Thinking of leaving, am I mad thinking that he is being verbally/emotionally abuse?

[Darklesparkles]

Hi, I really need some advice. I have been married 6 years, together 11 years and have a 2 year old little boy.

I am so miserable at the moment in this marriage, I don't love my DH anymore but don't have the courage to leave. I think he might be emotionally abusive but I have no one to talk to. I'm to be quite honest ashamed to talk to my mother about some of the things he says. Example being while driving and I directed him wrongly in busy traffic, then tried to direct him the right way - "shut the f up you stupid f'in b*£&#". He has said far worse to me than that when angry and it feels it's becoming more common.

The last straw for me was at the weekend when he swore at me in front of our little boy and my little boy looked at me and went "bish" (you can imagine what be was trying to say) and laughed which just broke my heart. I don't want my little boy to learn that this is normal, because it isn't normal us it?

I told my DH that I wanted to leave, and he said I was nuts. Actually said that he thought I was having a breakdown and was going to ring my mother. Then he cried and tried to kiss me, got angry and left the room when I refused to engage. Came back in and said, you can't leave me you're my wife and you will always be my wife. If you ever meet anyone else, I will find them and put my fingers through their skull. He was really upset saying this, and I had just told him that I wanted to leave but it has really shook me.

Am I overthinking here? He keeps saying I'm overreacting to his behaviour, that I am too sensitive. He says that he knows he had been bad to me and will change. He has now been super nice to me all weekend.

Need some advice please. Thank you all so much.

By the way they always say we are the ones who are mentally ill/unstable when we finally break. They'll tell other people all manner of shite and lie about what happened so we seem irrational. Oldest trick in the book. Get the break over with now. They don't change. Not really. Small boys need strong female role models so they can have healthy relationships in the future and to not be bullies. Trust your gut. His mum can help him lick his wounds if she likes but you've had a long period of spiteful unpleasant treatment. You deserve to be away from it. It's as simple as that. He called you a fucking bitch? Not your knight in golden armour there. Nope.

He will be nice for a maximum of six months (probably a lot less than that) and then you'll be back to being abused, sworn at, treated like dirt again.
Just remember your little boy saying "bish"; that should be enough for you never to want to set foot in the same house as your H.
For what it's worth, Darklesparkles, I've been married for forty seven years and my H has never once called me any of those things your H has called you.
And I read something on here last week which may help you - all the hurt you have suffered doesn't count with him, only his hurt matters.
In other words, he can hurt you over and over and even when he knows you're upset, he will carry on hurting you.
Now you have hurt him by leaving and all of a sudden, hurt matters.

Not only will he be nice for a few months, once the honeymoon period is over, he'll ramp up the abuse and it will be worse than it was before. He'll punish her for daring to leave.

If his remorse was one iota real, he'd agree to the individual counselling. He isn't because he doesn't think he has any problems that need changing. He knows couples counselling is guaranteed time to wheedle you around where he wants you.

He won't change. If your son is two, and he's been this way for around three years, then the maths isn't complicated, is it? Abusive men often start to be openly so when their partners are pregnant, and vulnerable.

Your son has one childhood. There is no rewind button.

Read the first post again. Then think about how terrifying it is. Imagine your friend telling you that was how their partner treated them.

He chose to treat you like that. Nobody made him. Nobody told him it was okay. And as for seeing it with his own parents... if that's true, he's just admitted he's teaching his own son to treat women like shit, hasn't he. What better reason to leave could you have?

Honestly there are lovely men out there. You don't need to tolerate this from anyone at all. In the words of Maya Angelou, "When someone tells you who they are, believe them. The first time."

If he really loved you and really felt remorse he would respect your wish to leave him, because he would truly own his behaviour. Well, actually, if he really loved you he would never have behaved like that in the first place...

Nothing he is doing, all the begging and words and promises etc, none of that is for you. It is only for him to get what he wants.

He is still treating you like he thinks you are a bitch. He thinks he can play you. He doesn't care at all about how you are feeling, but he really cares about getting you back so that he can punish you for daring to leave him.

He has even told you that he doesn't think he needs counselling, because he doesn't really think he has done anything wrong.

