Do controlling abusers always know they are controlling abusers?

[Toomuchdinner]

On the verge of splitting with DH. I have only extremely negative feelings towards him.

He is controlling, aggressive, self absorbed, I think possibly abusive…I could go on.

The reaction of friends and family to the news I am leaving him makes it clear that they all feel the same way about him.

Basically I made a huge mistake and married a total arsehole. They all hate him. Really really hate him.

The thing that I’m finding difficult is his total denial that he is anything less than perfect. And he’s not lying, he genuinely thinks he’s wonderful , and that everyone else thinks he’s wonderful.

His lack of self awareness is staggering.

I’m not saying he has to hate himself, but he keeps demanding I give him reasons why I want to leave.

so I mention some of his terrible behaviour, and he is really confused- he just doesn’t understand or agree. I know him, he honestly isn’t pretending or conniving.

i think he has something fundamentally wrong with him.

has anyone else experienced this?

I feel so strong and certain when I’m on my own or talking to other people. But when him talking to him about the split it’s like I’m in a parallel universe and I doubt my sanity.

I think really it’s him who is insane

I hadn’t realised this before, but I’m starting to suspect that the more people find out that my marriage is actually over, the more I’m going to have my eyes opened by some of the things they are going to say they witnessed/thought of him .

Yes, this. The number of moments that we can all look back on now where we tell her our perspective and she marvels at how different it was to hers.... And the interesting thing was that in many cases, we DID tell her at the time. She just couldn't hear it because he had her so convinced that SHE was the problem.

@GingerIsBest Yes that makes perfect sense to me and is exactly what I've been going through for a decade. There is nothing wrong with their behavior because they are perfect, everyone else is the problem and they truly believe it. As they truly believe it themselves, that's why people get tricked by the victim act.

Only the people who have witnessed the behavior know the truth but everyone else they truly believe they are not in the wrong. It's insane when you think about it.

That's what I have now still, everyone can see it, the entire family both sides have seen it. All they are doing now is exactly the same behavior, solicitors and third parties can see it....nope not them they are the victim still!

Delusional.

we didn't just not feel welcome, we weren't welcome. Oh, sure, if we asked if we could come over, SIL would always say yes. But we never got an invite. And to this day, SIL still doesn't realise that happened. The fact that she invites us over fairly frequently now has passed her by. she still struggles to see how he manipulated her and made it hard for her to have a relationship with her friends and family.

On my list of many many reasons why I don't like exBIL, is the fact that in 15 odd years, I think he made me a cup of tea ONCE. And that was only because SIL was breastfeeding, I'd arrived with food and she told him, snappily, to please make me a cup of tea!

As they truly believe it themselves, that's why people get tricked by the victim act.

Yes. Needless to say, this man also has a previous "crazy" ex who was "toxic and abusive". At the time, we all felt sorry for him. What I wouldn't give to meet her in real life and get the true story! If I knew her name, I think I'd track her down on Facebook and ask!

@GingerIsBest yes, my husband has ncredibly disordered thinking. It’s a very good description. He’s not lying, he genuinely believes ‘his truth’ 100%, it’s just that it bears no relation to the actual truth

I think I’ve know this in my gut all along but I’ve been kidding myself/let myself be cowed by his bullying into pretending he is right

@Endoftheroad12345 😂😂😂 that’s not funny but also hilarious

“well I always thought he was a prick but I assumed he was secretly nice to you in private”

Nope 🤪

that is my husband exactly!

I think black humour may be the only way to get through this!

@GingerIsBest Yep and that's the very reason I fell for it in the first place, been treated badly prior. I've now discovered everything was a lie and like everything.

Honestly you would not believe how naive and dependent on me she was every single day to now, suddenly can do everything herself to the point she has actually created a situation where she is a lone parent without any support whatsoever. May as well be living in the woods.

