Manipulative or abusive?

[Feelingconfusedandunsure]

Bear with me because this is difficult to explain...

I’ve been with my DH for 12 years, married for 9, 2 young DCs. He’s a decent person, good job, loves his DCs, does lots around the house, etc. Our relationship has been rocky for the last couple of years, we are probably both to blame for not putting the effort it, not communicating well, etc.

The one thing that’s really bothering me at the moment is that I have been reading up about Emotional Abuse and sometimes I think he borders on it. I’ve spend the last few years thinking it’s something wrong with me but I actually feel like I have ‘woke up’ and the way he acts is actually very manipulative.

My question is are these things just the sign of a manipulator/control freak type or are they actually emotional abuse? I feel like there’s a very fine line between the two...

• Jumps straight on the defensive at any hint of an argument, looks to find some way to blame me/others.
• Twists everything around in arguments, for example the other day he overtook a car at a stupid moment and nearly trapped us between this car and a bridge at high speed (it was poor planning he’s not really an aggressive driver) the car pulled out into our lane right in front of us and I literally thought we were going to crash so I screamed (kids were in car so I panicked) - apparently he was fine and me screaming is what the problem was (even though that was after he tried to kill us....) - he eventually apologised as he saw how terrified I was but it was still an “ I’m sorry but”
• Can’t argue with him because he’s never wrong = circular arguments where I eventually give up!
• As above, never apologises or if eventually forced to it’s always an “I’m sorry but”, even to the kids. It’s like he thinks taking responsibility is weakness or something.
• when trying to prove a point he says “I’ve talked to other and EVERYONE thinks the same” when clearly he’s actually probably asked one other person.
• brings up things to make me feel bad if he’s losing an argument, for example we had a huge row about his family a couple of months ago and in the middle he decided to tell me I “needed to lose weight” (apparently just because he wants me to be healthy - I’m a size 12-14 and perfectly happy with my body) - completely irrelevant to the argument but he does subtle versions of this all the time.
• Walks off mumbling stuff when he’s cross, or mumbles stuff under his breath when he’s annoyed with me, even in front of kids.
• literally never listens to me the first time I say something, which means I repeat everything, even the mundane shit which drives me crazy!
• he’s like a dog with a bone about anything he wants to do, badgers me until I give in just to get him to stop going on.
• all this is worse if I’m ever ill/vulnerable, there is zero warmth from him.
• uses emotional blackmail about a seriously ill family member to make me feel bad about anything, even things seemingly unrelated.
• Zero sex - root of this is his PE problems he refuses to get help with or actually even acknowledge is a problem it’s my fault somehow - I’ve given up!
• picks on semantics during arguments and blows it out of proportion- eg “so that means you think I’m the shittest husband ever” etc
• talks to me through the kids - this is a weird one...I can’t quite describe it...a mundane version would be “mummy will take you to get dressed now” - no discussion with me I could be doing something...it weird.
• hates me to sit and relax, constantly has to come up with jobs for me.
• thinks he is Cinderella even though we do equal around the house - I should somehow be grateful he does it and my efforts count for nothing!
• if I call him out on anything I’m ‘nagging’ or ‘starting an argument’ - how can you communicate with that?
• denies he’s said or done something - sometimes straight after doing it but you can see he genuinely believes himself - it’s crazy making!!
• I feel like the worst version of myself when he is around...not sure that’s his responsibility but it’s how I feel most of the time...

Wow writing that down it sounds soooo bad!!

Is this just control freak/passive aggressive behaviour or borderline emotional abuse?

I’m not afraid of him, he doesn’t control what I do or ever stop me spending time with other people, I travel with work a lot he’s supportive of my career, family, etc. He doesn’t fall into an abuser box in any of those ways just the way he communicates is draining...

Any thoughts?

Yes PA men will do their best PA tactics to frustrate and obstruct the process. But know it’s coming and that they are but above the law.

CIareIsland do you have any strategies for telling a PA man you want a divorce? I've been thinking more and more lately that it would be a massive mistake to lay any blame on my H as that will trigger his self righteous anger. I'm now thinking I should be really passive myself and broach it as it's no one's fault, we've just turned into friends/housemates somewhere down the line and I'm sure he agrees that he's not totally happy so we should split up.

