“Abusive” exes

[Puffpuff]

Is it possible that the constant labeling of exes as abusive is diminishing the experiences of women who have been in actual, horrible abusive relationships that they’ve had to flee from? I don’t mean to be antagonistic or hurtful, some men and women treat their other halves appallingly. But is the “abusive” or “narcissistic” label bandied about so much that it has lost its proper meaning? A friend of mine has split up from her long time partner, his decision. Now suddenly there are cryptic messages about abuse on social media and all sorts of labeling. I don’t know how helpful it is if every person who has ever been mistreated now has been abused?

@Puffpuff

Well I would rather be knowledgeable about personality disorders and different ways abusive behaviours can manifest,
so to be more aware to give them a swerve and not get involved with anyone like this,

Wish i had known about Narastistic maladaptive disorders ect,

I know it can seem far too much with being saturated labels 🏷 for this mind disorder and that one online,

However it's better than the alternative of being niave and being taking advantaged and exploited with mind fxck games ect,

Your post does not make sense to me as being mistreated means being abused,

I do get the need and importance to take personal responsibility and get therapy to heal from past trauma so don't repeat the pattern of being involved with co dependency style of relationships with Jerks and Arseholes types though...

No I think we're collectively waking up to how fucked up a lot of people and their idea of relationships are.

Mistreatment is not the same as abuse though? That’s my whole point.

being called a name once is not the same as abuse.

Happy to be educated in this if I’m completely wrong.

I get what you're saying OP and I think people are quick to bandy about the narcissist label these days without fully understanding what it means and in some cases it feels a bit careless especially when someone has been through a super tough time with an ex.

I also think it's that people are more aware of the absolute fuckers that people can be and they aren't prepared to accept shitty behaviour anymore so they go ahead with that label and make others aware

It's all about education at the end of the day and the more you look into something the more you learn about it.

I'm not so sure. I think that given the judgement there is for relationship breakdowns, a lot of people put up with a whole heap of abuse before they leave sometimes.
If you look up financial abuse, it's clear many on mumsnet have suffered it.
If you look up emotional abuse, it's quite common. The defined terms are accessible, and I think we need to believe people if they are saying they have faced these abuses in their relationships.

I have been in an abusive relationship, though I didn't realise it until after I left.
Him cornering me (6"2 17 stone to my 10 stone 5"2 pregnant) in a room where I couldn't leave, then him pulling me so hard I wasn't sure if he had broken my arm.
Ruined relationships with everyone around me, and took every penny I had access to. Stalked me after I left, and took me to court at every opportunity under the guise of being more involved with DD, he refused flat out to ever pay child support, and called the police to make false allegations against me and anyone who I was close to. Same with social services. He promised that he wouldn't stop until I had a nervous breakdown.

I never knew that was abuse, I wish I had because there might have been some support for me. Instead I suffered it all in silence and I haven't seen him in 11 years, and still live in fear that he will find out where DD and I am, and it will all start again.

I agree. Regular arguments are now ‘emotional abuse’

I get what you’re saying there seems to be an assumption that All exes are abusive, I’ve noticed it on here and other websites

In my experience abuse is when they enjoy hurting you in some way.

There could be other definitions of the term but that would cover it for me.

You're right. Being called a name once is not abuse. That's not what emotional or psychological abuse is though. Emotional or psychological abuse requires a consistent pattern of behaviour and usually manifests in lots of different types of controlling and diminishing behaviour. Not just calling someone a name once. But they might make your nickname something really horrible (e.g. "fat pig"). They might label you stupid as a joke. Uncultured, as a joke. They might send you pictures highlighting a stomach roll or a double chin - as a joke. Your nickname might be fat pig and when you annoy them, as a joke, they send you graphic pictures of dead pigs. Or leave bacon for you to find in the house. They might tell you noone else likes you, noone else has ever cared for you, you're pathologically a bad, selfish and horrible person without a heart. They might isolate you from all your family and friends so that you have noone else to speak to but them. They might listen to your calls at work and tell you people are trying to manipulate you. They might gaslight you so badly that you start forgetting memories from before you met them, relying on them to tell you what those memories were, and they then use that to say that everyone you've ever been in a relationship with has said how awful you are; how hard to love.

So...Anyway, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but I wouldn't assume that just because the abuse wasn't visible to you that it didn't happen. Noone knew what was happening - not even me - until I left him.

The reality is that most relationships turn toxic as they're breaking down. And that leaves the final taste in your memory. It might have been perfectly healthy for 10 years, but if in the last 6 months people are horrible to each other then they often start using using the abuse label. It's telling how many people post on here questioning why their abusive ex has then gone on the have a healthy long term relationship with a new partner.

I do think overuse of the terms abusive and narcissist devalues their meaning in true cases of it.

What would you label as abuse though? No one (I hope) is claiming abuse because they've been called a name once.

@altmember I think you have articulated what I was trying to say in a much more eloquent way.

I don’t wish to demean anyone’s individual experience, some of you have posted about awful - and abusive - relationships.

I just don’t think we can classify all bad behaviour as abusive.

I do know what you mean. There is absolutely a difference between abuse and mistreatment, but the two are often conflated. Abuse is rooted in the intention to establish power and control over someone. It's possible to be nasty to someone without it being abuse, and it's possible to be lovely to someone and it's actually abuse. Abuse doesn't lie in certain words or actions, it's a systematic approach that's woven into every aspect of the relationship.

