Why do I feel so awful

[Melandre]

I’ll try and keep this short.

For Xmas I bought dp tickets to an exhibition and talk about his hobby. He also shares this hobby with his db and while I thought the exhibition etc sounded quite interesting, I offered the extra ticket to dp’s db as they haven’t spent the day together without partners in ages and I knew they’d both really enjoy it. This was on Saturday. Waved them off at noon knowing they’d go for a drink after it finished (around 5). Dp and I had plans to chat about our wedding planning that evening.

Dp is not home til 11pm, absolutely rolling drunk. Around 9pm I tentatively asked for his eta which had not been forthcoming. From then on it was nasty texts “why are you being difficult about me spending time with my brother”/“you’re controlling”/“you don’t let me spend time with my family and friends”. He also had a drunken rant at me on the phone. The next morning he was a little apologetic but I told him straight that’s I’d been disappointed he hadn’t kept in touch and a vague eta would have just been courteous (it wasn’t my ideal to end up spending my Saturday evening in front of Netflix) He then was angrily telling me that he and his brother had bee having gone very important conversation about the brothers “mental health issues” (which I didn’t know about). Ergo I am a bitch.

Cue nasty rant and sulking from dp all Sunday. Yet again I am controlling, I have issues with him going out. His displays of contempt ranged from: ignoring me and scrolling through his phone when I was standing right in front of him, shutting the door in my face when I was talking, refusing to have breakfast with me, refusing to come out on our planned walk (then relenting when I begged him not to ruin the day, and coming out but shouting at me in the street, sneering at my tears, threatening to go home.)

Context: dp has after work drinks at least once a week, he spent Xmas at his family’s house, he had 5 trips away last year without me, he works away for 4 day stints every other month, we meet up with his family at least monthly, he’s going to a family event next Friday/Saturday, he goes on a big night out (which writes off the whole next day with hangover) probably monthly. He actually has a very independent life and I am very used to being on my own. I do all our housework except washing up. I do all our admin. I have planned our wedding.

I feel terrible that he thinks I’m controlljng. I don’t know what to do differently. As in the case of this weekend with the present for him and his brother, I never would have expected to be accused of being controlling. I can’t get it out of my head and I feel so rubbish. Keep thinking about dps contemptuous face and the door slamming in my face. I feel like I could be the perfect cool girlfriend and it would never be enough for dp. He never tells me when he will be home, he always gets smashed when he drinks (and nasty when he’s drunk, or otherwise way ott affectionate- sometimes from one minute to the next).

He says he loves me but why does it feel so fucking awful right now.

Repeat - So what ARE you going to DO, OP?

🤦‍♀️ Go back and read your last post OP. So Sunday could have been avoided if you had just rolled over and consoled him. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life never raising an issue becauses he’s like that? If I have a problem with my partner I just talk to him as he’s a sensible loving adult that talks not sulks and manipulates.

I wonder if he's involved with men's rights activists?

Shatner maybe you mean well but I find your posts victim blaming. As someone who works in DV, it's not the way to speak to women in shit relationships.

What am I going to do?
We are not financially linked in terms of joint finances but the rent would be more of a stretch if I had to pay it all myself. I could just about manage but there’s some uncertainty around 1 of my jobs in the coming months and I could end up earning a fair bit less in total.
I’d lose about 2k on the wedding (still due to pay 3k though which would be avoided)
I’d be very lonely and worry about slipping into a depression which I have done in the past. I was just beginning to get a good life together when I met him then I let a few friends and hobbies slip. I thought he was the one. Even now how mean he can be, still shocks and upsets me. He is amazing when he’s in a good mood.
So I guess my reaction to a breakup is my main fear. Money is a minor one but not huge at the moment.
However, I can’t think that how I feel now is preferable to just loneliness

Lol re the men’s rights activists. On Sunday he told me that I was unreasonable because “men committing suicide” is an important issue to him (his db apparently had suicidal thoughts a year or so ago and that’s what they were talking about). When I talked about an issue that’s important to me such as the effect of pornography on young people, he rolled his eyes and told me that wasn’t a thing.
God I’m beginning to see some stuff for what it really is. Finally.

He sounds like he has narcissistic and abusive traits
You should definitely escape
perhaps read some of the narcissist material to get some insight into the techniques that are used

2k is a lot of money but it is nothing in the overall scheme of things op, when it comes to your happiness I mean. I'm sure it will be very hard breaking up and facing loneliness and it will take a lot of courage, but you were building up friendships and hobbies before you met him and you can do that again.

As pp said, you sound like a lovely person and you deserve a much better life (as do your future DC) than you will have with this man

How mean he can be still shocks and upsets me, he can be amazing when he's in a good mood

this swinging between highs and lows is very de stabilizing and mentally damaging
he's amazingly good or he's amazingly bad
this kind of thing can seem fun, high-energy /colourful at first but it quickly shifts into draining you of energy and triggering you into highs and lows so that you can never find a balanced calm state

There is probably some DARVO going on here

He is the one doing the controlling not you

When he says he loves you what he means is he loves being in control of you, he loves the power that he has over you

@insidecardboardboxes I have at no time indicated that the OP is responsible for what has happened to her or blamed her for her predicament. Not once. I have called her partner many names under the sun. I have taken the OPs own words in another concerning posting and flagged these up to the OP as in seven years here it is almost always the case that what really wakes someone up to reality is to see their own words brought back at them, far more than other people's general comments.

