My STBXH has rewritten out entire 14 relationship

[JustBeingMoi]

So my stbxh has left me spluttering with rage, disbelief and hurt for telling me I am the cause of all his anger. The whole lot. Nothing else. Just me.

Back story. I asked him to leave nearly 3 months ago due emotional and verbal abuse, with some pushing kicking shoving pinning incidents thrown in there for shits and giggles.

Since this point i have been told that I guilt tripped him into proposing, forced him to get married and have our dd. He has accused me of ostracising him from his friends, when i have actively encouraged and organised gatherings.

Today he told me that I caused all of the anger that caused him to behave the way he did towards me. So basically it was all my fault. So not only am I abusive and coercive, but my marriage was apparently a sham he was forced into entering into, as was parenthood, and the abuse I experienced at his hands, was all my fault.

I am overwhelmed by feelings of hurt, anger and frankly disgust that he has used my genuine affection and love for him, and my desire to commit to him completely, and turned it into something dirty, shameful and as justification for his terrible treatment of me.

Honestly not sure what the point of this post is apart from utter hurt, devastation and a desperate need to vent. Earlier he told me I had no right to still be hurting, because I ended it because I couldn't be bothered to save it. Despite years of me desperately trying to salvage something. He has also cited my PND as a cause of his anger.

At no point has he ever seemed concerned I was close to suicide at this point. Everything has always been about the impact on him. My pregnancy was somehow about how my behaviour was difficult for him. As was my PND and endometriosis. I mean don't get me wrong, I appreciate these are difficult things for him to cope with, but it hasn't been a walk in the park for me. I'm a pretty resilient person, but the last few years have come close to destroying me entirely. And I have repeatedly sought professional help, whilst it took me walking out for him to get help with his anger.

Why oh why do his word still hurt me so badly? How can I be free of this hateful man!? I'm currently balls deep in trying to sell our house and even the is something he uses against me, saying its amazing I can do all this now i'm single, but couldn't be bothered to help him with things when we were together. 3 months and this man still makes me cry.

I’m not surprised you couldn’t do things when you were together, your head must have been all over the place living with such a prick. He’s still abusing you, if you can please block all communication - use a third party if you can. You’ve 100% done the right thing in leaving him. He still can’t reflect on his behaviour and take responsibility for it and instead blames you, he’s weak and pathetic and well done for escaping.

He is lashing out and deliberately trying to hurt you. You know the truth of your relationship, so it doesn't matter what he wants to think. Everyone else will know that he could not possible have been tricked into marriage and parenthood because he always had a choice.

You have done the right thing in ending it, all he is doing now is confirming that. I know it hurts but please do not let him see that. Only you can control your response to his nasty words and behaviour. Keep focusing on moving forward and remember you will be free of him soon.

Many Men have egos the size of a planet and when someone actually dares to leave them then they instantly rewrite history as they can’t accept that they themselves were mainly responsible for a deteriorating relationship

Honestly, OP, one of the often unpleasant realities of splitting up with someone is that they 'reclaim' the shared narrative of your past for themselves, to the point where you no longer even recognise it. Your ex has just done this in a particularly pernicious and self-serving way, but it happens in the majority of ended relationships to a greater or lesser extent -- something to do with no longer having to include the other person's POV in a joint narrative.

Not that this makes it any easier to deal with.

I imagine you are hurting in particular because he is presenting himself as a passive victim of your wishes, which he has recast as selfish and dominating, and has retrospectively soured your time together.

You won't get any satisfaction from him -- he won't recast his narrative to exonerate you. I think you would be better off finding a decent counsellor with whom you can explore the psychological effect on you of what he's done.

Honestly, please let this go, it’s yet another predictable trait of an abuser! They all try this in some way or another

What they do is to throw at you all the things they themselves are most hurt/terrified by

And make no mistake... they are terrified.

Abusers are pathetic, pointless and weak individuals. They know this and compensate by choosing someone who is strong, popular, kind, lovable and successful as a human being and then they systematically tear them to shreds.

