Horrendous night tonight

[louisejanep]

Hi ladies I’ve posted on here lots about coming out of a really emotionally and psychologically abusive relationship of 10yrs. Moved back t parents 3 weeks ago with my 3 yr old DD. He come to pick little girl up tonight and got out of the car and nearly collapsed then lost control it was horrendous to see I thought he was Havng stroke it was awful. My sister ran to rig ambulance and he was in there for about an hour with an oxygen mask on hyperventilating. He couldn’t get his breath, they said it was panic. He has hit rock bottom and gone home tonight think he’s had a breakdown over relationship . In my previous post and through earlier posts I have spoke about my guilt. I feel responsible for him. He’s gone back home and I’ve just managed to get DD off to sleep. Worried about his welfare :(

I agree that he was probably faking.

I would tell him it's over, no counselling, no reconciliation.

No unsupervised access -else it could be your DD having a seizure etc to get your attention.

Ps my ex when we finished -actually just before. Claimed to be in hospital with cancer. Funnily enough he wasn't in the hospital at all -and his car was parked outside his house with him there and yet he told me on and the DC on the phone he had surgery that day and was in X hospital on Y ward -X exists but Y didn't. I know he had a mild procedure went in for a test at 2 pm and left at 2.45pm -but he managed to phone us at 6pm to tell us he had cancer. Quick test results. The kids where traumatised. I drove around to his house (which was empty whilst we have moved it but furnished) and the lights were on with the curtains on and TV playing -must have been a mystery tenant. I took a video then went home.

I then phoned his abusive parents and surprise surprise -they knew nothing about his cancer. He's a total dick and was. He wanted all the pity and drama to be focused on him. What a twat.

Please dont let this man reel you back in. All you owe him is basic human decency nothing more. It was right to ring an ambulance for him but please dont get emotionally entangled with an abuser. If you are worried about him or he is calling you telling you he is in a state then ring an ambulance or the mental health crisis team for your area but do not get personally involved.
Do not answer the phone to him if he is ringing at an inappropriate time, do not reply to dramatic messages. Try and emotionally detatch. He is not your responsibility, you cannot help him he is a grown man who needs to sort himself out of his own volition .
This is how abusers operate, they make their behaviour your responsibility. They act like if you just did x y and z or just cared that little bit more maybe they might change and be the wonderful person they occasionally give you flashes of. Listen to the other women and I on here when we tell you that they will have change and if you get drawn back in they will just continue to abusive you and use you as reason for every shitty thing they do.

I was with a guy who actually tried to kill me by stabbing me in the neck repeatedly with a fork and breaking one of my ribs by stamping on me for God's sake and yet I felt so sorry for him... I actually felt sorry for him and responsible for helping him... took years to get out of the clutches of that and see sense and go completely no contact. Literally years. I used to phone him every day to see how he was!

Harder for you because you have a child together and you say the abuse is not physical but it is still abuse and how he is behaving now is absolutely classic abusive behaviour.

After my partner stabbed me he had a 'breakdown' crying and sobbing and threatening to hurt himself and I actually went round to his house to see him after I was discharged from hospital because I was worried about him.... thats right I actually went round to see someone who had just bloody stabbed me in the neck.... this is the mind fuck these men put on you.

Please stay strong and dont let him manipulate you.

@ribbonsonabox omg that was horrendous what he did to you, so sorry that you went through that. Was that the final straw that helped you leave? I know you said it took years to leave but what was it ultimately that made you realise you weren’t responsible for him?

Thank you for all your messages they are all so supportive and are helping me lots, I keep re-reading. it’s scary to think how many of you have been in abusive relationships, but it’s really good to hear that you all got out of these relationships and came out the other side :)

pusspuss your post has made me ridiculously angry. Did you miss the line in the OP that this knobend has been abusing her for 10 YEARS?!?!?! He is NOT her responsibility. Don't you DARE add to her burden of guilt when she is finally seeing a chunk of light at the end of a very long and painful tunnel!
2 women a week are murdered by their partners or former partners. Shit like you've posted about she should do the right thing (for him, that is) is the kind of codswallop that keeps women feeling tied to abusive men. I'm one of the people that has to deal with the aftermath of this. I will not let you spout such dangerous rubbish when she's finally finding the strength to leave the bastard.

OP from my experience I would say its 99% likely he faked it - perfect timing, sending you out of the ambulance so you can't hear the results, able to drive so quickly afterwards. Yeah right. Even in the 1%, he is still NOT your problem.
Please stay strong and keep you and your DD away from him. You're doing really really well.

