Confused again, like a bad penny

[BayTiger]

Hi, I’ve posted before about my husband and have concluded that sometimes he is a bit over the top. He seems to tie my thoughts in knots so I don’t know if I’m coming or going, I’ve always been told I’m over sensitive and sometimes have a difficult relationship with my mum. That’s mainly because it was always just her and me though and think I felt a bit stifled, but wasn’t because she’s not a nice person or anything like that.

With my husband he has previously bordered on being verbally abusive at times. In between he’s very nice, very charming and funny and nice is how most people would describe him. A few weeks ago he said he had been thinking of leaving me, then was really nice for a few weeks, denying saying that, and now is being quite confusing.

He gets very preoccupied with our child’s wellbeing and always wants me to describe what she has eaten, when her naps were and for how long etc. If anything goes wrong, for example the other day she fell over and scraped her hand. He then quizzed me to find out why it happened and got cross. He speaks to me in such a way that I feel like an employee.

The problem is the fact that if I get upset over the way he speaks to me he says I’m defensive, dramatic and emotional. If I try and further say what I mean he just walks out of the room. I started crying the other day and he was so cold about that, no compassion. Today he has told me that I’m difficult and cause him stress, the drama has to end and I’m not to bring up his tone any more, not repeat myself or be defensive. To me this means I can no longer make any comments on anything. If I ask him questions about anything I’m grilling him. But anytime he wants to bring up what I’ve done wrong I have to just listen. If I say anything in my favour I’m being defensive. He says I’m trying to portray him as controlling.

My emotions feel frozen and I’m starting to wonder if it is me causing everything. It is true my mum and I sometimes clash but that’s more to do with her having been on her own with me I think. He says I have the same issues with everyone so therefore it’s me at fault. Sorry for the rambling, I have no one I can speak to about it in real life and I feel so confused I can’t easily articulate it.

I am sorry you are going through this

Look up gaslighting/emotional abuse up on some MN threads.
Also reading Lundy Bancroft can give you a perspective and help understand / see past confusion

Trust your instincts most of all and try to find a trusted person in real life to speak to - it helps

Why are you and he still together at all?. What are you getting out of this relationship now?.

HE is the one who is difficult here, controlling you and is causing you stress; not the other way around. He is merely projecting his own self onto you and giving you spaghetti head as a side effect is all part of the abuse he is meting out.

Such men too hate women, all of them starting with their own mother. What if anything do you know about his family background, chances are his childhood was abusive too. Its a reason though, not an excuse for his actions towards you. There is NO justification here for his abuses of you and the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is NONE.

Its not you, its him. He is not just OTT here, he is outright abusive towards you and in turn your child who is growing up seeing you as her mum being abused by her dad. What you are also describing here is the nice/nasty cycle of abuse and this is a continuous one.

Do not let your DD grow up thinking that such from her dad towards you is normal because it is not. I would also think that your mother is of a similar nature to your H and if so this is partly why you and he got together in the first place - you knew no different. She really did teach you a lot of damaging lessons on relationships when you were growing up. Would you want your DD to have a relationship like yours is with your H, no you would not. Its not good enough for you either. Such men too do not change, your only real option here going forward is to leave him.

Abusive people as well can appear to be quite plausible to those in the outside world and can do the nice act with them very well. I would think that one or two people that you know have their own private based suspicions about him.

Please talk to Womens Aid on 0808 2000 247 and get this a lot more out in the open; abuse like you describe thrives on secrecy.

All your words written here in this post and in previous ones are those that an abused person would write in a relationship. He is your typical common or garden abusive man. He wants to keep you ground down and confused growing flowers in the hole he has dug for you.

Abuse too is not about communication or a perceived lack thereof, it is about power and control. This individual wants absolute over you and your dd (who could well go onto choose someone just like her dad particularly in the event you and her dad did stay together).

No @BayTiger you're not confused. You were confused twice before last year and we all pointed out that your husband is an abusive arsehole and you. You can't possibly still be confused, you're just refusing to see the truth.

