Was this emotional abuse?

[LucyLou96]

I broke up with my ex of many years 3 months ago. Logically I know the answer is yes, but what I'm struggling to comprehend is the severity of it and keep downplaying it to myself. Here are some instances:

I was lying on his bedroom floor crying and he became more concerned with his parents hearing it and was fed up with me being upset and not telling him why, and even though I told him not to touch me he grabbed me and picked me up aggressively and put me onto the bed to try and make me calm down.

When my depression was bad he'd tell me my moping around was making him miserable. One time he said me wanting to end my life made him want to end his too. Another time he said that me being suicidal was me saying I wanted to leave him.

Sometimes when I expressed a desire to self harm he would threaten to take away things like days out to make me not do it.

He told me that he was worried me being so shy (I'm neurodiverse) would cause his friends and family to dislike me.

He once said that he doesn't know if he should stick around in this relationship if I just end up killing myself.

One time we had an argument late at night and he said he was fed up with me acting how I was (miserable due to being in chronic discomfort/pain) and made me feel guilty for crying, but wouldn't let me go downstairs so he could sleep. Instead he lay in bed listening to music to block out the sound of my crying

Another time I was keeping him awake by crying, he kicked and pushed me in bed and grabbed me and shouted at me to just stop.

He had a go at me to 'find a solution' for being shy around his family, and got mad when I said there may not be one because I'm autistic and can't help it, then we had a huge argument which lasted two days and he told me that I was making it all about myself instead of how he feels by having to think of reasons to his friends & family why I'm shy (I refused to let him tell them I was autistic at the time)

When I was crying late at night he said if I kept him up by crying and he had to drive home on only 4 hours sleep he'd be very pissed off with me, but then went on his phone and did not respond to me when I told him why I was crying

One time when I was overwhelmed and had been scratching to self harm, then tried to stop myself by holding onto the bed to give my hands something to do, and he got angry with me for keeping him awake. He didn't comfort me when I cried, then when I tried to seek comfort from him by snuggling up to him he kept pushing my head away

When WFH, during a work call I had an anxiety attack and was crying on the floor as I got so worked up about my part during a weekly meeting. He shouted at me how I should just quit if I can’t handle the job and get a lower paying less stressful job. I felt even worse so I crawled into the spare room so he couldn’t see me crying anymore as I didn’t want to make him more pissed off with me

When we were struggling to put a piece of furniture together, whilst I had covid, he got annoyed with me. He called me useless, but wouldn’t let me help, then told me I should at least do something useful. He said things like: "Get out of the way, Shut the fuck up, Whatever princess wants, Do something useful for once, Useless, You’re not helping"

I think everything has become so normalised to me that I struggle to see my own situation, so I'd really appreciate some outsider's opinions on what I've described. Thanks in advance

Its extremely mentally abusive.

You have no idea what damage you have done to him in the long term and how that may affect his future relationships and partners.

You were both abusive to stay in such a toxic relationship, its very sad.

Its ended now, so stop focusing on the past and looking for sympathy and get yourself some help to move forward and build a happier life.

But it is! You didn't do it, you were chucking around threats that frankly sound manipulative. The more you speak, the more I feel sorry for him at this point.

I'm not adamant on villainising you - but you will not accept what people are saying. When you are constantly threatening suicide it does become abusive.
Suicide threats are a cry for help. But you said yourself you said it over and over and he would take days out away to stop you - if you were actively going to attempt suicide, you wouldn't care about a day out. Does this make sense? Crying in a ball on the floor and screaming at him to leave you alone - you wanted him to support you and then got angry when he tried. I have been there, I have attempted suicide and I have been severely unwell, and I can accept that I put those closest to me through hell during that time. There is no way your therapist should be commenting on another person and you also shouldn't be showing her private messages. You are failing to see you desperately need to work on yourself, so I won't comment further as my intention isn't to cause you distress - but you won't heal or move forward until you take accountability for yourself and stop seeing yourself as a victim and instead a person who was/is unwell and in a relationship that shouldn't have lasted as long as it did. All the best, op.

I literally did self harm. I wasn't saying it to manipulate, I was telling him how I felt.

But sure, feel sorry for a man who made me feel unsafe in my own home and cheated on me countless times online.

My victim mentality from being a victim of sexual coercion?

OP. He sounds awful. That’s agreed.

Now you need to own your own stuff.

OP, I'd feel quite upset if people were this determined to paint me as manipulative when describing real distress.