Gaslighting and narcissist are other similarly overused words. Another one is trauma. Some people seem to attach that word to any difficult experience they have. It's frustrating because watering down these words makes it so much harder for people who have experienced abuse and trauma to talk about their experiences.

And on the flipside, so many people who are actually in abusive relationships don't realise they are. I've seen a depressing number of posts on MN where the OP has given excruciating detail of a heavily abusive relationship, only to adamantly exclaim "he's definitely not abusive/controlling!" because he's sometimes nice to her.

well name calling is abusive behaviour. If there's a pattern of it, then it could be abuse.

It's often difficult though to tell whether you're in a toxic or abusive relationship - but actually it doesn't matter really. Why tolerate either?

Abuse is typically a pattern of behaviours and it's also characterised typically with a power imbalance - mostly with the scales tipping on the mans side. Control is usually the main aim.

I don't know what happened to your friend, but she is obviously very emotional right now.

I think like another poster said, a lot of women are waking up to the shit they are given now (not to say that women can't be abusive but by default we have less power in the relationship due to societal factors). If someone calls you a name, it's an abusive act but that doesn't necessarily make the relationship "abusive" on the whole.

Would it end a relationship? Potentially not, could you overlook it... yes probably, but at the same time it's a shitty thing to do even once and the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

Narcissism is a disorder, although it's also loosely used to describe basically toxic traits in people that reflect certain aspects of narcissim. We're all narcissistic to some degree, but not all people are actual diagnosed narcissists. There is a ton of overlap with toxic behaviour and narcissistic behaviour however so I'm not too bothered by the over use as long as time is taken to actually educate people on NPD being an actual diagnosable thing.

I don't really think we should be sitting here questioning how serious it needs to be for it to be "abuse". There are lots and lots of resources you can look up to educate yourself on what abuse is/isn't rather than posting here and opening up a conversation questioning women for their feelings and asking "how serious does it have to be before you're allowed to use that label".

We should be supporting women not spending our time questioning them. Abuse was normalised, women had no rights. Coercive control was only recently made illegal. Are we seriously having this conversation???

I think it's very harmful to victims of abuse and social attitudes towards abuse victims, when individuals are publicly judged to be fabricating or exaggerating their experience by people who don't actually know what went on. Like you talking about your "friend" here. So anyone engaging in that behaviour under the guise of being concerned about "victims' experiences being diminished" raises some red flags to me.

Couldn't agree more. Like why come on here to ask the quesion rather than oh I don't know... Refuges website, or Womens Aids website... or any other number of other websites that talk about DV/DA.

It's basically another version of misogyny or ignorance at the very least. And apparently HERE is the place to raise it. Touche.

My ex abused me

Not in the physical sense, but emotional, financial, coercive, for years.

If I had been beaten up, even once, my parents would have stepped in to support and protect me and the dc immediately. As it was I got 'well it's not like he's hitting you' for a decade, which has severely impacted me and the dc.

It WAS abuse. Not just arguments. Not just being careful with cash. Not just a consequence of me being a sahm. It was abuse.

I guess there are different levels, and sure, lots of relationships have blips. But abuse is abuse - an imbalance of power. And with your attitude op, many more women are going to find leaving that much more difficult than if he beat her up.

Regular arguments are now ‘emotional abuse’

Any relationship with regular arguments is not a good one, both parties should consider how healthy it is for them. And regular arguments can certainly mean abuse - unless of course both partners have equal say, both take a turn in causing the argument.

FML. Why should we even entertaining the thought that arguing is acceptable? Why are people modelling this as 'good' relationships for our sons and daughters?

I completely agree OP. It is a term that's bandied about far too frequently when ( often couples who are separating), don't get their own way. 'He's a narcissist as he won't pay my mortgage', is not the same as being a narcissist. And it's that simple. The term is being used to validate feelings of injustice, when actually they are just that.. injustice, but in the absolute realms of normality.
It does diminish the accounts of those who truly are dealing with abuse and narcissim. You cannot box someone you simply no longer get along with, with someone who sets out to cause real anguish and pain just to validate your own feelings.
I say this from experience.

Yes, absolutely agreed.

My marriage was not abusive. We had some humdinger rows and a lot of hurtful things were shouted at times, but there was not a pattern of deliberately hurtful behaviour on either side.

Once things started to turn though, it was another matter and the last year was awful. I was an absolute condescending prick to him, and he would lose his rag and threaten to change the locks while I was at work. He said he'd turn our child against me, I threatened to have him made homeless. It was an absolute shitshow and it needed to be over. But that doesn't mean the whole thing was abusive.

Erm yes it was.

Depends on how you define arguments. Healthy disagreements are necessary parts of relationships and occasionally may get heated. Regular (e.g. weekly or fortnightly) slanging matches - yeah, that's totally unhealthy. Also not necessarily abuse, but definitely unhealthy.

There is a very clear definition of what abuse is. Here it is:

I can't believe this conversation is actually happening to be honest. It's not up for debate!

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/en/What-is-abuse

Yeah, I know. Like I said in my previous post, it's about a pattern of behaviour (to control). Arguments are not the same thing, though they can form part of abuse. But just because you have regularly nasty arguments doesn't mean one person is using a pattern of behaviour to gain control over another. The link you posted supports what I'm saying.