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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Whats the most emotionally abusive thing someone has said or done?

27 replies

yesterdaysnews3c · 15/10/2018 09:56

I had a horrible relationship that ended a few months back. Mumsnet helped me identify what emotional abuse is and made me realise how subtle it can be.

I think people don’t always know what is abuse until it is pointed out.

My ex did many things but oh the silent treatment...I planned a mini break for us and he didn’t speak to me for 30 hours of it after I said (politely!) please don’t tell what to wear (third time of him telling me to change my top and me refusing)...

OP posts:
Original poster
yesterdaysnews3c · 15/10/2018 09:56

And to add, at the time I blamed myself!!

OP posts:
Thebluedog · 15/10/2018 10:05

Oh god, I lived with an emotional, financial and sexual abuser for nearly 10 years so could write a book. I left him nearly 20 years ago but a few things stick in my head. Ignoring me on my 18th and then 21 st birthdays. Wearing clothes with holes into work as I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to buy anymore (my wages went into his account). Driving an old, knackered car into work, and him having a brand new bmw on the drive which he didn’t use as he worked from home. Making me walk 6 miles home from work as He refused to pick me up and I had no money for a bus. Jesus still makes me cringe just thinking about it.

babygoose48 · 15/10/2018 11:41

Texting a girl in front of me whilst we were in bed together (until about 2am), denying it and threatening to break up with me when i confronted him the next day and then making me believe for two years that I was hallucinating the whole thing and I was unwell (I have bipolar disorder).

Then when he accidentally slipped that he was texting this girl, he fell out with me for holding a grudge over something that happened 2 years ago.

ColdCoffees · 15/10/2018 11:52

Name changed for this one.
He did loads of awful shit but I’d say the worst ones were:

Laughed when I found out he had given me STI’s while I was heavily pregnant - said the test must have been wrong and if it wasn’t, I must have been sleeping around. (While being extremely unwell and unable to leave the house most days..)

Threatened to cheat on me multiple times and told me that if a man cheats it’s because his partner is doing something wrong.

Sent me photographs of scratch and bite marks over his body (from sex he had cheating on me while I was pregnant) and claimed they were from when he got into a fight. No idea why he sent these to me, or what he gained from it, knowing I’d know what they were from. When I called him out he refused to come to my ultrasound the day after and ignored me for several days.

Used to initiate sex with me while I was asleep, refuse to stop when I woke up, and when confronted the next day (or whenever) he claimed it’s because ‘he knew I liked it because of how my body responded’ Confused

This thread has been a nice reminder of why I should celebrate him fucking off.

babygoose48 · 15/10/2018 12:14

@coldcoffees scary.... Sad

I’m glad to hear you have fired that one off!!

Beelzebop · 15/10/2018 12:28

Telling me last night that I had no right to be upset over a close relatives' death. Perhaps not the worst, but I'm only just recognising it for what it is

CharDeeMacDennis · 15/10/2018 12:42

Didn't happen to me, but my mum told me recently that when she was leaving my dad after years of verbal / emotional abuse, he used to make my little brother (11yo) go and beg her not to break up the family Angry

I was away at uni at the time. It burns me up inside to think of him doing that to my sweet little DB and to my DM.

QueenofWhatever · 15/10/2018 12:52

He said ‘you’re not as upset as I am about our son dying’.

TashaYar · 15/10/2018 12:59

Threatened to kill and eat my pets because he refused to have anything in the house that I might love more than him.

