Help about to break up with insecure partner, need advice.

[Bedraggledmumoftwo]

Need some advice, saw the thread on here about an insecure boyfriend and it resonated with some of my issues but I wanted to start my own thread as I am in a quandary about my current partner.

We have been together for 16 months. Both divorced and hit it off straight from the outset and were madly in love within weeks...
Talked about moving in together and I even got my coil removed on the very slim off chance we might conceive although I'm 42 and suffered premature menopause.

2 months in we had our first misunderstanding when I went on holiday
with a longstanding male travel buddy. All was fine until I made a flip comment about the naked sauna and he kicked off about it. I thought it was all my fault for the thoughtless comment and was very apologetic and worried Id killed off our budding relationship.

2 months later we went away together and ended up having our first proper row as I organised everything and was really stressed and he came along for the ride- he got on his high horse and wouldnt listen to me trying to explain to help him understand me (I'm under a lot of stress and people take advantage of the fact that I look calm on the surface but am paddling furiously underneath to keep afloat. I spent the night and next day crying as I didn't like the cold hard lecturing side of him but he later recognised he had been a dick and let me do everything and would never let that happen again.

Since then there has been a gradual deterioration and I have seen that side of him more and more despite becoming more and more fragile myself (anxiety/stress/depression
and two road traffic accidents leading to ongoing injuries and lots of work stress/bullying where I felt forced to resign and had months of stressful jobseeking).

As far as I can make out the times that he turns nasty are all because he is jealous/insecure but he reacts badly if I say that and says it is a perceived lack of commitment on my part. And he's right- I pull back when he behaves like this and said we shouldn't move in after all once we started arguing, to protect both our kids from potential fallout, have refused to book non-cancellable holidays long in
advance and even got my coil put back in, partly to help my hormones but partly because I didn't want to risk getting pregnant.
So he is right that I am not committing as I am essentially protecting myself and my kids (and his) from what has become a turbulent relationship.

When he is not being a cold,impatient, stubborn rock we get on amazingly well, I am ridiculously attracted to him and we have the best sex I've ever had. Passion is not the problem and he thinks I am silly to throw our relationship away but he has pushed me so hard I've had panic attacks and begun to have suicidal thoughts and he doesn't stop haranguing me or arguing with me until after I'm a sobbing heap saying that we are through and usually he eventually admits he was a dick and apologises and we are ok until the next time, but my trusting him with my fragile mental state reduces with each incident. He reacts to this with more pressure to commit and we end up arguing again. Apparently he and his ex wife used to argue a lot but it wasn't a problem- I'm just not built like that at the best of times let alone when I'm having mental health issues but he is physically incapable of biting his tongue or treating me with compassion.

Does anyone think there is any hope?

Tears. Not years 🤔although I'm now glad I didn't waste years

I’m sorry, I can tell that you are really upset. But you have tried everything to fix this man and you can’t. It’s hard enough to change yourself , even when you really REALLY want to.

He doesn’t want to change so he never will. Please get out now before you have a complete nervous breakdown.

Yes I know that he has removed himself from your WhatsApp group. Buts it’s only a matter of hours until he will be back on it and you will get sucked in.

You need to find the strength from somewhere to tell him it’s over and then cut all contact with him.

It makes me so sad to think of you desperately trying to reason with this man to stop bullying you, naming your whatsapp group in the futile hope that it would get him to pull his punches. It was never going to work, because fundamentally, this man likes upsetting you. He wants you on the back foot. He's nasty and dangerous and has already fucked your mental health. You must understand that he's never going to change. The dynamic is embedded. The only thing you can do is extricate yourself and refuse to be his whipping boy any longer.

The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

Sending you a big hug OP, I'm really sorry he's behaved so horribly.

At least now you can look forward to all the tension and conflict being gone from your life.

I wish you a happy and peaceful future

Please don't let him hurt you any more. He is really, really bad news.

I'm really glad you've seen the light OP and also that he saved you the bother of agonising over how to end your relationship with him.

The rubbish took itself out, which is always the easiest way of dealing with it!

Now order that book, block him on every device you have and be kind to yourself (and your kids).

I’m glad you are done but I’m sorry you are hurting so much. It WILL get better. Might not feel like it for a while especially coming up to Christmas but it really will.

