Forgiving an abuser!?

[Forgiving83]

I’ve done a lot of reading about abuse after leaving my 10 year abusive marriage a few years ago. I sometimes now feel the same emotions like anger and frustration a lot like my husband did towards me.

He was abused by his father and when he was triggered he reacted. I now am dealing with the same issues only he has given these to me. I now deal with traumatic memories and my nervous system is really on edge a lot. His father did it to him and he did it to me. I want people to forgive me when I am triggered (I’m not on the same level as him, I tend to withdraw instead of hit out).

Should you forgive him? He has caused me a great deal of stress and my health has suffered because of that relationship. He was only acting out his traumatic childhood on me. It is up to him to fix his problems though like I am trying to do. It is hard to not react when you have been abused. I still struggle with noise, I can’t take too much noise as it puts me on edge.

He has not fixed himself though and has moved on to another lady. We share a child and he does have this victim issue, he has to be the one who was wronged. He tells our child lies in order to look like the victim. The relationship was toxic. If he felt wronged I was in trouble.

I can empathise with him but I still have feelings like I hate him. I also struggle with the fact I let him treat me so poorly.

He has picked some one 12 years younger so can have a family

He also picked someone 12 yes younger because they're easier to manipulate and abuse.

You'll take shit on your 20s and even 30s that you wouldn't take for an instant in your late 30s, 40s etc.

How long have they been together? How long before she got pregnant?

I bet it's still in the honeymoon period.

I’ve been with someone for a couple of years and they are lovely

That's really good op. I'm delighted on your behalf.

Now concentrate on your lovely relationship and stop giving that dickhead headspace.

Could someone else do drop offs/collections ,someone in your family?

on the outside they seem perfect

Yeah, on the outside.

The difference between you and him OP is one thing ; empathy. You have it, he doesn't. He feels no true guilt or remorse, other people only matter to him in so far as what he can do to or get out of them. He will never understand what he's done. He'll never be sorry. He never give you the heartfelt apology you deserve- because he can't.
My mother was the same.

Forgive them? Hell no. Forget about them as much as humanly possible and leave them behind? Hell yes!

He smoked weed for our entire relationship despite saying he would stop, but with her he has stopped straight away.

He's in his 40s now ... Even assholes grow up a bit.

My partner drank too much during his 20s ... He binge drank and did idiotic things while binge drinking. (He had suffered a tragic bereavement quite young and that was part of it).

His drinking was a factor in me not feeling comfortable having kids with him and never committing to the relationship properly. We split and got back together after 3 yrs; he now has a demanding, responsible job but also is just older. The drinking (at all) is not often and is usually minimal. He very rarely binges. He's early 40s, his nights out are rare, his job is onerous and we have a young child.

Your ex is now in his 40s and has a baby.

Sometimes age & circumstances changes things, it's not necessarily anything to do with the person they're with.

For whatever reasons (narcissist, personality disorder m?) he has played a long game of "it's not me, it's you" with you.

You are still playing it .... Just stop.

It doesn't matter if he appears different with his current partner .... Maybe she's sufficiently under the thumb or manipulated not to "need" shouted at. Maybe he's changed his tactics. Maybe he's, in his eagerness to prove to himself and you that he's not at fault, that's he's not a good guy; playing the good guy with his new partner.

It's probably still their honeymoon period....byou saud he's moved on "vey quickly"; so she's gotten into a serious relationship and had a baby too fast to really assess him well ... Which means she's vulnerable and unwise ... As well as being significantly younger; which also makes her vulnerable.

You're no longer with him, you've got a lovely partner, the only tiny amount of interaction you are forced to gave with him is the DD exchange, and I think you should go back to SS and explain that you have PTSD from his abuse and also that he is doing parental alienation on your dd and yourself.

Then try to get the exchange changed to a 3,rd party if possible and log the parental alienation.

That is the only headspace he needs to have.

When you feel it's appropriate tell your dd the other side of the story. Tell her the truth.

*that's he's not a bad guy;

Also a dumb abuser will keep on with the same behaviour so they rack up multiple exes and baby mamas .... The slightly cleverer & more canny abuser will realise that if he keeps racking up exes and baby mamas, it points to him being the dysfunctional mess.

