Why did I allow him to treat me like this?

[Megan124]

I thought I’d talk about my ex a little because I do sometimes find it awkward and embarrassing to discuss this with my family and friends. So my ex could be a little ‘abusive’ towards me. He threw my phone in an argument. He drove unsafely to scare me during arguments. He threw a pack of cigarettes at me (in anger) when he was drunk. He’d sometimes swear at me and call me names when we argued. He said it was my fault that he got so angry, something about me made him that way. It makes me so sad and angry that I put up with this behaviour and at the time, didn’t realise that it was quite abusive. I’m annoyed that he doesn’t know that he was like this because I never even said anything to him. He broke up with me and it is only recently that I’ve really thought about how bad he actually treated me. Why did I put up with it? How can I avoid ever picking the wrong person again? Most of the time he did treat me good and I wasn’t perfect in the relationship either, but I just can’t understand why I let this kind of behaviour slide :( is there something wrong with me, because I let him treat me like this?

It’s not you.

I’ve been caught up in two abusive relationships in my lifewhich I did not see coming. I’m not going to hijack your thread with a massive detailed post, but it’s the second one I will elaborate a bit on.

After the first abusive relationship (physical, emotional, financial), I was very reluctant to commit to anyone again. I had a couple of relationships, but someone came along and love bombed me. I very much dislike the MN habit of armchair diagnosing and labelling every behaviour but this was actually what happened. He latched onto the fact I’d been in a previous abusive relationship and was initially sympathetic and trying to build me up so I started to trust him.

Once our relationship was established, he started to knock me down again. There was the constant questioning of me which seemed reasonable on the face of it, but was not:

‘I texted you today but you didn’t reply until 2 hours later, is everything ok? Have I done something to upset you?’

‘I texted you today but you didn’t reply for an hour. Perhaps we should just call it a day if you’re not interested.’

‘I texted you 15 minutes ago and you haven’t replied. Who are you with?’

‘Text me back right now. I don’t believe you’re in a meeting.’

‘Text me back now or you will regret it.’

I have a thread about why I didn't correctly interpret an ex's stance on separate socialising as controlling - which it most definitely was. When I posed the question so many MN era got what he said immediately (in its true meaning and implications) that looking back I feel v stupid and v lacking self respect.

I had a lodger and after she moved out I was tidying up some household waste and realised (when I was reading it to see what it was) that it was pages she'd written pouring out her feelings - and the big k read was her berating herself for continuing to see a guy after he was abusive ....

I think it's really common. It's not really human nature, when emotionally attached and invested, when intimate with someone ; especially when younger, to tritely, cleanly say "I don't like that (first/escalating sign of bad behaviour), I'm offski, bye bye" like MN posters think everyone does. Unfortunately it is often a drawn out, sad, difficult process. I do think we should learn to recognise stuff and not invest so.much and get out faster as we age though. You sound quite young so you're learning.

Abusers are also very very good at making you feel responsible for their behaviour.

And when were raised by/around reasonable people most of the time, we get used to thinking their point (if they are angry, offended etc) must have validity ... So it's very hard to flip into "your point has no validity, you're not right in the head" esp with someone we've previously thought was good/seemed reasonable, were intimate with etc..

@Thundercvnt

It’s not you.

I’ve been caught up in two abusive relationships in my lifewhich I did not see coming. I’m not going to hijack your thread with a massive detailed post, but it’s the second one I will elaborate a bit on.

After the first abusive relationship (physical, emotional, financial), I was very reluctant to commit to anyone again. I had a couple of relationships, but someone came along and love bombed me. I very much dislike the MN habit of armchair diagnosing and labelling every behaviour but this was actually what happened. He latched onto the fact I’d been in a previous abusive relationship and was initially sympathetic and trying to build me up so I started to trust him.

Once our relationship was established, he started to knock me down again. There was the constant questioning of me which seemed reasonable on the face of it, but was not:

‘I texted you today but you didn’t reply until 2 hours later, is everything ok? Have I done something to upset you?’

‘I texted you today but you didn’t reply for an hour. Perhaps we should just call it a day if you’re not interested.’

‘I texted you 15 minutes ago and you haven’t replied. Who are you with?’

‘Text me back right now. I don’t believe you’re in a meeting.’

‘Text me back now or you will regret it.’

Sounds awful, I’m sorry u had to go through that :( it really does just make u feel like shit when someone u love and care for so much is so okay with upsetting u so badly.

@MarshmallowAra

Abusers are also very very good at making you feel responsible for their behaviour.

And when were raised by/around reasonable people most of the time, we get used to thinking their point (if they are angry, offended etc) must have validity ... So it's very hard to flip into "your point has no validity, you're not right in the head" esp with someone we've previously thought was good/seemed reasonable, were intimate with etc..

Arguing with my ex was like arguing with a brick wall. He just blamed everything on me

I didn’t understand what an abusive relationship was and because it had started out being framed as ‘caring for me’ any push back from me on the controlling stuff was then ‘no one else has cared for you like I do, stop fighting me’.

A real low point which I now flinch about was when I mentioned as a side note that I’d been sexually assaulted as a teenager. It was a long time ago and I was/am fine about it but it came up as part of a different conversation.

My god. You’d think I’d told him the earth was flat. He utterly lost his shit, accused me of lying to him by omission for not telling him (it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me to), spent days ranting angrily at me for not telling him, then days of silent treatment and blocking, then reproachful contact saying he was ‘incredibly hurt and devastated’ that I had failed to mention something which had happened to me 20 years previously. I honestly thought I was losing my mind because everything he said seemed so reasonable and he made it seem like I was mentally ill.

@MarshmallowAra

I have a thread about why I didn't correctly interpret an ex's stance on separate socialising as controlling - which it most definitely was. When I posed the question so many MN era got what he said immediately (in its true meaning and implications) that looking back I feel v stupid and v lacking self respect.

I had a lodger and after she moved out I was tidying up some household waste and realised (when I was reading it to see what it was) that it was pages she'd written pouring out her feelings - and the big k read was her berating herself for continuing to see a guy after he was abusive ....

I think it's really common. It's not really human nature, when emotionally attached and invested, when intimate with someone ; especially when younger, to tritely, cleanly say "I don't like that (first/escalating sign of bad behaviour), I'm offski, bye bye" like MN posters think everyone does. Unfortunately it is often a drawn out, sad, difficult process. I do think we should learn to recognise stuff and not invest so.much and get out faster as we age though. You sound quite young so you're learning.

Yeah your right. I remember the first few times he showed some questioning behaviour it wasn’t directed at me so I didn’t think much of it. Think he kicked a door in because he couldn’t find me at a party. I just laughed about it when my friends told me :(

@Thundercvnt

I didn’t understand what an abusive relationship was and because it had started out being framed as ‘caring for me’ any push back from me on the controlling stuff was then ‘no one else has cared for you like I do, stop fighting me’.

A real low point which I now flinch about was when I mentioned as a side note that I’d been sexually assaulted as a teenager. It was a long time ago and I was/am fine about it but it came up as part of a different conversation.

My god. You’d think I’d told him the earth was flat. He utterly lost his shit, accused me of lying to him by omission for not telling him (it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me to), spent days ranting angrily at me for not telling him, then days of silent treatment and blocking, then reproachful contact saying he was ‘incredibly hurt and devastated’ that I had failed to mention something which had happened to me 20 years previously. I honestly thought I was losing my mind because everything he said seemed so reasonable and he made it seem like I was mentally ill.

That is so horrible. He should’ve been loving and caring towards you after telling him that :( My ex would tell me I was mentally ill, needed to go to a mental home. Nasty pieces of work