I have to say that you feeling that setting up that WhatsApp group really shows that this relationship was all kinds of wrong. His behaviour. His haranguing you. And you taking it. Setting up a WhatsApp group like that is not the sign of a normal relationship on either side.

No it doesn't Bedraggled - you've got this all the wrong way round.

The fact of his petulant removal from the whatsapp is a cause for celebration. You now need have NO compunction about deleting the whatsapp.

What says it all here is the contortions you put yourself through to try to 'train' a grown adult out of unacceptable behaviour. You spent time building a tool to 'help' him act like a decent human being. You invested yourself in repeating the same behaviour again & again (I will teach you how to communicate reasonably!) - only to get the same result (I will mouth the word sorry, then I will do it again whenever I want.)

Can you see how ... insane that is?
I'm not actually calling you insane btw! - this kind of convoluted behaviour & obsession with getting your abuser to finally, please, at last, HEAR you, is very common. It's part of the Trauma Bond response to unbearable gaslighting & verbal abuse.

Look at it this way.
You are alone in the jungle, & suddenly come across a poisonous snake, poised to strike. Do you enter dialogue with the snake, try to persuade it not to bite you, appeal to its kinder side, & beg it to consider your feelings?
Nope.
You GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE SNAKE.

Now you need to block him on your phone and ensure that he has no access to your home. Change the locks if he has keys.

I suspect he will be back to try to reel you back in. Don't get into any discussions with him. You will never be able to get him to understand the situation from your point of view. It's all about him and always will be.

Be strong!

the tool I built him to facilitate him not shitting all over my rules

Decent humans don't need rules given to them in order to behave well.

What you describe as "your rules" should be a given. Universally accepted.
"Your rules" were about not inflicting cold hard lectures on you.
Not haranguing you until you cried.
Not demanding all your space & time.
Not verbally abusing you.
Not playing mindfucking games about holidays & presents.

Can you see it now?
What's concerning isn't so much that he needed those basic "rules" spelled out to him. It's that he has already ground down your self-esteem to the point that you felt it was your job to do so.

Look at the tone of some of your posts. You wrote about "having panic attacks & suicidal thoughts" as if that meant that you were somehow out of order in requesting that he follow "your rules". As if that was the CAUSE of you needing to seek special treatment, by asking him to adhere to "rules." As if there must be something wrong with YOU - to be so demanding of kind treatment that it causes rows ...
Now look again.
You had panic attacks & suicidal thoughts as a direct result of his abuse.
The special treatment or "rules" weren't necessary because you are more frail than other people. They were necessary because they are a base level requirement between ordinary, decent, people.
EVERYBODY needs the "rules" to be followed - but only arseholes need to be begged to follow them!

When you are able to stop seeing yourself as flawed - & therefore as some kind of demanding harpy, seeking special favours - you will know that when people treat each other well, there is no need for rule-setting.
The next time you encounter someone who makes you feel "this person needs to rules spelling out to them" - DON'T DO IT. You know what you do instead, right? RUN.

I hope this doesn't feel like another lecture OP.
It's not meant in any way as a criticism. But you have been so abused, & so worn down, that you are still suffering from brain fog, & once you are again blessedly single, you need to work on that fog. Build yourself up with Lundy Bancroft, The Freedom Programme, resources for victims of personality-disordered abusers -
outofthefog.website/toolbox-intro

Spend a year with yourself in blissful singledom - find a therapist who is well-versed in domestic abuse, coercive control, & how to survive it.
And please keep posting for support.
Not because you owe any of us updates, but because you have a lot of work to do & PP who've been where you are - & come out the other side - will be happy to support you.

BUT AS AN IMMEDIATE PRIORITY -
You need to finish with this man - definitively.
Not just let him leave the whatsapp - which you know damn well he'll be back on when he thinks he's punished you enough by leaving it. No more mindgames! Delete the bloody whatsapp so he can't use it to get at you. Block him on EVERYTHING except email. Send him one email - there's already some suggested wording upthread from me if you want to use that - but essentially "I needed space, you refused to give it, we're over DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN."
Remember - you need this request documented.
Because he won't respect it, he will come back & back at you, & as soon as he has done so twice, after being clearly told not to - he's committed a harrassment offence & you can ask the police to deal with him.