Thank you for the replies, I can see how it looks to keep posting but not take any action. I think it has taken several years for it to dawn on me that this borders on abusive.

I find it hard to believe I’m not the root problem as some of the things that annoy my husband also annoy my mum, like repeating myself when I feel they don’t understand what I’m getting at. My mum won’t ‘allow’ me to be critical of her and I’ve been unable to have boundaries with her too. So I think things always felt a bit emeshed.

I’ve always been told I’m over sensitive so I’ve just thought I was the cause of him losing patience with me. I posted again more to check it’s what other people would see as wrong as I can’t talk to anyone about this. I don’t trust me own instincts half the time.

With his background his relationships with his mum and family are also very close, his mum always knows where he is and will text me if she doesn’t get a reply from him. So it can all feel overbearing. My husband actually likes the way his mum checks on him all the time.

I think it’s only with me he’s like this, and it’s done in such a way I almost can’t describe it. For example last night he suddenly lectured me out of nowhere about the fact I cause all this drama and it needs to stop but he’s been fine all week and was being very loving this morning. What caused his anger was that I pulled him up a few days ago about his harsh tone and questioning me about our child and I guess he had been stewing over it since.

Thanks for being patient with me!

@BayTiger Please go and re-read your previous threads. This is not "borders on abusive". We've told you that is IT abusive. You say last night he suddenly lectured you out of nowhere, when if you look at at least one of your previous threads, he has suddenly lectured you out of nowhere before.

You say you don't trust your instincts half the time. Of course you don't, because he has conditioned you. Of course he's not like this with other people, as he doesn't want to control them and wants them to think all is normal.

Please trust our knowledge, let alone our instincts. This man is abusive. Do you want him to go on and treat your child like he treats you? Because he will. He's a controlling manipulator.

You need to ring Women's Aid, as per the poster earlier, and plan your exit strategy for the sake of your child if you won't do it for yourself.

Thank you, I’m planning to ring Women’s Aid tonight as I’ll have an opportunity then. I have tried a few times but of course they’re often very busy. I appreciate your advice and am taking in what everyone is telling me.

Would it be common to lose your emotions and feel frozen in this situation?

Yes it is common.
Abusers abuse for so long that your mind eventually can't cope with any more of it.

Google 3 things
Gaslighting abuse
Stonewalling abuse
The Cycle of abuse

He's awful.
He's messing with your head and it's not good for your own mental health.
You've been told before but you need to get away from him.

I really hope you manage to get through to Womens Aid later.
They can help you with all of this.
Time to start protecting yourself!

Yes, it would be common to feel that way for anyone. Being told not to express yourself would be soul destroying for anyone in any context. We don’t do that anymore in a tolerant society. Mainly because it is not necessary especially for an emotionally healthy person.

At the end of the day, if he doesn’t like the way you behave or talk he should leave you. Not criticise you or silence you. The fact that he doesn’t means he feeds off his ability to dominate you. That makes him abusive and frankly fucked up.

Thanks, I have been worried about my emotions being frozen. They used to be very overwhelming when this happened, especially when it would go on over a few days. I suppose they have closed off. I do get irritable at times though, mainly pmt or sometimes I just get really cross with my husband and tell him what I think. But that’s what’s led to this business this week, so usually I would keep quiet.

It's possible your mother is the same as him, we often are attracted to what is familiar to us. I had this with my ex and my mother, made it very easy for him to make out the problem was with me when actually they were just both the same type of abuser.
Got rid of him and low contact with her and guess what...don't have this problem with anyone else in my life!

Hi I thought I would add an update that I have finally been able to get through to Women’s Aid. The person I spoke to said that from what I described my husband sounded like he could be narcissistic. I have read up in this and am shocked to see that what I have read fits him in a lot of areas. Although he is very caring towards other people and animals, and to me at certain times.

The times when he is being abusive entirely fit with what I read about narcissistic abuse from confusing me to goading me into a reaction and then making everything about the reaction I gave.

