Is it me?

[babyonboard123]

Hello,

I'm a long time lurker of these boards hence my user name being very old. I've never posted before but I just really need to talk.

I have been with my P for approximately 15 years. Never married but we have 3 young children together.

I can remember a few instances over the years, which now I would probably consider red flags, but at the time could be explained away by stress, new babies etc etc.

This particular evening, which I'll tell you about, just has my head in a spin. I think I know I wasn't out of line but then I just doubt myself.

I rang my P a couple of days ago from work. He sounded a bit stressed and said he and the children were spending time with his mum. They often do this when I'm at work and he finds her quite demanding. I tried to make a joke and cheer him a little but he became quite rude. I was, admittedly, annoyed about this.

I arrived home later that day and they had been waiting for me to get back before they ate. P was busy with one of his interests so I ended up making us all food. I had been out of the house for 11 hours at this point.

To elaborate, he always has a new interest that he will obsess over until the next one comes along. When he's in that space it's almost impossible to get him to do anything else. I work part time, but long shifts, and do everything around the house and for the children.

A couple of hours later we took the children upstairs for bedtime as they were all obviously tired and overwrought. I will say at this point he doesn't often join us straight away and will busy himself downstairs for a while before coming up and showering on his own. One of the DC's was playing up and as I'm trying to shower him P starts to say, "Do you know how horrible I can make your life when your mum isn't here? Do you know how mean I can be to you?" I immediately said to the DC that dad wouldn't do anything of the sort and we carried on. At this point our older DC gets in the shower and P immediately starts lecturing about the amount of time she spends in there. DC gets upset as she's trying to wash her hair and he's not listening when she speaks so she shouts at him and he does the same back. P then turns the shower off while she's standing under it which makes her cry harder. I turn it back on and encourage her to finish. P starts talking about gas prices, ends up shouting and turns it off again. The shower goes back on again and DC is sobbing for me not to leave the bathroom. During this one of the younger children comes in the bathroom and P roars at him to get out. I go to check on him and P comes out and demands that I get back in there and sort out our daughter. I'm telling him calmly he needs to go downstairs and he stomps off swearing in front of the younger two. So I'm left with all DC in various states of upset trying to finish bathing them all, get them ready for bed and settle them. He never came back. He never does. The DC just got cuddled and talked to by me while he sat downstairs.

I went down and said quite firmly that I was done with him treating me and the children like this. I'm sick of the children being shouted at and I'm absolutely sick of trying to resolve situations he has created. From his perspective, I don't back him up. He thinks this is where the problem lies and that if I just backed him up he wouldn't need to shout. I explained that I will never back him up while he was behaving like he did that night. I feel like he's saying he wants to be able to shout and then for me to tell him and the children that it's ok? He never actually sees that he has an issue with his temper or how it affects other people.

I have said all I want is for him to be nice to me and the children. I don't think I'm asking the world?!?

The conversation ended with him looking sorry for himself and uttering "I can never do anything right." I immediately told him to stop and that I had let him do that for too many years. He just smirked at me and left the room.

This is a common thing where I will speak to him about something and he will take a victim stance. There have been occasions in the past where these kind of conversations have lead to a complete breakdown (on his part) where he starts questioning whether he is loved/ fancied/ liked etc etc. Last night he was restless and got up and down out of bed. He looks very tired and sad today and this is how it usually starts. I'm probably in for a rollercoaster of a few weeks and I'm just so very tired.

I'm going to stand my ground that we don't deserve to be treated that way and I can only hope he comes to the same realisation himself.

Stand your ground.
What kind of situation is this to come home to, and for your children to have to tolerate?
It's bullying, plain and simple.

You need to leave. His temper is out of control and your children are terrified. I had a bully of a dad who loved to use shouting to dominate us as small children and reading your post just brought back memories of that sheer terror and helplessness.

You are damaging your children by staying. I'm in my thirties and still remember that fear. Do you want that for your DC?