I always think that just saying that you are not compatible, that you both need and deserve deeper happiness than this and should seek it elsewhere is a clever approach (you an eye roll and rant out of sight and earshot later) - play the long game, don’t antagonise. Maybe a couple of the exhausting techniques in the link might be sustainable in the short term once you have you eyes clearly in the prize.

Not related to divorcing but just daily life with these types - a “joy sponge” is an expression I read on here recently to describe their approach and impact....sums it up nicely.

That's exactly it - not antagonizing. And yes, joy sponge is perfect. Also, Dementor

Wow, after a lovely couple of relaxing days with the kids he’s back and within less than an hour i’m already irritable and the kids are emotional, it’s like a black cloud has descended on the house. It’s like i’m seeing this utterly clearly for the first time, i’ve always thought it was just me being sensitive or miserable or something.

He’s already twisted a silly discussion over washing onto me shouting to get his point home, huffed, puffed and sighed at every opportunity and is talking to me through the kids already. Wow, I can’t go on like this! It’s ridiculous!!

‘Joy sponge’ is absolutely correct as well as fun sponge, positivity vacuum, dark cloud, miserable arse and big black hole sucking the life out of everything around it....

Hi @Moffa 👋🏼

I’ve been reading your posts on one of the other threads, i’m so glad you got out and it’s reassuring that you are feeling much more positive 6 months out! I’ve started keeping a little journal on my phone of incidents because it’s so easy to forget, and I might need it to look back on to remind myself if I think I’m just going crazy! (might help with grounds for divorce too!)

How has your DD adapted, if you don’t mind me asking? My DC are young, I’m hoping they will be ok, I think I will have to accept 50:50 though so i’m really worried about how they (and I!!) will cope!

A great idea to keep a log of everything as some are so subtle and it is death by a thousand cuts. Others think he is Mr Nice Guy and is you complain about one incident it sounds petty and you sound irrational. But it is the totality of it all, the repeat, corrosive patterns of behaviour that show it all up.

They are furious when rumbled aa they think that no one could see what they were doing.

Totally shocking OP that he is weaponising your children here. V abusive - they don’t deserve that head fuck.

Hi @Feelingconfusedandunsure

I would definitely keep notes about arguments etc. My H is trying to rewrite history (apparently it is normal to call your wife a c* 25 times on Christmas Eve if you’re in a bad mood?! So having the notes keeps me focused on the future.

My DC are young as well (4 and 2) and have adapted really well. We are living with my parents so they are living the extra attention. H never engaged in family life choosing to work 7/7 instead. Now he’s keen to have a relationship with them & sees them on Wednesdays and Sundays. He is starting to have them overnight in a Weds now so will see how it goes. I think that is the hardest thing for me, not waking up with the children one day a week but then I have done ALL the childcare so I think I need to try and relax and enjoy it. I’ve got a hobby that I can do on Wednesday nights and I’ve found an early morning yoga class on a Thursday (one of my leaving ‘resolutions’ is to try new things!) so if I can’t sleep I can get up and do that until this becomes ‘normal’.

I don’t regret leaving at all and I don’t miss A SINGLE THING about him and his miserable attitude (Dementor is a GREAT description). I’m sad the children don’t have parents together and I didn’t get the man I thought I was marrying. But I’m glad I’m brave enough to do this and I hope my future self will thank me for it!

I’ll let you know what I think of the freedom program x

Btw I also downloaded a dictaphone app to my phone and if my ex is ever aggressive towards me (quite often) or when we meet to discuss finances etc, I record the conversation.

This is handy as I can listen again and make notes afterwards. Plus it reminds me how horrible he is!

Your post has shaken me big time. I hope you will be all right OP. From your updatea it sounds like the situation is unbearable.
I have read your description and looked at some of the links here and it does sound like my OH.
Forgive me for gate crashing but this resonates with me.
My OH has been known to sulk and do the PA stuff.
He does get defensive when confronted and will not admit he is wrong initially.
I have learned to let what I say sink in and very often after a few hours or a couple of days he will admit that actually I have a point.
I have been putting it down to him being one of those people who just need to process stuff before coming round but now I am not sure.
He has never called me fat or used the kids to get to me, and he doesn't have an issue with me relaxing. If anything he tries to make sure I relax more when I have the kids all day.
But.
He is very PA and one look at his parents is enough to know where he gets this from.
He seems to bottle things up a d pretend it's okay and every now and again he loses his temper and breaks stuff.
I have been on MN long enough to know that this latest detail will be enough for people to tell me to walk away.
It hasn't happened for ages. It has happened a handful of times in our 16 years together but I know some people will say once is too much.
We had counselling.
Part of me thinks walking out when things are way better is daft. From reading something when he hasn't actually done anything lately to trigger any worry.
Boy is it confusing.
I was raised by a narcissistic mother and in my late teens had an extremely emotionally abusive boyfriend. I still have nightmares about him.
Now I am wondering if I just attract abusers like a magnet.
Even though of course my DH is nothing like my ex.

