Heads a mess. Am I abusive?

[Isitactuallyme2021]

I've nc for this but have posted before.
Dh and I sperated earlier in the year after another one of his outbursts about what a terrible person I am.
He said a few times he didn't want to go, but I don't think he wanted to give up his home life, not "me" if that makes sense.
We have had a pretty up and down relationship since then. He has made some noise about wanting to work things out but has continued to place all blame at my door, insult me and call me some pretty nasty things.
I have gone round and round in circles trying to explain why I became distant from him and how his words and actions have affected me.
The thing that's getting me is he is more and more frequently telling me what an abusive, controlling, gaslighting and manipulative person I am, particularly if I do something he doesn't like or try to get him to be accountable.
He never acknowledges at all how he has made me feel over the years, just all about what I have done to him.
It's really getting me down.
He is very upset that I didn't invite him on a day out over the weekend with our dc. He rarely has time for us as is always doing other things but as this weekend he was free, wanted to spend it with us.
I have been working hard on my mental health after the last time I let my guard down around him a few weeks ago he really hurt me.
This has resulted again in alot of name calling and using phrases that I have to him, but with him as the one who is feeling that way.
Today he has messaged me to say that my mental torture has affected him so badly that he has contemplated suicide.
I feel absolutely awful that I have made him feel that way.
I have since seen him and he wouldn't even look at me. I have offered him kindness and support but he seems very angry with me, which if he feels abused I guess is understandable.
What do I do now though? Has anyone been through similar?

He is very upset and can't cope with losing his family.

Divorce/splitting up is like a little death (even everyone is alive) of a relationship and he is in a grieving process. You both are.

You both need to heal from your split.

When you made up earlier, what did he promise to change/improve for the better, and did he follow any of his promises?

He is trying to make you feel guilty for his negative feelings. If he can't cope, he needs to see his GP and ask for help as other people said.

Maybe he'll finally understand counseling CAN help him if he did it properly and didn't give up after the 1st session.

Did he have a happy childhood? Are his parents together or not?

Very often if we are capable to create happy relations depends on what example of a happy/not so happy/unhappy family we had in our childhood and teenage years.

I would talk to him in a calm way as I wouldn't want him to kill himself even if says it just to make you feel guilty and doesn't mean it.

Thanks for the recommendations. I will definitely be having a look once I am feeling like I don't want to just hide from this whole situation.
@TheFoundations yes, I think I know that I am a good person, that's why I have tried so hard to prove myself to him. I think in doing that I fed into his belief that I am an extension of himself, there to meet his needs and shouldn't have any opinions, needs or feelings of my own.
@Angrymum22 your examples seem extreme and no, I am about as far removed from that as you can get. I have spent an awfully long time asking for the bare minimum in my marriage. Basic respect and consideration, whilst carrying the bulk of the responsibility for our family.

@justthecat

Stop talking to him!! The longer you talk the longer he reels you in.

This was me and my god I wish I had blocked him in the early days

Op
Block block block

Do not respond to emails or however he gets in contact with you

@Queenie6655 it's not so easy to do that when you're married and share young children.

It's not you it's him.

When you were together he claimed you were an abuser and made him unhappy.

Now you're not together he is STILL SAYING THE SAME THING.

What is the common denominator? It's him isn't it?

Reminds me of my uni boyfriend. He used to moan and mope that I made him unhappy. In the end I left. Cue months on end of him getting in touch, moaning and moping that I had made him unhappy, this time by leaving him. How I felt, bizarrely, never seemed to occur to him.

Think about it. If you really were an awful, cruel, heartless abuser then he should feel pleased and relieved to escape your clutches ... he doesn't though does he? He's more miserable because you have slipped from his control and you're not able to play the parts he has written for you (good guy and "evil" woman).

I'm really drawn to where you say that all you ever wanted was to be a good wife to a good man. But he isn't a "good man". That is the (much nicer) part you wrote for him and he's not able to play it. Nothing you did or didn't do would have changed him .

Your shut down response really is the best and most self protective thing to do. Be kind to yourself.

