Emotional abuse

[mrswhoamianymore]

I am posting here with the hope of finding people in the same position and just to chat...

Please don't jump on this thread if you haven't been here or are also here or similar as it won't help.

I have discussed this in RL but noone else has been here although have offered hugs and advice etc both of which are gratefully accepted.

I am a mum of 3. 2 preteen girls and a toddler boy and have a DH.

It HAS been an emotionally abusive relationship since the beginning. There was some minor physical abuse at the beginning also pre DC.

It's been 18 years.

I can't say in hindsight I should have left early on because without this relationship I wouldn't have DC and they are EVERYTHING to me.

DH prelockdown did anger management and it helped for a short while but it always comes back with stress, he has imposter syndrome so that means work especially is stressful for him and that ends up being on my shoulders to resolve/placate etc.

I do love him but it's not sustainable, not anymore.

He got DC1 by the scruff of the neck for being rude to me the other day and after I "accused" him of causing a problem giving them phones when we agreed not to.

MIL who is a wonderful and kind person says. "Sometimes we just have to not say anything and I can see both sides, and it will blow over"

This is such an outdated view IMHO and I want, need and have to raise my girls as strong and resilient and hopefully to see that this behaviour is not ok.

I've been here in this position probably every other year. I hid it for such a long time.

I owe my children the best version of me.

Has anyone been here, are you currently here?

Can counselling work? Do people ever really change?

Anyone x

I’m sorry to hear you are in this position.

I used to think that my stbxh had an anger problem and wondered if anger management would help. Now I have left and am not in the thick of things it is a lot easier to see that anger isn’t the problem.

Abuse is all about control. If they feel they are losing control they allow themselves to be “angry” to scare you back in line. They are not truly angry, just using it to intimidate and control you.

This is why anger management doesn’t work because it is not an anger problem.

My understanding is that therapy only very occasionally works and only if the abuser truly acknowledges the full underlying issues. Most won’t as they genuinely don’t believe they have a problem. They will feel entitled to shout because you provoked them etc etc.

Whatever you do, don’t go to joint counselling as they will just manipulate the counsellor into taking their side.

Leaving is not easy. I don’t know if I could have done it for myself, but I managed to do it for my kids, hopefully you can too. Good luck.

@Coldiron thanks for your reply.

Yes I can see exactly what you mean.

Over the years it has got "better", but there will be 1/2 things happen or be said and I just think....are you for real?!

@Saturdaysunrise

Thank you for replying. I will grab a copy of the book.

I feel like I have seen the patterns and I know them.

If I am.honest with myself I have tried different ways to manage/ignore them.

Sometimes you can feel it building for days and it's like being on eggshells. What will cause the final blowup.

My main issue is now I don't want my girls to feel this is normal behaviour. Of course I can't stop who they end up with but I'd like them to have the foundations to be like ok this behaviour is not ok.

If it feels like abuse then it is abuse. If it feels wrong then it is wrong.

Yes, this is all very familiar (without the physical abuse). I’m in the process of divorcing and its hard. I desperately wanted to keep my family together and brushed so much under the carpet for such a long time, running myself ragged trying to forsee any issues and if I failed trying to manage his moods. I tried for many years and he didn’t change. I want better for my daughters. Although it breaks my heart that we’ll have to share custody etc, I’m doing this for them. I hope they will be able to have healthy relationships and, even though they may never know, that’s why I’m leaving. Sending you so much strength.

In my experience people do not change, so you stay and the behaviour continues, or you make plans to end it.
The fact that he’s previously had anger management proves that he has a problem.
MIL has a loyalty to her son which is understandable, but it won’t blow over.

What@Coldiron said. Sums it up very succinctly.

In addition to the book already mentioned, look at WHY DOES HE DO THAT by Lundy Bancroft. Available as a free PDF online.

Sometimes you can feel it building for days and it's like being on eggshells. What will cause the final blowup.

Google the cycle of violence. Its a cyclical pattern that they just repeat over and over.

You need to get out op. They never change, or very very rarely and only with a herculean effort and years of therapy and inner work. If your husband isn't prepared yo do that then it's better for all of you to call it quits.

I'm 3 years separated now and it's only once you are away from the abuse that you realise how devastating it is. I look back and cannot believe the lengths I went to to placate him and the elemental gymnastics I did to rationalise his behaviour. I'm still very beaten up by it all, but me amd the dc are so much happier than before.

Bloody hell, excuse the typos.

I think this is more than emotional abuse if he was physical with your child. I would need to stop and think how it may be affecting them. Have you contacted womens aid for advice? I think if he has already done work to control his temper it’s unlikely it’s going to work.

@OktoberFest

Thanks for replying. It HAS been years here too. I feel like such a failure

@KangarooKenny yes you're right. I guess in some ways with my own mum I'm spoilt. She's very fair. She will tell me if I'm wrong/behaved badly. She of course "has my back" but will never support a wrongdoing and I guess I just hoped the same from MIL for her grandchildren.

@ShellsOnTheBeach I will find that and read. Thank you

@Propertyporn he did some anger management before. Funnily enough hid it from MIL and over lockdown made a comment about how I forced him to do it. Which I then out down to the stress of lockdown. Once again making an excuse for it.

I feel every person on this thread already knows the fundamental differences between a normal argument or tired mum/dad shouting because someone's had just left a huge mess. He can't see any differences

What did you learn about relationships when growing up?. Was your parents marriage abusive too?.

AM courses are no answer to domestic violence and or abuse which is what you are describing. He has a problem with anger, YOUR anger, when you call him out on his unreasonable behaviour.

You're not a failure but living in such unhappiness is failing both you and in turn your children who are also learning from you about relationships. This is no model to be showing them. As our children grow older, they tend to replicate relationships similar to what their parents modeled. As parents we’d never say we want our children to suffer or struggle in their relationships. Yet that’s the greater likelihood.

It’s not what we say, but what we do that matters. Telling our children they deserve healthy, respectful, and loving partnerships isn’t taken to heart if we don’t have the courage to live up to our own words. What we model for them is very much what we might expect for them in their future relationships.

You have to protect your kids. They are dependent on you to keep them safe.

You husband is being abusive and showing anger towards you and now your kids.

It sounds like everyone is enabling your husband, your MIL and to some degree yourself, and allowing him to continue his behaviour.

He won't change because he does not even have to as everyone else is normalising his behaviour.

A word of warning: the behaviour towards your kids will only get worse as they get older and start pushing boundaries.

My mother did nothing to protect me from my father constant verbal abuse and anger and it reached a point where he assaulted me when I was about 13.

Don't be that parent.

I cut contact with both of them when I became an adult and my childhood gave me life-long mental scars.

@Artygirlghost @AttilaTheMeerkat

Yes and yes. The scruff of the neck incident was just the usual almost 12 huffy shout. No swearing nothing particularly rude.

I don't feel like I have normalised it but I have ignored it and as they're becoming impressionable young ladies it can't go on.

Thanks for all the replies.

but I'd like them to have the foundations to be like ok this behaviour is not ok

Then stop questioning if it might end up being ok, and show them that walking away from this is all you can do. Unless you want them to stay in bad relationships and pray for their partners to change, you have to not do that yourself.

I have experience of your situation: I was the child. I had abusive relationships until I was in my 40s, when I had counselling, and realised this simple relationship fact: If you don't like it, you leave.