Anyone noticed long term effects of cheating/abuse on future relationships?

[Struggling1702]

After spending hours googling trying to find answers, I thought I'd just ask.

My exH cheated on me multiples times. He was also very controlling and I have learnt through therapy that he was also likely emotional abusive.

Anyway, for those of you who have also unfortunately been in this situation, how have you noticed that it has changed your future relationships?

I'm seeing an amazing guy (been together just over a year) but I find myself pulling away sometimes and putting up walls. It's almost as if any tiny little thing makes me question the whole relationship. Could this be a self-protection thing maybe? I'm also not nearly as romantic as I used to be and struggle to be honest about my feelings...

I do recognise I have this deep fear of needing (wanting?) him too much? So when I notice I've started relying in him a bit too much, I pull away.

Hoping for reassurance...!

For me, abuse was the catalyst that got me into counselling. I found out why I had got into and put up with being a victim of abuse. It went way back into my childhood. The problem wasn't that I had been abused, it was that I allowed myself to be abused. The abuser was at fault, but I was responsible for my own wellbeing.

Since I recognised this, I was single for a long time, and have recently met somebody new. I feel completely different from before; I don't have to trust this new person not to be an abuser; I don't have to put up boundaries or walls; I don't have to be scared. I don't have to protect myself within this relationship, because if there's ever a whiff of abuse, I'll be gone like a shot. I don't need to pull away from healthy things, because I know now what's healthy for me, and recognise what isn't.

It sounds like perhaps you haven't gone through this process, and are still unsure about where to put your boundaries, so they spring up all over the place when you don't need or want them, and potentially not when you will need them.

Could that be about right, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

This sounds very similar to my situation! After years of abusive relationships where cheating was also a common theme (them, not me) I am now in the best relationship of my life but feel as though I'm sabotaging it because of my self protect mechanisms. I struggle to trust and constantly question everything. I want to be able to relax and enjoy it, especially as it's been such a long time coming.

I don't have any answers for you right now I'm afraid, but I do understand and can empathise. It's really hard and actually very shit, but you sound like a lovely person and hopefully you will both find your way through to a happy future together.

P.S if you do find any answers, please will you chuck some my way?

Yes that was me. A preemptive defensive reaction to intimacy. All relationships require a certain amount of trust to be extended on faith, a little at a time, as we grow more intimate. For me at certain points as it grew it was like I would have a kind of seizure of trust. I tend to become hypervigilant. Anxious. Suspicious. Which makes sense looking back. It took about 2 years before I had any inkling of who my ex partner was beneath the polished exterior. And many many years before I found out the extent of his deceptions. I found some things out recently, 3 years post the end of our relationship which have genuinely shocked me. And I thought I had seen it all. We co parent so it is a continuing situation to some degree.

Im lucky in that my current partner understands, however it took a fairly radical situation to see how my hypervigilance was putting enormous strain on our relationship and him. It was, for him, a bit like being looked at under a microscope constantly searching for catastrophe. After that I went into therapy and since stopping therapy I use various cbt methods. Its quite hard initially to decipher between genuine instinct and habitual catasteophising, it takes time. A helpful thing is to be emotionally literate. This is each day you take a few minutes to properly look at how you've felt that day. If you find an emotion wheel online you go through and identify a few of them. I found that during the abuse and even now I am not great with my feelings. I tend to ignore them for the large part.

I found that during the abuse and even now I am not great with my feelings. I tend to ignore them for the large part

Yes, it's about recognising and responding to your own emotions. The hypervigilance is like being scared of a fire in a grate, because your house once burned down. Normally you trust yourself to recognise danger signs (sparks, a log that might roll out) and you know that you would react accordingly if you saw them. Hypervigilance is being afraid of the fire even when it's safe and controlled, because you've previously had a habit of not responding to warning signs of danger.

My ex, I believe now was very manipulative.

I feel she was passive aggressive

She would gaslight me. Got to the point where I felt I needed to record conversations.

Twist things back on me constantly

Silent treatment

I only started to figure this out after 10 years. So I'm still left confused. Was it always happening (I think it was) or just towards the end.

Suffice to say I hope that I can spot these things now early on and I will not put up with any silent treatment. I think personally I'm easy manipulated.

As I've been mentioning. I'm at a point in life where I can just walk away if things aren't working out in another relationship.

@TheFoundations exactly. Its been a rocky road. Did you ever come across emotion wheels and practising emotional literacy? Its been the most useful thing for me out of a few different exercises I keep up regularly

True intimacy in a relationship is dependent on an element of trust - you have to be able to let down your guard and let someone in. Like most things in life there's an element of risk in that. Obviously that builds as the relationship progresses (in a healthy one anyway).

Somehow you have to be willing to accept that not everyone is going to abuse your trust like your ex did. It's hard to do, everyone has some psychological baggage/scarring, but for future relationships to be successful you need to go into them with an open mind. Be willing to identify red flags, be wary of them and don't overlook them, but without actually proactively seeking them out.

