Hi
I'm new here. I wish I'd known about Mumsnet when I was in my abusive marriage. I would have got out a lot sooner. :)
Here are my red flags:
OTT attention from the very start. I had been through a lot when I met my now XH and was very vulnerable. He seemed like a knight in shining armour. Showered me with flowers, paid off some debt, drove six hours every weekend to see me. I was just so relieved I didn't have to cope on my own anymore that I fell into his arms.
Criticism of his XW. She was vile apparently and I was naive and took it all in and felt sorry for him. I didn't question why he went on holiday with her and her partner. In our early days I 'rescued' him from a holiday where he was apparently having a terrible time and we stayed in a hotel. But the night before she'd been there with him. [This now sounds completely daft on my part!]
Telling me I was over sensitive - he used to say things that were apparently funny but they were jokes at my expense - "Little jokettes" he called them - and very hurtful
Being supportive but actually undermining me. This was mainly with work. he'd say how wonderful I was, and be supportive when I got a job (I'd had to move to the other end of the country to be with him - another red flag!) But then he would say what a shame it was we couldn't do this or that anymore because of the job until it got so much I gave it up.
Using my mental health problems against me. In the beginning it was what a shame that my mental health problems meant I couldn't keep a job for any length of time (after he'd undermined me to the extent I gave them up). In the end I believed I was insane mainly because...
What I now know to be gaslighting. We would have discussions about things, then decide on a course of action. He would never act so I ended up being the one putting things into practice. Then he would get angry about it and want to know why I was doing x or y. I'd say because we decided, he would argue that we didn't decide anything at all and that I'd got the wrong end of the stick. [I put our house on the market twice because we decided we were moving, then had to take it off again!] He even did this after we split. We had to stay in the house together for a short while and he said he would continue to pay the bills because I had no job, and that we'd do this until the house was sold. Then suddenly we were having a "little chat" and he said how could I think we would do that? And I'm sat there all confused feeling sure we had agreed.
He was a horrible, horrible man. But I didn't see it until he'd persuaded me that I was insane. Over the years I had tried and tried to do something to improve my mental health. In the end I was an outpatient at the local psychiatric hospital. Ironically, it's this that gave me the strength to leave him, although it took a couple of years after my psychotherapy ended for me to actually do it. Deep down I knew I wasn't as he made out I was.
He would give up activities and then make out it was my fault he didn't do them any more because I wouldn't do them with him. His father used to hit his mum but he wasn't an abuser because he'd never hit me.
I'm left with physical health problems because he would deliberately make meals that I couldn't eat (e.g putting a full bottle of Madras curry paste in a small curry) and sit next to me and make out how hard done by he was because he'd made an effort to cook for me. I've now got stomach and gut problems that make eating problematic for me.
The one good thing was that because someone else put money into our house when we bought it, we had a legal document drawn up that meant when I left him and the house was sold, I got 50% of what was left after the other person was paid back. There was no get out, that had to be the way it was split. I'd probably be destitute now otherwise because I can't work full time because of my health.
I feel guilty still sometimes because I didn't put 50% into the house, so I never tell anyone this. I also never speak about the abuse because I feel so stupid about it! Before I left him I ended up in A and E a few times because of the stomach/gut problems. When I left I had agrophobia and was terrified about going out on my own. I also could barely speak because by the end I got so many put downs and he had a very short fuse that I was too scared to speak.
With regards the red flags...he was okayish until the day we married. There were the signs, but they weren't that strong. We were married at 12pm and then went back to our room, and his personality changed completely from then on. I was laughing and joking and he cut me down and told me to shut up, that I was silly and had to grow up. Hence me becoming more and more silent over the years.
He got angry once because I had very bad influenza, could barely breath and couldn't go to a function with him. I now know I should have been in hospital.
My mum is elderly and partially sighted and he'd leave things out that she tripped over. I thought it was just thoughtlessness at the time but now I know it wasn't (although it's still hard for me to acknowledge that). She ended up with black eyes and bruises once. But of course he wasn't an abuser because he never laid a finger on me, no matter how much I provoked him...
As a warning to other women - I've never 100% recovered. I don't think you do. I was with him for a decade. It is 7 years on, my life is difficult, but I bought something frivolous the other day that cost a lot of money and it brought home to me how in control of myself, my money and my life I am even if I do buy things I don't really need. I would never have dared buy something when I was with him because he earnt the money and it wasn't fair for me to spend it on things for myself. I was forever 'sorting' the finances so he could have all the things he wanted because it was his money and I wasn't contributing anything. My BIG birthday was awful because I had tried to keep it so cheap that someone commented on it and on my husband. And I was annoyed because she was critical of my husband!!!!
After two years I wanted to leave but wasn't brave enough. I got pregnant and terminated the pregnancy because the thought that my baby would grow up to have the same kind of father I had had horrified me and I had to save 'her' from my husband. I don't know why I didn't leave. I felt trapped and I had no friends and nowhere to go. I then tried to "make it work" until the eight year mark when I had psychotherapy. Then I completely gave up on making an effort to keep him from being angry and things got very bad then because I wasn't running around all the time. I don't know why I stayed after that. Eventually I just knew that I couldn't face a lifetime of what my life had become.
I've had CBT, psychotherapy and counselling since. It was when I told my counsellor about all this (the only person in real life) and she started crying that I first had an inkling that maybe it wasn't me, that maybe it wasn't my fault. The psychotherapy was because I had cancer and my reproductive organs were removed and it was very hard to deal with (part of me still believes it was punishment for what I did to my baby (however, I know really that this isn't true)).
I stumbled across mumsnet a week or so ago and have been reading other ladies' experiences with abusive relationships. I feel gratitude that I'm not there any more, anger that I'll never get over what happened to me, anger that he walked into a new relationship weeks after I left, sadness when I read other women making excuses for abuse or for not realising that it is abuse and for saying that they know their partner or husband is "a good man" deep down. That's what I thought. I really hope that many many women read this particular thread and that it gives them pause to think and perhaps the strength to leave and make their own way in the world, no matter how hard that is. It's so so hard. But being able to live is totally worth the trauma of going through it.
Sorry this is so long and has wandered away from being totally about red flags.