Only two months married and miserable...

[Slundle]

I can't actually believe I'm writing this post but I feel like I have to be honest somewhere...

I got married two months ago to my longterm boyfriend. We're longterm but we broke up about four times over the course of 12 years. Every time we broke up, it was me who did the breaking up.

So, married life has been terrible. Quite simply, we are not getting along. I find my husband notoriously difficult to communicate with. Regardless of what the issue is, his way of dealing with it is to scoff and shout. It's gotten to the stage where I'm not sure if I even like him all that much. We get on fine when everything is perfect but we all know, life isn't perfect.

I know it'd be easy for one of you to write 'leave him' but it really isn't that simple. We had a long, tough break-up before. I felt so brave and empowered but I came crawling back to him because I genuinely felt so lonely and I knew he loved me. I suffered with loneliness and anxiety. It's not easy being single in a couples' world. He also used the line 'I want to take care of you.' I do wonder if I'm demanding in an emotional sense (I'm not materialistic but I can be needy and he has told me that. Unfortunately I agree).

We tried couples' counselling before we married and the counsellor did not work for us...when I went for individual counselling, they very much urged me to leave him. Yet in couples' counselling, with a different counsellor, it felt like she very much took his side and felt sorry for him that I had broken it off in the past. I know there shouldn't be sides in counselling but it really felt that way...each session was like her counselling him and I was more or less in the background...he has used that as ammunition against me.

Anyway, there's a lot of detail left out here but the reason I'm posting is I would really like to hear from people in similar situations:

• Have any of you had a rocky start to marriage?
• Have any of you managed to turn your marriage around?
• Did any of you end a marriage where there was no-one else involved (I know it's common to leave someone for someone else but I'm just genuinely very unhappy).

Anyhow, thanks for reading. I really appreciate that. My stress levels have gone through the roof and I'm angry at myself for letting my life turn out this way. As far as my friends and family are concerned, I'm happy as Larry. If only they saw the daily arguing that goes on behind closed doors.

Classic abuse. You don't have to live like this.

The plate thing is so shocking. You wouldn't do it to a dog

OP, now is the time for logical thinking. The pros and cons of staying. The cost (financial and otherwise) of leaving. Call up everyone you trust and say 'I need you to help me. This is the situation' rather than expecting them to tease it out.

Preferably people not connected to your partner or else definitely on your side

Find a solicitor. Read up online about the steps to leaving. Look up women's aid and other shelters who can give you advice or resources. Get your hands on any documents, pay slips etc. If you have joint accounts make sure you have access at short notice

Pack a bag with essential papers and clothes if you need to. Tell your GP/counsellor if you have them

You don't have to leave tomorrow but if leaving feels so insurmountable, break it up into chunks

What he is doing is only going to escalate and taking concrete steps will give you your power. If I were you I would leave tomorrow but if you were in my life I bet you would do other things differently to me

You really need to stop being concerned about what other people think of him and that he’s one of the good ones. He really isn’t. That is not how a loving partner behaves.

You need to get some counselling urgently as it’s really worrying that you say you would prefer to stay in a relationship with him than be lonely.

Hello....

Well I have a surprising update ... it was like it was meant to be ... I was let off work early so I came home and my H was here. I had texted him this morning asking if we could talk about our marriage tonight but I caught him a bit earlier so he wasn't tired etc.

After asking a few times if we could talk, once he was ready, I showed him the Cheshire Cycle of Domestic Abuse and calmly and in a non-judgemental way said I felt this was the way our relationship has always been. I explained myself carefully and calmly. He said 'I cannot deny that that is how our relationship has been.' I think the part about getting addicted to the release from an 'explosion' struck a particular chord. The weird thing for both of us is that word-for-word it applies to us and it's describing abuse. I'm sort of shocked that my whole relationship is what is classed as verbal/emotional abuse.

But he reacted very differently than I expected. I thought he'd blame me or twist it or get angry...having said that, I don't know where I go from here. I feel like I'm in the 'honeymoon' phase so I'm going to step back from the situation & monitor carefully over the next few days.

I'm seeing the counsellor tomorrow as he had a cancellation and I feel like a boulder has been lifted now that I've said that much to my H...

P.s. Thanks for those messages. I've read every word carefully. I'm not ready to leave but I wish I had found this clarity a long, long time ago.

I fully agree with Attila the meercat. Do it all

Just read the entire thread with a horrible feeling of recognition - this is exactly how my ex behaved, and it only ever got worse, right up until the point he beat me up and threatened to hurt our DC. Other people have given better advice than I can, but right now, I second what number1wang has just said. Please take care of yourself.

Thank you for your concern. I'm sure it does sound strange. He was in a very calm mood when I spoke with him. I am not at risk. This is what is infuriating about this situation. My husband can be almost like two different people...I'm not really sure what I'm hoping to happen...although Sadeyedlady your experience sounds awful. I'm sorry you went through that.

I'm just looking to somehow break this cycle because there has been no physical abuse and we both had bad models from our parents' relationships. We'll see.

