Is he abusing me or am I just sensitive?

[Vickersx]

Sorry if this is long. I will try and shorten it as best I can and I’m happy to answer any questions afterwards.
Been with my OH 7 years and we have one son (5) and I have a daughter from a previous relationship (age 13).
For the first couple of years it was perfect. Then he started to get paranoid over things and possessive. He doesn’t have anything to worry over as I literally only go to work and come home. I only have one friend who I see once in a Blue moon. If I got a new dress or got my nails done there was some big conspiracy. We talked through it and he said he felt insecure and I accepted it and moved on. For the last year things have really gone worse. Truth be told I want to leave (he won’t leave) but I’m not financially able to. When I’ve discussed splitting he threatens to take our son. So I muddle on avoiding confrontation. He has a go at me for everything. Like this afternoon it was because he didn’t like the volume I had the TV on. Petty stuff.
I have found myself changing my tone of voice when I speak to him as I wondered if it’s my fault and how I say things because everytime we argue he gets angry and says it’s all my fault because I make him
That way. He says I always disagree with everything he says and need to just not disagree. When I said I can have my own opinion he got even more angry and said “if you feel like people are confrontational with you a lot maybe you need to look at yourself”. It honestly
Knocked the wind out of me. When I was younger I was in a very violent abusive relationship and I took me a long time to stop blaming myself and recover. He knows all about my past so when he repeatedly stacks my character it hurts! I feel so drained and stuck. I’m not allowed to drive due to finances so rely on him for transport to work. If I’m typing on my phone I get asked what I’m doing and if I’m recording him! Bizarrely.

The above are just a small portion of examples but I’m sat here this evening thinking is he right? Am I damaged from past relationships and now overly defensive?
I should also add my daughters relationship with him has broke down and she has requested to live at my mums due to how he makes her feel. But he is insisting it’s me and her that are too sensitive and being dramatic. I don’t know anymore. Any advice appreciated. Sorry for the ramble. x

He is abusive and you are not being too sensitive.

I was only reading with half an eye just thinking ffs another bloke that’s a prick. Until I got to the part about your 13 year old daughter moving out because of him.
No man is worth that. None. Choose your daughter over him. Come he’ll or high water do not pick him over her.

Well currently you are choosing him over your DD which is NEVER OK IMO

Am I damaged from past relationships and now overly defensive

No, neither you or your daughter are. He is abusive.

Okay, this is crisis time, your daughter wants to put herself in informal, kinship care because of him. Let that sink. You have to leave, if not for you then do it for your kids. Sending you strength.

Please, for God's sake, get away from this man, hes massively abusive. Dont sacrifice your dd to him, it is heart breaking that she has moved out to get away from him, and yet you have stayed with him!! Why on earth would you choose him over her in that way!! Please op you've got to let him go..

He’s abusive

Get out now and take your dd with you, do you have family that could come and help you eject him from the property or house you like a mum aunt etc

It’s not you, it’s him. The only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none. He targeted you to abuse further and is using your past abusive relationship to further bash you about the head with. He is truly a reprehensible individual and your relationship with him is well and truly over.

You are absolutely controlled by him, this low point in your life is where he had wanted you to be all along. Now he has you thinking you are trapped and have no escape. But you can escape him and you absolutely should do this.

Please contact Women’s Aid and make plans urgently to remove yourself and your children from your abuser ASAP. You may also want to look at obtaining non molestation and occupation orders. Enlist too the help of family and friends, do not keep his abuses of you and in turn your children here secret. Abuse like you describe thrives on secrecy.

Your own recovery from his abuses will only properly start when you are away from him. I would also suggest that you enrol yourself onto the Freedom Programme run by Women’s Aid as this is for those who have been in abusive relationships.

Thanks for your replies.

I should say my dd hasn’t moved out, it’s just something she has mentioned before. I wouldn’t ever choose him over her, my kids mean the world to me which is why when he threatens to take my son away it frightens me to death. I don’t have anywhere I can go as nobody has the room. In an ideal world he would leave. I’ve been looking at places and enquiring but I don’t know how I’ll afford a deposit but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.
It just really made me wonder today when he told me I need to look at myself, I did wonder if it is me with the problem.

