covert abuse? - trying to understand

[LucyLoo1972]

Im utterly perplexed by my marriage, I thought it was pretty much perfect because we got along so well. We had the same interests, same big vision for life, see spiritual values, we enhance each others careers as they were adjacent, we both loved, art and travel and music. We had been married 16 years when I had a psychotic break down from anxiety which seems very out of the blue as I had not had a history of mental illness despite suffering extensive and prolonged childhood trauma.

in treatment in the aftermath of the psychosis, my doctors raised that they thought that there were aspects of my marriage which were very challenging and stressful at best and abusive at worst. I worked os so hard in my life to become very successful in my dream academic career that was extremely important to me because it relate to issues f social justice that I had suffered impacts of as a child.

I lost everything and have not worked for nine years. I was a happy and joyful person before. I lost all the friends id invest 25 years of friendships in, I have physical disabilities now, lost the career id worked so hard at and had won many awards for and was getting acclaim for, have no financial independence, and multiple mental health diagnoses. the internal state of my mind is literally hell 24/7. I dont even have my Christian faith anymore. I thought my husband loved me absolutely dearly so honestly I can not recover from the shock of this. the psychosis was entirely stress related so I dont have an illness like schizophrenia or bipod or anything like that. I realise now that I loved my husband so so much that his wants and needs were out first to a degree in which I didnt even spend money on really essential things fro myself like a computer and books, let alone treats.

I could describe some fo what went on but I am interested to now if anyone has suffered anythign like this. I blame myself becasue in so many ways he is a very kind perosn and im sure he loved me and didnt mean to hurt me but I let life be entirely to his comfort even though it meant I suffered. I suffered to the extent I lost my mind and no amount of money can ever bring that back.

I am so sorry you've experienced this. It's very hard to tell whether your DH has made you ill or if you have somehow done what you think is necessary to keep him happy without him actually influencing you?

It's hard to tell without examples, but i do know that burying abuse subconsciously just leads to it manifesting in physical and mental health issues. And, if you don't know any other "normal" because you've been conditioned to accept it, then you simply don't recognise it as abuse.

When you are told it is abusive, you go into denial at first and then start to question and then lable. Maybe that's where you are right now?

I am sorry you are struggling. Has it been considered if you were / are masking autism? It presents differently in females and women can burn out.

honestly that is quite hard for me to know too.
if he influenced me it was very covert - he wouldnt say you cant buy that but if I came with soemthing he might say, what have you bought that for? do you need that?

I know im guilty becasue I never challenged him on the things that were hard for me and we never evr had disagreements. I will never be able to forgive myself for that self abandonment that has caused all this terrible distress and loss and suffering- for him as well as me. he didnt like to discuss things and I never had any even minor meltdowns. so if he kept me waiting for 45 mins in the cold I never said anything. if he refused for us to have decorators in but wouldnt do it himself I never said anything. he would never see a financial advisor with me for an hour or 2 in 16 years and had £70,000 in his current account but was so frugal I dint have essential books form y academic career. he is a hoarder and I never insisted he deal with some fo that.

Yes I did, although I 'woke up' before being completely broken. I thought my marriage was perfect, the abuse was very insidious. My family could see it and regularly tried to get me to see sense but I just couldnt believe them. I went to the doctor for symptoms, had tests for hormones, thyroid, ovaries etc and all clear, but i was losing my hair, my periods had stopped etc. The doctor suggested i was stressed and depressed. I laughed; my life was perfect.

My only explanation on why i allowed this to happen was poor self esteem. My exDH sniffed that out. He's done it with my replacement too.

I'm sorry to say I have lifelong scars. I dont want him to have ruined me, i know thats exactly what he wanted - I used to be a happy go lucky person. Now i'm bitter, anxious and cynical. Dont think i can trust to truly love again. Not fun to be around. Not living up to my potential, not living the life i wanted. I do try very hard to get back to being my real self though.

thats interesting. I dont honestly know. I tihnk I am neurodivergent though and I have CPTSD which often orudces symptoms like ADHD

Do you have children, @LucyLoo1972 ?

No we don't. that was a very difficult thing for us. I have vaginismus so sex was away difficult and then my husband refuses to see a doctor with me or to discuss having children. that was hard for me

Where are you now @LucyLoo1972 with your treatment and your marriage? Surely you should be having some form of support to work through this? When you say doctors suggested there could be abuse, were these psychologist or psychiatrists?

I was in an abusive marriage and didn't realise until later. It is certainly possible but you need help to unpick this safely.

the first was a psychiatrist when I was in the worst stages of my illness self harming involuntaryily and trying ot stare myself ot death. then the psychologists who were treating me also.

but it exceptionally confusing becasue I thought it was completely perfect before. we could never talk honestly about ithngs though somehow. he took any slight tiny criticism completely out of perspective. and that was all ok until lit led to things making it impossible to complete my thesis (due ot some financial control). I cant fathom how or why I just let all this go. it makes abosulteyl nonsense becasue he was a very kind and gentle perosn and wouldn't have been abusive like my father if I had asked for things. in any case, I realise now that the money we had in the marriage was my money too and I didnt need to ask him to but a radio for the upstairs but I could just do it, I never new ho these thigns would effect me. I loved life and was so joyful and now I want o die every minute of everyday

the sad thing is that I didnt wake up until I was completely broken. id fought so hard ot have this beautiful successful life after all my trauma. I dont get it becasue I felt blissfully happy - -we were incredibly well matched in many ways .

