He said I don't deserve him and the bottom has fallen out of my world

[holymoly678]

A few weeks ago I made contact with my estranged mother - we haven't spoken in 6 years. I was worried about the impact on my kids and particularly when she is gone.
Yesterday I made the mistake of broaching to my husband maybe I could invite my parents for Christmas dinner. She's not been good to him at all the last 6 years and I appreciate it was a stupid idea to come away with after all this time.
The fall out has been catastrophic. He's been brutally honest about how he feels about me and our relationship and has said that it is over. Lots of examples of how poorly I've treated him, things I've done in the past. He said I haven't cared enough to make any changes to be a better person. He's told me I don't deserve him.

He is right.
He's going to come back to me in a few days to let me know "what happens next".

Do I stay out his way until then? Do I make an exit plan to make it easier?
I don't want to hurt him anymore.

You really
Do deserve to live your own life and make your own choices OP.

Even if you can just start chatting to Women's Aid they can give you some advice on what a healthy relationship looks like.

Today though I would get an appointment with your GP to talk about your anxiety about you situation. It sounds like you are having a really hard time coping with this on your own particularly give events over the last couple if days. Good luck OP

I am still going to counselling and I haven't drank in a year. I don't have a problem with alcohol anymore and have never felt better since stopping. The drama would be alcohol related and arguments. These arguments can still bubble when he is drinking but I now have the clarity not to pick up the baton and escalate.

Oh I see.

So the problem wasn't arguments.
The problem is - HE is allowed to argue, but YOU are not.

Congratulations on persevering with counselling & quitting alcohol. I would say you are making sterling efforts at change, & can't see why DH would disagree, unless his outburst is 100% about your - admittedly inadvisable! - decision to ask your mother back into your family life.

I notice that he hasn't stopped drinking. I bet he tells you that's because HE doesn't have a drinking problem, am I right? Funny how he's drinking enough to start arguments, isn't it? And that you are now the sober one who carefully de-escalates?

I also dislike his "I'll tell you what happens next when I decide to re-appear". Is this amount of ... domineering speech & controlling behaviour the norm from him?

I don't believe the punishment necessarily fits the crime. But I sat through 6 hours of listening to him spilling his guts yesterday about the culmination.

He sounds awful OP.

And you sound like a reasonable & caring woman who has been ground down by him into a Scapegoat who accepts all the blame for anything he feels like throwing at you.

Your update about your mother shows her in a horrible light. How would you feel about having neither of them in your life any more?

Holymoly, I am so sorry - your husband is an out & out coercive controller.

He's not a bully. I think what he wants from me I am incapable of. He wants 100% harmony, agreement, tolerance.
What you are saying here is he wants 100% compliance. 100% everything his way.
My dear, that is a BULLY.

For me not to say the things that then create the drama, to read his cues and know its the wrong thing to say. I'm not capable.
Of course you're not capable.
Do you know why? - NOBODY IS!
What he is telling you is the classic DARVO used by abusers everywhere, of "now look what you've made me do."

He is demanding that you tiptoe your way through his life, sacrificing your entire being to anticipating what might be on his mind, what you are allowed to say - he has just TOLD you that you must walk on eggshells or else.

That is so, so, controlling.
All the time while selling you the lie that you are the one with the problem.
Harping on about you having an argument while drunk a YEAR ago - while you tolerate him arguing, scolding, berating, pulling your character apart, telling you everything's your fault, for 6 bloody hours, which he drank through the entirety of?

He was drinking through yesterday's marathon.

He's a gaslighting fucker OP.
Please keep up the counselling, you need someone solid & rational to hold your hand while you unpick all the ways your DH has made you believe that every time he kicks off a drunken argument, YOU are somehow responsible.
Despite you being the one who's been deliberately sober for a year, & you being the one who 'de-escalates' (i.e. lets him get away with) the arguments he's still causing?

If your drinking was the cause of all the rows, how come he's still having them? While you try to mitigate, reason, calm him, in response to his DARVO'ing? - www.banyantherapy.com/darvo/

The fucker has manipulated you into thinking it's all your fault OP.
He sounds like an Angry & Controlling man.
Please get a copy of Lundy Bancroft's excellent book which will tell you all you need to know about where your husband's terrible treatment of you comes from.
Link is to e-copy, so you can keep it online, SECRET FROM HIM.
Please make sure it is secret - protect your passwords etc, including for your Mumsnet account.
www.docdroid.net/2fZmz40/why-does-he-do-that-pdf

@holymoly678

Unless I am missing something obvious, what purpose would it serve for him to be bullying and abusive in this way? What could he possibly gain?

