better man, help him be nicer. It took too long to accept that I couldn't. When I did, it was primarily to protect the DCs. I asked him to leave a year ago and he did. I've been healing, doing the Freedom Programme and just coping day to day. A whole layer of stress has left my life. Except that it hasn't because we still need to co-parent.

He is a bully as defined by the Women's Aid book on abusers. I've always known this but felt I stood up to him enough to show my DC that it was not acceptable. I now know I was wrong and I deeply regret not having left him sooner.

Anyway... recently when dropping off DC he got a strop on and told me that I had done a bad thing by kicking him out, that I won't take my share of responsibility for the marriage breakdown, and that he is the hard done by one as he had to move out. I was incredulous at this. As always he tries to avoid blame and make it all my fault. He has accepted that he was horrible, has said sorry and said it was his mental health so it's not his fault and I abandoned him when he was ill.

He has had some anger management counselling but nothing more. He hasnt done the online Freedom Programme as I've asked him to do, though I said that the door is open for him if he changes. Meaning we may be able to build a new relationship together if he treats me right and gets the help he needs. I still love him but not in love. He would need to work hard on himself and convince me he is different to make me feel I could be with him again.

After this recent revelation I don't see he has changed at all. I had no idea he thought I was equally to blame. He did raise this early on after he left and I thought I had explained fully how it was his fault by being such an abusive partner. I even conceded that I could have handled things differently, that if i had left then he would have had an ultimatum much earlier and that me putting up with it did contribute to the situation continuing and getting worse. Now I'm questioning myself again. I didn't think he was sophisticated enough to gaslight me.

We need to maintain a civil and co-operative relationship to raise our DC. That's really important to me. He has been a better dad since he left than he ever was together. I'm not going NC or any other drastic reaction. I think I am disappointed that he doesn't see the need to change and never will. I feel like an idiot for deluding myself yet again. We have no future whatsoever unless he does. Maybe I am sad that I am not worth the effort. And worried that he will perpetuate this view to the DC, that mummy is bad for making daddy leave home, poor lonely daddy, etc.

I'm actually much happier on my own and don't feel a great loss if we never reconcile. Just that i wish he could be less hard work still. And that we should be able to get on together as grown ups. It's so stressful dealing with the emotional upheaval all the time. I wish I didn't care what he thought of me. These are the spanners.

We will soon have to decide whether to divorce or not and I just don't want to deal with it.

Any advice?

Age appropriate truth to the kids. Every. Single. Time.

They have to understand that abuse breaks up a family, and you chose to spend YEARS trying to save it.

It's not that you weren't worth making the effort for him to be nice to women, or you. It's him. His twisted view of women at fault, he doesn't want to be nice, because he's NOT A NICE PERSON.

He can turn nice on. When it suits him. When he wants something, but it's a cloak he picks up and uses.

Get him in a place of zero influence in your life, life free abs happy.

You tried, he failed.

Divorce him. He needs to be out of your life.

He won't ever change, he will just find new ways to hurt you, and the kids.

Write him off.

What Hissy wrote.

He was not a good husband to you and he is not a good dad to his children because he is abusive to you as their mother. They cannot and must not learn such damaging lessons on relationships. Relationships as well should not be such hard work honestly; you would be better off putting all your energies from now on into your children and you rather than he. Its not your fault he is abusive; you did not make him that way. This is all deeply ingrained within his psyche; its no point asking him to do any perpetrator programme or such like. He has a problem with anger, your anger when you have called him out on his abuse. AM programmes are pretty much useless when it comes to abusive men as their actions are about power and control. Many abusers as well can be quite plausible to those in the outside world so he likely does not have a problem with anger in the ways you think. He thinks and maintains he has done nothing wrong here and has not taken any responsibility for his own actions. I also doubt very much he will take much if any interest in his children as well apart from trying to use them as pawns to punish you.

What was your own childhood like OP; did your parents show you an abusive relationship too?. Are you a rescuer or saviour type in relationships?.

Do not leave it up to him whether to divorce or not; start divorce proceedings yourself and now. You're the adult here as well; be the grown up. He will never be.

If an abuser ever accepted that something was their fault, their choice, their responsibility, rather than the fault of the abused (or stress, or their mental health), then that would mean they have the self awareness and empathy to stop abusing.

Sadly, this is extremely rare.

On one hand you say you should have left earlier and despite him living elsewhere, here you still are waiting for him to be different.

There isn't a parallel universe where he's different, this is who he is. Your focus is still on him and not on yourself and doing the work to move forward.

I'm being harsh because despite everything that he's put you and your kids through, you keep making the same errors but expecting different results.

The thing is, if someone thinks something bad about you, it doesn't mean it's true.

He is a human being, free to think what he likes.

He blames you?

You could feel hurt.
You could try to justify yourself, and persuade him, by giving the evidence, that he is being unfair.
Thing is, trying to change the stance of someone who is not being fair and reasonable, and is reacting from emotions, rarely succeeds. Especially if they are choosing to blame someone else.