I applaud the OP for realising that her bloke is an abusive controlling fuckwit.

By asking her what she is going to do, we can now hopefully make her understand that while it is scary getting out of this situation, it is infinitely better than staying in it.

It's comments like this Give your head a fucking wobble and let the scales fall from your eyes. He's a total dick and you must have had low self-esteem to start with in allowing this behaviour to continue and for you to somehow accept this is normal behaviour I object to.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I disagree with the execution.

We need to stop asking why women stay and instead ask how and why men feel able to behave this way in the first place.

You deserve much, much better than this. Keep talking here. Lots of love and luck to you

Melandre

You may also be able to get some of the 2K back as well. Its a small price indeed to pay for your own freedom from this bloke; a man who is and will continue to abuse you going forward. There is not much worse than feeling lonely within a relationship as well. Abusive people are not nasty all the time but what you are seeing from him is really the nice/nasty cycle of abuse and that cycle is a continuous one. You are probably on some level afraid of his reaction too on separating from him. Fear of him also keeps women within such relationships but feel the fear and break free of your jailer here.

He targeted you and deliberately so; he sensed your own low self worth here and honed in on all that for his own ends. You were just beginning to get a good life of your own together when he came into it and you can get that good life you were yourself creating back again.

And I hope you understand why you feel so awful - because your nobber fiance likes it like that.

In my opinion that is being blunt, not victim blaming. I believe they are two totally different things and following that the OP opened up that they did indeed have self esteem issues and other posters then pointed out that her fuckwit bloke probably spotted her vulnerability and has exploited it.

We can agree to differ on choice on my choice of words, but if you want to talk victim blaming, have a gander at user1486250399 and their posting.

Sweetheart, expecting a tentative ETA isn't controlling it's basic courtesy something the mother fucker you are living with doesn't understand. He is rude,mean and despicable. Everything is about him that is why you can't have an adult discussion with him because he is a narcissist-screaming at you in public? Fuck that! Walk away-you deserve far,far better than him. Get out now.

He said he “always” feels bad when he goes out because in the back of his mind he thinks I’ll be cross. I pointed out that his anxiety might well fuel those feelings but he said no. I have occasionally had the reverse where I’ve tentatively said I might go on a little trip that I know he prob wouldn’t want to go on, and then I get shit because I didn’t include him / “dontwant him there”. As a result I often don’t initiate my own plans, holidays etc anymore because it leads to another difficult conversation. In all honesty I think he is quite happy to socialise without me but he takes me socialising without him badly.

Yeah. Because he's a controlling nasty piece of shit.

Gah. Ok. So I accept that Saturday night should not have led to his Sunday sulk. I do get that he was the unreasonable one. That’s some progress.

Well done, OP!! The fog is lifting. NONE of this is down to you. NONE of it.

It is so depressing reading you trying to think of ways this might be your fault because this dickhead throws the word controlling at you. You are fine with him going out and away all the time , he kicks off if you even make plans. He kicks off if you dare ask where he is when he’s said he will be home.
If he said you were shit at your job would you believe him? If you were a runner and regularly doing 4 minute miles and placing in cross country events and he said you were a shit runner and should give it up would you believe him? If he said the moon was made of cheese would you believe him?
Don’t marry him!!

I guess the thing is: what if he does feel controlled? I would honestly hate to think I’d made someone feel like that. It makes me feel so upset and guilty and want to do something about it. I’ve always been prepared to work on issues I have had in the past- I do cbt regularly and take meds for anxiety and depression, I have hobbies I do from home when I feel bad, and I took on a lot of our couple stuff such as admin when he got really busy at work. To be called controlling is so frustrating but also it really nags at my guilt response. If anyone read my other thread they could prob understand why this is so galling because he generally does what he wants. In fact at times when he’s said “I won’t go to this work do/friends party/etc because I will feel bad about leaving you” I’ve been the one who’s made him go! (Including a 2 night away day with his work, a night out with his home friends over Xmas— 2 recent examples. I was like “why would you not go?!” But doesn’t everyone deserve a fucking ETA from their live in partner? I can’t properly lock the door when he’s out til all hours for one thing.)

You poor thing. Just want to echo pp’s here: don’t marry him! I was with a man like him. Your weekend - long tracts of time spent alone; you pleading with him not to wreck the little bit of time you do have together; ruined outings and tears - sounds so familiar. I left him in the end. It was only after I did that I realised how bad it actually was. If you’re worried about being lonely try and think of it this way: how much time do you spend by yourself now? Going by what you’ve said here, it’s a lot. Would it be so much worse if you were single, when you’d also have the freedom to pursue friendships/hobbies? As others have said, there’s nothing lonelier than being in a shit relationship with someone who wilfully refuses to understand you.