Additionally, he was insistent that he would get a specific pet animal I was afraid of.

ihatethecold · 15/10/2018 13:16

Makes me feel very sad reading these posts. It brings it all back.
when I was 16 I got pregnant with my older BF. he abused me physically, emotionally and verbally for 5 years. The one event that will always stay with me was when he thought it was hilarious to spike my Tea with LSD (acid) when I was 3 months pregnant. Sad I will also always remember the first time he hit me when he was drunk.. yes I was still 16 and heavily pregnant.... I was so shocked I never mentioned it..
god , if I could go back and talk to my 16 year old self.

ihatethecold · 15/10/2018 13:17

Flowers and hugs to all that have posted on here x

Feellikeimthemaid · 15/10/2018 13:51

After a miscarriage, several years trying, a round of IVF, I finally got pregnant naturally and had DD1 who we doted on. Unexpectedly I then got pregnant again about 15 months later. He told me that he couldn't imagine loving another child as much as he loved DD1 and asked me to abort it. Needless to say I didn't.

CarlsRightEye · 15/10/2018 15:32

My children's father was horrible, he tried to cut me off from my friends, made me sleep on the floor in the spare room while I was pregnant, because my excessive weeing kept waking him up, threatened to hurt my mum and grandma, told me rumours were going round about me when they weren't, made me discharge myself from hospital after having my twins because he couldn't cope on his own at home (I was very ill with pre eclampsia and was in 12 days) he used to rip his T-shirt open like he was the hulk and pretend to roundhouse me in the head.
Last straw was when he hurt one of our babies at 6 weeks old, so I left him
Haven't seen him for 15 years now, but according to csa he is living with his current partner and 3 kids! More than likely his!
Feel sorry for whoever she is! But I don't even know where he lives! Wanker!

stonesandsticks · 15/10/2018 15:43

Most of these make mine look insignificant- but then I think that's what my ex relied on ie. me putting up with things as he wasn't physically abusive.

  • Telling me that I had an OK body but was ugly so I should be grateful he was with me
  • Trying to get in to bed with a friend of mine when she was staying over. Then when he found out she'd told me claiming that he did it to 'test' whether she was a true friend- apparently although she did refuse he 'could tell that she didn't really mean it' so he wanted me to stop being friends with her.
TeddyIsaHe · 15/10/2018 15:49

Dd’s Dad was suuuuuuch a knob. When I was 38 weeks pregnant he was seeing this other woman and then had the cheek to flip out at me because because I questioned him about it!

We had a disagreement the day before Christmas Eve (dd’s first Christmas) and he left the house and didn’t speak to me for days. Didn’t turn up for Christmas, ignored all calls/messages etc. I was sat at home with a baby on my own on Christmas because I said something to him he didn’t like. Fucking hell. Remembering it just makes me so angry now.

That was the last straw and I finally saw the light. God my life is just exponentially better without him in it. Wish I’d had the courage to do it sooner!

MsSquiz · 15/10/2018 15:53

An ex used to lock me in his flat while he went "to the shop" knowing I had no way to get out (11th floor of a high rise) and would be out for hour, ignoring texts and cancelling my calls. Then come back and act like nothing was wrong.
He regularly cheated on me and I turned a blind eye to it "because it was me that he loved, he just couldn't help himself"
He made me have a threesome with a friend of his, knowing I only did it for him, then would throw it back in my face how much I clearly enjoyed it...
He got me arrested for assault and battery after I slapped him for arranging a date with a girl who turned up at his flat before I had left, and he was all over her in front of me. I hit/scratched him, tried packing up my stuff at his flat to leave, he rang the police, they arrested me because he rang and had a mark on his face where I had hit him. (Clearly the officers interviewing me could see what was going on as they asked about him emotionally provoking me)
We were back together 4 days after the arrest situation... it took another 2 years and him moving in with another woman (while still being in "a relationship" with me) before I cut all contact

ShockedHorrored · 15/10/2018 15:54

I wasn’t allowed to go see my newborn baby nephew. I’d have had to stay at my mums as her and my sister lived in the next town over and I’d have had to get a train after work and didn’t want to come back late in the eve. Apparently if I’d gone then he’d know I was cheating on him.
I’ll always regret not going but I was too scared that he’d dump me.
He also told me that he did something to me when I was asleep that he knew I hated. I still don’t know if he did it or just said he did but the thought made me want to vomit for years afterwards.

