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.

Does it help if you remind yourself that anybody and everybody could be pushed to feel the same way you were? There's nothing special or unusual about how you responded to him. Everybody has their limits.

Ummm @Watchkeys no I know that it wasn’t anything about me that made him do it and I know anyone would break eventually so I’m not special in that sense. But I have the memories and I have the life long illness. I don’t carry what other people could have felt as I carry what I felt. I don’t want to have to have these memories, I’d rather not have them and I’d father not be ill.

@Rainbow03 you don't have to explain..Watchkeys has been nothing but unsupportive, accusatory, rude towards you on this post.. don't bite

Most of us understand your situation and a lot of us have been there and we are strong independent women. We are not to blame, neither are you

Abusive upbringing. Left home at 19 and I would say it took about 10 years from that point to build my self-esteem, and even now, in my 30s, it feels like a work in progress.

@greyflannel hear hear.

@Worriedpanda50 driving dangerously isn't a minor thing at all. So sorry you went though such horrors.

I broke up with him in January
And it still effects me I'm still not over him ?

I'm so much happier without him and the truth is he stripped every thing from me, there is alot of damage damage I can't seem to shift.
This guy really fucked me up as I was with him as my gran passed the guy really got inside my head and did not support me when my gran died, she was the biggest blessing in my life and all of the sudden she was gone. I have so much hate towards him and feel like I'm so much more of a person without him but because I broke up with him on text I never got any closure and it's really effects me.
This is the guy who told me I didn't satisfy him for 5 months out our relationship, this is the guy who told me he sent my pics to other females because he was sexualy talking to them asking to have sex and wanting me to get involved without asking me. He had everything planned. He had a massive coke problem and was really horrible to me when I would make him dinner he would say I don't want that shit then would have to go get a takeaway and then he always forgot his bankcard so I always had to pay but he was so adimemt that he paid for everything.
He called me stupid all the time because he said I would always have the same conversation with him and I would bore him.
He stopped complimenting me because I didn't belive it. He would stay at mine 3/4/5 nights a week and not help once with making the bed or helping me clear dishes after me making him dinner. He would tell me that he always gets bored of women and it's not my fault it's just him. He would tell me that our sex life was so boring because I liked the normal and he liked the exotic. He would forse me into things and have me in pain and when I took it out to say I was in pain he demanded me to do it again. He liked pain. He admitted to me that he likes younger girls so he can mulipulate them into doing what he wants. He had bizarre fantasys and disturbing thoughts. He would tell me that my own aunty was sexualy talking to him when the only convo they would have was infront of me. He told me that he loves ignoring people and would only text me when he came over. He wouldn't ask me how my day was or how I am. He would convince me that it's not normal to talk to your partner everyday and it's not normal. I can't seem to shift this I have therapy on it and now being on holiday I can't stop thinking about it . I feel so much more weaker then I did before I was with him. I'm so scared ill never find myself again or anyone who will respect and love me for me.

@1997essexK he sounds very disturbed and seem to enjoy with is disgusting. I lost my dad during the relationship, he was my best friend but he didn’t like my dad visiting. He took the time away I can never get back and I’ll never forgive him. On the day he died I fell to the floor in tears and he just walked over me and sat down. It’s an experience I’ll never forget. It just shows how disordered they are. Even in the worst times of your life they still can’t look past themselves.

@Loubelle70 I think she was trying to say that anyone would break so it had nothing to do with being weak myself. They personalise the abuse so they use your vulnerability against you which everyone has something.

But I don’t think I’m weak anymore like I used to think, I just want to have not gone through it because I get tired of always carrying the memories. Not that I can change it so they are wasted thoughts I suppose.

@Rainbow03

Thank you for understanding the decency in what I'm saying to you. There have been many on this thread who have misinterpreted my posts and been quite rude. I've been in abusive relationships myself and watched my mum being abused by my dad throughout my childhood. I definitely don't want to invalidate you. I've worked with abuse victims and do have a direct approach, but nothing I say is about blaming the victim. Your ex was at fault, not you.

However, there is a difference between fault in the past and responsibility in the future, and your life is your own. Telling you that you are responsible for yourself doesn't involve any judgement of you, or, in fact, your abusive ex; it simply puts you in charge of your own situation, going forward. I hope you can see that in my previous posts.