Thank you, all little steps at the moment but hoping I’m heading in right direction. I think once Christmas and New Year out the way (silly I know to tie emotions to events) I think things will be easier. I didn’t even think sending me out of the ambulance was due to him not wanting me to know the readings. I honestly thought he was embarrassed and didn’t want me to see. A few comments have shone the light on this so thank you :) @halfahunnerstillastunner have you been through something similar if you don’t mind me asking?

He is also sowing the seeds to donthis to your DD to keep her on the hook. My dad was abusive to me and my mum and when I started to step away from him he made me witness him taking an overdose when I was 17. He seemed to love seeing me cry and beg him to stop. It kept me feeling responsible for him for years, and he would use suicide threats as coercive control because he knew it triggered my PTSD from his suicide attempt. I've only gone NC at age 35. His behaviour has messed up my mental health.

AbsoluteBeginners your post is a chilling reminder to OP to get her DD away from this man and keep her away.

I truly hope the thought of that poor innocent girl potentially having her childhood taken from her through the actions of this vile attention seeker is enough to spur her on to protect her against him - whatever it takes.

pusspuss - treating this idiot with "compassion"?! He deserves nothing from the OP, other than contempt. Pulling these stunts is his pathetic way of trying to prevent the OP and her DD from moving forward to a happy fulfilling life. Hopefully the OP can see this clearly now, and is taking steps to block him in every way possible.

OP take no notice of pusspuss. She says herself that the friend who attempted suicide gave no indication of her distress. Nor did my friends son (who is now dead)

Your ex was screaming it from the rooftops!

Therein lies the difference......

Pusspuss your comments are dangerous and make me think you’ve got no experience of what you’re talking about. Your friend who was suicidal was not trying to control your life so the comparison is invalid. If someone was threatening to throw them self off a cliff it would absolutely not be the responsibility of the person they’d wronged to rescue them. He shows the OP no compassion for the difficulties she’s experiencing and makes everything about him.

OP you’ve got a lot of good advice from other posters. Please stay strong and read them over and over. My ex threatened suicide repeatedly when I left him. I was worried he might do it because his best friend had done it two years before. However, I also know from experience he is incredibly manipulative and will do anything to make others feel sorry for him when his behaviour has been awful. I told his cousin each time and let her deal with it. By getting involved you are doing exactly what he wants you to do.

The poster who said about worrying about her ex who had stabbed her in the neck was correct. They hurt you over and over but you feel sorry for them. It’s so fucked up.

My ex would constantly preach during our relationship about how my life was so much better because of him like yours did. It was lies. His life was better because of me and all the work and effort I made to improve our situation. Brainwashing is a very gradual process and it’s only when you’re totally removed from the situation you realise how toxic the relationship was. You’ll never be able to be friends either. He will always want to rely on you for his needs.

You can do this for you and your daughter. You’re still feeling sorry for him but give it time and you’ll start feeling angry. Good luck OP. X

Sorry you are going through this, OP. I just wanted to add my experience as the daughter of an emotionally abusive misogynist who behaved like this. When my mother finally left him he threatened suicide over and over again, made various showy attempts, had himself sectioned, etc. 20 years later he is alive and well, married to his third wife (who is my age) and with 2 more children. He still periodically gets in touch to tell me he is dying / hie is going to kill himself / his doctor has told him he has 2 months to live / etc. He not only continues to survive, but is still working full time and travelling the world at nearly 80.

I'm in my 40s now and am still only just getting to the point where I no longer feel so guilty and terrified by these threats. But I am not looking forward to how I will feel when he does eventually die. Do think about the effect this man will be having on your daughter.

Thank you all for your good words and encouragement. @thefourgp yes I’m waiting for the angry part to come I said to a close friend the reason I was able to move out was because I was really angry and it gave me so much strength to go. After being so unhappy I was waiting for an excuse to really go, and when he said he wasent being a babysitter so I could go out and have a drink to celebrate getting my masters degree after one of my friends had gotten a train from her home town 2 hours away and I couldn’t turn up. I had so much anger inside and that continued for about a week or so. And I said to my friend if I start the guilt phase soon just keep reminding me what he’s said and done. I hope this phase passes quickly as I feel more in control and emotionally detached when I’m angry.

thefourgp - I'm not saying she should give in to him and his pressures. I was very clear about that. What I am saying is that when somebody displays signs of extreme distress for whatever reason, one should not just walk away and leave them to it, because you can never be sure of the outcome.
Even though the partner of the OP may well be trying to control her life, she certainly gave me the impression in her original post that she did to some extent care about him (whether justified or not!) This said to me that were he to do something silly, she would have it on her conscience . Now we can say that that would not be justified, but it wouldn't alter the fact that she might suffer because of it.

I worked for many years in a large company whereby I had the responsibility of care for employees with troubles so I have seen many times the phenomena I described.

