When you are in an abusive relationship are you being abused all the time?

[WhoamI83]

For instance when went go out for the day and he is in a good mood is he allowing me to feel happy that day?

I always thought that he took his anger out on me because he couldn’t deal with his own emotions so made himself feel better by making me cry. Did he have control of all the emotions including when I was happy or angry? Do they get happy when they make you angry and you shout back because they made you have an emotion?

At the end of the day I don’t think it matters whether someone is being “abused all the time” as being abused any amount is unacceptable. My favourite analogy is this:

If your favourite cake in the world was made with 90% of the most delicious ingredients, and 10% dog poo, would you still eat it?

I guess when my ex met me he saw something that would be of use to him. He thought I would be like him and always share his beliefs and wants etc. Until there came a time when I drifted as I was not him and had my own identity. Shame I didn’t uphold it enough but that time is over. I’ll never loose myself again like that!

Yeah even with 10% poo the cake is still 100% spoilt.

@WhoamI83

Firstly - well done for getting away and staying gone. That can be extremely difficult and many women escaping abuse need to make several attempts to get away before they manage it. As PP have said: the good times which are interspersed between the horror are how abusers keep their victims with them. Pretty much no-one would tolerate being treated like sh1t all the time. And the up times can feel more ecstatic than they would in a healthy relationship because they come as such a relief and as such a contrast to the bad times. Plus abusers can love bomb like there's no tomorrow. They need to because they have so much to make up for from when they're being bastards.

Secondly: you might find it helpful to read the book "The Mind of the Intimate Male Abuser: How He Gets Into Her Head": "https://www.<a class="break-all" href="https://amazon.co.uk/Mind-Intimate-Male-Abuser-Gets-ebook/dp/B009ZW08ME".?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-relationships-3988359-When-you-are-in-an-abusive-relationship-are-you-being-abused-all-the-time" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">amazon.co.uk/Mind-Intimate-Male-Abuser-Gets-ebook/dp/B009ZW08ME". I think you'll find it answers a lot of the questions which you are currently pondering. It is concerned with male abusers, as the title suggests. In very brief summary: abusers have an enormous sense of entitlement which eclipses everyone else's wants and needs (including often those of their children). They own their partner; their partner is not a human being in their own right. Underpinning that is often a sense of sexual entitlement - so they do enough to keep their partner at their beck and call. They will usually target someone who is extremely kind and whose instinct is to put other people's needs before there own and who will therefore put the abuser's needs before their own. They are also extremely manipulative. They tend to invade their partner's mind by, from early on in the relationship, encouraging their partner to share all their hopes and fears, deeply personal history and so on and luring their partner into feelings of closeness and trust. They file this information away so they can use it against their partner as needed. They don't generally share equally about themselves because in their eyes that would make them vulnerable.

Abusers are dangerous people, emotionally, psychologically and physically. It's great you got away.

@WhoamI83

So the good days are calculated not spontaneous? They are part of the plan also. So the happiness you feel is manipulated?

Yes indeed - they are either abusing you, full on, or they are manipulating you. That's how they work. There is no understanding an abuser. You won't get any where trying to comprehend what goes on in an abusers mind. You are a nice person and you will never be able to empathise with an abuser. Thank goodness!!!

I think there's some magical thinking at the beginning. You will be everything they want whatever that is to them but it will be unrealistic and utterly impossible for you to maintain. They will have abusive expectations whether that's my partner will be happy to have sex whenever I demand or my partner will do all the domestic chores or they will be someone to make others jealous etc etc. When the reality kicks in then the abuse starts to try and create this perfect fantasy even if it's a result of fear, coercion and abuse.

When I was speaking to others in a group most of them said they had many years before the abuse kicked in. I think a had a few months. The beginning was truly awful and I had forgotten just how bad until a few months after I left.

It’s a long time ago now but I remember it all changed when I made a comment about his mum. She was kind of rude to me and I said something to him and he flipped. Smashed holes in the wall etc. He brought that argument up for 15 years, how I was disgusting, no morals, how dare I. What an idiot I was because each time he brought it up in later arguments which had nothing to do with that argument we were having I would back down because I was ashamed. He had an arsenal of arguments that he knew would get me to back down with shame. I used to say to him why are you bringing up a 10 year old argument..god damn it, I wish I knew back then.

Hmmm I'm not sure 'calculated' is the correct word. Cold. Certainly. But I do think they live in the moment. However that moment can turn in the blink of an eye.

An example of my abuser, something he did regularly.

Me: Hey, I've been invited to such a place with X on Friday night. I know you're at work, but if you could come along that would be great.

Him: Oh, I can't, I'm working but you should still go.

Me: Ok, cool.

Off I went.

Me (upon my return): Hey, how is work going? I've just got back from Y, had a great time. Would have been ace if you had come along.

Him: Have you just got back now?

Me: Yes, it was fun.

Him: Are you taking the fucking piss out of me?