Is there any way in which you can view the hard memories as a healthy thing, or push in that direction? I am able to see my abuse as a very very hard lesson, but one which I really needed to learn, about my own boundaries, and my own responses to my own feelings. I know I'm not going back there again, with my ex or with anybody else, because I now understand how damaging it can be. I didn't, before. I thought I should just put up with anything, because I thought I could handle it, and the abuse made me realise that I'm not some kind of superhuman; I'm just ordinary, regular, and I hurt and struggle just like anybody else. If I get pushed beyond my boundaries, I change, and I don't like who I am at that stage. I wonder what happened that gave you the trait of 'staying even when things are unbearable'... if you can get to the root of this, you may well be less angry with yourself for staying too long, and therefore less plagued by the loss of time.

What was your childhood like? Sounds like you really loved your dad... were your parents very attentive, or were they super busy with work/other siblings/illness etc? I put up with abuse because I was used to 'love' feeling like crap, because my parents were always fighting, but it doesn't always feel bad due to parents doing 'bad' things. Parental distraction throughout your childhood can be enough to raise you to feel that love is 'the other person is too busy to focus on how you feel', so how you feel gets pushed aside...

I'm hoping this post doesn't get misunderstood and lambasted like the others. I'm resolute on not derailing your thread by defending myself against people who are posting purely to criticise me. I wasn't even talking to them, I was talking to you!

I'm sorry you lost your dad.

I am not responsible for my reactions to him, they were survival reactions

I wonder if you are judging your survival reactions? What was it the you're referring to, that you were not responsible for? I'm wondering if, for example, you poked him in the eye with a biro, you might say you were not responsible for that because you were defending yourself, and you judge it to be a bad thing, where I'd be saying, 'Dammit girl, take responsibility for that! You protected yourself, and that's strong!'

@Watchkeys I can’t get a solid feeling about my childhood. My mum suffers from multiple sclerosis. She was at times bed ridden and others times more or less fine. She suffered with depression and outbursts of anger. I definitely had no one to go to with any feelings or guidance. I suffered anxiety since early teens but could never stop it no matter what treatment. I’ve realised now my upbringing just left me with a fear of the world and a sense I needed to control everything.

My survival reactions with my ex were pathetic and I’m a little ashamed of myself that I never fought back or just left. I fawned and withdrew and didn’t trust the way I felt. I know that’s because he pushed me beyond reasoning but I wish I didn’t allow hIm to embarrass me like he did. Now he continues to mock me via our daughter about very intimate and morally wrong things me now. Lately he has taught our daughter a song about how he felt when I left and how hurt he was and what I did to him and she keeps singing it. He is horrible and I wish he could just get hurt and disappear.

If I’m responsible for myself then I’m responsible for my quite pathetic reaction to him and I’m ashamed of myself for that. I’m stong enough now to happily be responsible for myself going forward but I was let down by my younger self and ill equipped for adult life. I don’t suffer with anxiety anymore at all, just embarrassed. I don’t want to tell people in RL because I’ve often been met with, I wouldn’t have let myself be treated like that, why did you stay. People think I’m weak and a fool and responsible because I let it happen.

If I’m responsible for myself then I’m responsible for my quite pathetic reaction to him and I’m ashamed of myself for that

This will be a huge part of your ongoing problems, and this is what I've been trying to get at. Yes, you are responsible, but you do not need to judge yourself as shameful, or your reaction to him as 'pathetic'. What can you do to help yourself feel that your responses to him were understandable? What will help you to validate your younger self? What if it had been your daughter in that same situation? Would you be telling her now, years after, that she should feel ashamed of herself for the way she responded to her abuser, or can you see how unfair, and frankly, downright mean, that would be? You are judging yourself negatively, harshly, and in a mean way. If you can find a way to see your actions in a more acceptable light, you will not have to carry such a weight, going forward.

It sounds like, when your mum used to have anger outbursts, you used to have to respond meekly, because she was your mum, so you couldn't just say 'Right, I've had enough, I'm leaving!', and that's what happens: we get conditioned to stay, and put aside our feelings of discomfort. That's what everybody does when they've been raised in a way where they had to put their own feelings to one side.

This is also what causes anxiety. Anxiety and a sense of needing to control everything comes from feeling like, if things go out of control, they will go beyond our ability to cope with them. The solution isn't to control things more, it's to learn to cope with things being out of control, better. Have you heard the allegorical story about the man walking on the broken glass road in bare feet? He tried for years to pick his way very slowly along the road, trying to get where he wanted to go, trying to stop himself getting hurt, trying to push the glass out of his way, trying to avoid it, and it was everywhere. Then he found himself some shoes. Voila. The problems didn't go away, but he changed his levels of protection, and everything was fine. He didn't need to control how much glass there was, or how it lay in his path.

