How do you really know you're in an emotionally abusive relationship?

[Dayas]

I'm starting to wonder if I am but honestly I just don't know.

We have been together for 6 years. I love him so much more than I've ever loved any man. We have a child together.

In the beginning things were amazing between us, he treated me like an absolute queen and was my best friend. Probably since we got married things started to go down hill.

He doesn't trust me anymore and can't talk to me because I've made lots of mistakes (trusted a friend to do something for me and she didn't come through, smoked a cigarette when I said I wouldn't smoke again, contacted his ex girlfriend after finding out they'd been in contact after lots of issues with her, checking his social media and finding messages to a woman and confronting him, emotionally deserting him when I was having mental health issues).

I spend all my time feeling guilty and like I have to prove myself to him for things to get better between us but no matter how hard I try something else I do sets us back and we are back to square one with him sulking and me feeling ashamed.

Our arguments are getting nastier. He threatens to leave all the time and suggests divorce, implies I'm a bad mum, laughs at me when I cry then something switches and he gives me a cuddle and it's like it never happened. When I ask why he tells me it's because he realises he has to accept me for who I am and accept he can't talk to me.

I am scared of upsetting him. But however careful I am there's always something. I doubt myself ALL the time. I have no friends. So sometimes I wonder if it's me and he's right and I can't pin point what it is he does. Every argument I end up feeling like it's all my fault and I apologise. If I speak up about something he's done I also end up apologising. Apparently I need to put my feelings to the side to be able to be the woman he married.

I'm sorry this may be really jumbled I could just really do with some advice.

I have sent an email to the freedom programme in my borough. I don't know if I will go but if I do I've made the first step?

I am still hoping maybe I can do this course and get stronger and more confident and then he will be better with me and we can be happy again. The smart part of my brain knows that it probably doesn't work like that.

I did convince him to go to counselling last year and he went but it became another source of resentment that he had to go to counselling because he couldn't talk to his wife. He also thought he was too smart for his counsellor and stopped going

Childhood abuse can cause abusive behaviour as it changes the brain.It is why counselling often doesn't work.
Sadly it can lead to narcisstic personality disorder, often covert npd which is more difficult to spot.
My ex suffered an abusive childhood and has an outward personality that is charming and gentle.Once we married the mask dropped and I suffered similar behaviour as you describe but towards the end he was very intimidating.

Once I started to practice boundaries, calmly telling him his behaviour was not acceptable he got much worse.Previously ex went for counselling but it didn't help, if anything it made him more of a victim.

Start a journal, write down the incidents, read up on abusive tactics and slowly it will sink in.Some tactics are blame shifting, gaslighting, stonewalling, projecting and manipulation.
Its awful to know you can't fix it but it is true and if you have a child its important to break the cycle.My ex started to get the dc to line up against me, once I left he started to be aggressive to them.If he is under the spotlight his behaviour changes which shows he has control.

If he has npd please plan to leave quietly, get legal advice and confide in family and friends.
Abusers do not want to let go, not because of love but because they need someone to project their issues on.

Today I feel like my eyes are opening a bit. I am starting to look at some of his behaviour in a new light. I met up with some school mums today. He has encouraged me to socialise because it's difficult for him when I'm isolated. I left later than expected because we were all chatting and lost track of time. He was a bit funny about it but said it was ok but has since spent the whole evening sulking because 'he feels there's something funny going on' and doesn't understand why I missed a call of his and why I left later. I have explained that I was busy getting the buggy down a flight of stairs when he called and I lost track of time talking to other mums so I'm not sure what there is to not understand.

You're right. There's nothing not to understand. This is just one way abusive men make it difficult for us to build or maintain friendships. They don't restrict our movements by chaining us up, they restrict us and control us in the way you've described.

The sulks are designed to intimidate us into changing our behaviour and falling in line. Any normal person would have accepted your explanation (if they even felt the need to ask) and then forgotten about it. It's not even worth commenting on your "lateness" other than to say "it sounds like it went really well if you lost track of time, that's great". Did he even ask how it went?

I'm so pleased to hear you've started the ball rolling on FP. Just take it one step at a time and let yourself adjust. I know it's a lot to absorb. You can just go to gather all the information they have to offer you, you don't have to have any bigger plan than that right now if you're not ready for it.

Our emotions do take time to catch up with reason and logic. I suspect you will find that if you go to freedom your emotions will start catching up with your "smart brain", as you call it (I like that).

Gruffalina I'm crying over how lovely you've been to me. Everything you've said has been so helpful and so understanding I can't tell you what it means. I know it's typing on a screen but I'm a real person with a real life and family and you've really had an impact on me. I feel something changing and it's really fucking scary but there's also something in my head telling me it's good.

Today for the first time I imagined a life after him and it didn't feel like the end of the world. I imagined myself being a better mum because I was happy and living without this huge pressure on me all the time. Having the kids in bed with me whenever I wanted and going to see friends and deciding when I leave. Not being terrified if something unexpected happens because I don't have to answer to anyone. Not second guessing everything I say. Free to cry whenever I need to and not having to swallow it back down because he gets angry with me for being emotional. Free to not be on the ball with EVERYTHING all of the time because nobody's going to be criticising me and just living a life where everything's OK as long as me and the kids are fed and warm and safe and happy.