@ponkydonkey

Yes my ex told me that just before I discovered he had 100k debts and some Albanians were after him and knew where lived

Fucking hell @ponkydonkey. I wonder what else he got involved with :/

I think limiting his means of contacting you is wise.

Decide on a method, a separate phone or an email address so that you have some peace from him and this.

You deserve peace.
I don't doubt for a very nice woman who has clearly been manipulated by him for a long time.

@Lana07 thanks for your response, I missed it earlier.
It definitely feels like a death and I think we are both grieving.

I have been having counselling for some months, starting from before he left and have found it useful.
He had a very difficult childhood and has pretty poor relationships with, well, everyone really, including his own family. They're all quite surface level as emotions aren't his strong point.
I think that he is quite selfish and only doesn't see outside perspective is also a stumbling block for him. He will do something if it meets his needs, regardless of anyone else. The same for if something is unimportant to him, he doesn't bother with it, even if it were important to me or the dc for example.
I know it looks like it may be an impossible task, and I am probably setting myself up for further heartache but I would like to at least attempt to establish a good co parenting relationship with him.
Due to our childhoods we've always said how important it is to us and I think if we work through the pain we're both feeling (individually) and leave our relationship on the past, then maybe this could happen?
I don't know, maybe I am being too optimistic. I know I can't take anymore name calling or blaming, I can't do that.
I still love and care for him very much, even if it doesn't feel like it to him.
We haven't had a single face to face conversation about or relationship, he has to do it all via message. I would like to talk it out.

Thanks @billy1966, some peace from this would be nice.

I have to admit, my house and my dc are much calmer since he left, as am I.

I don't have that feeling of resentment to carry around day to day, or walk on eggshells, or be too scared to ask anything of him for fear of being found unreasonable.
I've has a lovely evening watching a movie and having a cuddle with my 2 dc. Just wish I could switch my head off to this mess.

@Isitactuallyme2021

Thanks *@billy1966*, some peace from this would be nice. I have to admit, my house and my dc are much calmer since he left, as am I. I don't have that feeling of resentment to carry around day to day, or walk on eggshells, or be too scared to ask anything of him for fear of being found unreasonable. I've has a lovely evening watching a movie and having a cuddle with my 2 dc. Just wish I could switch my head off to this mess.

Hang on to that - you have made amazing progress. Keep detaching and focusing on your calm and peaceful life created for your DCs. That’s the most important thing now. Your life will be so much better if you are able to nurture emotionally balanced children.

Please hang on to the peace and your children savouring it.

You can't force him to be decent.

He has to want it.

If you start prostrating yourself to try and get him to be decent itbis your ego and not what is best for your kids.

You can't make him step up.

Focus on the calm and maintaining that.

They need that more than they need him right now.

I am trying to focus on the dc.

I am having a really difficult time processing how he sees me when I know I've tried so hard.

He has a really negative view of me. The fact that he has now cut me off and being so unpleasant is awful.

I am fighting all of my instincts to apologise and fix this, that's what my body is telling me to do as its making me feel so uneasy.

What do you like about yourself? This isn't a reality for him to define.

How he sees you isn’t valid.
It is destabilising and gaslighting you which in turn sound you into cognitive dissonance so that you are trapped in a reverberating emotional state.

Whilst to are exposed to him and absorbing his toxic version of you - you are unable to claim your core self and be focused on you and your DC emotionally. You can’t be in 2 emotional places at once, you have finite focus and energy. You need to reclaim yourself internally as this is the strong purposeful person that you are.

His behaviour is putting doubts in your mind that will impact you DCs

He's attacking you and trying to hurt and confuse you. His view has no validity and no basis in reality. It's not really a view, it is an attack.

Your instinct is to apologise in the way a whipped dog cowers before its master, hoping to placate him. You want it to be your fault so you can take responsibility for it and make it stop. This tactic will not work and it will only empower him more. Keep telling yourself that this is an attack and your response to it is to block him from being able to keep attacking.

@beastlyslumber

He's attacking you and trying to hurt and confuse you. His view has no validity and no basis in reality. It's not really a view, it is an attack.