Slundle,
I wish you well but am concerned he is calm because he has been 'outed' for his behavior, he knows you really understand what has been going on and are not afraid to challenge him on it.

So he is being calm and l fully expect he will start to be very nice and loving and the outbursts will stop ...for a while.

Please be on your guard.

Relieved to hear that you don't feel in any danger - obviously you know your husband better than any of us do! I hope your session with the counsellor goes well tomorrow

Thanks ladies. I do understand what you're saying. X

I feel suffocated just reading your posts and imagining what it’s like for you. Well done for opening up here, talking it through. I had someone close to me in a relationship like this and it took a huge amount for her to recognise it for what it was and a lot of support for her to leave him. Now we rarely mention him but we are always thankful that she got away and never had kids with him.

I hope your counselling helps you get clarity. Please be totally honest so they can really help you. You deserve so much more than this in life.

Thanks. I will try my best. x

Good luck! Don't be surprised if he love bombs you or is affectionate, calm, easier to talk to for the next few days - but the moment something happens he doesn't like the mask will slip and he will be back to berating and name calling

I don't think it's unusual for abusers to know they are abusing. Isn't that worse, that they have this insight and it doesn't stop them?

Can't remember if it's been recommended on this thread already, but please read Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Did That? It demonstrates that abuse isn't about someone's inability to control their temper, but a strategic choice because it works to the abuser's advantage.

Right now you are hopeful he will change. That's nice. Good luck.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst though.

How about you form an exit plan, just in case he reverts and you decide you don't want to spend the rest of your life like this or give your children a father like that?

You are very worried about what other people think, what they will say and the pressure they will put on you. I'm not going to tell you to stop worrying about all that. You will need years of therapy to get there.

What if you didn't have to hear what people said, didn't have to see their faces? What if there were physical barriers to you getting back together?

I am talking about emigrating. Seriously. I did it to escape a toxic family and my god it worked a treat.

You are a chef. That's a hugely transferrable skill. You could be quietly planning to move to Australia, getting everything organised now. If he has a miracle recovery you don't act on it, if he reverts you can get out with less angst.

You can divorce from afar. You can even get on the plane without telling anyone until later.

People have done this kind of thing to escape bad situations since time immemorial for good reason. It works.

As an expat you will have a big crowd of other singles. If you meet someone, which is pretty likely, great, if you don't and choose to become a single parent your dad can't be in your face about it.

Chefs are definitely in demand overseas! Australia is a good shout (you'll love the weather) but that can take you anywhere

Slundle, I don't post here much any more but I just had to reply to you because your experience matches mine so much that it's scary. I didn't marry my ex, but I'm absolutely positive that if I had, I could easily have been posting this exact thread two months later.

I'll spare you the masses of detail about my own life but a few things really jumped out at me that I wanted to comment on, I hope you don't mind.

Firstly, you keep emphasising that your husband is a good man really and that he's nice sometimes, so he can't 'really' be abusive. Please just take a look through some other threads on the Relationships board and you'll realise that this is what absolutely everyone says in your situation. It's the biggest misconception about abusive relationships, I think, that they have to be abusive 24/7 or it doesn't 'count'. In reality, all abusive partners are nice sometimes because if they weren't, we would have no difficulty leaving them straight away. It's all part of the same cycle.

Secondly, I noticed that you keep stressing the lack of physical abuse - you seem to be clinging to this as a deciding factor which makes the relationship more acceptable somehow. I felt the same way with my ex. In fact, I used to sometimes wish that he would just go ahead and hit me because then I'd 'know' I was being abused and wouldn't have to second-guess myself. A lot of abusive partners know that's a line that they can't cross, so the abuse comes out in other ways which (and this is the crucial thing I want to get across) are just as damaging and unacceptable as physical abuse. Please don't let your standards slip so low that 'he doesn't hit me' is seen as a positive, redeeming characteristic in an otherwise awful relationship. I would also add that things like taking away your food and pulling the bed sheets off you actually are forms of physical abuse. Does he ever punch or hit things near you, or throw things in your general direction when he's angry? My ex used to do those things almost as a kind of 'workaround' instead of actually hurting me.

Lastly, your latest update about your husband 'recognising' his abuse also struck a chord with me. A similar thing happened with my ex in the last couple of months of our relationship. In my case, he had (yet again) ruined a very important family event for me, but the difference this time was that a few of my friends and family had clearly picked up on it and asked him a few questions. Realising that other people had identified his behaviour as unacceptable seemed to send him into some kind guilty spiral, and it was like he suddenly woke up and admitted to all his horrible behaviour. For the next week or so he made an amazing effort to be 'nice' (i.e. just basic standards of human decency) and I was elated - I thought we'd finally turned a corner and everything was going to be great from then on. But he couldn't keep it up, and eventually some tiny perceived wrongdoing from me sent him right back to his normal angry, shouty, miserable self.

Please stay alert over the next few days and don't allow yourself to accept scraps and breadcrumbs of 'decent' behaviour just because you've been starved of that for so long. And if he goes back to his old self after a few days then please don't convince yourself that a short period of good behaviour somehow 'proves' that he's a good man really. All it will prove is that he cannot keep it up for more than a few days.