Lundy Bancroft will tell you why OP.

www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Hard copy link this time - if you have a trusted friend you could have it delivered to.

Can I ask if any of your counselling has touched on your relationship dynamic with your DP and what advice you have been given!

OP the language your partner uses to describe your relationship is really high drama. So last week he was ´honoured’ to be with you and this week you ´don’t deserve’ someone as great as him. He’s using language that implies some kind of higher power doling out affection of a spouse as a prize for virtuous behavior. Except it isn’t some kind of higher power making these exclamations - it’s your partner. So he is deciding what’s virtuous and good moral behavior, based on really pretty petty actions - you didn’t invite your mum to Christmas dinner without asking him, you just dared to get over excited about your recent reconciliation and suggest it as a possibility to him. It might have been a silly suggestion, but it probably merited a calm 6 minute conversation about him not being on board with that idea rather than six hours of drunken ranting about how this unthinkable idea proves that you are incapable of self improvement. Congratulations on stopping drinking. This will definitely have helped you to start thinking more clearly and you will remember his drunken ranting better than he will. Don’t let him gaslight you into thinking otherwise. An exit plan is a good idea. Don’t discuss it with him at all, just quietly work out what you need to do if he is serious about ending the relationship or if you decide you that really you don’t want to be with him anyway. It will make you feel stronger and more in control when he starts ranting about your moral character based on whether or not you’ve successfully read his mind.

I think posters are too quick to jump to the OPs defence here. It sounds like both parties are equally at fault, and she’s admitted as much. Either way, it sounds like it’s not going to work out, so your plan of detangling your lives as painlessly as possible sounds a good one!

I find this all so bizarre

You’ve had no contact mother for 6 years

Yet your husband has? If your mother has been awful to him

And how come worried about impact on kids when she’s gone if they’ve had no context with her for 6 years?

@RowanAlong

I think posters are too quick to jump to the OPs defence here. It sounds like both parties are equally at fault, and she’s admitted as much. Either way, it sounds like it’s not going to work out, so your plan of detangling your lives as painlessly as possible sounds a good one!

Read all of her posts. He's told her she's the problem and that's why she believes it, but she's really, really not.

I think OP because he is not as bad as your ex or your mother - you are under the misapprehension that he is good.
You taking control of yourself : giving up drinking and getting therapy; could well be threatening to him. He could be afraid that as you are more in control he can no longer use the old excuses against you.
Now is he prepared to do some work on himself? Get therapy, examine his own drinking?

Your husband has spent years psychologically abusing you, convincing you to hate yourself as a method of control.

This post from 2019 is very upsetting to read, and it’s just one example:

“ When do you think is the right time to take stock and realise you're not all your partner wants you to be? Do you get out or keep trying? We've had so many rocky patches - stresses and strains and on the back of each we try to learn how to make things better.
One thing that annoys him is if we argue I'll continue it for too long and can't let things settle and take space.
So, the other night, after dinner he asked me what was wrong, said I'd been quiet "not myself" and removed. I wasn't aware of this so was a bit surprised. Perhaps I had not been myself but had had a busy day at work and wasn't being rude or stand offish.
A bit of a bicker ensued and he went off to bed. Half an hour later I did too and before going to sleep told him I was sorry I'd upset him and hadn't intended to.
Frosty atmosphere in the morning then all hell has broken out since as I broke a promise not to wake him up. I hadn't realised he was asleep (stupid maybe) and thought it was OK to quietly apologise and try to make amends for the next day.
I've been told I'm a f*&king liar who can't keep my promises and a whole host of other things.
I'm not sure if I am making any sense but I really feel that I can't be all he wants me to be and probably will continue to break these promises as I am incapable of otherwise. I almost feel he'd be better writing me a step by step manual!
Someone please give me a step for a hint”

He really is destroying you. It’s hard to even judge what’s going on with your mum given that your view of things seems to be so heavily framed by him, but it’s certainly an abuser tactic to isolate people from family. Maybe they’re both genuinely bad for you, I don’t know, but he certainly is. Please get out of this. You are not what he’s convinced you that you are. These supposed terribl traits you have are just being a normal, imperfect human being with their own thoughts and needs.

This really does seems like one of the nastiest examples of psychological abuse I’ve ever encountered. To say he’s done a number on you hardly captures it. He’s a calculating sadist and you need to get the fuck out. Please please leave. He’ll make you miserable for the rest of your life. You don’t deserve to hate yourself, you aren’t what he says.

