Emotional abuse?

[Lu234]

So my partner of 2.5 years seems to have had a change in behaviour just recently.

It started a number of months ago and I'm now questioning whether this is getting to the "emotional abuse" stage.

I can't see family/friends without having calls every 10 minutes checking on where I am or when I'll be home.

I've been asked to not talk to male friends. If they appear anywhere on my phone, he loses his mind.

He flies off the handle if I ask him to do something... especially if I have to ask more than once!!

Just recently he's started name calling and being nasty. I have a condition that makes it hard for me to string sentences together and slows me down cognitively. It's becoming a common reluctance for him to call me "retarded, stupid, slow" etc.

He accuses me of "raising my voice"/talking to him like a "tw*t" when I feel that I'm talking normally to him. Given, this always happens when I'm asking him to do something or I answer his (suspicious type) questions slightly defensively.

He's managed to hack into my Facebook and Instagram many times (I repeatedly have to change my passwords) and says that I've logged in to them on his phone once so that's why it's showing as his phone and he's getting the notifications. I know full well that I haven't logged onto his phone with any of my social media accounts. He's spying.

Honestly, the list of arguments I've been logging is as long as my arm.

I can't cope with it anymore and it's doing my mental health condition no good. But when things are good, they're really good.

I live with this guy and we recently got engaged. I'm due to marry him at the start of next year.
I can afford to live on my own (I pay 100% of our rent) but I rely on him massively because of my physical disability and my mental health.

I don't know what I'm asking here. I suppose I just need some advice and opinions on the situation.

I think your mental health will be better without him. He is making you doubt yourself, isolate from those who love you and walk on eggshells around him. He is not a supportive partner.

So you first got to know this person when you were around 10 years of age.

Men like you describe can be nice, particularly so and on their best behaviour, in the beginning and early days of a relationship. He probably could not do enough for you back then could he?. This is their way of love bombing you and drawing you in further.

You were well and truly targeted by him. Now that you seem well and truly in his life his true nature of abuse further emerges. He has in all likelihood used your mental problems and physical disability against you to further trap you into remaining with him. He is truly the lowest of the low here and is also dragging you down with him.

Do not further trap your own self by remaining with him. You are only 25 and still very young here; do not waste more years on this man who is abusive towards you. Do you not think you deserve better, are you that frightened of him, fear of the unknown and or being "on your own" that much that you would rather put up with this from him?. You certainly cannot in all good conscience marry this man given his abuse of you.

The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none.

He targeted you also because of your personal circumstances.

Better to be on your own as well than to be so badly accompanied.

Can I ask why you are NC with your parents?
You don't have to answer.
I'm just wondering if your upbringing led you to believe this is normal when it's really really not!!!

You are worth so much more than this and deserve so much better.

if you desperately want to stay with him, please don't go ahead and marry him. Maybe suggest he sees a counsellor and temporarily moves out until he shows a drastic change in behaviour.

I too am NC with my parents and growing up with them ruined my view of relationships and massively affected my self esteem. My friends also went their separate ways after school and uni. Sounds like you are in a similar situation.

It might be worth you seeing a counsellor to help you work on your self esteem and approach to relationships

I am very recently out of a relationship like this. I'm now living in a refuge about 30 miles from where I was. You will feel so much better out of this relationship x

I too have just ended a marriage like this. I put up with it for 7 years. I'm so ashamed what I have put my children through. I wish 100% I didn't marry him.
The emotional abuse got worse each month to the point I actually thought it was me causing it.

I totally understand how difficult it is to get out of as you are stuck in the cycle I have been stuck. He destroyed me, he brainwashed me and groomed me to put up with it and blame myself.

Now I'm out of it.. it still is hard and will take a lot of healing time but I am relieved I can live in peace. I've lost everything.. but I have my boys and at least I know I have done the right thing. 8/10 cases of emotional abuse end up in physical abuse and that's how it ended for me.

I know it's tough.. but do it for yourself x

I think you know well this is emotional abuse. The name-calling, forbidding you seeing people, checking your FB...what's in the relationship for you? NADA?

You are alone in all of this because he’s made it this way..... you will make new friends without this tosspot telling you who you can and can’t talk to.

My ex was like this, charming to start with, then gradually getting worse and worse until I was a shadow of my former self... no friends, no privacy, no happiness, no choices... I left him after wasting 10 years of my life...

Within a year I had a whole group of friends, I was happier, confident and free