I really, really hope I'm wrong and I'm so sorry if my post isn't what you want to hear, but your story just sounds so hauntingly familiar that I couldn't not comment.

Best of luck to you, whatever happens and whatever you decide. Take care.

@lisasimpsonsaxaphone Thanks for your message and for sharing. I can relate to that part about the family seeing things. I remember my H letting slip in the tiniest possible way years ago and my sister said, 'gawd, I've never seen this side to you before.' I am alert all right. We had an argument the morning after my last posting here, so the 'niceness' lasted all of one evening. It feels to me like he doesn't know or get me at all half the time.

@AsleepAllDay and @RabbitsareTasty It's a good idea. I don't know if I'd have the guts to emigrate alone again. I did it when I was much younger for a couple of years and it was really tough at the beginning, even though it ended up being a great learning experience.

@bibliomania I agree. It's crazy that he's accepted it's abuse and seems to think we can keep going as is....he did say to me later that night though, 'I know, we've a lot to work on.' Key word: we. I agree I'm not a perfect person but I'm not the person engaging in verbal abuse.

In case any of you are curious, I said to the counsellor 'there's no violence but...' and I detailed it briefly and he immediately said, 'so there is violence.' He suggested I ask my H what he plans to do about what we talked about (the cycle of abuse), so I did that calmly late last night and he just looked at me before suggesting we watch a TV show we both like. The counselling session was excellent but it was hard listening to myself. It was harder when he suggested Women's Aid. I feel like I'm the only one who knows that he would never, ever hit me. I am sure about that. My own father was the same. He would hit the wall or scream but he never laid a finger on us, even though at times I did feel terrified of him. Anyhow, my head and heart hurt a lot at the moment. I feel like I've 'invested' in this relationship and much of the relationship side of my adult life has been a waste but I know there's no sense in looking back. I just feel sad and deflated but I need to focus on self-care as the counsellor suggested.

Thanks for all your comments. I really appreciate people sharing their own experiences and being kind.

The violence doesn't have to be directed towards another person as evidenced by your father. Who you were terrified off. Unsurprisingly you have found yourself in a similar abusive relationship with your DH. Women's Aid can really help you here. Not only in getting out but with helping you understand why and how you got here. And how not to go back. Controlling relationships don't need to be about physical violence.

That said. Remember three women a week are killed by partners or ex partners. Often they were violent previously but not always. Escalation can be fatal.

Please be safe @Slundle

Violence doesn't have to be physical and men who aren't physical can escalate to that

I'm sure you can see the link between your father and your husband, and unlike childhood where you probably had nowhere else to go... you can leave. And you must leave, for your own sake.

Thanks ladies...there's a big difference between my H and my father. My father is much more stubborn, proud and intelligent. His intelligence means that his emotional abuse was often quite sophisticated. Things are a bit better now and he doesn't lash out as much but that's all dependent on my mother dancing around his every desire/compulsion. I almost can't think about it too much.

I'm genuinely not at risk. I know my H very well, better than anyone. I know, as the counsellor said, that he's capable of verbal abuse and controlling behaviour so can we take his word? But I don't think that's the point...for me, the point isn't 'what if he hits me?' For me, the point is I've ended up in a marriage to someone I do care deeply about but I'm finding impossible to be with. He could well end up much worse if we did have children if he continues to do nothing about his messed up way of processing emotion. I've often gone to bed full of anxiety that he's going to shout at me. He has screamed at me many times for making minor movements in bed, like wiggling a toe or coughing. I mean, no one likes their sleep disrupted but even when I've told him that I'm terrified he'll shout at me when going to sleep etc, he hasn't seemed too bothered...

Yet, it can seem like a pretty normal relationship at times too. That's the part that makes it less clear-cut, less 'leave now!' I mean, it was just over two months ago when we got married. No matter what anyone says, I couldn't face the shame of ending a marriage this soon. I know what people are like. I know a lady in our wider circle who divorced after 3 years. You should've heard the assumptions people jumped to. I couldn't face my family, colleagues and some friends.People gossip like hell and I'm hardly going to broadcast that he was abusive, so I'd literally look like the Big Bad Wolf and honestly, I feel he'd make me feel guilty for that and I'd end up feeling genuine guilt, just like before...

Thanks for reading. I know I'm not being decisive and that's just not where I'm at...the truth is though, if we weren't married, I probably would be looking in to leaving.

Why would you not not people know he's abusive?

Surely now is the time to start telling people about it. Gradually let everyone know. Stop lying to protect your abuser.

The counselling session was excellent but it was hard listening to myself. It was harder when he suggested Women's Aid. I feel like I'm the only one who knows that he would never, ever hit me. I am sure about that.

That doesn’t mean you can’t speak to Women’s Aid. Women’s Aid isn’t just for women whose partners him them. And if he can control and dominate you in other ways then he doesn’t need to hit you. But he can still very much be abusive.

Please look after yourself.