Husband's abusive behaviour is becoming less shocking to me. Does anyone relate?

[Rochella]

If you have been in - or are in - an abusive relationship, did you find that your partner's behaviour seems less shocking to you after the first time? And did you/ do you find yourself dismissing and excusing it more easily? Do you become numb to it?

For example, mine has shouted at me in public over minor things several times. The first time, I was late meeting him for a drink (due to public transport delays) and he lost it and shouted at me. I was shocked, but excused it (this was just before our wedding) - saying to myself 'well i was late, and maybe he was stressed'. But the next time he shouted as at me in public, I was shocked but maybe less so. And then so on.

I also feel like my 'recovery period' is shorter, though I'm still shaken for a while. He is often really nice after a bad patch and things seem ok again.

It's the same with other things he does (such as maligning my friends) - I was so shocked to start with.

Does anyone relate?

You know don’t have to stay with this abusive arsehole, don’t you?

This is really bad , it becomes that there are no longer any lines to cross , you disassociate from it as a coping mechanism.
You know he's not going to get any better , it will escalate the more comfortable he feels and gets away with , please think hard about your future with this "man "

Leave, please. It will escalate.

This is unacceptable and heartbreaking… poor you. Offering a hug.

Are you okay? How are you feeling?

Do you know where that desensitisation can lead, eventually fingerprints around your throat for example, and you’ll be less less and less shocked by that as well.

Women die this way every week in the UK, and it’s usually a formerly trusted partner who has killed them.

Get out while you’re still psychologically and physically unharmed.

Lots of people can relate, of course.

Surely the question is how to safely get out?

I hope lots of kind knowledgeable people come along to help.

No l am afraid l do not relate op, the first time a boyfriend of mine was abusive l dumped him. Life is to short.

It's called the Boiling Frog Syndrome.

If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out.
But if the frog is put in cold water and brought to a boil slowly, it will get used to the heat gradually going up, but eventually it will be cooked to death.

You are becoming conditioned to his abuse.

I know this sounds obvious, but do you really want to live like this?

You need some counselling to help you understand why you stay, and give you other options. You have to envision a better future for yourself or it won’t happen.

The first step is to imagine a different life, then others can help you get there.

Contact these people please! Read the website.

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/

Yes I totally relate, down to the being shouted at in public over a tube delay! Which was not even close to the worst thing he did - multiple episodes of rage, name calling, smashing things, physical assault (pushing/pinching) - he once gave me a black eye.

I was completely desensitised to his awful behaviour. When we split and I finally started telling people about how he had behaved, I was still quite blasé about it - to the point that one of my friends was in tears and I was flippantly saying “yeah it wasn’t pretty bad wasn’t it!” 😵‍💫

Now (more than a year on) I feel I am still processing it and truly acknowledging how traumatised I was and my kids were. Being out of the environment of the relationship (if of the perpetrator’s minimisation) gives you a chance to finally really sit with it.

It took me 21 years - 13 married - to get out. I’ve never regretted it for a second although it’s been very stressful.

Thanks for sharing @Endoftheroad12345 . I'm glad you're in a much better place now. Did he seem normal and kind at first?

Normal yes, kind - no not really. He was always very self centred, and that became much more obvious and problematic after we had kids. Prior to that I’d always kind of just paddled my own canoe. Also we got together when I was 20 - he was my first real boyfriend- so I just had no experience to judge him on, and no idea of how to set boundaries. My mother is the world’s greatest apologist for shitty male behaviour.

To outward appearances though he is a slightly shy, mild mannered, normal person. No one would believe the behaviour that went on behind closed doors. He is a senior lawyer and from what I could tell, his team of direct reports - all women - thought very highly of him.

I used to get so discombobulated because he would be so awful to me and then so nice to people when we were out socially. Jokey, relaxed. The total opposite of how he was at home. For a long time I thought that was the “real” him - that he was essentially a nice person with an anger problem, and if we could just fix that, we’d be okay. But he wouldn’t do anything to fix it - therapy, relationship counselling, medication, quitting alcohol.

I now realise - and this has been a helpful mindset shift for me - that the angry, abusive, mean person IS the real him, and he can sometimes be nice (or pretend to be nice) - but only if everything is going his way, absolutely perfectly. It is easy to be nice when you are on a sun lounger on the Amalfi coast! Cherry picking those lovely memories when everything was ok doesn’t make up for all the times he shouted/called you names/let you down in a stressful situation. He also never sought help for this behaviour because he doesn’t think he has a problem - he believes he is entitled to act the way that he does. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t do it. I’ve never smashed something/called my partner the equivalent of a fat bitch/pushed my partner … it wouldn’t cross my mind to do that (and I can be argumentative for sure).

Yes, you've been broken and dehumanised, your feelings, needs and wants are not taken into account.

Do you want to change that setup and reclaim your life and your own mind.

He's conditioning you to expect nothing.

How much further will he go to hurt and punish you because he's a sadistic litle shit.

He's a horrible man and you need to get away, it's not going to get better.

@Endoftheroad12345

I'm so pleased you're away from him.

What a bastard.

This is very common in abusive relationships. As another pp mentioned, it's the boiling frog analogy. If we always found it shocking, we'd definitely leave. But abusers are skilled at dishing out abuse very systematically, in such a way that we become desensitised, and in such a way that we constantly feel unsure about the state of things. Are things good? Are things bad? It becomes so hard to tell.

They operating using the cycle of abuse, so things are never consistently bad enough that we feel justified in leaving. But the good times / when he's being nice is all part of the systematic abuse.

When you've been conditioned to accept their abuse is when the abuse escalates. I would really recommend speaking to women's aid. You deserve better than this.