[quote supercali77]@TheFoundations exactly. Its been a rocky road. Did you ever come across emotion wheels and practising emotional literacy? Its been the most useful thing for me out of a few different exercises I keep up regularly[/quote]
I've never come across anything except my brilliant counsellor who helped me to recognise my feelings and respond to them. I struggled for ages and tried so hard, and one day, all of a sudden, the penny dropped. I was in my 40s, and it was as if I went from a child to an adult in an instant. Suddenly realised I had an emotional, sensitive person to take care of, to look after their emotions, to put them in the right places so that they could be happy, to keep them away from danger and discomfort... and it was ME!

I despair when I see people on here saying they know they have lots of work to do on themselves... all you have to realise is that there is nothing wrong with you, and that if your emotional responses are off, you simply need to get away from the trigger.

Thank you everyone. Such a shame to see so many of us having to deal with this isn't it..

I'm finding the comments really helpful and will definitely look into the emotional wheel.

I think hypervigilance describes it well. It's like any tiny thing (not talking red flags at all btw) and I think oh well this might not work out. I then convince myself it won't and it's best to maybe end it myself to save myself future pain.

Bloody ex has a lot to answer for!

Bloody ex has a lot to answer for

He's not here now. Stop with the blaming. Take responsibility for taking care of your own wellbeing. Pointing the finger is avoiding responsibility, like continually being furious with the car that hit you when you ought to be concentrating on your physio.

Blame looks backwards; responsibility looks forwards. You are in charge of this.

@TheFoundations ive only just seen this reply. I have a slightly different angle on it because my feelings were often utterly....irrational? I dont mean regular emotions, I mean the ones where out of the blue something caused an internal explosion well beyond a proportional response to whatever seemed to cause it. Some of them are not coming from whats happening right now, and they can cause me to do quite a lot of self sabotage. Simply removing myself from the trigger was just me endlessly running from really quite average situations that a simple conversation would have sorted.

It does damage you, it changes you as a person . I have been out of that abusive relationship for 30 years , although not completely away from the person who was abusive as I kept up contact for my sons benefit for another 16 years after.
I have been in my present relationship for 26years and married for 15 of them , but I still underlyingly find it hard to believe that my DH actually likes me let alone loves me.. ( he is not at all abusive and does love me) .
But the abusive ex made me question so much about myself for all those years ..

In all the things I did since that relationship, going to university, building a career etc etc ,I still hear that voice telling me that I am useless.. I work so hard not to believe it , but it still gets through sometimes

[quote supercali77]@TheFoundations ive only just seen this reply. I have a slightly different angle on it because my feelings were often utterly....irrational? I dont mean regular emotions, I mean the ones where out of the blue something caused an internal explosion well beyond a proportional response to whatever seemed to cause it. Some of them are not coming from whats happening right now, and they can cause me to do quite a lot of self sabotage. Simply removing myself from the trigger was just me endlessly running from really quite average situations that a simple conversation would have sorted.[/quote]
Yes, but that doesn't mean you should simply dismiss those very high boundaries you have. You still need to respect them, and work out why they're there, and work out how to get them better placed for a more conducive and less disruptive life.

It doesn't really matter whether feelings are 'irrational' or 'beyond proportional'. If brussels sprouts make you burst into tears, putting it down to being internally faulty and trying to ignore the feelings won't help; you'll just end up trying to be around sprouts, tearful, and repressed. That's the emotional pattern that leads to explosions in the first place.

Distancing yourself from sprouts and working out at your own pace what your sprout problem is is a better approach.

I'm sorry for using sprouts as the example! It feels far removed enough to demonstrate my point without muddying it with emotions.

@thefoundations oh no of course not re boundaries, it was more so that my reactions to these feelings was to impulsively burn bridges rather than seek to understand myself or the other person. For me growing up has been to actually say 'I need this. Are you able to give this? I do not like this. Can you not do it'

As it happens it only became apparent i had a lingering sprout issue when I was in the middle of a sprout situation 😂 fortunately they are a good sprout.

This is a really good thread.

My triggers happen when I feel powerless and left out. This is due to childhood and a couple of abusive relationships. I constantly feel triggered since being a step mother with a dss who has huge loyalty binds and emotional issues. It's not dss it's dh 'triggering' me but he's not doing anything wrong per say, it's just very hard for me (and for dss too). I can't remove myself from the situation without ending my marriage. My dh loves me a lot, he really does, but the feeling of coming last and not being considered deeply affects me. Dh would say that I don't come last but I am constantly watching and analysing him. It's very draining.

I have bought a DBT workbook to go through (I don't have BPD but I thought it would help). I wonder if I try to recognise my feelings when they come up and work out that they're not needed I would start feeling better.

For a long while after my abusive marriage ended, I couldn't even bear watching people shout at or argue with each other on the TV (so Eastenders was out) I think subconsciously I was attracted to my new partner because he's so laid back and we never argue. Disagreements are discussed maturely and we're generally well matched in temperament. I would have run a mile if shouting and fighting were going to become a regular feature of our relationship.

My ExH, who I was with for nearly 25 years, cheated and lied and I honestly don't think I could let anyone else into my life to that degree again.

I was with my last fella for 5 years but there was never any sign of commitment or moving in together on either side, but if he'd have asked me for something more permanent I don't think I could have done it...