I came across this today, it really resonated with me. Well worth a watch!!

@CIareIsland Death by a thousand cuts is exactly how I would describe it, sometimes so subtle but constant - it’s crazy making!

@Moffa I’m so glad the kids are doing well and you are in a better place (no regrets) since leaving. Let us know how you get in on the Freedom programme! The dictaphone app tip is a great idea too! Thanks 😊

@Scarlettmaid It sounds like your husband may just be PA and not know how to deal with his internal anger, smashing things up is worrying though! Are you scared of him? Are things easier when you are passive/go along with his wishes? I’ve been reading up a lot of passive aggressive behaviour and that’s definitely what my husband is like and his whole family! It’s weird how I just didn’t see it clearly until now!

OP, are you married to my husband? This is exactly, word for word, my marriage. I've just spent 3 weeks in a psychiatric hospital, I think because he just wore me down so much that I broke. The thing is he cannot see what he's like. It's always my fault (usually for being fat). Anyway I'm now home and have sort of seen the light.

I hope you manage to make changes to your life so that you can be happy x

@Fizzypop2 Oh my god, I hope you are ok and recovering It is truly awful and scary that it has got to this point for you. The video I put a link on a couple of posts up is defo worth a watch, it really resonated with me when it says ‘but you have to leave’. Give it a watch if you haven’t seen it already

I completely understand the wearing you down bit, that’s how I felt when I put this post on out of sheer desperation after yet another day of questioning if it was just me or whether this wasn’t right. I really feel like I’ve had my eyes opened, and I think it would be nearly impossible to ‘unsee’ it now.

There are a few of us here in a similar position, as I said to @RogelioAndXo, they must have all gone to fuckwit school together!! Lol 😆

Scarlettmaid, you're not a magnet for them - you're probably attracted to abusive men because it's familiar: having been brought up by a narcissistic mother, it feels like love. You can reset your boundaries.

Maybe being brought up by a narc mother (overt/intense) had you on hyper-alert so when you came across someone PA (covert/detached) they were the opposite and their lack of direct confrontation was refreshing. They always present themselves as Mr Nice Guy to reel you in - so how would you know. It is only after the confusing, disorientating, below the radar snipes and sabotages that you don’t notice at first but finally exhaust and erode you that it becomes apparent.

I ended up massively depressed - thought it was all my fault as I got v angry and frustrated and my temper was always on a short fuse. I became a mother I never wanted to be. I wanted to die. Then I detached and didn’t respond to him - then we had zero communication and I then found the energy and focus to get him to leave.

To the outside world he was Mr meek an mild - he never raised his voice at me. But this is what it is all about - someone who can’t express their own anger and are so repressed they need to goad you to the end of your tether so that you express their anger. It is all very confusing.

He finally admitted that he thought I was a c**t and spent his time seething with contempt. The sadness thing for me is that I didn’t sense that.

@Fizzypop2 have you left?

I think I was spiralling downwards back in January so I can understand how you ended up needing help.

@Feelingconfusedandunsure oh my gosh that video 😭 it resonated but it hurts! X

I left this situation about 10 years ago now (with help from on here!) and reading your posts is chilling as it's so similar.

I had totally forgotten that he used to give me endless jobs to stop me ever relaxing, I was permanently on edge and nervous. He used to ask me to do slightly unreasonable things (like ask ridiculous favours of people) and berate me for being reluctant.

My lightbulb moment came when we went out as a family to a nearby beach and he couldn't even just enjoy being there and playing with the dcs. I took a photo of them with him in the background and when I enlarged the picture I realised his face was like absolute thunder. It just clicked that I couldn't keep living with such a joyless man.

He ended up having an affair which was the best outcome possible, even if it was hideous at the time.