This is what to watch out for once you've ended it -
lonerwolf.com/hoovering/

Thank you all for the support. I am staying away from the snake and blocked him once i saw he had left the group i made to facilitate him behaving like a decent human being.

His behaviour over the last few days and all your comments have completely opened my eyes. He said in one of his whatsapp rants yesterday that it was all my fault as i had behaved badly in not booking holidays etc, but that was 100% justified and not an example of my bad behaviour- he should be looking at why I didn't have enough faith to book a holiday not blaming me for not doing it! I actually had a CBT session about managing my negative thoughts this morning (since i was trying to change myself to meet his demand!) and the therapist was saying that once bad things have happened especially repeatedly of course we then expect the worst going forward, and he has repeatedly demonstrated belligerent behaviours so of course i felt like increasingly like the relationship was doomed and wanted to back off to protect myself. She has suggested that under the circumstances maybe i need counselling instead (or as well) so that will be good.

I did suggest last week that we both needed to work on our issues and that i was having CBT and perhaps he should look into something similar. I believe a lot of his behaviour stems from his wife cheating on him, but he believes all our problems are my fault and that he has been making allowances for my mental health rather than that his behaviour was just unacceptable regardless, and particularly under those circumstances.

@Bedraggledmumoftwo I hope you are still feeling the strength of your decision. You might feel hurt or bewildered and sad at the loss of 'what might have been'. Please stay resoute to end this. Do not get back into discussions with him about the relationship - there is no relationship.

And I'd urge you to read the link posted above about 'hoovering'. I am certain you will spot the signs of him behaving in these exact ways.

He doesnt have keys- he did until last week but gave it back when i gave him his back to demonstrate that i was seriously calling it off as he didnt otherwise take me seriously. And at that time he came over not realising I had decided it had to end as he had disrespected my boundaries one time too many, (laughably I had blocked him on whatsapp after a barrage of accusations so he had moved to berating me over a series of emails through the night instead, followed by one that just said "I assume i'm coming over tomorrow night" which showed he wasnt taking my boundaries seriously as he was still doing the very thing i had said was a dealbreaker over a different medium). But because he arrogantly thought that since i had forgiven him all the previous times that he was coming over to kiss and make up, when i said we were through he pulled it directly off his keyring in a fit of rage, so at least i dont need to worry about if he would have made a copy or anything.

@Bedraggledmumoftwo

Glad to hear you have blocked him and are being strong, keeping away from the snake and him away from your life. Very good job: not easy but very necessary

I believe a lot of his behaviour stems from his wife cheating on him, but he believes all our problems are my fault and that he has been making allowances for my mental health rather than that his behaviour was just unacceptable regardless, and particularly under those circumstances.

Is it possible that you can see the pattern here ? He blames all his problems first on his wife (hope that is ex-wife) and then on you.

Did you spot yourself at one point taking on board that your behaviour has contributed to his unacceptable behaviour?

Have you heard from his wife that it was all her fault? Is it possible that she might see it differently, too?

Notice that he is the common element here. Bit unlucky to have two such unpleasant partners or, wait, might it just be that he does not take responsibility for his own behaviour preferring to blame it on "whoever is around at the time"?

As you wake up to what a number he has done on you, I hope you move through the phases of grief from sortie to find your anger at this pathetic excuse for a human.

All the very best for a brilliant life from here onwards.

Maybe his wife cheating on him exacerbated his insecurity, but it did not cause it. (can you see how blaming her cheating is exactly similar to him now blaming you - he takes no responsibility?)

No, he behaves like this because he has a pathological fear of feeling insignificant, unlovable, alone or worthless. He is fundamentally addicted to the attention of others to fill the void within him. That is why he cannot give you the space you need and have asked for, because for him, this is not about you and your needs, it is about him and his emptiness. Behaviour change techniques like CBT will not work for someone like this - as you saw from your Whatsapp group.

I think in a previous post you said you'd been on your own for a while after separating from your ex? If you look back can you identify moments in that singledom where you felt free, complete, happy, content (even if you were still optimistic that being a a relationship might be better)? He will not find that inner contentment in aloneness.

Wishing you all the best.