Your instinct is to apologise in the way a whipped dog cowers before its master, hoping to placate him. You want it to be your fault so you can take responsibility for it and make it stop. This tactic will not work and it will only empower him more. Keep telling yourself that this is an attack and your response to it is to block him from being able to keep attacking.

This is a great explanation. A cowering whipped dog cannot optimally care for and protect her puppies - and these puppies absorb and internalise the pain they sense / see in you. Do whatever you can to emotionally protect yourself from him by distancing yourself physically, minimising exposure to him and interupting your own thought patterns about him - so that you have the time and space to heal, have agency, grow strong and positive. Seek and take whatever emotional and practical support you can access IRL.

He has his own journey to navigate - you can’t impact that positively. Sounds like he needs professional support which he might seek if you shut off his current unhealthy method of emotional discharge.

OP,

I mean this really, really kindly, but this is your ego controlling you.

Your ego is unable to cope with him having a poor opinion of you.

You need to ask yourself why is his opinion of you so important.

He is a very nasty, unpleasant man.

He has created an awful dynamic in the home and has treated you so badly.

Why is this persons opinion of you so important?

Begging a bad person to think well of you?

Why would you want that?

I really think that every time you feel the need to reach out for his approval you need to ask yourself why you would want his approval.

What is it about your ego that you cannot cope with someone not liking you?

None of us is liked by everyone.
It is extremely presumptuous of anyone to demand that they be liked by everyone.

Stop looking to this awful man for approval and start looking at giving yourself the approval you need.

You are doing right by your children.
It is good he is gone.
Acknowledge that you are doing the right thing and give yourself the pat on the back you deserve and forget about him.

Please don't blame yourself for how he is feeling towards you, and also don't blame yourself for caring about how he feels about you. You have had years of having to care and that is hard to break free of, and will not happen instantly.

It might be helpful, whenever you catch yourself caring about how he feels or feeling responsible for his feelings, to try to consciously tell your self that it is not within your power to affect his feelings. You have the power to affect your own feelings. And focus on doing things which you couldn't have done, or couldn't have enjoyed when he was there.

It might be helpful to buy something lovely for the house, which you can place somewhere visible to remind you each time you see it that you have the power here and just need to be empowered to see that.

I get how hard this is - I've been through it.
I ended up getting a tattoo on my wrist to remind me of my own agency no matter where I was. I helped me but I realise is quite extreme! I also did various things around the house - visible changes and lovely things like pictures and plants. Cheap and easy but effective.

Alongside huge amounts of talking therapies and various support groups.

I am having a really difficult time processing how he sees me when I know I've tried so hard

This is to do with your own insecurities, though. If he told you repeatedly that he knew for a fact that you were a spider, would you start worrying that you might actually be a spider, but just hadn't realised it so far in life? No, because you know you're a human. And even if you were a spider, it definitely would have come up in conversation with people who care about you before he came along, so your view of yourself, and our trust in others who love you, over rides the validity of what he thinks of you; and once that happens, what he thinks of you looks really stupid. 'He thinks I'm a spider, for fuck's sake. What the hell is wrong with him? He's completely lost his marbles.'

This thought process should be the same when somebody tells you you are 'a bad person'. If you had as much faith in the fact that you're a good person as you do in the fact that you're not a spider, this wouldn't be affecting you now.

I remember some drunk bloke calling me a 'stupid fat cow' in the street, once. It would have been insulting if he'd just called me a 'stupid cow', but I'm thin, so the fact that he added 'fat' just took away all the validity of his words. I was willing to believe I was stupid, I was willing to believe I'd been a cow, but fat? Saying that just identified him as the pathetic individual he was, picking any old word out of the air in case it hurt my feelings. I laughed at him.

You need to get it straight in your head that if you cause people to have mental health problems, you'd have a way different social set and family/friend/colleague relationships than the ones you do now. You're not toxic. You're nice. And anybody who says otherwise only deserves to be laughed out of the room.

@Isitactuallyme2021

I am trying to focus on the dc.

I am having a really difficult time processing how he sees me when I know I've tried so hard.

He has a really negative view of me. The fact that he has now cut me off and being so unpleasant is awful.