Jesus wept. Anyone who treated my children like that once would be gone. Get him out the house. He is utterly vile. Why should the children have to live with that?

Nobody would be allowed treat my children like that. Their father or otherwise.
Pack his bags. How awful for them and you having to put up with his temper.

Unless he's turning the shower off from another room - If your daughter is old enough to shower and wash her own hair, I assume she's also too old to have her dad in the room, reaching past her naked body, to turn the shower off. The whole thing is off and out of order but this part rings the alarms loud and clear.

he just smirked at me
Thats all you need to know right there op.
Normal people rarely smirk, can you even remember the last time you did? I bet you'd have to think on it.

Where as abusers, they smirk a lot. This was a particular 'Haha oh the idiot wife actually caught me this time. That's funny. I better make things extra rollercoastery for a while to bamboozle and exhaust her again'. Which you recognise yourself is coming. It's called 'the cycle of abuse'.

He is a nasty bully who enjoys screaming at children and gaslighting you.

Get away from him fast. Your kids deserve a safe environment they can retreat from him too. Where they can take a shower in peace without being abused.

It's YOU that needs to come to a realisation- he knows what he is doing. He intends to do it. He enjoys upsetting everyone as it makes him feel powerful. The smirk tells you everything.

Run.

So to make a stupid non-point, your DP left your DD naked and cold in the shower, repeatedly - totally unacceptable, and was about control over her when she was at her most vulnerable, no wonder she was crying.
Also, he thought it ok to not be bothered to cook and do his own thing, so leaving you to cook after an 11 hour shift ( hungry children by then I'd guess), plus you do all housework! What is the point of him? You'd have an easier time co-parenting by the sound of it.
How long does he spend in the shower? I'd be timing him and turning the shower off on him ( better still turn it off at the stopcock, or run taps in the kitchen if it affects the shower, but I can be vindictive like that ).
If you have a lock on the bathroom door, use it and keep him out. Meantime, ducks in a row and a serious convo where if he doesn't wind his neck in its over, plus he can do his own washing/cleaning/cooking - no reason he can't.

It's hard to read the comments and realise it is as bad as I thought and it's not all in my head. I need to hear it and really start thinking about what happens next. I'm just too tired to stay on the rollercoaster.

Sorry it’s hard to read it must be awful, but yea that is shocking that he stood over his own daughter and yelled and turned her shower off while she was vulnerable, no wonder she was crying. I can’t think how i’d feel as a grown woman if my partner for example did that to me during an argument, so for a little girl to have a grown man even if he is her father do it is really heartbreaking.

I also think the smirks and playing the victim are telling. So he treats you all like shit and then instead of taking responsibility, then makes it your job to console and reassure him he is loved/fancied/liked? I’m sure he is ‘loved’ in the sort of way all kids love their parents even if they are abusive, and abused spouses love their abuser. As for being fancied and liked - is he fucking 13?

This needs to end, he cannot continue to do this to your children it’s doing god only knows what damage to them.

Can you start thinking about ending things? Do you have people who can support you?

he is an abuser and maybe the best way to consider things is how your children will continue to develop over the next few years with this man. It's not a pretty picture and sorry to say but the kids already have traumas they will carry into their adult life. They can be minimised by love, validation, care etc. but in order to this they need a safe unchallenging environment.

Babyonboard123

re your comment:-
"I'm just too tired to stay on the rollercoaster".

Then get off it, not just for your sake but also for your children as well. You, and in turn them, are being abused by this man and you've further become ground down by his abuses of you over time. This is not all in your head and giving you spaghetti head often happens to the target/s of the abuse.

Abuse like this is indeed insidious in its onset and I am certain too he is "nice" sometimes. However, the nice/nasty cycle of abuse he is showing you all is a continuous one. I would also think he is all sweetness and light to those in the outside world and comes across as being quite plausible. It is behind closed doors that his true nature emerges and I would also think one or two people you know have their own private based suspicions about him.

