Is this coercive control?

[Everylittlehelpsx]

Hi!

been in this relationship for 9 years, 2 children together but finding this difficult now only realising how bad things were.

feeling guilty and upset over actions he himself chose to do. Now In prison for breaking bail conditions on harrasing me.

i just don’t understand why I feel this is my fault and sat crying with guilt when he probably doesn’t care. I wrote a list last night in what I’ve been put through over nine years and just want to know from strangers what they think??

is this coercive control or what is it? Please help 😢

sorry it’s so long apologies I’m only new to mums net x

Was it coercive control?

⁃ wasn’t allowed money he always had MY bank card with my name on

⁃ Every shop we went too he had to be seen paying with my card NOT me

⁃ Had to prove where I was going or who I was with

⁃ Had to send photo evidence when we were apart

⁃ Use to say it was me that made him the way he was saying I was bipolar

⁃ Use to make inappropriate comments to see my reaction then say he was joking

⁃ Followed and stalked me on my social media knowing what times I was and wasn’t online to the second

⁃ When I text saying goodnight he would sit on WhatsApp to see my active status and when I came online after saying night he would go mad saying was I not going to sleep what am I doing why am I up so late I must be chatting to men

⁃ Make fun of my pictures

⁃ Tell me my anxiety was stupid and all in my head

⁃ Told me I can’t get a job working with other men

⁃ Always told me I was wrong and even made me question if I was the issue and that I was wrong when in fact I wasn’t

⁃ Restricted me from Womans aid when he found them ringing me one day saying he was not abusive and what have I told people

⁃ Made me feel miserable

⁃ Would question and come knocking on the bathroom door or call me if I was taking too long in the bathroom then would go on to say I was in there hiding stuff on my phone

⁃ Laughed at me when I was proud of myself for silly things

⁃ Pressured me into sex and if I didn’t he would make me feel guilty

⁃ Would the withhold sex from me making me paranoid about another female and paranoid about myself lowering my confidence

⁃ Everything was my fault

⁃ In December 2015 he gave me his prescription and said it would help my pain, my pain was a broken heart from finding out he was messaging other girls so he said taking these certain tablets would lift my mood

⁃ 2016 He took a video of me out cold sleeping on the tablets he had fed me and videoed him throwing water round my face blasting music in my face to wake me up and was laughing at me as I was out of it

⁃ On 12th July 2016 when I was nearly 7 months pregnant with our daughter he was drunk and punched my lip which split open and swelled I had to pretend to my family I was sick so they didn’t see it because I thought I’d forgive him as he didn’t mean it as he was drunk

⁃ He was never to blame even when it was obvious

⁃ 2017 Smashed my phone with all my photos from my daughter from birth on all because he thought I was texting other men during an argument

⁃ 2019 lied saying I had hit him and our daughter and got me arrested and my children took off me all because of him starting an argument and

⁃ Lying to my face over the most stupid things

⁃ Saying I use my kids as a weapon

⁃ Use to laugh at my videos on TikTok to try get me off the platform

⁃ Said I give my phone more attention than him

⁃ Called me lazy when I didn’t want to do what HE wanted to do

⁃ Said my health anxiety symptoms weren’t real and I’m stupid

⁃ Told me I was stupid for being scared of him on drugs and he would never hurt me

⁃ Made me feel guilty over things he done

⁃ Blamed his cheating actions on me because I didn’t give him attention

⁃ Made me out to be the crazy one and all this was in my head and that he only loves and cares for me

⁃ Would give me the silent treatment over the most stupid things

⁃ Made me feel uncomfortable in my own home by sitting there not speaking so he could get an angry reaction from me and then blame me

⁃ Wasn’t allowed to wear make up going out without him as he said I was trying to impress someone

⁃ Said he loved me the way I was without makeup and my eyelash extensions persuading me NOT to get them even though he knew I got them for ME not another man I wanted to feel confident for myself no one else and I always had to justify this

⁃ If I was going to the shop by myself or with my family and he asked for an item and if I got there and it wasn’t in stock I would have to take a picture to prove it wasn’t there to not go home to silent treatment and abuse and if he didn’t get anything I wasn’t allowed anything

⁃ Didn’t let me eat without him, then made me feel guilty if he was hungry and I wasn’t saying he won’t eat if I don’t

⁃ Checked my phone

⁃ Laughed at my friends saying they’re pathetic

⁃ Said I send people indecent images of myself for attention

⁃ Saying people messaged him LIES about me to get a reaction and when I showed a reaction he would say I was guilty because I got upset or mad

⁃ Didn’t let me loose weight

⁃ Didn’t let me make new friends online

⁃ Wouldn’t let me use my phone in bed when he was going to sleep I had to go to sleep

⁃ Made me feel like I was the bad one

⁃ Made me believe that I was actually going insane with the lies he told

⁃ Laughed at me when I was scared

⁃ Always said I was over reacting

⁃ Blamed my smear test results on me saying it’s because I’ve cheated on him that’s why I had abnormal cells

⁃ He said I Never gave him attention and love my phone more than him

⁃ Called me a bad parent if I didn’t do things for the kids he wanted me to do

⁃ Threatened to hurt himself, and my new partner if I ever left him and moved on

⁃ Went mad if I didn’t answer the phone in a second then the accusations would begin

⁃ Made me screen record all my messages from all social media accounts

⁃ Hacked into my TikTok account to read messages

⁃ Hacked into my email

⁃ Tried to hack into my Facebook messenger

⁃ Made me show proof when and if he wanted it for whatever scenario he made up in his head this time

