When your abuser finally slips up and exposes himself

[ReallyWTF]

I've posted about my plight with an EA man under various usernames in the past. Today, via phone and email exchange, he finally exposed himself as the cruel tyrant he has been for years.

Yet, here I am, posting on a public forum for reassurance and confirmation - such is the extent of the gaslighting I have endured for so long makes me still doubt myself.

Here's an email that I have just sent to EA DP:

A record of what has just happened:

Yesterday you removed my bra from the study and put it in the wash. You did this without informing me. The bra does not look like a regular bra on account of having 2 massive holes in the front to enable pumping.

Me: Earlier today I told you I was feeling particularly vulnerable and told you so (anxiety issues). After searching for said bra, I phoned you asking where it was.
You: You tell me that the whole office can hear me.
Me: I hang up and email instead so not to jepodise your privacy at work.
You: tell me you're alone in the office anyway (bizarre). You also tell me "Ultimately it's your fault for misplacing stuff" (recall, YOU moved the bra; I didn't misplace anything - bizarre).

Notice the language you then used in your emails: "gosh, it's so crazy. I need to remotely locate your bra while sitting in the office? What's in your head? Of all dramas this is the most bizarre I could imagine." This is in the context of you knowing 1) that I'm feeling vulnerable today. 2) That you moved the item.

To clarify: You moved an item and I phoned asking where it was. What is "crazy" about my behaviour there?

Let's look at your behaviour: You denied knowing of an item you moved just a few hours earlier. You also mentioned that "the whole office could hear" when there was no one else in the office.

Which of the two people sound "crazy" here? The one searching for an item that was moved, or the one gaslighting at every turn?

Crazy-making:

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/having-sex-wanting-intimacy/201403/are-you-in-crazy-making-relationship

Crazy-making is one of the cruelest things you can do to a person and it is one of the most insidious forms of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is the hardest form of abuse to prove, but today we have the proof at long last. I expect you will minimize, deny, shift blame - it's a textbook response to being called-out. I'm not taking any immediate action so no need to say "If I'm so abusive, fuck off/call police/etc". Another common response to being exposed would be to leave or tell me to leave - an attempt to scare me, control the situation and avoid facing your own behaviour.

You have temporarily let your game weaken and have exposed yourself. Your ex is not an over-reacting psycho. And the fear I feel almost every day is not simply "in my head" or me "being a psycho" as you like to frequently retort.

Plus ask at work about childcare help.

Get out or get rid, now. I wasted about 3 years of my 30s with a loser.

stuckficks
I missed that. I double pumped for months and months with dd. Never had one of these bras or knew such things existed 10 years ago.... was only 15/20 mins of my life or whatever. So not an essential piece of kit.

I have an experience of EA that relates to this OP so do feel for you. Mine always told me his EX was crazy, I saw the divorce notes, she has sited in them that he constantly put her down, made her feel inadequate and stupid, she also accused him of raping her. I found notes she left around the house, "marriage = Hell" He denied it all and said she was the crazy one. She wasn't, bit by bit all the things he did to her, he did to me. Just know you arent crazy and its him who has the problem. Please find the strength to get out

Hes trying to make you crazy, Youre not crazy x

Please be careful if you follow the 'grey rock' strategy. This can cause the abuser to up their game and become even nastier because they are not getting the response they want.

I hate to say it but the fact that you are seeing through him will get him to up his game and use different tactics. He’s already doing so by being nice while he plans/waits for the next opportunity to do something.

I fear for you more than I did. Please be careful

This thread makes no sense to me. I dont think you have any proof of anything, you have an email you sent him describing a phone call than to any one else could be comlpletely made up, you didnt record the call? From what I'm reading it doesnt sound like he actually did anything wrong but that you massively overeacted.
My husband moves stuff all the time and then forgets he moved them or forgets where he moved them to, not that I would ever try to but if hes at work then he cant afford to be phoning and emailing me to help find me find a bra that he doesnt remember moving and cant look for now anyway.

You can leave...it's not easy and you will anticipate all the difficulties but what you don't know is how much more energy (almost infinitely more) you will have once you are rid of this man....at least from your space

I left with more DC and therefore more childcare issues than you....it is doable and you clearly need to do it.

By all means plan a bit but the sooner you leave the sooner you will be free for your life to improve. Good luck.

The trouble with EA is that it's not the incident, it's the attitude and the fact that it's repeated. He won't change, he will never admit it. Your friends who are in non EA relationships might not get it because the incidents sound small out of context. But trust your judgement.

If your not ready yet to leave then counseling ( just you) or women's aid for advice. IME this doesn't get better. Sorry.

worried about isolation

First of all, he probably has facilitated this isolation, but it is better to be isolated for a short time than with an asshole like that. Secondly we have all felt that fear.

Do you have the space to have an au pair?

I don’t understand - why would you ring your DP at work because you couldn’t find your bra? I’m forever misplacing things, usually after DH or DC’s have tidied up but I don’t ring them up, I just look in what I think are the most logical places ie laundry basket or washing machine for the bra.

I don’t understand - why would you ring your DP at work because you couldn’t find your bra? I’m forever misplacing things

This isn’t about you though.

The OP is in an EA relationship and at 15:56 said he has a history of EA and moving things and denying it.

I’m glad you don’t understand the drip drip of an EA but this means your posts don’t be very helpful to the OP and just undermine her progress by questioning her and not believing.

I believe that he's EA. If you say he is, he is. You don't even need that as an excuse to leave, separate or divorce. Nobody in authority will be interested in your reasons for doing this, and it doesn't make any difference to the settlement.