Your children as well as you need and deserve a childhood and a life free from being abused. Abuse is not just physical in nature, its about power and control and this man wants absolute over you all here. Their home is clearly not the sanctuary it should be for them.

Abuse also thrives on secrecy, do consider to further start opening up to trusted people in your social circle. An alternative here would be to contact Womens Aid and the Rights of Women (these people can give some legal advice).

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. I could well ask the same question of you here; what sort of an example did your own parents show you when growing up?. Did you for instance meet this man when you were very young and/or you were in a bad place yourself?.

You have a choice re this man and your children do not. Make a choice to free yourself and them from life with abuse going forward. I am not expecting you to leave immediately. Leaving itself takes time but you need to start planning your exit from this abusive relationship you are writing about with due care and attention.

He is also not above using DARVO on you either.

Darvo is an acronym for deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.

DARVO is an acronym that describes the typical response of a guilty person when they’ve been accused of bad behaviour. It’s traditionally referred to in discussions of a perpetrator of sexual crimes, such as rape or physical abuse, but is a pattern that pops up in many other situations in which people are called out for something negative.

First you have Deny – that’s pretty self-explanatory. You’ll see the person accused of wrongdoing simply denying that that’s the case; ‘I do not hold those views’, ‘I never said that’, ‘I did not do that bad thing’.

The Deny stage is where gaslighting starts to come into play, with the person often trying to simply deny someone else’s lived reality. ‘No, that doesn’t happen’, ‘no, you’re making that up’, or ‘that might have happened, but it’s not as bad as you say it is’.

Then there’s Attack bit. This is when the accused person will turn around the criticism to focus blame on the person calling them out. So let’s say a celebrity was called out by someone on Twitter – they might go into attack mode by accusing that person of just being jealous, or bitter, or a liar.

Finally, you’ve got the Reverse Victim and Offender stage. This is where things get sneaky and subtle. Suddenly, the accused person will turn things around and say that actually, they’re not guilty of doing something terrible. In fact, they are the ones being treated poorly.

In this stage, you might see someone introduce their own trauma as an excuse or a distraction tactic. They’ll respond to accusations of racism, for example, with a story about how they faced gender discrimination when they were younger. Or they might focus their statement on how they feel ‘bullied’ by the accusations, so those reading feel that the person who has been called out is actually the victim, facing online abuse rather than being challenged on their actions.

I find the question 'Is it me?' unsettling.

Yes, of course it's you. It's your preferences, your boundaries, your needs in a relationship.

But do you think that because 'it's you', you should ignore the problem? This is the self-minimisation that lands people in lifelong abusive relationships. 'Oh, it's only my inferior, inadequate, faulty emotional response, let's not worry. I'm sure you're right and I'm wrong, dear.'

Your stance needs to be a whopping 'THIS IS ME!!!' with your hands on your hips and your superhero cape flying in the wind. Save your children from this; they are growing up thinking that this is what an adult relationship looks like. They will emulate this; woman shuts her emotions up whilst man treats her and the kids like shit. You are laying the ground for your grandchildren's upbringing, here.

Yes, it's you. Respect you. Get you out of this. And take the kids. Demonstrate to them that what you do when a partner behaves in this way is LEAVE. That example will stand them in good stead in later life, even if it means a period of upheaval now.

This is horrible to read. I hope you can get yourself and your children away from this bully very soon.

To answer a couple of questions. Yes I met him when I was a young adult.

I had a fairly difficult childhood. DF worked away a lot and was cold and fairly uninterested in us when he was home. DM struggled with her mental health and ended up acutely unwell as a psychiatric inpatient when I was in my teens.I cared for a younger sibling during this time. When DM came out of hospital she separated from DF as it was basically her fear around that causing her mental health issues. My sibling and I were told it would be amicable but it never was. I had a lifelong dream of a certain career after college but it didn't happen and I was struggling. When I met DP he was older, had a steady job, his own home, a nice family and it just felt nice.