Recently I had some advice from several medical professionals around our daughter’s eating and sleeping and have been doing a couple of things differently as per their advice.

Instead of backing me up he says I am lying and takes every opportunity to do the exact opposite which has resulted in the small issues becoming a lot worse! He constantly asks me to explain what I am doing and argues that it is wrong.

I’ve been observing and have seen that he appears to be doing a lot on purpose to get a reaction from me and is also switching quickly from nice to nasty to nice.

The person I spoke to said it sounds low level abuse which is ramping up. I am reading into narcissism and have stopped giving emotional reactions to any goading. My emotions are still frozen and I feel a bit lonely with it but feel better now I know it’s a real thing.

Thank you to the people who have encouraged me to ring Women’s Aid. We have visits from his parents, who idolise him, soon and knowing I’m not going mad will help me cope!

So what are you going to do?
You cannot live the rest of your life like this.
It's horrendous for you and will only get worse for your poor DD.
You need to get an exit plan in place.
Womens Aid can help you with that too.

Well I have a few thoughts in the back of my mind and am just letting it all sink in a bit. Plus reading more into it all and trying to look after myself more in the meantime. Learning not to react is hard but is helping for now.

baytiger I remember your previous posts as they resonated with me. It took me three years to leave my ex who sounds very similar to yours. Years ago (before I even questioned what his treatment was) our small DS had the rota virus and was very unwell. He could barely crawl, wasnt eating, horrendous diarrohea. I picked him up from a nap, he had a 40C temp, had diarrohea everywhere and was blue round the lips and fingers. He also had a detected heart murmur. He sat reading his paper whilst I called NHS direct, and continued to sit there as I gathered myself to get him in the car and drive him 25 minutes to hospital. He would not come with me as didn't think it was necessary depite me being a nurse and being worried.

Whilst on my way to the hospital I called my mum for moral support, when I got him 12 hours later, he berrated me for calling my mum for support and taking him to the hospital at all.

I saw this at the time as shitty behaviour, now I realise it was not only neglect but down right abusive. There were many many more circumstances like this.

Even then, I could not see the wood for the trees and finally I saw sense and left. He hasnt made it easy and still gas lights me, swings in his mood and how he is with his communication etc.

My point is don't beat yourself up, it might take a while to gather the courage and self esteem to leave, but this will continue in cycles throughout the rest of your lives. Do you really want to live like that?

I have a new partner now and its been hard because I can see how a healthy relationship should be yet it took me so long to get myself out of it. Keepposting and talking to Woman's aid. And keep a log/ diary to help you look back and see all the shit that happens. Because if you are anything like me, you will move past episodes because you just want things to be normal, but all it does is show him he is right, and you were in the wrong.

Men like him do not like it when other assert their independence or boundaries.

He's gaslighting you.

Hi Pudding I’m sorry to hear of your awful treatment and especially the situation with your child, that must have been really horrible for you. I’m glad you now have a new life and partner.

It is very hard as it takes a very long time to even realise the behaviour could be abusive. I’ve noticed the latest thing my husband is saying is that I’m paranoid and controlling if I challenge him on anything and then I start to try and defend myself and then he will sternly tell me to stop it for example.

I think it’s designed to make you question your reality, but now I’m seeing more clearly what going on I’m trying not to give any reaction.

Thank you for the support everyone.

baytiger I used to get that all the time too. That I was " a controller", the reality was the opposite. Have you read about the boiling frog analogy? It was actaully a bit of a turning point in understanding the behaviour for what it was. A friend and I were chatting once and she said "don't be the frog and let yourself boil" Which opened a dialogue about emotional abuse.

Have a read here www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/she-comes-long-way-baby/201606/frog-is-dropped-boiling-water

Thank you again Pudding, that’s really helpful. Yes it does make a lot of sense in describing how this creeps up on you and causes this horrible confusion.

Thank you again I appreciate your advice.