I have a feeling this is is typical abuse behaviour...

[thefeelslimlady]

but I still don't know how to work out what the real issue is.

If I ever get mad with DH about something he's done, he will rant on for potentially hours, until in the end I seriously doubt my own perception.

So for example if I say, 'you did x behaviour and that wasn't right'...I will be bombarded with, 'you're speaking to me like a child', everyone else was doing x and you only noticed me doing x, this is perfectly normal, why do you have a problem with it?' etc etc.

I should say that things have to be fairly bad for me to say something, as I try and avoid this reaction a lot, so it's not like I critisise him regularly. Is this what's known as minimising? I feel so confused!

Notthe he's controlling in many, but not all, aspects of life. Most of it now has become the norm (I've changed/hidden things so that he doesn't have as much to object to) and so there is a status quo, but obviously I have limits as to how much I can sacrifice to keep the peace, and when I cajole him into the things, that's when the other behaviour comes out.
Day to day he is quite nice/considerate helpful, as long as nothing is challenging his sense of how things should be.

Offred, how far into the relationship did this behaviour start/change?
DH has been fairly consistent with this behaviour for the last few years, I think for him it is a means to and end.

It started with humiliating me in front of his friends (first time I met them) about 6 months in. He had been really wonderful up until then so it was very confusing as it didn’t match up to what I had seen of him.

It got progressively worse over four years, I was trying to leave from about 6 months in, I eventually actually got away (with help from the police) almost 4 years after I got with him.

I think he is an extreme example, he was extremely scary TBH and this stuff is only a small amount of the things he did, but it is the same kind of behaviour with the same agenda (to invalidate your feelings and avoid accountability) IMO.

I did what you describe - change/hide things for a bit in the middle and it was more stable but I found it felt like I was being completely erased (and it didn’t eliminate his rages, just made them less frequent) but as soon as I started standing up for myself a bit it got really really bad, probably made worse because of the bit in the middle where I was changing/hiding things which made him feel like his paranoia about me was justified.

Offred, I'm glad you here you were able to get away.

Yeah, I've gone from being a very honest person to an expert in deception. The children are sadly learning the same skill - kids do what they need to survive.

I think mine was so extreme because he is a chronic cannabis smoker. I didn’t know, he had directly lied to me as well as hiding it.