I feel sometimes like it must be me having come from a dysfunctional background, like I must not know how to be in a relationship.

This afternoon, predictably, he said he doesn't think I like or love him anymore. He feels like he doesn't get a say in how the children are raised and they don't listen to him so he has to shout. I asked him how he felt about the shower debacle now and he just said he doesn't know how else to deal with our DD.

I'm struggling to remember what else was said but he just twists everything around.

Me again. I'm still here after the incident last week but slowly starting to think about my options.

P has been on best behaviour with the children but as I predicted he's now struggling with his mental health. I took the DC for an after school treat the other day and he took the opportunity to pour his heart out in sad text messages. I went home and found him crying under the bed sheets. He started with the usual comments that he doesn't feel liked, loved and that I would be fine if he wasn't there.

Yesterday he took the day to do a hobby while I took the DC to an all day event. He asked whether I wanted him to come but I figured a bit of time doing something he enjoyed would do him good so I said it was fine. I had a lovely time with the DC but was exhausted when I got back. I still did some household chores, made dinner and played with the DC while he lounged about talking to the DC.

Which brings me to last night. I knew he was angling for sex, because to his mind once this has happened everything is ok, but I was just so tired. I knew that if I'd just done it he would have been asleep within a few minutes and got up in a good mood today. I didn't do it and after a little while he got back up again and went downstairs. I woke up all through the night and he never came to bed. He's got up before when I've said no and said he can't sleep but he's usually returned later. Is this manipulative? There have been issues about sex previously where he's been sulky and even now I'm lying here thinking it's just easier to give in than to deal with this.

He is very manipulative and abusive, to you and your children.
If I were you I’d be asking him to leave.
You’re not married so can’t claim anything there.
Do you have your own bank account, and is your wage paid into it ?
Does he work ?
Do you own your home ?
Is child benefit paid to you ?
Who would have the kids while you work ?

The scariest part for my is his threat to abuse the children/actual abuse.

"You don't know how hard I can make your life when your mom isn't here" and the shower debacle are pretty intimidating for an adult. How would you feel if he said or did those things to you?

He said he doesn't know how else to handle the children.

Do you think he'd go on a parenting course? If so, I strongly recommend you encourage that he starts this before any separation.

The best way to approach this with him is to suggest you both do the course so you can align your parenting styles. That way he'll feel like you're admitting you're not perfect rather than attacking him.

Ugh what an utterly vile manipulative man. Crying under the bed sheets? Its all about him isn't it. No way do not give in to this! He is emotionally abusive and the sooner you get away from him the better.

Yes, that's manipulative.

It's all about him, isn't it? He bullies and shouts at your dd, makes everyone miserable and stressed, then turns round and is all "woe is me".

You're being emotionally abused. So are your kids.

How old are your dc ?

Abusive to you and your children, lazy and a creepy sex pest. Get rid.

He sounds highly manipulative & emotionally abusive. You sound bright & have already learnt how to anticipate his moods / strategies to get what he wants

I feel really sorry for your little girl, naked & having her father bellow at her & turn the water off, leaving her embarrassed & shameful.

Honestly how you haven’t bundled them up & fucked off I don’t know. To see a grown man bully his children then weep that nobody loves HIM?

What would he say if you said “you treat us like shit. I don’t think I do love you anymore. I need some space to consider our future”

Like if you stopped placating him how would he react?

If you know when he is angling for sex & he has form for sulking then that just adds to his manipulative nature.

So he thinks to make it up all he has to do is feign some interest in the kids & speak to them for a short while, bestowing them the honour of his attention & then you put out?

Do not have sex you don’t want.

If you sense a pattern & wonder if him. It coming back to bed is manipulative it highly likely is intentional.

It sounds like you’re really starting to “see” him

Do you know how horrible I can make your life when your mum isn't here?