“Last night OH and friend had some socially distanced drinks.
I floated in and out and said hello now and then but generally left them to it. I was sober.
By the time he left I was told i had been cold and horrible. I asked for an explanation and was told I just wasn’t very nice and actually am generally not a very nice person.
This morning after pretending nothing was said I asked if he meant it.
And yes, apart from me not being a nice person. He did. I apparently created atmosphere, was difficult, was making big statements like “I’ll leave you guys to it”.
I’m not sure what to do with this? I was being me, being at home, going about my business.
I’m genuinely at a loss as to how to live my own life being my own person and still have a decent relationship until this shit storm that is covid is over with?!”

“ When do you think is the right time to take stock and realise you're not all your partner wants you to be? Do you get out or keep trying? We've had so many rocky patches - stresses and strains and on the back of each we try to learn how to make things better.
One thing that annoys him is if we argue I'll continue it for too long and can't let things settle and take space.
So, the other night, after dinner he asked me what was wrong, said I'd been quiet "not myself" and removed. I wasn't aware of this so was a bit surprised. Perhaps I had not been myself but had had a busy day at work and wasn't being rude or stand offish.
A bit of a bicker ensued and he went off to bed. Half an hour later I did too and before going to sleep told him I was sorry I'd upset him and hadn't intended to.
Frosty atmosphere in the morning then all hell has broken out since as I broke a promise not to wake him up. I hadn't realised he was asleep (stupid maybe) and thought it was OK to quietly apologise and try to make amends for the next day.
I've been told I'm a f*&king liar who can't keep my promises and a whole host of other things.
I'm not sure if I am making any sense but I really feel that I can't be all he wants me to be and probably will continue to break these promises as I am incapable of otherwise. I almost feel he'd be better writing me a step by step manual!
Someone please give me a step for a hint...!”

All of this thread is supportive of the OP.

Most of this thread are surprisingly psychics who know the ins and outs of your relationship better than you do, based on one account of it. It's actually incredibly patronising as if OP is a silly child who can't see what's in front of her eyes.

OP, only you know if you are in a relationship with a truly abusive man. No bunch of complete strangers can tell you that, much as they like to speculate. You have owned up to your own poor behaviour in this and we don't know if he has or he hasn't as that hasn't been truly commented on. You've done amazing work on yourself and I think your best bet is not to let your vision be skewed by people who don't know you or your husband. He may well be abusive and horrible. If he is, the clarity of that will come with his absence. He may be someone who has been supportive of you through extremely difficult and challenging periods of behaviour and he's now on his last thread with the whole situation.

We,none of us know. Let everything cool down and see where the pieces fall on this one.

@Gilda152

Yes we recognise the behaviours through our own experience and can recognise the narrative and language used and patterns
of behaviours demonstrated in this and previous threads the Op has. We are
Not being patronising - on the whole this thread is incredibly supportive. Crack on though and try to cancel this woman's experience why not.

I think some of us just know exactly what it's like to be gaslit into believing we're the bad guys Gilda152. Once that's happened to you from someone who got their hooks in, you spot it in the way others write. You're correct that none of us can know for sure of course but the OP's history makes it clearer.

The OP probably won't be back to this thread now but will start another one like it at some point. All I can hope is that one day, she can see how extremely damaging this man is to her, and get out with some semblance of sanity left.

@Gilda152 please read the old posts I’ve quoted. It’s pretty clear the dynamic is abusive, no psychic powers are required. And people who’ve been manipulated in this way are often the last to see it, that’s the entire point of this kind of psychological control.

@Vanishun and you assume I haven't. That there is the problem. Assumption.

@Sidehustle99 more patronising language from you. You're wanting to advocate for OP to be 'allowed' to disagree with her DP, but if someone disagrees with you, it's not ok. Check yourself.

@SparrowNest I think both OP and her partner have behaved poorly at differing times. But we are only hearing one account of that, so we need to be unbiased unless we know more, something that MNr's are really, really bad at.

No I'm just giving my opinion as invited by the OP. What's your problem? You are very aggressive with your accusations to everyone one who doesn't share your view. Carry on and no offence taken

I can see what you all can see and I can see why. I can also see what he sees. I've also since read back my previous posts with a heavy heart and see the pattern.
Whether I am caught up in malicious intent or I am the cause of the pain in our relationship, time will tell. I'll work to find the truth of that and I hope, regardless of which of the two reasons is the case, I'm not back with the same story in 2 years time.
Thanks for all your support and advice, it is very helpful and very much appreciated.

Do not go for couples counselling with him OP, whatever you do. Please read the Lundy Bancroft book and get help for yourself - individual therapy where you can explore all the things you say you've done.

Oh.

Historic posts shed a whole new light.

But its also a bit unfair to do that to someone.