It feels like a dream at the moment and I don't know if I'll get there but i can at least imagine it

I just read the post about the buggy I am in a very Similar position. I was in primark yday and he called and I cut it off on Accident and he rang me back and said why did you cut off my call and asking where I was he knew full I was going shopping yday. But as others say they control you subtly I can’t be to long at the shop for instance or he’s questioning me when I get in.
Sometimes I rebel but there’s hell to pay when I do silent treatment with holding affection and telling me I’ve made him like this I know none of this is true but it still hurts badly.
He constantly accuses me of things too and if I dare to question him I am paranoid and don’t trust him so he threatens to leave it truly is a a horrible way to live I have bad anxiety and depression All at his hands and you will be getting those kind of symptoms too.
I am going to leave soon I can’t take jt anymore

Just to add he won’t change I’ve chucked mine out for months and he cries and begs and he changed for two months and was just back to how he usually is again just actually his abuse escalated once he got back in. So don’t think for one second he will change because he won’t I want mine to change too and sometimes I think he has but I’ve accepted now he won’t change only I can change this position I am in and it’s very hard xx

Today brings more sulking. Only now he won't tell me why. Making jokes about committing suicide.

Today I won't beg him to talk to me.

"Starting to wonder..really dont know"just those2lines are the(red flags)mark of an emotional abuser..they get u so confused&doubting ur thoughts/motives/actions...everything.Yes been there,done that-he's poss a narcissist or
sociopath at worst..u need to sack him off ASAP&dont look back.Good luck

Good for you, Dayas. I know it's still difficult and painful, but being able to step back from it and see what they're doing without getting dragged in does make it feel more survivable. (Although I'm sorry it's necessary.)

It's so lovely to read your vision and dreams for life after him. It sounds like it would be a lovely life. Hold onto them tightly - when you're wobbling or struggling they will help you to keep going.

I'm just glad if what I've written has helped you. I remember how lonely and confusing and scary and, well, all the horrible emotions(!) going through this is. It is a process, and I can see you're progressing along it. You don't have to force it faster than you're ready for unless you're at risk, but equally it's good that you're not trying to stop it, and that you're letting yourself imagine your future without him. That takes real courage.

I'm rooting for you.

In case no-one has mentioned it, threatening suicide is just that: a threat.
www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/getting-help-for-domestic-violence/ (see "threats" list)

It really does feel so much easier now that I look at his behaviour for what it is and don't get dragged in to feeling guilty and ashamed and begging for forgiveness. I've been calm and firm today and it seems as though he doesn't quite know how to react. He has tried being argumentative, then stormed off when it got him nowhere. When I didn't go running after him asking him to come back he came back anyway and is now resorting to emotional blackmail.

I still love him. Deeply. But he has issues that aren't my fault and I'm not sure that I can carry the burden of those anymore. I'm not sure that I deserve to.

I don't think you deserve to either.

There's a quote I come back to a lot, and it seems pertinent to how you're feeling today. It's from a book called Time to Break Free, Meditations for the First 100 Days After Leaving an Abusive Relationship, by Judith R Smith.

"My abuser may have had a hard life. The stories of his childhood may be sad, and I wish I could help him. But I have tried to help him for a long time now. It didn't work. Today it's time to start helping me. Saying goodbye to helping him and saying hello to helping me does not make me a selfish person. It makes me a capable, courageous, intelligent person, despite what anyone else thinks or says. I did not cause his problems, and I cannot save him from them. The person I choose to help is me. The life I choose to save is my own."

I think your life is worth saving.

Of course you don't deserve to. I did this. I did it for 20 years. I learned all the things he wanted me to and always the goalposts changed. I go to speech therapy because he complained I shouted and was strident, so I learned to modulate my voice which meant I could no longer speak at a normal volume and could no longer sing at all, something I was quite good at. He took my voice, he took my name (changed it to one of his liking, similar to mine but not mine at the time) took twenty years of my life. He'd play tricks on me, asking me a question and yelling for the wrong answer. I caught him kissing a 16 year old once, that was my fault, as was it when I caught him with a 19 year old too. My fault too that he fell in love with my one and only friend so that I had to stop seeing her. Was the police who put me right on that! He once told me I was deliberately misleading him because I didn't breath in the right place in a sentence. Yep, he actually said that! I was breathing wrongly! WTAF!

You will be so much happier without this in your life.

Mine tells me I eat loudly and can I not eat loud as it’s annoying the breathing thing hit home

Does anybody know how lono the freedom programme should take to get back to me?

Feeling a bit in over my head today. He's saying he's suicidal and though I can imagine it to be a tactic of his it's not a risk I can bare to take.

The book linked in this thread might help. There is a free download link too
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3247747-To-think-every-woman-should-read-Why-Does-He-Do-That