That there on its own would be a dealbreaker for me.

@babyonboard123

Hello,

I'm a long time lurker of these boards hence my user name being very old. I've never posted before but I just really need to talk.

I have been with my P for approximately 15 years. Never married but we have 3 young children together.

I can remember a few instances over the years, which now I would probably consider red flags, but at the time could be explained away by stress, new babies etc etc.

This particular evening, which I'll tell you about, just has my head in a spin. I think I know I wasn't out of line but then I just doubt myself.

I rang my P a couple of days ago from work. He sounded a bit stressed and said he and the children were spending time with his mum. They often do this when I'm at work and he finds her quite demanding. I tried to make a joke and cheer him a little but he became quite rude. I was, admittedly, annoyed about this.

I arrived home later that day and they had been waiting for me to get back before they ate. P was busy with one of his interests so I ended up making us all food. I had been out of the house for 11 hours at this point.

To elaborate, he always has a new interest that he will obsess over until the next one comes along. When he's in that space it's almost impossible to get him to do anything else. I work part time, but long shifts, and do everything around the house and for the children.

A couple of hours later we took the children upstairs for bedtime as they were all obviously tired and overwrought. I will say at this point he doesn't often join us straight away and will busy himself downstairs for a while before coming up and showering on his own. One of the DC's was playing up and as I'm trying to shower him P starts to say, "Do you know how horrible I can make your life when your mum isn't here? Do you know how mean I can be to you?" I immediately said to the DC that dad wouldn't do anything of the sort and we carried on. At this point our older DC gets in the shower and P immediately starts lecturing about the amount of time she spends in there. DC gets upset as she's trying to wash her hair and he's not listening when she speaks so she shouts at him and he does the same back. P then turns the shower off while she's standing under it which makes her cry harder. I turn it back on and encourage her to finish. P starts talking about gas prices, ends up shouting and turns it off again. The shower goes back on again and DC is sobbing for me not to leave the bathroom. During this one of the younger children comes in the bathroom and P roars at him to get out. I go to check on him and P comes out and demands that I get back in there and sort out our daughter. I'm telling him calmly he needs to go downstairs and he stomps off swearing in front of the younger two. So I'm left with all DC in various states of upset trying to finish bathing them all, get them ready for bed and settle them. He never came back. He never does. The DC just got cuddled and talked to by me while he sat downstairs.

I went down and said quite firmly that I was done with him treating me and the children like this. I'm sick of the children being shouted at and I'm absolutely sick of trying to resolve situations he has created. From his perspective, I don't back him up. He thinks this is where the problem lies and that if I just backed him up he wouldn't need to shout. I explained that I will never back him up while he was behaving like he did that night. I feel like he's saying he wants to be able to shout and then for me to tell him and the children that it's ok? He never actually sees that he has an issue with his temper or how it affects other people.

I have said all I want is for him to be nice to me and the children. I don't think I'm asking the world?!?

The conversation ended with him looking sorry for himself and uttering "I can never do anything right." I immediately told him to stop and that I had let him do that for too many years. He just smirked at me and left the room.

This is a common thing where I will speak to him about something and he will take a victim stance. There have been occasions in the past where these kind of conversations have lead to a complete breakdown (on his part) where he starts questioning whether he is loved/ fancied/ liked etc etc. Last night he was restless and got up and down out of bed. He looks very tired and sad today and this is how it usually starts. I'm probably in for a rollercoaster of a few weeks and I'm just so very tired.

I'm going to stand my ground that we don't deserve to be treated that way and I can only hope he comes to the same realisation himself.

Everyone can lose their temper and shout with kids it happens, but for it to be on a regular basis and say he can make their life difficult when you aren't there is very worrying. I'm not usually one to say just up and leave but he really doesn't seem as if he's going to change if you've had the conversations before, so it might be time to go and set up supervised visits if this is possible for you.