I believe a lot of his behaviour stems from his wife cheating on him, but he believes all our problems are my fault
😂😂😂

He SAYS his wife cheated. How can you be sure? He's not exactly Captain Truthful is he?

Funny how his off-the-scale abuse & control is all his wife's fault, & now it's all yours.

Who is the common denominator in all that?

Most of us have been cheated on OP.
It doesn't turn us into raging dysfunctional abusers.
Stop buying into this bullshit.

Also - bloody well done with the CBT, & I agree with your practitioner.
A LOT of deep therapy for you over the next year.

We have been together for 16 months. Both divorced and hit it off
straight from the outset and were madly in love within weeks...

The problem is you are absolutely bessotted and will see the hoovering as him not being able to bear not being with you, when really it is just him impatiently tring to get the status quo back, you back in the useful box, to stop wasting time and fall into line and be treated how he wishes you to be treated.
He's thinking "why don't you just do as you're told you silly woman I know you fancy the pants off me."

So many women with second relationships, who leave their first marriages fall into these narc traps, many leaving perfectly ok marriages because some beautiful man has screwed his marriage up or just wants a change after destroying the first partner, or he wants a newer, younger or seemingly more independant model.
They then set about destroying the love bombed affair partner. They never change, they ruin lives and families these men.

Honestly @Bedraggledmumoftwo I know you must have had the most wonderful of times at the beggining, there is no other high like it but it's not real, not susstainable, his behaviour will only get worse, he's just a selfish man and there is a high chance if you stay with him he will be getting his ego thrills with another whilst still with you.

It's a sport to them.

but he believes all our problems are my fault and that he has been making allowances for my mental health

FFS this is gaslighting 101.

Your MH problems are CAUSED BY HIM.
They are a normal reaction to his coercive control.
Note how he makes you unwell - then blames you for being unwell, & uses that as an excuse to blame all the problems he brings to the relationship ... on YOU?

I've posted this before but please read it again -
www.banyantherapy.com/darvo/

his (yes ex) wife did have an affair, she told me so herself as we had (i thought) actually become friends.

However, I did ring her a month or two ago when he pushed me to a panic attack and i was thinking i couldnt stay with him and basically asked her advice as she had suffered from mental health problems too and she said he didnt support her. She did at that point say "i couldnt stay with him" not i had an affair. I should have asked her to clarify then, I guess. But she said at the time that he seemed really happy with me etc and i ended up giving him another chance.

My talking to her was the thing that he has been beating me with this week and what he forced an apology out of me for yesterday morning. Apparently it made her uncomfortable and he thought it was downright wrong for me to talk to her as they needed to co-parent amicably. I just wanted to talk to someone who knew what he was like as i could tell my friends what he was like behind closed doors but they wouldnt know. She was very supportive and kept checking up on me so i thought we had formed a friendship but i did message her (on his request) this week and say i couldnt talk to her any more and apologised for putting her in the middle.

Bedraggled, please take this as gently as it is meant. I am in NO way scolding you - just pointing out the illogic you have been driven to.

which showed he wasnt taking my boundaries seriously as he was still doing the very thing i had said was a dealbreaker over a different medium

You need to readdress the way you look at boundaries.
When we erect a boundary - it isn't up to the other party to take them seriously (ideally they are the kind of person who would, but that kind of person doesn't usually need boundarying).
It is up to YOU to take them seriously. By enforcing them.

You went to his to finish with him (rookie mistake - do it remotely this time).
You wishes to demonstrate that you were seriously calling it off.
And yet ... you allowed him to disregard that, by accepting his ensuing floods of emails.
By not responding to his assumption he could now expect to "see you tomorrow night" with a resounding "fuck off will you - don't you remember we are done?!"

Can you see now why I keep banging on about finishing is coldly & cleanly by email, blocking him everywhere else, & ignoring EVERYTHING he then finds a way to send you, until you are able to go to the police & get him to stop harrassing you?

Every contact you have with this man is prolonging your agony.
He sucks you back in every time.
You will be unable to begin the process of healing until you are strictly, no-exceptions, 100% NO CONTACT with him.

he pulled it directly off his keyring in a fit of rage, so at least i dont need to worry about if he would have made a copy or anything.

Yeah you do.
He could already have a copy. He's cunning & manipulative.

