Another argument

[PomanderDelight]

Urgh anyone else with a difficult man? His attitude stinks. I’m so angry. Horrible, hateful man. Sorry, just need to vent. LDR and horrible call that escalated. He makes me so angry.

He's not capable - you are deluding yourself. You know who he is and you are still prepared to accept it.

No point in advising you any further - you have accepted your fate.

I’m not sure what I will do with that info. More to the point is what he will do with it.

What do you mean by 'what he will do with it'? He already showed you what he will do with it. when you pointed out he was being abusive, he turned it back on you. This is called DARVO. Another abuse tactic. Google it, I think you will find it eye opening.

I think the word “fate” is romanticising, Relationships need work. It’s possible he’s not capable. I don’t know what to do about that part. What happens to people who don’t know how to do relationships? Are they to be dumped on a heap & deemed unloveable? Maybe he’s not for me, and that’s where my focus needs to turn.

thanks for listening!

@PomanderDelight I am pleased you like my previous post.

However, there will be no ‘WE need to change”. He won’t because he doesn’t want to.

Any and all change must come from you, be done by you and be for you. Preferably in another direction.

Agree fully.

@PomanderDelight do you think he's awake at this hour posting on a relationship forum about how to resolve your relationship issues? I doubt it.

(Assuming you're in the UK, otherwise my point stands about you asking for advice here on how to sort things out, he couldn't care less)

He's a really cruel person. And yes, people like him who don't know how to have healthy non abusive relationships deserve to get left on the rejects pile because, and I can't stress this enough, women are not rehab centres for dysfunctional, abusive men.

@PomanderDelight this is not the relationship that will bring you happiness. Move on for the good of your future and mental health.
If you don't feel happy it's wrong.

This is helpful - also been reading up on DARVO as suggested by previous posters. I’m not 100% sure that that is the problem, but the parts that ring true are that he is very insecure & tries to be self preserving.

Each time we have a kind of fresh slate after arguments, it’s as though he changed for a short time. He can see what he’s doing. I can even see him putting the work in. But after a few cycles, he lapses back into this weird, jokey/snidey way, making it impossible for things to go forwards. The latest thing is planning a holiday together. It’s impossible when someone is teasing about going somewhere particular.

When we split up, prior to the actual split, I gave him 3 goes to change his behaviour. He made 3 mistakes and each time I was calm & told him that it was hurtful. It took time but it reset the dynamic and he came back with a different attitude and style. Now he’s gone back to his old way.

yes, I can see that the change has to come from me. When I detach and just get on with things alone, his attitude changes & he becomes respectful again. I just want him to maintain that side of himself. But I can’t fix him, he has to fix himself.

He's not capable. Don't waste any more time trying to 'fix' him. You can't.

No man who thinks “I’m in a mood. How do I make myself feel good? I know, I’ll have @PomanderDelight begging at me again. That’ll do”, is insecure or self preserving. He is perfectly secure in his capabilities to get that which makes him happy. Oh, and he gets sex, too. Win, win. Except for @PomanderDelight .

Please, please, instead of turning the other cheek, turn away and shake tendust from your sandals.

@TheSandgroper really interested in your response. What would you call this behaviour where someone enjoys getting that response? is there something more specific than abusive? Interested as exhusband would behave similar

@Takenoprisoner I have no idea if there is a name for it but I have read Mumsnet for so long that it keeps coming up from bloke after bloke after bloke. And for each bloke, it’s a long term pattern of abuse. I called it abusive because it is. They don’t behave like that with their mates, do they?

Blokes don’t do stuff unless they enjoy it, unless they feel good doing it. And by keeping it private, I think they are acknowledging that it is outside societal normal boundaries. And that’s abusive, too.

DH has always worked in male dominated industries and we talked about it. He said “I don’t know anyone who behaves like that”. I said “Statistics say you are wrong, that you do”. And then I said “on a Monday morning, how many times have you heard ‘I went to the football on Saturday and celebrated Father’s Day on Sunday’? Compare that to how many times you have heard a bloke on a Monday morning say ‘yeah, gave the wife a broken rib and she won’t go to the hospital because she’s got an absolute stunner of a black eye’?” He has never, in 40 years, heard a bloke say the second bit. But the statistics say it happened all the same.

As Helen Joyce wrote an article on trans stuff and ended up writing a book so did Jess Hill https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=see+what+you+made+me+do+jess+hill&crid=331PHL8DHIHBL&sprefix=See+what+%2Caps%2C554&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_9. It ended up being turned into a tv series on SBS here in Australia (I don’t know if it’s geoblocked). She is also on Youtube doing talks etc.