I am fighting all of my instincts to apologise and fix this, that's what my body is telling me to do as its making me feel so uneasy.

I suspect it is entirely possible you are still trauma bonded to your Ex. themighty.com/2020/09/trauma-bonding-signs/

It doesn't matter what he thinks of you.
He is never going to give you the peace of mind, recognition & closure you want. Guess what? - that doesn't matter either! BECAUSE HE IS YOUR EX.

He is impossible, yet here you still are, tying yourself in knots about his good opinion. He is never going to have a good opinion of you.
If you tried to get back together - he will continue to undermine, insult & gaslight you to keep you in your place - ie subservient to him.
If you stay apart - he will obviously need to castigate you for having the temerity to slip out of his control. He will also try every trick in 'The Script' to reel you back in, or get you dancing to his manipulations & power plays again.

Part of letting go is letting go of the understandable, but self-defeating need to have the other party understand & accept our point of view.
But your trauma bonding - or whatever this is - is also having to fight the learned behaviour of apologising, fixing, facilitating, ameliorating. In short - pandering to this awful man's ego & wishes, instead of looking only at your & the DC's needs.

In short, you need to let go of this urge to create a cordial relationship with your Ex, because it simply is not possible. And it does not matter! Get some co-parenting software & let it do all the work for you.
If you manage to not badmouth your ex to the DC, you are already doing a good-enough co-parenting job! That is ALL you need do.

Have a look at the link above & see what you think, but these signs are evident from your posts -

Signs of Being in a Trauma Bond With Someone

— A pattern of non-performance: the person constantly promises you things and constantly lets you down.

— You feel that you don’t even like or trust the person anymore but you cannot leave.

— Your friends and family have advised against the relationships but you stay.

— Others seem disturbed by things that happen to you but you brush it off.

— You have tried to leave, but it makes you feel physically ill, like you will die or your life will be destroyed if you do.

Really sound advice from everyone on here.

I will definitely be doing some reading/watching on the dynamics that have been mentioned.

I have always sought his approval i guess. We met when I was very young and have been together a long time.

I know I have issues with self esteem and self worth. I am a people pleaser by nature and don't like confrontation.

I just want him to love me the way that I have him I suppose.

I know I have issues with self esteem and self worth. I am a people pleaser by nature and don't like confrontation

Approve of yourself. Do things that you consciously approve of, on purpose. Small things, like making the right food choices, choosing to walk instead of driving, taking lessons in something you wish you could do, donating blood... Things that you know good people do. And treat yourself like you'd treat a person you respect; listen to how you feel, don't put you down, consider your ideas carefully and thoughtfully. Eventually you will be a person you respect; you will have self respect.

You don't need confrontation. The most you ever need to do is to say how you feel. It never needs to be personal. 'You need to do your own washing!' No. 'I need a relationship where everybody does their own washing' Yes. And then once people know how you feel, you can observe their ongoing behaviour, and absent yourself if you feel they are disrespecting your feelings.

I just want him to love me the way that I have him I suppose

No. Because even if he started doing that right this very minute, you still would have all this horrible history that you can't erase. You would never know for sure that he wasn't going to be horrible to you again; you could never have faith in his goodness.

You want someone to love you in the way that you've loved him. And the best someone for that job is you. Be lovely to yourself, as you have to him. Be accepting of yourself, as you have to him. Be forgiving of yourself, as you have to him. Be kind to yourself, as you have to him. Let yourself off the hook for crap behaviour a thousand times, as you have to him.

@Isitactuallyme2021

I just wanted a good marriage where I felt repected and appreciated, he really hates me now.

No he doesn't.

He hates that he's lost control

@TheFoundations that is such a lovely, thoughtful response. It actually made me cry!
I will definitely try to be kinder to myself. It's something that my counsellor has brought up too. I am very hard on myself at times and struggle with feelings of failure.
She is also trying to help me understand that my feelings are valid and that I am allowed to feel them, without that being a bad thing.
You're right too in that there is probably too much water under the bridge at this point for me to ever trust him or even love him again in the whole hearted way that I did.
It just seems such a shame that it's come to this. My lovely dc certainly deserved better.