If you feel like this thread isn't healthy for you, remember you can always step away. You don't have to explain yourself to random people on the internet xx

That's your opinion. You weren't there.

Nor was anyone else on this post but we all have enough life experience to know a duck when we see one.

I must not have as much life experience as you then.

This sounds utterly EXHAUSTING.

You've already spent several years being miserable, and now you're going to waste more time picking over it. Do you work? Do you have outside interests, hobbies etc or things to keep you busy?

You believe he was abusive, and no matter how many times people tell you that your behaviour was challenging, you've already made your mind up, that he was wrong and you were right. And that being autistic trumps everything (it doesn't). You BOTH behaved very badly. None of us were there, so we can't possibly know was the instigator most of the time, and who was the one reacting to the others bad behaviour. Either way, it's time to move on.

Continue with therapy. Don't date.

You honestly sound like such a martyr.

You are not taking any responsibility for any of your actions at all!

Continue with therapy and stay single.

I was crying on the floor because we had been arguing and I felt unsafe sitting on the bed with him (he would shout in my face and growl at me). I didn't want to be touched due to this so went to the floor to cry. He was worried his parents would hear me crying and come into the room and ask questions (not that I was being loud, but the walls were extremely thin in that house) and so he aggressively yanked me up by my stomach and dragged me onto the bed.

I have never in my life screamed at this man. HE would scream at me to shut the fuck up. He would kick me, push me, and shout at me to stop crying.

I am aware of the strain my mental health put on him, it is why I sought out therapy on more than one occasion.

I am both a victim and a person who is unwell and I am focusing on the past to deal with suppressed emotions from his behaviour.

I know I don't have to explain myself, but I guess after spending years of this man invalidating how I felt, for some reason I feel the need to.

When we lived together my mental health was actually relatively stable, yet the one time I relapsed with self harm he saw it, walked off without saying a word, gave me the silent treatment for a few hours and told me he was fed up of my behaviour after years of it beforehand. Not once did he ask if I was okay or why I did it.

When I was feeling melancholy and wanted to cuddle up to him not even saying anything, he let me, though he was physically tense and in a sullen mood the whole time until I felt so uncomfortable with his demeanour that I left the room. I later found out his bad mood was because I was preventing him from talking to a girl he was sexting at the time.

I didn't want to put 8 years of incidents in one post. All I wanted from this was to find out if the incidents I initially described were emotional abuse, prior to the worse incidents happening. But I guess the users of mumsnet don't really work like that and now apparently I'm a martyr.

I have blamed myself for years over the state of our relationship, believing I was an awful person for what I made my ex put up with, believing I was horrible, toxic. Believing that the first two years of my mental health issues were what caused him to go on to cheat on me, to manhandle me, to throw things in our home, break things, talk to me like he hated me, sexually coerce me.

I am trying to learn to NOT hate myself for what I did, to see that he too acted badly and that me being so depressed in the first two years of the relationship is not the reason why he went on to do what he did. But thank you, random people on the internet, for trying to undermine that.

OP you can contact the National Domestic Abuse Helpline. You can discuss your relationship with them and work out whether it was abusive. You can also webchat with Refuge, they are open until 10pm.

I don't think this thread is helpful. All the best.

With each dripping feed you're coming across as VERY unhinged.

You might want to consider that you're the problem. Not him.

I think you should step away from this thread OP. It sounds like he dealt with a very difficult relationship very badly, and you were very much not in a place to be in a relationship (nor was he!) he made awful situations worse for you, but I think even a stable and kind person would struggle to deal with a relationship with someone who had such serious MH issues.

It's really great that you're in therapy but coming on MN and opening yourself up to public opinion like this is going to really be damaging to you. I would leave the thread, delete your account and maybe have a chat with your therapist about it all.

I can see you're trying to pick through this to find sense. I'm just awfully worried about you - some people are being very harsh on you.

I do want you to know that it isn't a universal opinion on here. I can see how someone would struggle with their partner's depression - but it sounds to me like he made you a lot worse and behaved terribly towards you. I don't think you deserved the way he treated you.

Please take care of yourself x

I don't think you should say something like that to someone who has described being physically assaulted.

@CrownOfEagleFeathers
Don't be so gullible, OP tried to blame the guy and when she was told she was in the wrong out came the drip of no it's not me.
OP is possibly unwell and extremely manipulative, all the performative crying and woe is me.

Excuse me? Then pray tell why my therapist agrees my ex was in the wrong.

And literally my ex's ex best friend who has taken my side when I told him of what my ex did.

Side? 🤦🏼‍♀️