You've absolutely done the right thing ending it – you clearly have totally different ideas of conflict resolution and expectations from a relationship. And I agree completely he was being controlling in many things he did.

But I wanted to give you a bit of insight from the other side, as I have behaved like he has in previous relationships. I've got BPD, and I've had lots of therapy to reset the unhealthy patterns in my brain that lie behind the behaviour. I'm not saying you should reconsider ending it or make any allowances for his behaviour, absolutely not, keep him blocked! But it might help give you some insights into why he was like that.

Firstly there's underlying trauma. For me it was an emotionally unavailable/abusive dad, for him, it was his ex cheating (although I'd be completely unsurprised if he had some kind of childhood trauma too). I used to fall for people very quickly and intensely, and would want the same intensity back. Any sign that it wasn't there – like not texting back within a few hours, not committing to future plans, not 'prioritising the relationship' to coin a phrase of his - would give me intense anxiety, to the point of physical illness. I'd be paralysed in limbo until some evidence came from them that they were indeed committed and wouldn't abandon me.

This is what BPD is about, a lot of it is abandonment phobia. Now, what I should have done – and what he should have done the first time something like that happened – is dump the person not matching my intensity and making me feel that anxious, because if it makes you feel shit, it isn't working and it isn't love (that goes for you too!) But dumping them would've felt like admitting that I was indeed unloveable so I desperately tried to make them prove I wasn't. I'd do the whatsapp bombardment and turning up at their house, because I couldn't understand how, if they supposedly loved me, they'd be comfortable leaving me in such a state of anxiety and not wanting to prove their love. If I knew someone felt like that, I'd have been falling over myself to reassure them. So people who need time, quiet and space to resolve conflict are just fundamentally not compatible with me. You wish that he could've changed his intense and boundary-breaking behaviour to prove he loved you, but I'm sure he wished that you could've changed what he perceived as the could shoulder to prove you loved him.

The thing about people like him and me is that emotionally distant/unavailable people are like kryptonite to us, because it's almost like if even they can prove they love us and be available, we must be loveable after all. It's trying to plug a big inner void with a relationship, and that will never work. The difference is that I got therapy and unpicked how unhealthy and twisted this all was, and I'm now in a healthy relationship of a year where we've never had a single argument because he's a completely different kind of person to the ones I used to go for who would always be bad for me.

None of this is to say that he isn't abusive – he very probably is, and it doesn't matter whether it's intentional or rooted in trauma. But he will probably have felt very wounded by your need for space and felt the same about that as you do about his behaviour. I do think that it comes less from a place of power and actively wanting control than it does from just being diametrically opposed in how your minds are wired.

Is the freedom programme not just for physical abuse? I would say that thinking about it I am the common denominator and cant believe I am back here so i do need to break my own cycle.

My marriage ended because my ex-husband had an affair 5 years ago. He did lie and manipulate and gaslight in order to try and keep a double life going for nearly two years so i got sucked back into that repeatedly (theme here) but each time that ended it was because i caught him still cheating and there was a definitive event (which he ended up talking me round from time and time again!) so yes i clearly am a pathetic wimp when it comes to leaving people I love even when there is overwhelming evidence that they aren't good for me. hopefully CBT and counselling will help with this. I think despite my generally negative thoughts, i am always hopeful that something will change and it will be alright in the end. In my marriage there was the added element of the children, but in this case, it is just because after years and years of hell i was actually happy briefly. 😪I'm getting on in years and i do like spending time on my own but I also want someone to grow old with and thought i had found him. 😰

The Freedom Programme is very definitely not only for physical abuse OP.

It is for healing form ALL kinds of abuse, & learning how to protect yourself from it going forward (boundaries!!)

You might like to put this gem of a book on your Recovery List too OP -
www.amazon.co.uk/Woman-Your-Own-Right-Assertiveness/dp/0704334208

thanks for this- I would say that is exactly how he thinks/feels. And I was 100% in it at the beginning, but unfortunately once the increasingly frequent arguments started it did damage my certainty as well as my mental health. He expected me to be able to brush over that damage and i tried but the more it happened the more i expected it to happen, and then the more it did happen in a vicious cycle.

Is BPD borderline personality disorder?