So how else can you react?
In the end, you could resolve to let it be water off a ducks back.
You could "grey stone" him if he goes anywhere near this issue. ( google it- great stuff)
You could say, "we're past that now, I'm not going over this again" and literally walk away.

It is not up to you how he chooses to view what has happened, and who is to blame.
It is up to you how you handle your response.

I'm assuming of course that you can now see that this is this relationship is over.

I needed to read this. Excellent post Isetan . My energies are currently misplaced. Waiting for him to stop being a knob.

I feel frozen, stuck; like I don't know how to start moving fwd. It's horrible.

I don't want to believe he is not a nice person. I have to believe that deep down he is good, but just damaged (he is) because otherwise i have wasted my entire life on a bad person and I can't live with that. I feel justified in spending all those years with him because it was worth trying. Crazy logic I know.

It's true that he only ever lost control with me and the DC. Nobody on the outside world knew what he was really like. Except his family did. He was and is the ubiquitous nice bloke, always there to help a neighbour, amenable, charming, friendly, thoughtful . We saw the other side.

My own childhood made me decide that my DC wouldn't grow up without their DF. I tried to create the happy family two parent unit that I never had. Boy did I fail.

Isetan I thought that the catastrophic (for him) event of losing his home and family life would make him finally take notice and do something to change his behaviour. Nothing else seemed to work. This hasn't either. He says he wants to be back with me more than anything but he isn't prepared to put in the work that it will take clearly.

I am a bit sad to realise that it is over. That he wouldn't make the effort even now we are apart whereas I made all the effort for years and years. His impassioned pleas were all about how he has needs and wants and how he would be happier back together. Nothing about my happiness.

forwards sorry to hear you are stuck. Offload here if you want. It's helpful.

betty I'm sorry - I have no answers, but I can really identify with what you wrote about a public and private persona. Very hard to keep your head straight! Lots of good thoughts for you. You are brave and strong!

Thank you. Yes my head is all over the place. Why do I let him keep on messing with me? Why does it matter what he thinks? He will always have a hold over me because we have DC together. And so many memories. Not all of them bad. I hate that he thinks I was horrible to him. I so wasn't. But then I feel like I'm playing the victim. He said that to me once.

But he is not a nice man, OP, it doesn't matter how you try to dress up the facts or tell yourself he must be good deep down. All the years you have spent with him should tell you the sad truth| he isn't who you'd like to think he might be. He isn't going to suddenly change. He is going to tread the same old paths as long as you allow him to do so.

For your sake, and that of your children, you need to divorce this man, block him from your life as far as it is possible to do given he will presumably want time with the children and focus on building a new life for your reshaped family.

I get that you feel you have invested all these years and that you feel if you give up on him now, all that time will have wasted. But feeling this won't change who or what he is. He will be the same, whatever you do! And you have lovely children, so your time will absolutely not have been wasted!

Betty I identify with your last couple of posts so much...

You know how much effort it would take you to be as vile to anyone as he was to you/the kids?

Gargantuan amounts of effort. Huge.

That's because you're nice.

It takes him the same amount of effort to be nice as it does you to be horrid.

He pretended to be nice to hook you in.

Who you see now IS him. And it's a version of him that will only ever get worse

In his book 'Why does he do that' Lundy Bancroft clearly examines what it would take for it to even occur to a man like your husband to perhaps reconsider his approach

Long story short: he'd have to lose everything in his life, you, kids, his family, all his friends, home, work, everything. EVERYTHING!

EVEN THEN..... Only reconsider mind, still no guarantee- far from it.

You literally have a better chance of winning the lottery.

Sorry. But that is the best you can hope for.

Thank you Hissy and Giraffey. You are right.

I thought he would get a shock and see sense. In fact he got depressed and I did what I could to support him. To make sure he didn't feel that he had lost everything as I didn't want him to be suicidal. I still care about him and don't want anything bad to happen. Then he lost his job and I was worried again that he would sink into depression and never find another one. Not entirely unselfish as I need the maintenance and worried he might insist on coming back home if he lost his flat. I'm not ready for that. May never be.

Maybe i cushioned the "rock bottom" too much but I couldn't let the father of my DC mental health deteriorate. I wouldn't trust him with the DC otherwise. And I've had a few hairy incidents thst I won't go into. With hindsight probably just him manipulating my feelings.

I have that book. Been reading the other one Should I stay or should I go by the same author. Haven't got round to this one yet.

forwards I wish I could say make the break and it will all work out. Maybe it won't. Maybe that's for the best. I think it is for me and my DC. I had a breaking point and he pushed me past it one too many times.

I have to accept that he is an arsehole and thst I cannot change that. I'm such an idiot to keep hoping he will try.

Many people are "damaged" but if they deal with that damage by inflicting it on other people then that is a problem. PLenty of "damaged" people seek the help and support they need and/or are sufficiently self reflective to not abuse others in turn. Some make a deliberate point of not passing forward the damage that has been done to them.