The second type will usually curb their behaviour or change their tactics with woman and baby mama no 2 because they don't want to look like the mess/dysfunctional one/abuser by moving onto a third SO and probably child. You can be sure, even though there might not be outright, obvious abuse, that they will still rule the roost and have everything the way they want it and have her under the thumb/under his spell in their household.

He was abused by his father and when he was triggered he reacted

There are people on here who gave suffered the most horrendous childhoods; who do not abc would not abuse their partners.

It was an excuse.

When people convince themselves of an excuse/reason/justification they can be very convincing .... Because they have truly convinced themselves.

He's had you on.

If he really felt he was treating you poorly/abusing you because he was "triggered" - if he was a remotely decent person - he would have left the relationship. He would have ended it the second he started the behaviour, rather than abuse someone.

It was an excuse.

Some people enjoy torturing other people, they enjoy feeling superior, they enjoy nKin people feel bad, they enjoy pushing their buttons and getting a reaction, they enjoy feeling power over them, they enjoy feeling in control.
That's why you say you felt like he hated you but he somehow wouldn't end the relationship.

Time to wake up.

Maybe he's changed (or maybe he hasn't - maybe it's just early days, maybe he's just older, maybe he's changed tactics, maybe he's on a mission to prove he's a good guy and it wasn't his fault his relationship with his first child's mother broke down and he was court denied (!) access to his dd for a period etc etc).

It doesn't matter for you.

The only thing that matters is your recovery, and him not getting away with parental alienation of you and your dd.

Please don't even try, don't make it a goal.
In time, the past or that section of your past will no longer matter because you have healed, learned, shown yourself to kindness et cetera. When it no longer matters you can decide then. So tell yourself it's a decision you can't make yet

Xx

Oh and for the record, a good father to a child wouldn't move on quickly and have a step sibling quickly .... When that child has gone through the breakdown of their parents relationship, the involvement of the legal system, has not had any contact with her Dad due to his own behaviour for a period, and subsequently they need to record their relationship and trust etc. He would not be throwing a new partner and new siding into that mix quicky if he truly cared about his child and had her best interests at the forefront.

So you can tell from that, as well as from the disgusting alienation from you he's trying in her ...that he hadn't changed one iota abdbis still a shit person.
He's just knocked up someone a decade you feel, who's too young and naive to realise what he's like.

*have a step sibling quickly

Sorry, half sibling

Daughter has been really off with me since she started seeing him. He buys her everything, takes her everywhere, allows her to do/go/buy whatever she wants. Totally opposite to when we were together, he did nothing, said she doesn’t need toys. She believes her daddy with whatever he says, she is infatuated at the moment. When she tells me what he says and I say that daddy and mummy remember things differently she say well I believe daddy.
I mean he looks so good, buys her whatever, there are no rules with him, has a lovely young girlfriend who by the sounds is also infatuated.

Yes he is putting in a lot of effort to look like the good party. At the end of the day he convinced his family, colleagues and new girlfriend all whist in the family court and denied access to feel sorry for him. Im the only person (in this country) who knows what I went through and half the time I don’t even believe myself it’s all so confusing. But then I stupidly fell for it after hearing he beat his previous girlfriend back home. He convinced me he was wronged then also.

@TicketBoo23 I find it odd that he had the mental ability to form a relationship with someone else and have a baby and be able to input so much of himself whilst simultaneously going through court for years and not seeing his child. Having to hear how he scared his wife, how bad his behaviour was and being sent on courses etc. That’s a lot to deal with let alone investing in another partner. Unless he needs to have one in order to survive and completely believes he has done nothing wrong. He must have every one around him feeling sorry for him.

Forgiveness for me depends on a couple of things:

Does the person want to be forgiven?
Are they truly remorseful and regretful? Are they certain they would never do that thing again?
And also, you never forget. You can forgive, but it doesn't mean that you can't pretend it didn't happen.

I agree, EMDR and some other therapeutic techniques worked for me. I’d had multiple work with counsellors and even CBT over many years asi went through mental health crisis, but more recently had EMDR based psychotherapy. I was , given my history of not finding therapy any help, quite stunned at how effective it’s been. Just wish I’d had it 15 years ago.

op, forgiveness is something you do for yourself,not to the one who has hurt you. If you can access the right support you can get to a place where you can move on and reprocess the memories that are causing you such distress. That brings a forgiveness of sort by being able to let go of the pain that was inflicted on you. Forgiveness is not forgetting - you can’t forget. It is about acknowledging what happened, and deliberately stopping the feelings of resentment or vengeance you feel.