Let me be clear, I am not supporting the behaviour of the ex, not am I saying that the OP give in to his pressures but I am saying that none of us can be sure whether a person is serious about certain intentions or just 'blackmailing' us. If we suspect that should something happen to them then we would have a bad conscience, then we need to make sure that they were taken care of somehow.

@bipbippadotta sorry you have been so much, hearing from the point of the view of the child is heartbreaking when the child has no way to escape it. It’s had a massive impact on your life, and living proof that the man has never changed. How did your mum cope?

You are just plain WRONG pusspuss, I'm sorry.

What you say applies to normal non abusive non controlling people but it doesn't apply to people like this - their 'suicide threats' are no threats at all and even if they are, they are voiced in an attempt to control and mess with the abused person to retain them under their control. They are manipulative in the extreme and intentionally so.

By 'being nice' and giving him the benefit of the doubt, OP would be pulled back into a 'relationship' with the abuser which is NOT good FOR HER. FUCK what he wants - by ignoring him she's taking care of herself and her child.

You do not seem to understand that 'caring for' that abusive person isn't always normal 'care', it's a twisted version of that caused by years of controlling abuse and manipulation. It's not healthy 'care' and it places risks on the OP and her child. For that reason alone she is fully justified in ignoring these pathetic threats.

You clearly have a limited understanding of the danger in engaging with someone like this and the risk it poses and I wish you'd stop banging on about it - you just don't get it, sorry.

I am pleased to say my mother went on to have a really happy relationship that has lasted nearly 20 years now. They have an easy, happy, loving life together. My mother says she still occasionally has nightmares that she is still with my father. Despite this, she struggles to understand why it’s been hard for me to move on from my father’s behaviour, and she doesn’t like hearing about how it affected me. But growing up with his misogyny meant my own self-hatred for being female (and my contempt for other women) ran very deep for much of my life. I had a number of really awful relationships until I went into therapy in my late 20s. It also took me a long time to understand that men have a full range of emotions - I was certain all they had was pride and a very fragile ego and a temper. It was a revelation being able to broaden out my view of the world and to recognise that there is tremendous kindness and sensitivity and sensibility out there, not just disappointment and contempt and depressive rage. I wish that same revelation for you and your daughter.

OP, if I may add the first few weeks of separation are the toughest, your routines will change and there will be this voice in your head, reminding you to tell your ex stuff. You'll also be tempted to help them because they are "on their own".

Work hard on resulting them, this is how you get sucked back, it's not just the extremes of panic attacks or self-harm, its the trivial ordinary questions like " where did you put the can opener", "can I borrow some cash" and "how is dc doing". It starts to feel ok and normal, you get reminded of something good.

It's going to be really hard and you'll have to use every ounce of strength you have as you establish your new normal and routines

That's a really good point disney and well made.

He's really going to use every trick in the book - if/when he realises that his grand gesture didn't work, he'll mix it up with other tactics to draw you back in, for sure.

Stay sharp OP [warrior woman] .

I agree with @DointItForTheKids completely - pusspuss has obviously not experienced the kind of abusive tactics commonly used by these type of men in relationships. There's a world of difference between someone genuinely struggling with suicide intention and a dick using it for effect to manipulate their partner/ex partner. Not comparable at all.

OP I can't really say too much but I help in a sideline way women and children who have escaped DV and their stories would make a statue weep. Abuse is a huge, huge problem and is mostly ignored or belittled by the system. Women's Aid centres are closing due to lack of funds, which is appalling. I could go on but don't want to derail your thread too much. Just know you've done the right thing by getting you and your DD away from him and please keep reading and posting if you need reassurance or strength - or a view on his behaviour. Do try to get on to a Freedom programme if you can.

@bibippadotta I’m glad your mum has gone to have a happy relationship. Sorry that you had to go through so many years of it :( when you had no choice. That helps me reinforce my decision to remove my DD from this situation. I remember thinking this year that as I’m in my late 20s it was too late to get out of this situation but I know that’s not true.

@disney yes it is so true what you say he’s making small talk via text, he said he doesn’t feel well enough to have DD but would we both go around to see him. He’s asked me to stay there New Year’s Eve to see the new year in together , I’m just making very small contact.

Document, document, document.

Or he's going to start pulling this kind of guilt manipulation on your CHILD and bringing your child into the middle to say "daddy and mummy need to be together or daddy will die."

Please don't go round with your dd or spend New Year with him.

If he's "not well" enough to have her on his own, then she really doesn't need to see him in a state again. It's not putting her first. She needs to come first.

The New Year is for your new life without him.

You need to find a phrase and stick to it, such as

"No that's not appropriate"

Broken record and grey rock. Any response from you is feeding the whole cycle.