So when he starts on the negging- which is what it is. You go silent for a moment, say well I thought we would have a nice chat, but it seems you didn’t want that. I’m hanging up for today. Bye.

Thanks so much for the thoughtful post, will take a look at links.

My last relationship was long and abusive and honestly I think it has changed me to the point I actually don't think I know how to have healthy relationships any more.

OP I can relate to this. My teenage boyfriend was so sweet and caring, and I left to go to university. Then life took us in different directions. After my divorce we reconnected and I was so excited— like you I knew we had a deep connection and it was quite magical. Like yours, he would be his old self part of the time and a new more cynical and angry person the other half. We’re apart now, and I feel he was just unable to love me comfortably. Maybe he had an abandonment wound from the first time, maybe he’d just turned into a twatty middle aged man, who knows.

In your behaviour I can tell that the conflict is you and him exposing your inner wounds and patterns to each other. It’s because you both believe in the connection that this stuff is coming out — it’s the kind of trigger responses you’d deal with in therapy. As you say, when you act a little less familiar it all stops. You’re treating each other as the closest family, with all the inner wounds that carries. Whereas the first time round perhaps his family were still fulfilling that role and you were his sweet escape, now you’re sitting firmly in his trauma zone, and he yours.

Shouting at him and then blaming him for his reaction (shutting down) doesn't make you sound like a nice person either.

Women are not repair centres for broken men.

The toxic cycle won’t stop unless you stop it. That rotten personality goes back way before you and isn’t going to change, ever. It’ll be the same constant pattern of horribleness then a bit of normality for a while because you accept it and are grateful when the horrible stuff stops. Then it rears its head again. And again. And again. Ad infinitum. This IS making you miserable as evident from your original post. Listen to yourself and respect yourself, and drop him. Otherwise you’re in the same shitty cycle for the rest of your life…you weren’t brought into the world for this.

No. I’m not in, nor have I ever been, nor would I ever be in a relationship with “a difficult. Horrible, hateful man.”

It would be stupid to be in such a relationship.

Relationships are supposed to enhance your life and make it better, there’s no point in being in a relationship with someone who makes your life worse; what’s the point?

He knows what he is doing.
He knows the effect it has on you.
He doesn't care.
He won't change because he doesn't want to.

You say he isn’t horrible or hateful… but those were the exact words you used to describe him in your first post. You’ve repeatedly said he has a horrible personality and an attitude that stinks.

You’re deluding yourself that he is actually a nice man because that is what you want to believe. He isn’t. Nice men don’t do what he does.

Your relationship is unhealthy. You are both immature.

And I’m afraid you are absolutely using therapy speak, not just when you used the word ‘trauma bond’ but throughout. All your talk of putting in work and what you think you both need to do to ‘find a way of being together’ and so on is honestly just a smokescreen for what is a deeply toxic, melodramatic set-up which brings out the absolute worst of both of you.

I know am being very blunt here. But pretty much everyone is telling you the same thing, and they are right. By all means stay in this dysfunctional set-up if you want to, but don’t expect others to support your choice.

I think most women have a friend who regularly ‘vents’ about her abusive partner and calls him horrible, nasty, hateful, cruel etc, but when it’s pointed out to her (every time she vents and cries) that she needs to end the relationship, becomes defensive and argues “But I looove him, we’re soulmates, he’s just traumatised, he can change” and eventually everyone runs out of sympathy with her for obvious reasons. You are the Mumsnet equivalent of that.

Either choose to leave and put an end to this nonsense, or stay and put up with it. But staying and expecting others to nod along and support you through a situation of your own making is not realistic.

You are in a toxic abusive relationship. It will not change until you say enough! But if you think HE will then you are being delusional. You need to walk away.

Google Lundy Bancroft - Why does he do that? for a free pdf download. It is eye opening.

Both you and @Takenoprisoner also need to do The Freedom Programme to rebuild your boundaries so you can walk away from men who are no good for you.
((My last relationship was long and abusive and honestly I think it has changed me to the point I actually don't think I know how to have healthy relationships any more.))

I am mid 50’s and thus I do know - you are wasting your time.
Yes, you have deep connection and the rest of what you describe but he’s a nightmare.
Nobody is a complete monster.
But this man is upsetting you.
It’s utter bollocks that you can be in any way happy in this relationship. You might have flashes of it, but relationships which work, don’t work like this one.
I wish I’d known this sooner.
Also - forging a relationship with someone in your past is often around connecting with that part of your past, and your younger self.