SpeckledDot · 15/10/2018 17:11

My ex threatened to send naked pics of me to my dad when i said I'm leaving him.

He also threatened to go to a prostitute if i wouldn't have sex with him. He also pretended to hang himself for the same reason, and once left the flat to say he was going to jump off a nearby motorway bridge.

He also said he was going to kill me, my family and my baby

Needless to say I've been single for 5 years and i can't see myself letting a man into my life ever again.

30000Lakes · 15/10/2018 18:00

After an argument, my father sent me a nasty text that alleged my mum had wanted him to sexually abuse me when I was a child (a lie) and that also my mum had wanted me aborted. NC now and obviously number has to remain blocked.

AnotherGin · 15/10/2018 18:12

Moaned about the lack of sex while I was miscarrying, then after I checked with the nurse if we could do so using a condom, refused to have sex with a condom because he hated using them. One of so many issues...

rememberatime · 15/10/2018 18:39

6 weeks of silent treatment because "you can't ever stick to a diet".

Telling me that he could understand why my previous boyfriend was violent towards me.

Telling me on my birthday that I didn't deserve my present so he wouldn't be giving it to me. (he later did and I never used it and have since sold it)

Making me and a small child walk and take the bus at night (a three hour round trip) because picking me up was too much after a long day working. (this was every week - not just once).

I could go on...

AnotherGin · 15/10/2018 19:57

Actually scrap my last one. It's telling me on my birthday almost a year after I left him that I'm getting no younger and my biological clock is ticking and do I really want to risk having no children / doing it alone, when I could go back to him and have his children. Because I obviously still love him.

beachbaby18 · 15/10/2018 21:08

Gosh mine seem really mild compared to what some of you have been through!

DH calling me a whore, scum of the earth and filthy prostitute and basically yelling at me for over an hour until I broke down. He then came into the bathroom where I retreated to have a bath and sob in peace. He got a towel and said he forgave me (I didn’t do anything but he was blaming me for everything ☹️) and then wrapped me in the towel and inserted his fingers in my vagina whilst telling me he forgave me. Still makes me upset now as felt so degraded. He brought me expensive boots the next day which I returned.

When I worked Saturday and Sunday morning and he looked after youngest DS and then my DM asked me to go to the cinema with her on Sunday afternoon. (I never go out without the children so this was a rarity). I told my DM I would go but I knew he’d be angry as he’d have our DS for longer. When I got back he called me a lazy piece of shit and said I just treat him like a doormat and swan around doing exactly what I please! (Sad truth is I hardly ever go out - maybe twice a year!) this was in front of the children and he was so angry!

A few years ago he told me he’d mind our one week old DS so I could shower. I was over the moon as thought he was being nice. After I’d showered and was getting dressed he came in the room and said ‘have you showered?’ I replied ‘yes thank you ‘ to which he said god it still stinks in here, I thought it was you which is why I told you to shower - I remember crying afterwards as I was so tired and felt like crap.

There’s so many more but these are mild compared to what others have been through. Feel for you all - terrible memories!

Lemmeavebru · 15/10/2018 21:41

Hugs to all of you.

Mine most recently, but he said it on a few other occasions, was when I said to him I couldn't cope with the kids and need help. His response. 'Why did you have them then?' They are also his. So....

Another classic one he often throws in my face is that you don't deserve this nice house and he should have shifted us in a council house in shitty area and that's what we deserve. Again he's talking about his own kids.

If I pull him up on this he gets upset and does a 360 degree turn and say that he didn't mean it like that and taking things out of proportion and I'm a drama queen and becomes the sweetest husband for the next few weeks.

Lemmeavebru · 15/10/2018 21:47

It makes me so angry becomes when at the beginning we couldn't have kids because of his ED he used to get angry at me and say I didn't want them. And now he doesn't take full responsibility for them. He's here but doesn't pay for anything and doesn't take them anywhere EVER. He loves to parade them in front of his parents and that's it.