As pps have said - go back to your Mum's. The next stage will be him threatening you, threatening suicide (yawn) and torrents of abuse. It will start in the next week, guaranteed, when you don't succumb to his crocodile tears. Things will get better then, because you won't feel wobbly any more.

Thanks all. Back at mum's now with DS. He's just texted to says he loves us both so much. Am watching this space.

Came back in and said, you can't leave me you're my wife and you will always be my wife. If you ever meet anyone else, I will find them and put my fingers through their skull.

Please, please don't forget things like this. Normal men DO NOT say things like this. His 'being nice' is simply his way to keep you so someone else can't have you.

He might not say this stuff in front of you for a few months, but this is not simply about what comes out of his mouth. It's about the fact that HE ACTUALLY THINKS THIS WAY.

He sounds scary.
Keep away from him. Don't believe he is sorry, just think about the sort of man who could talk like that to someone he professes to love. He's threatened you as well. Of course he knows how much he was hurting you, he just didn't care about your feelings. He'll only get worse.

OP I get why your wobbling but think about what he is saying. He'll do anything you want, he'll change, he loves you, he loves his child, he'll be a model husband etc. etc. EXCEPT go to counselling. He's ALREADY placing limits and even worse are the reasons for his limits, he doesn't want to "look nuts". Yet he was happy for you to feel like you were losing the plot when he was telling you you were too sensitive. It was ok for you, not for him though.

I understand the wobble but he's not changing and he's already showing you that.

Wanted to add my support. It took me 20 years to leave and I should have done it a lot earlier.
It is very hard, there is a lot of guilt. I think you remember the good times and start seeing things through rose coloured glasses. I never want to be back with him but have found myself feeling very sorry for him and guilty for ruining the dream. It's a conditioned mindset I think.
My DH has shown a lot of grief, threatened suicide and went to counselling but he manipulated the counselling to suit him. (e.g my counsellor understands your anger over such and such but understands why I reacted in that way and says it was justified) In the end the 'counselling' was just another stick to beat me with.
It helped me to think about if a friend or my daughter was telling me that their partner was doing what mine did, whether I would deem it okay. The answer was always a resounding no.
You need time. When you don't know what to do, don't do anything. Tell him you need some thinking time and just breathe for a minute.

Tell him he needs the individual counselling to be able to address HIS behaviour. If he doesn't want to, that's his choice but then you will be filing for divorce.

There are two reasons for you to leave him and not go back and either of them stand on their own as a good enough reason.

1. He is abusive.
2. You don't love him.

Hey just read updates
I have just ended it after 11 years
Had many instances like you
Many instances of parents in law and family saying ‘think of the children’

What tipped me
Over the edge was seeing the impact on my elder child and his MH from also being shouted at

The only probable resource would be an abusers program for him . But the problem is if he does that it could be used as an excuse by him to make you stay

I so emphasise with home you feel and his begging . It’s an absolute head fuck

Hold steady and this nice guy act will slip when he doesn’t get what he wants and then you know . You have done So bloody well . Give him a chance but basically a chance to be a bastard again ! It’s when , not If x

I completely agree with @crystalize. Relationship counselling is never advisable in an abusive partnership. It simply provides a forum for the abusive partner to air their grievances and justify their behaviour, and will allow the abuse to flourish and continue unabated - without addressing his underlying issues.

And I can vouch of this from experience - after 3 years of couples counselling in which the emotional abuse got worse and I started to go crazy, self-reflecting myself un-necessarily on how I could be contributing to his abuse, wondering why the counselling wasn’t working and why the ‘cycle of abuse’ kept continuing. Counselling kept me trapped in this dreadful marriage for a further 3 years - and where my STBXH simply took it as a ‘penance’ that keeping me, meant he had to turn up 1 hour a month to these sessions and then do nothing till the next session, bc really it wasn’t his behaviour that was the issue.

Like you too, my STBXH had his family intervene when I first left him and did a magnificent begging performance on the second time I left. This is formulaic abuser conduct. Of course, each time I returned he resumed back back to his old self within months and the abuse got increasingly worse. I became more isolated, and the more vulnerable and lost I was, the more eroded my sense of self-worth, the worse he became.