@TiredButDancing This is what mine was like wouldn't invite but would allow it and not once would she offer drinks, nothing. I had to do it all and everyone said how bizarre the man looking after the guests.

When SIL was finally kicking out exBIL - DH and I definitely found humour quite helpful. Our favourite thing to do was to take some of his ridiculous pronouncements and act as if they were totally sensible, then make them back to each other.

So, for example, he was not working and she was. But he couldn't get his head around the fact that this meant he needed to do the childcare. He once said to her, incredulously, in front of all of us, "So you expect me to look after the DC so you can work?".

DH and I largely arrange work so that one of us is working and the other one is in charge at home. for MONTHS, as one of us was heading out the other would say, "wait, you expect ME to look after YOUR children so you can work?" and we'd both fall about laughing. we got a few strange looks when random other people were in the house.

@TiredButDancing 😂😂

Humour is the only way, it’s just so batshit crazy. I remember ex H saying indignantly “I’m tired too!” when we had a small baby and I was BFing doing all night wakings while he was in a separate room - because he’d got up at 5am a few times.

When I ended it he could NOT believe it because as he told me his abusive behaviour “was only a 3, maybe a 4 out of 10, MAX” 🤡🤣

My best friend reminded me that when I went back to work when my youngest was little I didn’t finish until 6. He would pick up the 1 y.o and 4 y.o up from crèche at 5pm on a Friday #DadOfTheYear

I would have to order the pizza for DS’ dinner from Domino’s from my desk at work as he “didn’t know how to work the website”. He is a senior lawyer. Just to make sure I was doing his shit jobs for him while simultaneously guilt tripping me that I wasn’t at home.

Oh God I have so many 😂

Last year the day before my birthday I mentioned that it was my birthday the next day and he went absolutely mental at me as though I had played some sort of trick on him. We had been together 21 years and my birthday was on the same day every year 😂 He then went on an on about how we had “no money” (we were/are comfortably off) and couldn’t afford birthday presents. I found out he had been out the previous weekend and bought himself an expensive exercise bike so clearly felt the discretionary spending had been allocated (on him).

I have a "friend" who exhibits some controlling behaviour. I think I may have challenged him a couple of times - but, as I expected, he just couldn't see it.

exBIL complained to DH once that he felt left out when they had their first baby, and that SIL was so focused on the baby and he didn't really get any attention. I THINK he thought that they were going to bond as men who had been so hard done by.

Instead, DH would make me laugh by using a baby voice if I was, for example, changing one of our DC's nappy and say, "ooh, but why aren't you cuddling me? why are you cuddling the baby? You're so mean!"

[Also, DH pointed out to exBIL that, yes, you know, when there's a baby around it has to be the priority for a while. Doh.]

That is so sad to read.

God hep you, but god help your parents witnessing their precious child living with such a prick.

Let that be your energy and motivation to move forward asap.

He sounds so dreadful.

@Endoftheroad12345 @TiredButDancing

ive got about a million very similar anecdotes! His selfishness, pomposity, totally misplaced sense of always being right…

I think in time I’ll start a (lighthearted??🥴) thread on here with some of the more amusing and ridiculous examples and hopefully help other women in relationships like ours to see the light

at the moment it’s still all a bit raw for me.

I’m sort of getting my head around the extent of the conditioning, and trying to take practical steps to move forwards to divorce (it goes without saying he is being impossible. The latest is he is going to kill himself - he’s not)

@Toomuchdinner Oh that the lowest of the lows, sorry. Noone should have that on their shoulders, whether it's acted upon or not.

I think black humour may be the only way to get through this!

My brother, sister and I have an ongoing private joke from the time my father (whose God complex and need for drama very much echo other posters' experiences) screamed at me, "I am going to knock your fucking head off, you fucking piece of shit, why don't you have any respect for me?" Which is obviously horrifying, but it's also funny.

If one of us corrects/guides another in some harmless way ("not there, the glasses you want are in the other cupboard" or "don't wash it over 30"), they'll turn around, pull a stupid face and pretend to shout, "Why don't you have any respect for me?" And we all crack up.