But that email exchange does not prove anything. If anything, on that exchange alone, I would be on his side. To me, it looks like he put an item of your clothing in the wash and either forgot or cba dealing with you when you rang because you don't like each other very much. I don't understand why you bothered him at work about it, or sent such a bizarre email. I honestly think it would do you a great disservice to show anyone those emails.

If he is EA, make plans and leave but talking about bras and teabags really does sound like an overreaction and such conversations must surely happen in all families everywhere.

I’m glad you don’t understand the drip drip of an EA

Yeap, a very close friend of mine was in an EA relationship and at the time everything sounded so trivial like a normal slip-up in a normal relationship.

Just like the isolation usually seems normal. "Why do you put up with that friend, your mother?"; "Don't go out, I want to spend the evening with you"; "Let's move"; etc. etc.

God, the Relationships thread is beginning to read more and more like AIBU of us whio are not living their lives. People post on here as a virtual safe space to talk through their issues sometimes after several false starts.

In the main the OP knows what they are living with. They may not be able to articulate it in a way that is immediately understandable, especially for those of us who have little or no experience of what they are living through. But please have some empathy and at least try to understand (or at least read up things like emotional abuse and gaslighting on Google).

This OP has been gaslighted over a period of time so much so that she was doubting her sanity. It's not a one off whoopsie on her P's part. It is subtle and insidious.
Again this is Relationships not AIBU. And if that makes me sound like a member of the thread police - tough, jog on.

bah we need an edit button but you get the drift.

I’m glad you don’t understand the drip drip of an EA

Yep

Spent too long with an EA ex. He did the exact same, moved stuff to irritate me. All the while implying I was crazy and paranoid. I have a very logical mind tho so I knew he was doing it.

When I left him I was amazed to find out he'd told people I was crazy, controlling, deemed to have early onset dementia..all sorts of nonsense. I also found out he'd done the same to an ex

Despite the gaslighting these men will do anything to stop you leaving. All sweetness and light - but they can't maintain it

I met my lovely DP 3 years after all that. I look back and could cringe that I put up with a passive aggressive idiot who made our relationship boring and tense

I hear through the grapevine that his new lady, who apparently had a lot to say about me, "the crazy ex", is now almost tearing her hair out at his antics.

I'm smiling at the sheer joy of not being her.

I hope you're not going to stay in this macabre game OP. Just leave, and get your life back. You don't have to justify or prove to anybody. If he's making you unhappy, then end the relationship

Op take care not to tip him off that you are collecting evidence. You don’t need him to know that you are. You put yourself at risk by doing so. You don’t need him to know anything you are doing.

fourquenelles
A lot of the posts are relevant. Op thinks she has somehow ensnared her partner. But she hasn’t. People are trying to explain to her she’s being irrational. Not to gaslight her or doubt her. But to try to help her.

Secondly op doesn’t need the holy grail of truth she seems to be searching for before ending an ea relationship. Posters are also trying to explain this to her.

It is very difficult to do all of this without appearing to be siding with her abuser, which people imo aren’t.

The whole premise of her post just doesn’t work. A bra which is totally necessary to pump milk and feed her baby has been put in the laundry basket by her partner to freak her out. When in reality she can use the pump without the bra. All of this makes op look crazy. Again I understand she is saying this is the desired effect.

Whatever is going on with her partner and whatever his motives, his behaviour is seriously affecting her mental health and she’s become a bag of nerves. She just needs to walk away before he is able to accuse her of completely losing the plot and makes it difficult for her to have custody of the baby.

This is the important message.

Mummyoflittledragons we are on the same page but upsideup post at 16.21 doesn't read that way and it was that post (and a couple more on another thread on Relationships) that triggered my mini rant.

fourquenelles
Oh ok I get what you are saying now. I read your post as more general but you meant the relationship board not thread. Your first sentence now makes a lot more sense.

Dear OP. This man seems nasty,and I am sure you are right about him being EA. However, what is most obvious is that you don’t want to be with this man, so leave. Don’t worry about proving anything, just leave. You will cope far more easily away from this man than you are staying with him. So please LEAVE.

It's one incident in a pattern of behaviour. Coercive control is a course of conduct offence. If you only look at small instances in isolation they will look trivial. They're not.

Op, you seem to be focusing on trying to "prove" he's abusive rather than on getting away from him. Focusing on your proof is probably a lot easier, but you're playing into your hands by doing it because it's stopping you leaving. That is what your focus should be on.

If you want to report him to the police, just do it. It's not your job to collect evidence for them, and this isn't how they would evidence coercive control. It's a course of conduct offence, so there isn't going to be a "smoking gun" as you seem to think this is. They would investigate the pattern of his behaviour, not single incidents.

Because as demonstrated by some posters here, unless you understand coercive control sell, people will easily dismiss it as insignificant if you only present one incident as proof. It is about the impact of all the little incidents combined. A diary of all the incidents over a period of time is actually the kind of thing that might be used, but it's too late. Leave first, it can be reconstructed through interviews with you if necessary.

Regardless, it's not your job to gather proof. If they've already asked you to report him there is obviously not an issue with them doubting he is abusing you.

If you want to report him, then report him, let them gather their evidence and provide you with the support you need to move forward.

Isn't your life worth more than drowning while you focus on proving he is the one drowning you, rather than grabbing onto the lifelines that could save you?

is this forum the right place for this?

OP talk to your professional counsellor about boundaries.