Keep posting, it was such a lifeline for me on here. I had a great real life game face too.

@carlywurly are you so happy you left? Have your DC coped? Does he still see them? I’m interested to know how it could look 10 years down the line! X

@Moffa yes, we're all ok although it was horribly bumpy initially and stressful until the divorce came through. I got a fab lawyer and it was done fairly quickly.

The dcs are great. Happy, well adjusted and very adaptable. He sees them as regularly as his job allows. He is very senior in a high profile role and travels a lot. The upside of that is that there are perks of his role which we still benefit from as a wider family, and maintenance is high, so financially we've never had to struggle. I kept the house and went back to work a couple of years later, then retrained into a job I love. I now know I'll be ok and can support myself when maintenance stops which was always a worry.

Someone actually told me the other week we're the best example of divorce they've seen. I still see all his family. I still know he's a twat, and he really was to me, but he's someone else's twat now and far nicer to me as his ex wife. He copes well with superficial relationships which is what we have. We also come across each other professionally so it's in our interests to keep it civil!

So just to update you all...

Things came to a bit of a head this morning because I just can’t suffer this shit any longer! It started as a normal conversation which quickly turned into him playing “devils advocate” just to get under my skin and I ended up standing up for myself, it got heated, I walked out/he shouted & slammed the front door, etc then sent me 65 texts in the space of about 4 hours about how it’s all my fault that he is angry all the time, i’m affecting his MH, I think the worst of him, he only wants me to talk ‘softly to him’, he needs ‘closeness’ to not be so angry. Then after he could see I wasn’t responding or taking him on, did a complete 180 and then was all apologetic and he’s ‘going to get help’, do anything to make it work, he’s going to make ‘permanent changes’, want to be a better person, etc. Then he tried to push counselling together, which we have done before and it was useless as he just sob storied the counseller then it felt like 2 against 1. So I said I wanted to go to counselling alone, he said he was ‘scared by this’, and then by the time I had got home from work he had arranged counselling for himself and downloaded some meditation apps...wtf.

Anyway nothing was talked about until the kids went to bed then he came up and asked what I wanted to talk about in counselling alone (obviously this is killing him!) so I was just honest and said I want to talk about my own feelings, about things that have happened and feeling like I’m not myself anymore. He looked like a wounded puppy got huffy and walked off downstairs.

Ugh this whole thing is utterly exhausting. I feel I’ve had the wind knocked out my sails, which is exactly what he is obviously trying to do by trying to appear reasonable. I made myself watch that video again and my resolve has strengthened.

I feel like I’m going crazy, like this sounds bizarre but I was taking some photos yesterday of myself and the kids and I was looking at the photos and it was like I didn’t even recognise my face. Like it’s my face but it might as well be a strangers? I can’t quite explain it, totally weird, but maybe a warning that I need to sort my head out and get out of this situation before I end up unwell. I am going to phone the free counselling line thing through work tomorrow and say I need to talk this through with someone. In the meantime I refuse to be sucked back in, am I best to go along with it and say under the radar until it’s time to actually go or while I still feel strong enough keep fighting back? I.e. not tolerating his bs? I just don’t know what to do for the best?

Hi OP,

Get help ASAP!

In February I remember sitting alone on my bathroom floor wondering if I was dead.

I knew in that instant I needed help & called my GP. I got an appointment for 3 days later. Sorry if I’ve already said this but Long story short she referred me for psychotherapy. I had an assessment, got referred to the Domestic Abuse Team and have had an amazing therapist. By then H wanted marriage counselling but I’ve been since educated that you cannot do joint counselling or therapy with an abusive person.

Please get help, you will only realise how much you needed it once you’ve got it xx

Yes it is deliberately “crazy making” - emotional vampire - draining your energy. You will need to learn to “drop the rope”, detach and not rise to his bait - otherwise he will take you over the edge. Sounds like he is escalating and doing the classic DARVO tactic of "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender."

You need to emotionally protect yourself now.

Yes, please seek help. It's the most disorientating experience being with these people. You lose all sense of what's normal.

It took me about 2-3 years for the adrenaline to subside once I left mine. I then walked straight into an abusive work situation. Now I have neither and life is so calm.

Oh @carlywurly the adrenaline is mad. My heart used to race & race - like I was permanently in ‘fight or flight’ mode. X