This is utterly predictable, honestly don’t sweat any of it for a second. Know that this excuse for a human being is trying to hurt you so is throwing at you the nastiest things they can think of.

If you are up for a bit of entertainment, throw what they throw at you back at them whenever you get an opportunity- like when they realise aggression isn’t working because you haven’t reacted to this, and try being sweet again, hoping to hook you back in so they can hurt you again.

Read Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft

You’ll find that pathetic sub species in the pages of the book

Thank god you’re leaving this prick!

This is classic abusive man tactics. I also tricked my ex husband into marrying me and getting me pregnant twice. I isolated him and stopped him from going back to his home country. I pushed all his friends away and gave him a drink problem.

Honestly, many of us have been through this. Unfortunately there is nothing to do about it except use it to reinforce your decision to end the relationship. I'm sorry it's happening to you, it is very painful.

It’s incredibly hurtful and it’s part of the script. I still feel infuriated by it and I’m five years on and otherwise very happy. I genuinely recommend therapy (for you, not as a couple) so you can unpick it’s from your perspective. He’s spinning these lies so that he can feel better and feel justified for his behaviour. He might even believe his own lies. But his behaviour speaks for itself.

Thank you @Annabellerina. It is good to know its not just me. He arrived to pick our daughter up and I couldn't feel anything other than revulsion for him. And you are right, looking at it logically he is just taking the power back but God it stings. I have ignored the comment and despite wanting to send him a diatribe back, written in hurt and anger, I have resisted. Instead spilling it here for you lovely people to read instead. I have no.idea what I would have done without the awesome community that is Mumsnet. Still be utterly miserable with this man i suspect.

Thank you @MzHz. I cannot tell you how much strength Mumsnetters have given me. The advice and support has been invaluable. I know i need to let it go. I suppose its all part of the last grieving and adjusting process. Thankfully despite wanting to reply to him, i have vented on here to you amazing people!

I ...forced him to get married and have our dd.
Ooh, you too?
My exh told his OW this - not to hurt me, as I wasn't meant to read it. In his case I think the reality may, possibly, be that he had some misgivings at the time, which he did not express to me in the slightest. If that is the case, then I could not have done anything about it.

But I don't even know if that is true. We all want to see ourselves as sensible, logical beings, so when we do something illogical, we look for explanations for our own behaviour. We are constantly writing the story of our life. "I proposed to Mary because I was so in love" makes sense when you are feeling positive towards Mary. But when you are pissed off with Mary, the story "I proposed to Mary because she made me" sounds a lot more logical to you.
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)

Can I share about my ex? He had erectile dysfunction with every relationship before me, with me and now with his current girlfriend. Apparantly it's all my fault because I don't have a pretty belly. I find it very surprising that I caused erectile dysfunction before we even met. He is adamant that I did and his GF is angry with me .

Oh, this is standard behaviour of these types of men. You are not alone. I had an incredibly long and vacuous email from an ex detailing similar things as your ex has done. I actually couldn't believe he was actually writing about our relationship he had re written the history so much. I let the email sit for a good few days to let it sink in. Angry and upset first of all then outraged then I started laughing because what he wrote was so ridiculous. The email was very very long. I decided to reply with one emoji. It was the thumbs up emoji. It worked a treat he was absolutely furious, another diatribe of how awful I was in the relationship and I replied again with another thumbs up emoji. He stopped after that. Keep your power OP, he's just had his ego smashed to pulp because you dared to leave.

Unfortunately there seems to be a script that these abusers use when we finally wake up to them. My ex re-wrote history to suit himself - I was the controlling and abusive one, he was the poor defenceless little person who had a habit of falling into other peoples vaginas. Sometimes it was accidental and some times I MADE him do it because he was so unhappy being married to me.

He tells people I financially abused him - aka I refused to continue to fund his bank account when I threw him out, he also tells people that I prevent him from seeing his children aka he didn't want to go through court as that would have exposed his highly dangerous behaviour around the children so decided to just never see them again, and his new partner has swallowed all of this nonsense and feels sorry for him. Just like I did when he told me the same lies about his first partner and child - who he also doesn't see any more.

