Do you ever fully recover from an abusive relationship?

[Rainbow03]

We were together 12 years and it’s been I think 5 years since leaving. I mean I’m happy, moved on and had a little girl, already had another dd. We are all great as a blended family, relationships is healthy etc etc….But!

If I think about it I’m so bloody annoyed I wasted so long with him. He destroyed my self esteem, I suffered depression, anxiety and ptsd that’s practically gone now having done a lot of work and soul searching. If I think too hard about it I feel angry, will him and myself for putting up with it and for loosing so many years. I put myself in a not great financial situation in those years, it’s sorted but I could be better having not met him. My physical health is not great as I suffer an auto immune condition now which leaves me very fatigued. I have regret because it’s made me unwell probably for the rest of my live.

Slightly different, my partner had an affair, although I now have an amazing partner , and have had two more children, it has left me with massive anxiety and insecurity issues .

@Toomanysquishmallows Im terrified of being left because I’m not good enough. Of being financially dependent now I’m unable to work many hours due to this bloody illness. It is always in the back of my head that I need to be worth it for him to stay…hate the feeling. I was the one who ended my abusive marriage.

I’m still going through a divorce with an abusive husband.

I was with him for 40 years!

I finally only realised he was a narcissist about 5 years ago.

I have had some therapy from a chartered clinical psychologist - I have finally realised how I was gaslighted and manipulated from the very beginning.

I was also vulnerable because I had a difficult childhood.

I have become scared of him and feel he has all the power. I have no self esteem, confidence and suffer terrible anxiety. I’m pretty sure this is not whom I’m meant to be.

I have the hope that once the divorce is over and I can move away from him and have control over my life again (he is still calling all the shots of course), that I will start to improve.

I have sought as much help as I can - the Freedom Programme, Fearfree, I’m on a waiting list for CBT (to assess if I’ve got CPTSD), and a befriending programme.

Im an intelligent woman and have no fears about moving, buying a house, arranging insurances, dealing with plumbers etc. But one text or email from my Stbxh puts me in a panic. If I see him walking past my temporary home, I want to hide. It has also taken a toll on my health.

Even talking about him to someone else will put me into floods of tears. Even writing this my eyes are welling up.

So I’m glad to hear OP that some recovery is possible. But I don’t think it can ever go away entirely - it probably like childhood trauma and stays within you like a scar for life.

The only good that I can see in all this is that I now feel I can really understand why abused women cannot leave their husbands. I hope I could be a good friend to someone else if they were in a similar position to mine.

Perhaps the saying, ‘what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger’ has/will prove to be true for both you and me. I think it must make us more tolerant of other people hardships.

I’m glad to hear you have a much better life, and you deserve every second of it. I think you will never be able to look back on that part of your life without strong emotion.

But if I can get to “just bloody annoyed when I think about it”, I’d be happy with that. At the moment I’m just counting my blessings I don’t have to be in the same house as him any more.

I hope you are proud of yourself and how far you have come.

Sorry for such a long post.

@Iamnotawinp Oh I was exactly like you in the beginning. I was a mess. I was told I had cptsd from childhood neglect to then this abusive marriage. I’ve come a very long way. I used to hide, I couldn’t read emails as it would cause me to spiral, I was absolutely terrified of him. I’ve know idea what got me through court for 3 years trying to divorce him and deal with our daughter having no contact. I don’t see him as scary anymore but I do find my memories scary because I guess they just were scary experiences.

Hang on because it will get better I promise. I’m mostly now just so annoyed I gave him my time and my health.

Thankyou.

I don’t think very many people understand what it’s like to feel sick to the stomach just when you see their name on your phone. It could be a text about the bins or something hateful, so you spend a whole day delaying, worrying, and unable to do anything else, then you finally open the text and it’s just a simple request for you to read the electric meter.

Or he comes to the door. I can see it’s him, he doesn’t necessarily know I’m in, I don’t want to see him, but I feel I have to answer the door. It just feels if I don’t do something I know he wants me to then - I have been very very bad and will have to be punished in some way.