⁃ Made me feel like I was stupid and that I didn’t have any common knowledge whatsoever

⁃ Would sit in silence and if I asked him if he was ok he would angrily say why do I ask him that and that I’m the issue

⁃ When he was in a bad mood he would say it was because I was in a bad mood even though I wasn’t which then made me in a bad mood

⁃ When I got angry over his bad moods he would then say it’s me that’s in a mood

⁃ Wasn’t allowed to be upset or feel certain emotions without being called stupid

⁃ Saying I would be the reason he was gonna kill himself which scared me

⁃ Always brought up my past relationships and made remarks about it

⁃ Said I’ve probably slept with half the town which isn’t true he in fact had slept with more than me

⁃ Made me feel ashamed of my past even before I knew his existence

⁃ Made me question who I even was anymore

⁃

You realized that he never loved you and only wanted to control, harass and belittle you. That was the first and largest step you needed to take. Congratulate yourself because you've done well.

I was where you are a little over 3 decades ago, and I can promise you that it only gets better from here. You feel guilty because he has trained you to feel that way, not because you owe him anything or have done anything wrong. Making you feel guilty and responsible for his decisions is part of the abuse. He has treated you in a way that no human being has the right to treat another, and he has done it for years.

You must have as little as possible to do with him when he's released. You owe him absolutely nothing. NOTHING! He has forcibly taken from you things he never deserved. As an abuser he must have only limited, supervised contact with the children. You are under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to maintain any type of relationship with him. You cannot co-parent with a monster.

Lastly, at some point the fog of abuse that has covered your mind will lift. I can tell by your responses that it has already started to happen. You will understand and be horrified at the enormity of the abhorrent way he has treated you, and you will get angry. Furiously angry. Incandescent! How dare he! For awhile hold onto that anger. It will enable you to establish and enforce strict (and I do mean STRICT) boundaries you must have with him. Eventually time should heal that anger, but in the early days you will need to use it to protect yourself and your children.

Blessings on you and your children. An abuser has taken 9 years of your life, but I know that you are strong enough to ensure he doesn't get another minute of it.

Physical, sexual, financial, emotional abuse and anything and everything in-between. Please Please don't let this vile excuse of a human anywhere near you or your children ever again. It's highly unlikely he will kill himself, emotional blackmailer rarely do, but I he did it would be on his own head, not yours.
Good luck in your new life and new year 🥰

Keep re-reading what you wrote and imagine your dc in a relationship like that. You’d do your best to get them away, wouldn’t you? Don’t ever let him come near you or your dc again.

My adult dd was with her boyfriend for several years he was so controlling. Sadly didn't realise the extent of the coercive control until she was brave enough to leave him and came back home with us for a year.
She now has her own house and a lovely partner.
Well done for leaving and please never go back, what you wrote is what my dd put up with.

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Thank use all so much for replying to me, I want to thank everyone who has took their time to reply to me that means the world

Us woman stick together and we will beat narcissistic men together 🤞💖

I hope you all have a very happy new year xxx

I'm sorry, it must be hard to finally be facing the awful truth that he did such a number on you that you were totally unable to recognise any of it as abuse.

It isn't so much that he didn't care. Chances are that he himself viewed his actions as normal in a relationship. Abusers are like that - they view what they are doing as totally logical and reasonable, it is the way their brains work. Nothing you did or said made him behave the way he did. It is just the way he is made, so please don't think that any of it was your fault, or that if only you had realised sooner, then you could have done something about it. You were not to blame.

The first few sentences were enough !
My god , get away from him! He is vile !

My ex did all those things too and 11 years after splitting I am still not who I was before . You feel guilty and lost because he messed with your head so much that in the end though he made you feel unhappy and upset, being without him also left you feeling upset. It's a form of Stockholm syndrome where you bond with an abuser as it seems the safest thing in a world where your perspective is messed about with. You question yourself because you have had your inner mind messed with in such manipulative tactics that you automatically start to question whether it is partly your fault.

It isn't. Negative reinforcement was used on you every day so all those negative things went into your mind even when you didn't realise it was going in and confusing your thought process. You also struggle to understand how it could be all his fault because you are confused simply as you did everything you could to reassure him , but he wasn't actually truly insecure. It was all about destroying your confidence so he could feel powerful the bully . He is bitter about life so he didn't like you enjoying yours and even getting you to stop wearing makeup pretending it was as he thought you looked better and also as insecure it was,for other men was really about getting you to feel less good about yourself .

He doesn't love you. He wants to control you and he even messes around with women not caring you knew but he was no doubt confident he could blame it on you . Though you weren't cheating and he was accusing you unfairly, he was betting on blaming you for making him feel insecure . That would mean you never got him saying sorry or accepting blame. The most you would get would be 'sorry, but I was insecure, you were not paying me attention and l was sure you were sneaking around on the phone to other men. I wouldn't have done it if you had not made me feel unwanted . I did try to tell you but you ignored me . In the future perhaps you will listen in future thrn I won't feel driven to look for attention elsewhere '. Yep that just means he gets you to agree to do even more as he says and if you don't he can hurt you and it will seem your fault

He won't change. You deserve better and the next relationship you are in when ready you will know the signs and you won't be fooled
I promise you there is happiness waiting for a lovely person like you who went out of her way to reassure a man you genuinely thought was insecure and its not your fault he is an abuser who will of course as my ex lied tell you 'I have never been like this with anyone else . You make me like this through your behaviour and you have hurt me simply for loving you. It might not be the exact thing said but it will be a variant . Good luck you are going to be fine. Hugs xxx