Would you end your marriage over this behaviour or work things out

[Satsumahwah]

DH and I have had a rough patch in our marriage.

He is asking for another chance and has taken himself off to anger management/therapy and swears he will never do this again and is very sorry.

Until recently he had never done this to me directly.

He knows I’ve experienced DV from my father and in previous relationships including a serious assault

• Repeated shouting/raised voices - when you have asked them not to shout at you and you are not shouting back so it’s not a 2 way row

• Engaging you in circular late night conversations that escalate and not letting them end to go to sleep

• not letting you leave the room when you try to leave to continue an argument

• shouting at you when you are driving

• repeatedly ending the relationship in anger then begging you back

• slamming doors and throwing things

• telling you that they would never hurt you but hurting you emotionally

The context of the arguments is not cheating or lying. I’m not sure the context matters

Nope. I'd be gone..Put yourself first. all the best OP..

You're in another abusive relationship and you don't want to leave him because you feel guilty?

The guy won't let you leave a room or sleep. He's an abuser OP.

I really hope there are no kids tied up in this.

This is classic point where abuse starts - either moving in together, marriage, new baby - you were not to know this until he revealed his true abusive self.

Well done for already leaving him.
Well done for doing the Freedom Programme.
Well done for reaching out to your mates.
Well done for checking in here where their advice / take didn’t resonate with your gut.

You know he’s a wrong ‘un now - you didn’t when you married him because he was masking.

His behaviour is serious persistent emotional abuse and harassment.

Please seek help about keeping yourself safe emotionally and physically from this man as this is the point you are at significant risk.

He’s played the anger management card, the MH card - next will be the suicide threat and made up health crisis or family crisis. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TRAP. Call 999 if you are worried that will either flush him out if he’s lying or get him the appropriate professional help that he needs if it’s real.

Have you professional emotional support in place. Do you know what your next steps will be? Do you need to get paperwork or anything sentimental from the house? Speak to a lawyer before telling him etc.

I am sorry that you have experienced this in childhood and this has happened again. You were not to know - but you do now - accept what it is, feel sad and distraught BUT use YOUR agency - to close the door and move on. Keep safe.

This is all DV. Sorry you’ve been a victim of it - and no - I would be ending it (and I’ve been a previous victim too) and it was actually harder the end as I felt like a failure that my boundaries were not strong enough but actually this isn’t you - it is him.

The only reason I’d even consider giving a second chance would be if he’d he’d recognised that his behaviour was abusive, started making changes immediately, then also chosen to go to therapy/anger management because he’d made an independent decision to get help with this - and he’d done all of this immediately after the very first time you’d ever spoken to him about it, before things escalated. Even then I’d be wary about his motivations.

As it is, he’s only promising to change because you left. If he can choose to change now, he could have chosen to change at any point. So why, when you were repeatedly asking him to stop and explaining why, didn’t he choose to change then?

All of his behaviours were choices, and ‘mental health issues’ are nothing more than a predictable excuse designed to make you feel guilty if you don’t forgive him. If he hasn’t been shouting at his friends or his boss, hasn’t been throwing things or slamming doors around other people, if he’s not in the habit of stopping anyone else from leaving rooms when he’s angry, he has - and has always had - control over his actions.

He says he respects me and sees how bad it looks and how he’s scared me and it’s taught him a lesson
Is he really so stupid that he needed you to leave before he could learn this lesson - your repeated explanations weren’t enough for him? And, despite this, he still hasn’t acknowledged his actions were abusive?
It “looks” bad because it is bad. If he didn’t want to look like an abusive prick he shouldn’t have engaged in abusive behaviours, should he?

A lot of the advice around recognising abuse talks about early signs appearing within months. I’ve seen very little talking about men who manage to keep the mask on for years…but they do exist. If you gave him another chance he might manage to be on his best behaviour for a while, but you’re probably right that he’d “just get better at being angry in less obvious ways”.

You’ve already done the hard part and left him - so don’t doubt yourself now. Ignore the unhelpful opinions of your support network and listen to what your gut is telling you.

please end it, life is too short to be in a relationship like that 😞

This.
You never really know a man until you are living together. Sometimes you never know until you are pregnant and trapped.
Then the abuse starts ramping up.

He was on his best behaviour for years, hiding his true self, until you moved in together. Then he thought he had 'got' you and was ok to start abusing you.

End it for good, with no guilt. None of this is your fault.

Feelings are not facts.
You feel guilty because of decades of conditioning.
Is there any factual basis to this?
Feck no

I would…. I think the shouting, throwing things and slamming doors are just ramping up to more violence. I (and I bet you don’t either) don’t shout or throw things at my partner because I can regulate. You and I both know that a regulating adult says “I’m too upset at the moment can we please pause/ I’m going to take a quick walk and calm down”.

the not letting you sleep or leave is cruel and feels like a power and control thing, as does the breaking up and then coming back.

id like to heightlight that the most dangerous time for a woman is when she’s decided to leave, more women are killed by their partners at this point than any other. So once you’ve decided to go be quick and very careful. I’ve seen some great threads on Reddit for how to safety exit once you’ve decided to go, a quick google (with privacy mode on, or using the computer at the library) could give you a list to execute.

good luck and I hope you are able to build a life where you feel safe, sleep when you are tired and home feels like your haven xx

For me personally, I believe that any one of these would be the end, even if it only happened once:

• Intentionally preventing me from sleeping for no reason
• Physically blocking me from leaving a room
• Shouting at me while I'm driving or when I had repeatedly asked him to stop

And above all ending the relationship in anger, apparently as a tool to manipulate me.