If I think about it, he is not self aware at all. He thinks that just because he didn't beat me black and blue (as his dad did his mum) then his behaviour is acceptable. The AM course taught him it wasn't but he can't really empathise with my position which is odd given that he spent his childhood afraid of violence.
The problem is that he sees every situation with the view of how does it affect him. So him being forced to leave was something bad being done to him. Not the eventual consequence of a lifetime of verbal and emotional abuse by him. He has always had the "it's all about me" attitude. This utter selfishness was one of the main issues between us. Seems it still is. He is a bit better now though at putting DCs needs before his own. Not completely but better. It's a revelation for him to be a semi good parent now after all those years of being a shit dad. That's the main thing I'm grateful for. He is trying to dictate when he has DC though despite me saying we need to discuss and agree. This is what led to the recent tantrum I think.

I don't want to believe he is not a nice person. I have to believe that deep down he is good, but just damaged
You know, you could just give up on the idea that people are either good or bad. Including you. You don't have to be the kind person who gives him a second chance. You can be the not good or bad person who just doesn't fancy being with him as she feels happier that way. Let him be hung up about who was good or bad, but you don't have to be.

My situation is almost identical. He said to me the other day "remember YOU wanted this" when he was getting shitty about something.

He will never accept what he did over the years to me, he doesn't want to deal with it in anyway apart from blame and guilt me. Like you we have 2 kids and I feel that I need to ensure they see a healthy relationship between us. To do that though I have to stick up for myself and take no shit. Its tough though. I just keep reminding myself I don't have to live amongst his moods anymore, and what he says doesn't affect me as much as it used too. How long have you been apart? Its taken me 5 months to get strong enough to get to this point.

My situation is almost identical. He said to me the other day "remember YOU wanted this" when he was getting shitty about something. My situation is almost identical. He said to me the other day "remember YOU wanted this" when he was getting shitty about something.

And me, I heard that just yesterday, 18 years I've wasted, 18 long, long years of it always being my Fault him being a victim.

And thank God it's over, it's normal to wobble I guess, not easy to finally say enough is enough but it will be so worth it.

22 years for me LuxuryWoman2017. I don't necessarily feel it was a waste, because we did have good times and two wonderful kids, so i wouldn't change that for the world. I do feel a bit cheated though of having a loving, caring, respectful partner, especially over the last few years.

But the victim thing is so painful, the guilt tripping etc, but you have to rise above it and learn not to feel so shit about it.

OP: read should i stay or should i go. I read it after I left and it helped me not cave and go back, because essentially he carried on the same pattern of behavior after I left as before, with distance it just made it easier to see it was abusive.

Betty - we're apart almost two years... I let.him influence me too much 😡

But yes, I've never met a more entitled, passive aggressive 'victim' in my life.

I went through years of counselling.. to improve my perspective, to identify what I needed and whether it was reasonable.

Of course having a somewhat narcissistic mother wont have helped. In fact he used my relationship with her as a stick to beat me with during mediation.

Urgh...the whole situation leaves me shaking my head and fearing for the future...

Sorry to hear about other twats out there making more women's lives a misery.

I'm nearly a year out. After nearly 30 years together. I'm angry with myself for persevering long after I should have. I put not being a quitter above what was the right thing to do. And I loved him. I bloody wish I didn't but I still do. I recognise however that we cannot be together and I don't want to be, unless he changes big time. I stupidly thought he might esp after all the tears and apologies. I need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I have read that book pudding which gave me a bit of hope that change was possible IF he put in the hard work. He isn't going to. I need to accept that and move on.

I wish he wasn't such a twat when dealing with day to day DC issues now. It's back to the arguing and hostility, blame, point scoring and oneupmanship that I thought I'd left behind. Every interaction is loaded with additional meaning and tension. It can't just be normal and straightforward where he just says what he thinks and I find this so draining. I'm still walking on the same eggshells FFS. And trying to avoid upsetting him or annoying him because it results in tantrums and snidey comments that just make me feel like shit.

I had an idea in my head that if we divorced them we could both approach this sensibly and make children and financial arrangements without dragging it through the courts. I'm beginning to doubt this.

forwards did you get counselling because you wanted it or to help you identify what was "wrong with you" from his perspective?

It is possible for abusive men with anger issues to change. It does happen.

It is also possible to win the Euromillions. That also happens.

But you would be wise not to rely on either happening to improve your life.

I need to print your post yorick and pin it to my fridge!!

I started counselling because DM told me I was depressed.
Then had to continue due to shit financial circumstances and complete physical rejection by ex.
I had a breakdown just over three years ago. Three children, home for 7 months.
Fuck all personal support from ex. Yes he did the father things but husband? Forget it.

I'm only started to see just how crap the situation was and that it's objectively better now. Doesn't stop the jolts of pain at a sad memory or the lightbulb moments from reflecting to come sneaking up and bite me.

Sometimes I think I'm too damaged to be loved because I find it so hard to accept myself. Makes me so sad.

Ex refused to consider relationship counselling, despite me begging.

His recollection is so at odds with mine. I certainly don't think he was selfish or immature per se (as he puts it) It was far worse.