Do not use financial reasons as any sort of reason or excuse to stay with him. You’ve probably financially strapped anyway also because he is likely to be controlling with his cash too.

Your own relationship with your eldest child is at high risk of failing completely if your daughter does go and live with your mother and you remain with your abuser.

That threat of taking the child away from the mother is said by practically all abusive men to keep their woman whom they both hate and see as their possession in line. It Is a power and control tactic that works, he has you frightened to death and that is why he did it. He is not bothered about his child, he just wants to use your son as a stick to batter you with, he wants to punish you.

He won’t make this process of you leaving him at all easy but there is really no other option other than leaving him open to you and your children

Men like this hate women, ALL of them. No wonder your daughter wants to go and live with your mother. What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?

There are agencies out there like Women’s Aid who can help you but you need to be brave now and take that first step, often the hardest to take, out.

@AttilaTheMeerkat I appreciate what you’re saying but it isn’t an excuse. I would need a deposit and first months rent to move out and in my area I would need around £1400 for that. I don’t want to have to subject my children to staying in a hostel so I’m trying the best I can with what I have. My question was more around confirming if I was doing the right thing

You are ‘not allowed’ to drive because of finances? But he is? That in its own is worrying enough.

You along with your children need to be in a refuge, not a hostel.

A lack of money for a deposit is no reason whatsoever to remain in the same house as this individual. You will be further ground down and he will continue to destroy you, and in turn your kids here, from the inside out. He is already doing a bang up job of this on you already and his relationship with your daughter has broken down so badly she now wants out and away from him. Your welfare, along with your children, is far more a pressing concern.

Staying in a hostel if it came to that would be more preferable than for your daughter to keep on seeing you as her mother being continuously abused by this reprehensible example of a stepfather figure you foistered upon her. What do you want her in particular to remember about her childhood?. She won’t say thanks mum to you if you choose to stay with him and your lack of money as a reason will not wash with her.

Your own boundaries here, already messed up by previous abuse, are being further eroded by this individual you are now with. Please call Women’s aid and get tour abuser out of your lives permanently.

Abusers target abused women. Abusers struggle with teenagers and will ramp up the abuse and control of them, abusers tend to get worse in middle age so never wait for them to change. Speak to women's aid as a matter of urgency. You and your children are not people to him with your own needs, you are a source of supply he will want to control at any cost

All the male adults in her life to date have been abusive. I sincerely hope she can recover fully from seeing all this to date and for that she will need support and counselling now. She cannot afford to keep on learning such crap lessons about relationships because she could well otherwise go onto repeat all this in her own relationship as an adult.

What sources of income do you have? How long to get the deposit saved?

Please don’t lose your daughter over this piece of shit. Go and take her with you. Don’t let her go on her own. At least though she’s the sense to ask to get out op. Follow her lead.

I have had two short term boyfriends exactly the same. Both started out being lovely and interested in me then within 3 month their behaveour slowly changed until they made me think I had mental issues! They also pushed away my family and friends and questioned everything I said and done. Luckily I saw the light and walked away. You need to take the leap and tell him to fuck off. Become assertive and strong and see him for what he is - a manipulative man who wants you to be his slave totally reliant on him with no opinion and no financial security!!

@AttilaTheMeerkat do you think I don’t know that? You aren’t being helpful by making me feel like shit and staying all my daughter has been shown is shitty relationships, as though I enjoy it! I came for advice because my mental health is suffering and you aren’t helping me
See anything clearer but making me wish I had never bothered to ask.

I think a hostel would be better than your current predicament. What if he turns physical

You know you want to leave. How will you do it?

@TorkTorkBam I work full time at the moment. But my wage isn’t great. Just enough to pay the bills and food at the moment. If I tried I could probably save it within a couple of months otherwise I might resort to using my credit card