But what's most important is what YOU consider intolerable and unforgivable, and it sounds like you DO consider what he has done intolerable and unforgivable. You've actually gone so far as to leave, which takes a great deal of conviction and courage. Do not let anyone else talk you out of what you know to be right for you.

As a side note: I think it's great that he's getting therapy; I hope it works out for him. If he sticks with it and gets better maybe he can have a healthy relationship someday - with someone else. But that's for him to determine, not your issue or problem any more. I don't think a relationship can or should survive one partner's inflicting emotional abuse on the other, and that has happened to quite a strong degree here from what you have said.

Think of the person you most respect in the world - would YOU behave like this with them? Think of the person you most love in the world, would you behave like this with them? No way would I stay, and I wouldn't negociate - he can take himself off to anger management and work on himself in his own time. I wouldn't be waiting around while he struggles valliantly to learn to be an adult and to learn the real meaning of respect.

"A lot of the advice around recognising abuse talks about early signs appearing within months. I’ve seen very little talking about men who manage to keep the mask on for years…but they do exist."

I think men like this are much MUCH more prevalent than women realise. Because of this, women need to be really careful every time they contemplate any serious financial mingling with a man, especially getting married and having children: they may have known the man for years, even lived with him, but the second the guy realises she's in some way dependent, trapped, or less able to escape, he feels comfortable to let his mask drop. She will then see the real him - the untrammelled entitled aggressive him - and part of the trap is that she didn't realise men can turn like this. She thinks it's a blip, then that it's her fault, and eventually she gets further and further trapped in the shrinking box of DV and loss of self.

This is exactly what happened here: OP only realised this man's capacity for DV when they had a standard rough patch and they'd been living together for 1.5 years, after being together for 5.5 years. He thought he'd got her, now he could let his mask drop.

OP, this man is mouthing contrition, and his anger management/therapy rubbish is just him ticking boxes. And his "the ball is in your court" is guilting crap. Worst of all, he doesn't recognise that what he did absolutely IS 100% DV, ergo he will do it again.

He is not safe in any way.

I don’t want to go back to him

Then don't. What YOU want is paramount in your life

You may also have just worked out which bits of your support network needn't be downgraded

Put yourself first and foremost and do what is best for you

This isn't a rough patch. His behaviour is abusive.

Base your decision on what you have experienced, seen and felt. Not on his words. I can imagine that, having been through all this before, and done the Freedom Programme and read Lundy Bancroft that you thought you were past this and yet here you are again, and that might feel quite defeating.

Don't blame yourself for one second. You do not have to be in an abusive relationship, you don't have to settle for this shitty disgusting behaviour. Choose yourself, not him and his dysfunction, and find yourself a different support network, who can recognise and understand what is going on here.

Is there a local support group you can join? Womens Aid might be able to help you with this.

Don't go back OP, unless what you want is more of the same. He has shown you clearly what's on offer.

Quoted for emphasis:

"Each behaviour in your list is bad enough but it is a whole cluster of some very serious abusive behaviours (not letting you to sleep = torture, not letting you leave the room = false imprisonment) which is repeated over and over again over a period of time."

And from @INeedAnotherName

"he throws things to intimidate and frighten you? It's a form of aggression and can escalate into violence against a person instead of an object. The pattern is very well known."

And "shouting at you when you are driving" - that is also a very well known DV pattern: you are trapped in a confined space, where you as the driver cannot leave safely; you are also having to concentrate on the road, so the verbal violence in that context adds hugely to the powerless "walking on eggshells" fear-of-being-assaulted-at-any-moment psychological effect of DV.

What he did was INEQUIVOCABLY domestic violence.

It’s a lost cause, OP.

I went back to my husband, who said all the right things. Turns out when you go back, they suddenly realise their behaviour wasn't so bad after all....you came back, didn't you? It escalated to even more abusive behaviour. By then I was more confused, weaker. I managed to get out the second time and haven't gone back but I can tell you that his behaviour is very unlikely to change.

Don't. He won't change. Speaking from experience and a hard lesson.

The fact it escalated when you started living together is the clue. When they start to think they have you trapped, the mask slips. He has shown you who he is under pressure, which is an angry, stroppy cockhead. Believe him. Absolutely do not have children with this man you will be trapped. Don't take him back, cut your losses and leave.

If he had one episode and decided to take anger management i might be inclined to.give him a chance, however it reads like this has happened over a period of time, so I think it would be a no from me.

No, I could never go back. I could never fully relax with them after that behaviour. You have done so well to get out.

You don’t ever need any excuse to say it’s over. No need for any guilt.

And that list is truly scary, there is nothing left to mourn.

Whatever excuse he offers, whether it was out of his control and he can’t ever change or it was always in his control as he was choosing to treat you like that, I’d seriously advise you to go and not look back.

please don’t let ‘guilt’ keep you trapped.

If you feel you will be emotionally manipulated by his words - it’s called FOG fear, obligation, guilt which are ALWAYS the wrong reason to do anything - then you need to take steps to emotionally protect yourself from his desperately SELF SERVING words - consider putting in some physical distance - be comfortable blocking his number and asking him to respect your space. Tell him that he can contact you only if necessary on email and you will attend to them weekly (set a thing where they are diverted on to a folder) after they have been screened by a friend for any offence, abuse, threats or emotional manipulation.

He is hurting, punishing, goading you every time he is in contact.

Yes. Leave. Familiar relationship, but not a healthy one.