Your anxiety (anybody's anxiety) is due to a lack of shoes :) Your world is no more or less out of control than anybody else's; but some people have stronger shoes than you, so they don't feel anxious, and you can get yourself some strong shoes too.

@Watchkeys I don’t suffer anxiety anymore because I’ve been through the worst you can pretty much go through so people really can F off if they want too much from me or they don’t fit in my life and don’t actually care about me or make me feel unhappy. I’m not sure how to integrate the fact that I was responsible but I let myself down. I feel to blame for how my health has turned out. I should have never got involved but I can’t change that.

No way. In absolutely no way were you pathetic.

When we are befuddled and dazed and confused by the behaviour of others and it's being going on for a while, we often don't know how to react.

We just want to make it all ok again.

Do not start blaming yourself for the appalling behaviour of others and its impact on you.

I'm getting bored of reading some of the victim blaming bs on this thread.

Quite so. And the irony and lack of self-awareness in the not 'taking responsibility' for this when it has been called out by multiple posters.

It’s very confusing because I know I’m not responsible for his behaviour and yet I know I’m responsible for my own behaviour and for what I tolerate. So who is responsible for the way I behaved because I would not behave the way I behaved then now, I find her behaviour or should I say my behaviour very silly. Understandable with hindsight but still stupid. I hold that persons memories but it’s a completely different version of myself, one that doesn’t fit and who I don’t agree with. I would tell him to F off.

I guess it just goes to show how far away they take you from yourself over all those years. It’s scary. I don’t know how to integrate it all.

I’m not sure how to integrate the fact that I was responsible but I let myself down

Responsibility looks forward. Blame looks backwards. You're using them interchangeably and they're not. For example, you are not to blame if a 10 ton truck drives into you, but your body is responsible for healing your wounds afterwards.

You are not responsible for what happened with your ex, but you are responsible for your recovery, going forward. Blame him for what he did (and does) wrong, accept your own responses (nobody 'does the right thing' whilst a 10 ton truck is driving into their vehicle), and take responsibility for your recovery, going forward.

You are beating yourself up with a stick made of hindsight. You had your reasons for responding the way you did. None of those reasons were 'because you are bad/negative/weak/rubbish/anything else negative' You did it because you have been conditioned, and you didn't know.

A question: why do you think you responded to him the way you did? No judgement here, it just might help you look at the self-talk you've got going on, and pinpoint something at the crux of things.

Yes you will . It takes time, but you will.

Things can eventually get better. I left when my kids were 4 and 7, they are now 17 and 19. The hardest thing has been attempting to co-parent with an abusive ex for the past 12 years. A year and a half to go until the youngest goes to uni, and unless there is an emergency regarding the (adult) kids, I won't have to have anything to do with him ever again. That is such a relief and will enable me to finally move on. I am married to my wonderful DH now and couldn't be happier, but the abusive ex and subsequent punishment for leaving him has cast a shadow over my life for too many years. I don't want to waste any more of my valuable time or energy thinking about it.

@Watchkeys I responded that way to make it stop because I was overwhelmed and terrified. Sometimes it was because I was worried what my family would think because we don’t have that relationship where we talk and things feel better. I suppose because I put others thoughts and feelings above my own and I also was alone making the decisions. I also hate shouting and loud noises. When he started in the car it was to save my life I suppose from an accident. I suppose animals freeze and play dead when they are scared. I’m not someone who hits back or shouts back because I don’t resolve things that way. I was stuck in a cycle by thinking if I was better he’d be better to me but that would never work.

@Rainbow3 You will always live with what they call "The aftermath of domestic abuse"

Contact Womens Aid local to you for counselling and support. It's free. However, donations are always happily received. Link below

They have been lifesavers for my family. I've gone in and out of therapy with them a few times since I left the ex 23 years ago.

I was only last with them last year. There are stages that reveal themselves as the years ago. My childhood was also abusive too, so I get where you're coming from.

www.womensaid.org.uk/

It sounds like you were doing what you thought was best at the time. Perhaps, in the moment, those responses are what's best at the time. There's very little use in trying to win arguments against someone abusive.

Do you really think it's shameful and pathetic that you responded to aggression and danger by being placid? It's the given advice when dealing with an aggressive animal... you don't run, or scream, or try to hide. You play dead, or try to quietly back away. What do you think you should have done?

I struggle not to have sympathy with the responses your younger self had. If I knew that person, I'd want to care for her, and demonstrate to her that life can be a gentle thing. What makes you so disappointed in her?