Hes never hit me but he can still make things so difficult for me, I can’t risk annoying him in any way.

Anyway, I know my future is better.

Bump.
Similar situation and experience here.
I doubt it ever goes away completely. I feel a bit dead inside and struggle to ever feel even a flash of joy like I used to find in certain things.

@Watchkeys he did though, what can I say. He is responsible for the behaviour he did not me. I was young and not experienced like I am now.

I've just had high intensity CBT for the same thing. Diagnosed with CPTSD. It's made a huge difference. I dunno if I will be 100% and I can relate to the abandonment fears.

I had similar childhood.

Ex is super, successful and is in a newish relationship with a woman who is similarly insanely successful. She seems to be head over heels with him. It's complicated how I know but I know. It really gets to me. He is so capable of achieving this facade, she is unaware of his emotional and mental physical abuse of me and the kids. Everyone thinks he is an amazing, rich philanthropist but indoors the situation was so different. She lives 200 miles from him and they don't see each other that often. I think these people subconsciously target vulnerability and after the love bombing is over, the gaslighting and abuse starts on and off and the victim is desperate for the previous love and affection to restart. Maybe he never will treat her like this. The reason I focus on his relationship more than I should, is not out of jealousy but part of the self questioning issue. Was it me that made him behave like that (he says he is calm around everyone else and I bring this out in people)? Maybe I am broken and there is something wrong with me, etc, etc.

The CBT has really help me address this but then when I see how much the kids love him or this woman does and it can throw me off.

Anyway, I don't know the answer as I am only a year out of the relationship. I pretty much had a breakdown for most of it but now doing so much better. I chose to leave too.

I also agree that he would have eroded your self esteem, rather than you responsible for your own. The emotional abuse tends to be sophisticated and head spinning. It gets you into a place where decision making is so hard and all you can feel is fear and anxiety, that you can't trust your own judgement because of the constant criticism and manipulation.

@Worriedpanda50 I also know what it feels like to see them move on. Mine did very quickly despite saying he was suicidal etc. she was much younger, I think 15 years and has a baby within a year so she’s pretty much trapped. I wasn’t the strongest person when we met but then I don’t think people are equipped for these type of people. You get lured in and tricked and before you know it they’ve put up traps so leaving is difficult. I tried to stand up for myself but I was literally held ransom. They find you kryptonite early on I find.

My self esteem is good now and has recovered quite a lot. I don’t take shit anymore. Love is a funny thing and these people are just insidious.

Yes, he is responsible for his behaviour, which was wrong, and bad.

You are responsible for your response to his behaviour.

This is a distinction that you will need to make before you can recover, because, until then, his choices in the past are being allowed to affect your feelings in the present. He is not affecting you day to day, now, because he has no input. It is you who is responsible for what happens inside you.

It is hard to let go of blame, and the fault was actually his. But taking responsibility for your response, both at the time, and now, puts you in charge of your life again.

I look back on my abuser and feel glad for the lesson. I carry none of the pain. But I had to accept responsibility for myself first.

You wouldn't be who you are today otherwise.
You probably wouldn't be as resilient, wouldn't have the same views, you wouldn't have your daughter, may not have ultimately picked a man as carefully and ended up with someone like your DP.

It's shit that it happened, but unless you're unhappy with who you are now you can't wish away the past as it would also stop the positives

I wonder the same thing, OP. I am still so angry- I have a better life now, but my joy hasn’t come back. I’m just going through the motions.
my therapist tells me it’s fairly normal for it to take double the time one spent with an abuser to heal.

I'm angry about that, too.

but ultimately - I am free now, so I try to focus on gratitude. He has to live with himself (and he is SUCH a miserable ass), and I get to be free of his bad energy.

@Watchkeys I do think it depends on what has happened. He does affect me sometimes day to day because some of the things that happened to me carry scars that won’t ever heal. Some of the things that happened I don’t think I will ever be able to absorb into my being. I am not responsible for my reactions to him, they were survival reactions and against who I am and given different circumstances are not reactions I would have taken. Eg being forced to have sex against my will and falling pregnant and choosing not to keep because I was terrified as a very young women. I understand why I took those hard decisions but morally against who I am. He took me to a plane outside of who I am.