It hurts like hell when the person you loved most in the world turns on you and blames you for their inadequacies, but just remember that they are his issues, and he's projecting them onto you rather than admit that he's a shitty person who cant take responsibility for his actions x

Ignoring him is the best response. He is unable to accept responsibility for his behaviour and has to turn it on you.

Abusers hate silence. They feel they're too important to be ignored.

The thumbs up emoji is excellent.

Mine also claimed the same. To be fair he wasn't bothered about marriage either way, but he proposed and went through with it so wasn't 'forced' at all.
As for having a child, that took literally years, several losses and me almost dying, so again, hardly forced upon him. But apparently if I hadn't made him do that everything would be OK

This is a new way of abusing you. He knows he can hurt you from a distance, this way. I would do everything you cannot to engage. Keep your conversations purely to practicalities, if you can.

I'm caught between being horrified other people have to pit up with this crap, and also feeling relief I'm not alone in this. As usual you Mumsnetters make me feel much more balanced about the whole thing.

Grey rock.

My ex made up a sport that we used to go watch together. I could not possibly be less interested in that particular sport :o He did this to be an asshole towards his second wife, though.

Sorry you have to put up with this prick! Re-writing the past and painting themselves as the victim is something abusers at all levels love doing.

In my experience, what put a stop to my ex shiting on about how hard done by he is, and how horrible I was - I would just say 'yes, ok sure' - to anything blaming me. He'd say I was the real abuser - I'd say 'yes ok, we'll have to agree to disagree' or he'd say it the relationship would work if I 'tried harder' and I'd say 'yes ok, sure, but I'm not going to do that but yes sure'.

He got desperate and said 'everyone' thinks I am mentally ill - and that I was crazy for leaving him, he would tell everyone I was crazy - and I'd say 'ok, sure do tell them that, they can decide for themselves.'

It took the wind out of his sails a bit once he realised that he couldnt wind me up anymore. I used to have big reactions when he accused me of things so he used to just look so confused when i agreed with him.

Sorry you are going through this. You know your truth and don't let him convince you otherwise.

Oh FFS he is such a walking cliche, they ALL do this. How dull.

My BiL blamed all his problems on my ex SiL who was not only a sweetheart but the most ineffectual woman ever - completely laughable.

He's just being a twat, I'm so sorry.
Perhaps check off his twattishness against a bingo card and award yourself something pleasant (?George Clooney Netflix evening?) whenever you cross something off.

I'm sure they all do it.

Any male who laments he was forced into marriage and parenthood just makes himself sound as wet as dishwater.

And he had to treat you badly because you had pnd? Just makes him sound like a knob.

Embrace your freedom. Live a better life without him. He'll hate it🤣

@MzHz

Honestly, please let this go, it’s yet another predictable trait of an abuser! They all try this in some way or another

What they do is to throw at you all the things they themselves are most hurt/terrified by

And make no mistake... they are terrified.

Abusers are pathetic, pointless and weak individuals. They know this and compensate by choosing someone who is strong, popular, kind, lovable and successful as a human being and then they systematically tear them to shreds.

This is utterly predictable, honestly don’t sweat any of it for a second. Know that this excuse for a human being is trying to hurt you so is throwing at you the nastiest things they can think of.

If you are up for a bit of entertainment, throw what they throw at you back at them whenever you get an opportunity- like when they realise aggression isn’t working because you haven’t reacted to this, and try being sweet again, hoping to hook you back in so they can hurt you again.

Read Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft

You’ll find that pathetic sub species in the pages of the book

Thank god you’re leaving this prick!

Exactly this

I am with you. My alcoholic husband says that I have ruined gis life even though he has been physically and verbally abusive. I rushed him into marriage even though it was the other way round and I have broken his heart even though he hadnt stopped drinking and gambled all his wages away. Its like a club none of us deserve to be in .