I do not tihnk my husabnd intended to do any harm at all. - that is the strangest thing I think he was trying ot love me as best as he could

I might be wrong, but it sounds like it isn't your husband who is at fault, so much as you've taken your DF's behaviour and assumed that your DH would be the same?

I am just wary because my mother has bipolar disorder, and the person she saw told her that DF was abusive and she should leave him. It wasn't true. She had just reported things from a certain perspective and they didn't fact check. If you have told them you didn't feel you could buy a radio, they may have assumed control, but it sounds like you're saying that you limited yourself because your DF wouldn't have let you buy a radio?

Things sound incredibly hard. It will take time to process what has happened to you and you need professional support I think to do so.

Are you still with your husband? I am worried about us saying you are or are not being abused if you don't have the real life support in place to deal with this.

You sound like you are taking all the responsibility for his behaviour. I think you really need help to work through what happened to you safely.

Life can be good again @LucyLoo1972 It will take some time to deal with it and come out the other side.

I can only share with you my experience, @LucyLoo1972 , you don’t know me from Adam, but I’m a strong, capable, intelligent woman who doesn’t take any shit. And yet I ended up in an abusive marriage and didn’t realise the full extent of it until after I got out. For me having a daughter was what saved me, I wasn’t going to tolerate him behaving like that towards her.
With me it was little my little, drop by drop. I look at myself now and think how, just how didn’t I see it, what took me so long? I felt robbed, violated but all that paled in comparison with how protective I am towards my DD, I could see it clearly happening to her and I put a stop to it, but if it wasn’t for her, I would have probably still been married.

What eventually worked for me was meeting myself where I’m actually at. I took stock of where I’m at (and I’m still doing that, every day) and learnt to anchor myself in the present in order to heal. I re-parented myself, a built boundaries, I’m trying to give myself what I need. If I’m lucky, I get another 20 years, and what I want to do with them is growing herbs, cooking for friends, seeing art exhibitions, swimming in the sea, learning to paint with watercolours, doing pilates, being part of a community etc. Little things.

Wishing you well.

thanks. I think his is a very helpful point, especially after being so unwell I find it hard ot have clarity sometimes. he was the best fired in the world I had and we loved each other very very much and got on so well, I would never ever fish anybody like him ever. the grief of this is so insane it makes me want ot die because. see how I caused it myself.

this is where im honestly confused myself sometimes. there were ways that my husabnd was a wonderful husband. and where he was neglectful or a pain int he arse I am to blame for not challenging those behaviours and having boundaries and saying this is too much for me.

I only ever felt safe with my husband. but his ways with money were genuinely insane and because of my abuse I was too compliant to please him. my faith was the opposite with money and was vey much a gift giver and making sure you have what oyu need. he was a violent abusive alcoholic as well.

so to take the radio example - our radio upstairs broke and I tis my husband I was going ot buy another one. I was home alone working on my phd everyday in silence. He told me not to buy one becasue we had two broken radios that I could try to get mended. of course I dont have the knowledge or tiem or energy to do that when we are talking about obsolete radios from ten years prior. And befroe my phd submission I was behind and asked to spend 600 pounds n transcriptions for my interviews when he has £70,000 in his current account and we sent have a joint account. he disapproved of this (which is. tiny sum of money) who I didnt do it. and it set me back months and led to the stress that caused the psychosis.
the saddest terribel part is we had such great respect for ne another and I think were uniquely bonded. he was the love of my life and im utterly bereft and confused and insane. he ws also a hoarder and prcarastinared anything around the house which made me pretty depressed,

id be interested in any thoughts you have

thank you kind friend. I do try to do those kinds of things. I was a very very placid gentle soul. what is sad is that my hsabdn and I were both so gentle and we loved the same things - we could talk for hours and hours about art and music and we built an amazing art collection together. I think he was very very proud f the work I did and I dont tihnk he ever meant ot hurt me- this is what makes it unbearable. he was the single soul in the world I trusted and I destroyed our one and only life for both odf us

It aint over til it's over! You got out; for me, being 100% broken would be staying and letting him own your soul forever. You're out, there's something left, just build on that day by day.

its hard be are I love him so very uch and even now im not sure my judgement is correct. I feel like I lose my soul without him.

Op, you have another thread going as well, don't you? Just concerned that you might not be getting the most help and support by posting different information on different threads.

ah ok. yes I do, a general one and then this one as an example. but thank you thats helpful to know. I dont use Mumsnet much

It sounds to me that you are taking the blame for how your husband is behaving - eg he was a hoarder but it is my fault for not challenging this.
Every adult is responsible for their own behaviour. It isn't your fault that he was/is a hoarder. Challenging a hoarder doesn't help anyway as it is a serious mental health problem which needs specialist support when the hoarder is ready to address the issue!
Who told you this was all your fault?

Morning, @LucyLoo1972.

When these threads are flagged to us we usually post a link to our web-guides, which may be of use. We may have sent you this link to our Mental Health page previously but there are lots of useful contact details there if you're feeling low about this and would like some extra 'real life' support.

We hope things improve for you very soon.

well I swing between blaming my husband and blaming myself. its like I died when I had the psychosis. ive alwasy blamed myself a lot and taken responsibility for everything. everything alwasy went well for us because I tried so very hard and we both worked hard and lived healthily and loved one another. and then overnight almost everything changed and I cant even listen to music or look at my work anymore when it was the absolute passion of my life. I thought we were so so in tune with one another and os happy. we never had any difficulties dy by day becasue we were good at letting small things go I guess.

thank you for your kind concern for me. I just fear it is all too late for me. my whole beautiful life got wiped away