I feel bad that once upon a time he was a child witnessing all sorts of horrible things. I guess in a way I forgive him for being effected and for it not being his fault his parents didn’t protect him. I feel sorry for him really, it must have been horrible to be him as a child. I’m unsure whether some people just get changed from witnessing such terror all there lives and some don’t. I guess I just got caught by a messed up person. I pity him really. I don’t think I could ever forgive him, I think he is still dangerous. I guess people who kill people have messed up pasts but it doesn’t make it any better to the people they hurt. Hurt people hurt people I suppose because it makes their own pain more bearable. Im hurt now, I’ve suffered a lot because of him, I lost pretty much everything including my sanity for a while and my health but I don’t want to hurt someone else to make me feel better. Perhaps that’s because I was taught empathy as a child and he didn’t.

I think you’re confusing forgiveness with forgetting.
forgivenessis an act we do for ourselves. The person who commits the hurt doesn’t need to ever know. It is how we’re ourselves from being consumed by fear, shame, resentment, anger, vengeance and a whole jeep of unhelpful destructive emotions that are natural after experiencing that hurt. We have to be able to reprocess those emotions and actively let go of them to be able to lead happy lives
many people describe it removing the all and chain attached to your ankle that you drag around with you through life.

@Whiteroomjoy what do you replace the feelings with? I get so angry that he made me suffer now with M.E, it’s something that gets me down as I am so fatigued and it stops me doing what I want to. He gets to move on and I get stuck with this illness now. He and his girlfriend can run around and play with our daughter and I struggle physically and it’s a daily battle. He did that and it isn’t fair.

There is no punishment for him, he gets to move on guilt free. Has unsupervised access to our daughter where he re-writes history. Have everyone feeling sorry for him doing everything to make him feel better. And me I’m left with all the fall out and now he’s Turing our daughter. I’m tired.

I feel that she's a pawn.

For someone who sounds so much like he had to get right, he has to win etc.; being exposed as an abuser (to some extent) losing access to his child, and being made to attend courses to improve him as a person (those don't work, but whatever) must have made him very very angry. He looked like a shit person, partner, parent and like a loser. You looked (to him) like you'd won and been vindicated as the victim and as the one in the right.

Many men, without even being denied access, walk away from kids - especially when they have a new partner and child. Many men, if they are denied access, walk away and never try to get it back. They can't be bothered. Especially, as I said, when they can get a new partner and kids - and of ofc they lie to their partner about why they've been denied access or at least shy they don't see them.

He didn't, he fought and fought and fought. Now he's got access back, he's lying to your dd and rewriting history and definitely trying to alienate her from you. I think he desperately need to "win" and in his eyes prove to himself that he's a good guy, you were not a victim of his, and that his denied access to his child was an injustice.

After all that denied access made him look like a shit person and failure etc in front of everyone who knew about it.
I think he's been in a crusade to clear his name and to "win".
And I think his new partner and child (and the speed with which he acquired them) are very much part of that.

If he had your DDS best interests at heart he would never have complicated matters with a new "step mum" and half sibling so quickly, when their relationship needed rebuilt. He did it (as well as the usual sex company, house keeping, wife work etc) as part of his campaign to get his reputation back and do who's prove he wasn't in the wrong and it wasn't right that he was debited access to his child.

*and, in his eyes, prove he wasn't in the wrong and it wasn't right that he was denied access to his child.

He can't "lose", he can't even admit it was in any way right to deny him access - which is why he's now telling your child it was wrong and you were at fault.

In actual fact, no matter what you claimed, people with responsibility must have been v concerned indeed, to have denied him access like that.

Even the worst of the worst get access and supervised access when they shouldn't.They must have seen something in him to do that.

It's just a pity he has had the opportunity to get it back.
As I said, I believe his new partner and child were something of a pawn in his campaign to do so. She's just too young and silly to have known she should have established a relationship for a long time before she had a child by a man.

I think, with the fact that the courts/SS took the step of denying him access; they would hopefully understand that people like thim rarely change and that this parental alienation is just further along the lines of what he was doing before. You need to report it to them.

*For someone who sounds so much like he had to be right,