My experience is very very similar to end of the road’s.

As I have recovered, the mad stuff comes back to me ready to be recognized for the bat shit it always was.
A really important step was realizing that the nasty person is him. The nice facade is just that.
But also asking if he thinks you’re so shit why is he staying- what’s in it for him?

Hi @yellowsmileyface , thanks - you say this:
They operate using the cycle of abuse, so things are never consistently bad enough that we feel justified in leaving. But the good times / when he's being nice is all part of the systematic abuse.

But it doesn't feel like he's planning it like this..... All is ok until we disagree on something. Then he starts getting mean and making threats, and he becomes very unreasonable.

Thanks @Endoftheroad12345 . You say 'My mother is the world’s greatest apologist for shitty male behaviour.'

I'm worried that mine is similar. I wonder what kind of thing your mum said. I have told mine a bit about what he's like - but it's far from the whole picture. At the time, she was worried about how controlling he was being. But now she's telling me that 'there's good in him', that 'he has a problem and i need to be patient with him', and that I need to hurry up and have kids.

Dear God please ignore your mother and DO NOT have kids with this prick! X

Oh My GOD whatever else you do, do NOT have children with this man.

PLEASE read Lundy Bancroft book Why Does He Do That? (don’t tell your husband, read discreetly, you can download on kindle or Apple Books app)

Tale it from those of us who have been there, living in an abusive relationship is absolutely miserable and takes away more of yourself than you can even know while it’s happening.

Leaving an abusive man is incredibly, incredibly difficult - especially when you have a mother who says things like this and uses similar behaviours herself. What this means is that she has trained you to have a high tolerance for being treated poorly in certain respects and so things that might have been early warning signs to someone else just pass you by until you’re in pretty deep.

Leaving an abusive man you have children with is a worst nightmare scenario… should you leave because you are being decimated by the relationship and you’re becoming a shadow of your former self? How much financial power and independence do you have to support yourself and your children if you do? Will he try and have contact/shared custody/paint you as a lunatic and go for full custody? Are your children safer from him if you just stick it out and can be there to help them when he crosses the line? Can you bear to send them to him on ‘his’ days, knowing what he is teaching them just by being himself? Is this man ‘good enough’ for your children?When he gets a new partner do you want your children to watch him abuse her? Do you want your son to think this is how men should relate to women? Do you want your daughter to be in a relationship in which she suffers the same because it feels normal to her? Will you ever be free of this man?

Of course over time his behaviour begins to become normalised to you. There’s nothing strange about that - it doesn’t mean the behaviour is fine it means you are just getting more used to it. Believe me when I tell you that you will NEVER be able to understand fully why he does this or how it can be that he seems so wonderful to everyone else and yet can treat you so badly. It’s been years for me and I still cannot understand it, but I work really hard to try and accept that, whether I can understand it or not, this is him. It’s not me. It won’t change.

It IS really hard OP but please read that book and decide what you want to do… If nothing else it is a really compassionate and empowering read. There’s lots of amazing support on here and you can come back whenever you need to. But whatever you’re dealing with now it will be 100x harder with a child in the mix.

Sorry - perhaps your mum isn’t controlling herself… but the apologist schtick is just as toxic! My friend’s mum once told her that if her boyfriend seemed to be losing interest she should provide more blow jobs - she was 13! (She ended up married to an abusive sex addict). With friends like these… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Don’t imagine that he’s not choosing to be like this. He is.He knows exactly what he is doing - the way you know that is that he will only do it to you. He’s choosing to be an absolute arsehole towards you because he’s weak and warped and wants you to feel shit and isolated. But you don’t need to and you deserve much more peace in life than that. LEAVE him and enjoy a happy life without him.

It sounds like trauma bonding to me. I had this from abusive childhood, sister carried on the abuse, the cycle of hope where the good times are almost worth it.....

It won't get better, only worse.

I'm so glad my mum and dad never gave me the wrong advice. If they had said find the good in him I would have ended up as his next wife in hospital with life changing injuries, lost my child and have an ex currently serving time for it..Luckily they not only told me to get out they helped me get out..I now have a lovely husband and 4 children and know the behaviour abusive verbally and mentally etc is totally and utterly wrong.

@Rochella - as PP have said, you are getting desensitised to abusive behaviour. That’s a very bad sign.

Your mother’s advice is literally insane. Do NOT have children with an abusive partner. It’s not just harmful to you - it’s incredibly harmful to the children.

As to the “He has good in him” - a major factor in a long-term relationship is not how your partner behaves when all is rosy. Everyone can behave well then. It’s how people behave when the chips are down that really matters. Decent partners don’t badmouth your friends or shout at you in public.

Please, please, please walk away now, before you have the complication of children.

I am now divorced after several failed attempts to leave. I suffered financial/emotional/physical abuse for a lot of those years.

I totally get what you mean. And it isn’t always that easy to leave.

Yes I felt like this but mainly because he would tell me I had caused the abuse whatever it was by my own behaviour so say I had snapped at him because he wasn't pulling his weight around the house, and he'd called me a fucking stupid cunt and shouted at me, that would be my fault. I think also his utter refusal to discuss such an incident left me nowhere to go other than to somehow make myself be 'ok' with it. In the past I used to insist we spoke about things and expected apologies from him but as time wore on I would just go away and be upset on my own then go back to normal without any expectation we would address how he had behaved or any of the issues in our relationship. I'm leaving him now. To be honest reading on Mumsnet how few women get called a cunt by their partner really opened my eyes, as did talking to friends about it. I suppose it just became normal for me for a partner to shout and verbally abuse and sometimes physically abuse, which is incredibly sad.