@SplitFountainPen I understand what you are saying and I’m grateful for what I have now but there was nothing wrong with the person I once was. I’m much harder and tougher but having met a different man I would have been in a happy relationship back then. He was my one and only abusive relationship. Given the choice I’d rather not have had that lesson. Many people don’t have to learn that lesson.

@Watchkeys I am responsible for how I treat others now and my behaviour going forward, I will take that. It’s incredibly hard to absorb all that trauma and not let it hurt others. I’m not the kind of person who would ever want to hurt another because someone hurt me. It’s hard to suffer with my illness now and not think that it was because of the hands of another. I see and hear about this person all the time from my daughter and it’s a constant reminder. He also tells her lots of lies and he brings up everything that happened and tells her his spin on it all and I have to hear it all the time. Daddy says your a murderer, daddy says your a monster. I am secure if my actions but they still weren’t nice to go through at the time alone.

I'd really recommend doing the freedom programme. Not online but in a group if you have one local to you.

I've done it and it was brilliant. There were woman who were just out of abuse (which was me) and women who had left years ago but were still struggling with self esteem, anxiety etc. Like you, a couple had new partners and were happy but just found certain things difficult.

I did it with 7 other woman and we have all kept in touch since. Obviously it won't be the same at every group but it's definitely something that helped me. I felt immediately safe to share in the group and no one judged. Everyone understood.

@Iamnotawinp I understand perfectly. I've recovered, anxiety is gone. Thankfully we didn't have children and it took almost two years to get away. He's blocked everywhere now and I wouldn't want contact anyway. I don't think he knows where I live, at least I hope he doesn't. I know where he is, in our old house, never go near the place. I'm prepared in case I bump into him or attempts contact.
Narcissism is an awful disorder. With him I always felt like I was at a station waiting for a train, didn't know what time it was coming or the destination. Of course, it never came!

@woodenleg I did the Freedom program not long after leaving but tbh I was way to traumatised to take it in.

I think I would find it easier to leave it if I didn’t have to hear about him and see him at contact and hear him on the video calls acting like a peacock. I know he’s a massive twat and I just can’t get over what I went through for that twat.

Your wellbeing is up to you. How can it be up to anybody else? You are responsible for yourself. How else can you claim to be an adult?

If someone treats you badly, or says bad things about you, you do what you would tell your daughter to do if someone was saying bad things about her. What would you say to her?

Just like any trauma yes you can. But you may need therapy

@Watchkeys I know that now but not when I was young and inexperienced and full of the joys of spring. There’s a reason why they go for young vulnerable women. I met a lovely charming and very generous man. I didn’t realise till over a decade longer it had come at the cost of my identity and my health and individuality or else I’d never had got involved. It’s extremely difficult especially after having children, it gets a whole lot worse then.

It’s something to do with cognitive dissonance I think. I was threatened so many times he’d tell my family intimate personal things if told him. He told me he’d make sure our daughter would hate me if I left. I didn’t know where to turn. Of course I would tell someone you are in control of how you behave…but in there circumstances you are no longer in control, they are.

I always say, I don't forgive, I don't forget but I move on.

He took the best years of my life, he turned me into a shadow of my former self but I'm where I am today through my own determination and sheer bloody hard work that's something he can never take away from me. I'm no longer the quiet, meek little mouse, scared to say anything in case it was wrong, that he made me. I'm back to the bubbly, happy, confident woman I was before him (maybe with a few scars).

I can't go through life thinking every man will do what he did, I'll end up lonely and alone if I do.

I hope he finds peace within himself but I fear he'll just keep denying that and it will eat away at him.

I'd maybe think about doing it again. I'm considering doing it again in a year. There are also some great books out there. I'm just about to read a book called 'women who love too much'. I've heard so many good things about it.

These things are so complex - clearly as if it was easy to get over, we wouldn't struggle years later. The same as we wouldn't stay for so long if it was obvious we were being abused.