These people see themselves as flawed heroes who have been made that way by their own traumas. They think the world owes them because they had a bad time and nobody else's bad time matters, least of all the ones they caused. People who put up with their shite are the Good Guys who see the real, wonderful them, and anyone who doesn't is a Bad Guy.

They never developed any true or healthy self esteem, just a load of defensiveness and delusion, which is why they cannot cope when they encounter anything other than total reflection of their own self image. They know, deep down, that they are fuck ups...if they truly thought you were insane, they wouldn't care that you think they're a prick. But on the conscious level, they're victims and good guys and only a bad person would think otherwise.

My ex husband had a different type of strategy. He’d say

“ Let’s do something nice for your birthday . Why don’t you book a babysitter and we will go out for dinner “.

so I’d do all that - not easy to get someone with 2 SN kids. id book a table at a restaurant he liked and metal email the booking to him.

id remind him that morning that we were going out, say how much I was looking forward to it.

id feed the kids early, have them all ready for the sitter, text him at work to check what time he would be home.

id look out a nice outfit and fix up my hair , do my make up ( a big deal for me ). Sit at home waiting .

nothing, no sign of him.

id text him. No answer , text again. Then phone . No answer. Id worry that he d been in a car crash,

then after a while he would phone, in an irritated voice “ yes what do you want ? I’m out with X / working late “.

then he’s go off on one, saying that is not been clear that it was tonight that we were going out, what hadn’t I told him , tell it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t get then text, I should know that he needed TIME to plan things, I was unreasonable to DEMAND at the last minute to cancel all his plans to do something with him , why was I being so difficult and speaking to him in that tone of voice , why did I always spoil everything with my bad attitude .

then the next year, he’d say things like “ well I would like to do something nice for your birthday but you always spoil things with your unreasonable behaviour so there’s no point. It makes me so sad that I can’t do nice things for you, you never appreciate me , I work so hard for you and the kids and this is all the thanks I get “

and I’d end up consoling him for his great sadness and promising him to try harder to be a better wife .

@GingerIsBest

Only someone who is deeply deeply delusional with serious problems could possibly imagine that her father and brother would agree with his actions.... he is FURIOUS that they are not supporting him.

meant to say this, so much this - he is really stunned that anyone is 'taking my side'.

He thinks I'm only pretending that my family support me.

He contacted my sister asking for a meeting to discuss [me] as he is so concerned about my mental health, apparently.

My sis ignored him, I asked her to. God knows what she'd actually say to him if she came face to face! He wouldn't like it, that's for sure

Mine has ran out of people completely and burned every bridge they had, there's no one left to blame. They are still right though!

He contacted my sister asking for a meeting to discuss [me] as he is so concerned about my mental health, apparently.

Oh yes, this. a few months ago I received a long text message about why it was totally NOT okay for me to say something to him about his behaviour - I had agreed with her that his behaviour in that moment was okay and backed her up when she'd asked him to leave. The message was amusingly condescending and patronising. But my all time favourite line in that text message was "I asked you to get involved before and you declined so please don't complicate matters now by trying to get involved". The original attempt to get me and DH "involved" was an almost incomprehensible stream of consciousness via text in which he asked us to take her out of the house because she was "doing his head in". He has referenced this on multiple occasions to multiple people as a sign of how we did not help him when he was asking for help with her "terrible" behaviour.

Notwithstanding that there's a man on this thread who seems to have experienced similar, I see this a LOT with men to women and I can't help feeling it's a hangover of the old fashioned sexism. these men, 100 years ago, would probably have somehow managed to just get their wives sectioned for being "crazy".

his behaviour in that moment was NOT okay and backed her up when she asked him to leave.

You're correct in your thinking. I have been instructed by several now to one kick the door in and two get them sectioned.

Needless to say I didn't agree with that advice.