For your DS’s sake, your partner ought to do an intensive program like: www.everymanproject.co.uk/
which addresses the perpetrators behaviour.
I am sure / hope there will be something similar in your area . And not with a view to you returning once he has become this different ‘changed’ man - which even this program I believe acknowledges that most men are unable to change, but so he can become a proper role model for your DS in future.

Like my STBXH I am not surprised your partner is refusing to do this - as he knows he will be called out and have to account for his conduct. Something he has made clear to you he simply will not do.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about leaving, I finally escaped 3 days ago. It has been heartbreaking to see my DD2 struggling with the change - just last night she was asking for Daddy at bedtime, and playing out a pretend phone call with him bc she misses him, and she was generally being uncooperative with me and is struggling to adjust in a new foreign environment of our new home. And I am due to give birth in the coming 10-17 days - and feel so incredibly vulnerable. It is really bloody hard. But I am holding on to the truth that it is the right thing to do - to leave an abusive relationship. I feel better already in my own space, and know I can rebuild again.

Please stay strong. You can do this.

He sounds like an absolute psycho. You tell him you’re leaving and if he enrols in counselling and shows you that he has changed, that is when you will reconsider. He’ll never do it and I bet he’ll become enraged again.

It has stuck me reading through, how much my STBEX (and others) has made it about him. His anger and upset are 'caused' by me and I have to cope with his emotions. I am not given time, in peace, to think or grieve, because I have to deal with the fallout. It's always 'poor me', never 'Yes I've been a complete s* and I will back off and take responsibility for myself for a minute whilst you have a chance to think'.
I asked for time and instead got such dramatic upset and terrible behaviour that I felt I was living in a crazy Narnia.

And I think that's key. He may be scared of losing you and feeling strong emotions, but if you are being reasonable and asking for time and space to think, can he 'allow' that? If not, then it is a problem.

that he needs to learn, that he was stupid
Sustained abuse is just that. Sustained abuse.
It's not stupid.
He does it because he wants to.
Because he knows it knocks you down every time.
Because it makes you feel like shit.
He is not owning this at all.
He is not doing everything he can to improve himself.
Joint counselling is never ever ever recommended in abusive relationships.
Get him to google why!
HE needs counselling.
This is all on HIM.
NONE of it is your fault.
HE has done this.
HE needs to sort himself out.
HE needs some specialist counselling.
Without that, there is no hope at all.
Do not allow him to drag you to counselling.
He goes for himself!
Then once he's had at least 6 months of sessions, you can consider a discussion about reconciliation.
Until that happens, it's an absolute NO NO.
So then it's up to him.
If he won't do that, then you have your answer as to how much he is taking responsibility and how much he REALLY wants to save this.
Right now, it's not at all, because he won't help himself.
YOU CANNOT save him.
YOU CANNOT change him.
HE has to do this himself.

Well done on going to back your mums.
I really don't think he will change.
The stats for abusers just stopping are stacked against him.
Most just learn how to do it more subtly.
I do believe you should leave him, but this is your life and I really don't think you are quite ready to yet.
That's OK too.
It's takes around 7 attempts for 'victims' to leave their abusers for good.

Counselling organisations like Relate will REFUSE to do joint counselling when there is abuse. They will only see you separately .

If you don’t believe me, pick up the phone and ask them.

The verbal abuse, manipulation, threats of physical abuse and the gas lighting all count as abuse .

Poolbridge

Just read your post and couldn’t not send you all the very best . My lord , good luck with settling and the baby

@Fightingmycorner2019 Well done for getting out. I know how incredibly difficult that was for you. I wish you all the very best. Please keep safe.

To those suggesting perpetrator counselling, I'll let you in on a secret. Do you know what abusers do when they are sent by courts and by their victims to perpetrator counselling schemes? Learn how to hide their abusive behaviour better. Abusers don't change.

Please stay strong OP and don't go back. He's going to get worse.

Thanks 1234
Busy day of lawyers appts
Highly recommend my firm the way
Mainly all
Women and very savvy on ea and coercive control and abuse .
Less great was a police follow up at 1am - who clearly think I was making it up to get rid