And that was it. Completely flipped. Please note that whenever I went anywhere, i always told him where i was going, who i was with, I never drank, I mostly drove myself to social occasions and I was always home by 10:30pm. I realise writing this how infantaslised I sound. But it became a pattern when I got asked to do anything with friends at the weekend. And so I made sure I was on my best behaviour. It still wasn't enough for my ex. He would rage at me, call me names, swear, shout. And then after all that, I would get the silent treatment for days on end. And then normal would resume. Then the process would repeat. I didnt see the pattern at the time.

Even after we split I was defending him to people. And he still raged at me. He is broken person.

@WhoamI83, I'm certain stbxh hates/hated me. But it doesn't matter to me now because I hate him too. When we broke up he said 'We'll still be friends won't we?', which I think is his way of trying to ensure I don't tell anyone what he is actually like (public perception is everything to him). Mine was also an expert at turning everything round onto me because he knows how much it pains me to be the bad guy or to think I have hurt or upset somebody. Suddenly, instead of talking about what he had done to upset me, we would be discussing how he was depressed because I didn't pay him enough attention. It took me 2 decades to get wise to what he was doing.

I think you have hit the nail on the head when you said everything was good until you asserted yourself as a separate person with different wants/needs/thoughts etc. Stbxh used to get really agitated if I failed to read his mind e.g. "Oh" (said in Eeyore tone),"you didn't get any salad to go with dinner". Me - "You never asked me to". Him - "I don't need to tell you everything". Me (utterly brainwashed by this point) - feeling dreadful that I was so inconsiderate as to not automatically know he wanted salad. You can only clearly see the utter insanity of the whole thing once you are out.

Oh god @everythingbackbutyou mine wants to be my friend also. It’s absolutely insane that I would want to remain friends with him!

@WhoamI83 mine said the same to me after we split. Even text me constantly asking if I was ok when we split. Does yours still contact you? Mine was years ago now but it still bothers me I didnt stand up for myself, and i certainly have nothing to do with him now

No, you're walking on eggshells most of the time. Ime

Cowards one and all. Terrified we will rip their mask off

I agree that the Don Hennessy book referred to above is very illuminating. One of the things he says is that an abuser looks for a kind woman because she will put up with a lot and make excuses for him. He tests her a bit at first to check she is the right type.

I went cold when I read that. With 20:20 hindsight that is exactly what my abusive exH did.

No I went no contact because he was screwing with my head and so he hasn’t bothered with his child since. His stupid emails get forwarded to my lawyer without me opening them, they all read the same. Sorry I did that and that but I did it for this and that reason, I didn’t feel loved enough....blah blah blah then ends with but I hope we can still be friends!!!

@Spinachfinger I often get annoyed with myself that I didn’t stand up for myself but I try and see it as a positive. If I had stood up for myself there is a chance I would not be here now. My compliance probably saved me from a great deal worse. When I eventually left he had no idea why!

@TooManyDogsandChildren I’m absolutely horrified of what I’ve been through. It’s too scary to look much into my memories.

I am currently living in the abuse cycle. Lovely one minute, the next minute everything that goes wrong is my fault. It is exhausting and confusing. Never know which version you are going to get.

I've never seen them last more than two or three months without dropping their mask. But ive heard other say it took years.

One of the hardest parts I struggle to deal with is how he switched over our identities. He became the moral loving partner and I became inherently faulty and shameful. I cannot believe this happened. I have all those memories of myself so emotionally beaten and him so high and mighty, so awful.

@WhoamI83, I agree that fighting back is not always the safest option. In the end I just did whatever it took to not rock the boat so I could make my exit plans quietly. I have no doubt that he was blindsided in a way, he probably never imagined I would actually leave. I don't think I did either until a couple of months beforehand when I started making serious preparations.

After I left I still said we’d go on family holidays together and family days out....hahaha how brainwashed was I!!

I think those of us who have lived in an abusive relationship work out what we have to to do manage. I dealt with it by reflecting back to him everything he wanted to see and by training myself to forget the shit bits immediately.

My exH used to go around telling everyone he was this good, simple, family person (how he wanted people to see him) when in reality he was a serial cheater and a huge emotional manipulator and bully and had a desperate need to feel that he was better than everyone else.

I had a very difficult DC1 who never slept and was later diagnosed with SEN. He did absolutely nothing, even when I was back at work in a more than full time job and DC1 was still waking four times a night three years later. Eventually it broke me and I just existed in the moment. Fucked my career though.

The cognitive dissonance was massive and the only way I could cram myself down was by developing a massive ED - food as a sedative. I think it was also my silent fuck you to him because he was absolutely obsessed with women's weight. Appearance was the only thing that ever mattered to him about women, who they were was of no interest at all.

At the time we got divorced I would honestly have told you it was all my fault for being so defective and I also tried to co-parent with him on a friendly basis for a while. But gradually the submerged memories started coming back and that, coupled with his behaviour during our divorce, made me realise that actually he was, and always had been an abuser, right from the start. Mental, physical, sexual, financial, you name it. He played me like a fish on a line and he enjoyed my agony.

I'm NC and he still tries to fuck with my head by sending little messages via the DC. I can't wait until the last one is 18 and I can move away.

No more relationships for me ever thanks!