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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Things my abusive bf did that I accepted

17 replies

Suzi9989I · 20/08/2026 17:51

My ex was emotionally controlling and abusive. One of things he did was whilst he was driving, I was not allowed to fall asleep. Because that made him tired. When I offer to drive, he would comment on every decision I made and nothing was ever good enough.

What crazy shit did/ have you put up with. I have been working on healing, but every now and again. A conversation or a memory will make me wobble. I am no longe
r fearful, just baffling (did that happen? Wtf and I will never get to know WHY)

OP posts:
StonwEd · 20/08/2026 17:58

Told me no woman, no matter what her height should be over 10st. That kept me starving most of our relationship.

mummyof2021boy · 20/08/2026 18:19

Told me that my miscarriage didn't count as his ex miscarried later.
Told me it wasn't grape as I was wet
Said if I didn't get an abortion he was going to force feed me pills and kick the baby out of me.
Graped me constantly.

Suzi9989I · 20/08/2026 19:13

StonwEd · 20/08/2026 17:58

Told me no woman, no matter what her height should be over 10st. That kept me starving most of our relationship.

Horrid

OP posts:
Suzi9989I · 20/08/2026 19:14

mummyof2021boy · 20/08/2026 18:19

Told me that my miscarriage didn't count as his ex miscarried later.
Told me it wasn't grape as I was wet
Said if I didn't get an abortion he was going to force feed me pills and kick the baby out of me.
Graped me constantly.

I can't actually comprehend this, I hope you are free of that. Sorry for your loss

OP posts:
XMissPlacedX · 20/08/2026 22:48

Made me stand in the shower as not to get blood on the new carpet after he split my lip by hitting me with a plate.. and what’s worse, I fucking did. Would kick the shit out of that sad little twat now if I ever saw him.

Hiredgun · 20/08/2026 22:57

These stories are so sad to read.

LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta · 20/08/2026 23:11

It didn't happen to me but it did to several of my loved ones. The physical brutality was not as destructive and echoing as the remorseless crushing of their self esteem.

How did it happen? Bit by bit. One small boundary crushed after the other. Not realising what was happening, because you'd been trained to "let things go", don't make waves, feel sorry for him, prioritse him, center him, doubt yourself.

The following is an online post from 10 years ago that keeps circulating because it describes the insidiousness of abuse so perfectly. It wasn't your fault that you got trapped in it.

"What I remember most about emotional abuse is that it’s like being put in a box. How you end up in there is the biggest trick – I never managed to work that one out. Maybe you think it’s a treasure box at first: you’re in there because you’re special. Soon the box starts to shrink. Every time you touch the edges there is an “argument”. So you try to make yourself fit. You curl up, become smaller, quieter, remove the excessive, offensive parts of your personality – you begin to notice lots of these. You eliminate people and interests, change your behaviour. But still the box gets smaller. You think it’s your fault. The terrible, unforgivable too-muchness of you is to blame. You don’t realise that the box is shrinking, or who is making it smaller. You don’t yet understand that you will never, ever be tiny enough to fit, or silent enough to avoid a row – because they aren’t rows. If you’re lucky – like my friend and me – you get to leave the situation. I’m not sure whether you ever completely escape the experience."

BeMellowAquaSquid · 20/08/2026 23:28

My ex and I were driving along one day and he asked where I got a CD from and I remarked how a male friend had burnt songs on to it for me. He threw it out the car window whilst I was driving and I was in such a ridiculous place emotionally I convinced he’d done it because he loved me and I rationalised that it was actually ‘sweet’.

SparklyBlueDress · 20/08/2026 23:41

I also wasn’t allowed to sleep in the car. And if I sang along to the radio it would get turned off

DirtyBird · 21/08/2026 01:30

Mocked me and made fun of the facial expressions I made. If he caught me dancing or humming/singing he would make the most disgusted face and say “thats ugly, i dont ever want to see that again”.

criticized/mocked my driving, how I ate, how I sat at my desk while working. Called me names - dumb ass, stupid ass, cousin It, ignorant ass, etc. even after our relationship ended (only lasted a couple of years) we remained friends for over a decade and he became even more abusive. I realized he used me as his punching bag because he had nothing to lose by verbally abusing me. Recently stopped having contact with him as the verbal abuse wasn’t worth having him in my life. Glad to be rid of the little prick.

LapisBlue · 21/08/2026 05:57

Insisted the words "aggressive" and "bully" were never to be mentioned.

Overreacted and yelled abuse at me if I had a different opinion about something. Anything, actually

Kept running away.

LapisBlue · 21/08/2026 05:59

Another one: Ordered me to pack a case for him so he could "leave" me. And, bizarrely, I did.

Suzi9989I · 21/08/2026 16:30

I sincerely hope those who suffered are healing and no longer letting these events impact your life. I genuinely felt I was in a daze. Like I was watching this happen and that IT did not happen to me!? Virtual hug 🫂 💐
I didn't want to cause any upset, quite the opposite, look how far we've come. How strong you are and better days are still coming.

OP posts:
MarchionessOfMayhem · 21/08/2026 19:36

Asked me to throw him the remote control and then deliberately didn't catch it and it knocked his face. Told me he did it deliberately so he could genuinely say I'd assaulted him.

Made me go to the loo with the door open so that he could check I wasn't using my phone in the bathroom.

Convinced me it was ridiculous for me to see my family a couple of times a week and 'not normal' but it was fine for him to see his family every day.

Got my colleagues phone numbers from my phone, contacted them all and told them lies about me and tried to convince them I had mental health issues.

The list goes on unfortunately....

EmeraldDreams73 · 21/08/2026 19:48

SO many! I put up with way too much for two decades as he was often lovely, at least initially.

Off the top of my head:

Endless pressure about my weight, appearance, etc (I'm tall and was between a size 12 and 18). At a size 16, I "took up too much space" in the bed, couldn't possibly wear a dress to xyz event as "ABC will be there (thinner women than me)". Etc.

Told me that having sex with me was "like climbing on top of a beached whale". Also at size 16 with zero support, two kids, fuck all time for myself etc.

Pressurised me quite literally every waking hour - it was seriously disordered and obsessive - to rent our home out for holidaymakers and live in a shed in the garden with no running water etc/do that just for school holidays/whatever. Called me pathetic for refusing (after listening for 2 hours!) to live in a 1920s unconverted single skin garage, with two young children and two dogs while our home (AND the converted barn next to it which was actually for holidays and doing well as I was running it already) were rented to a constantly revolving cast of people. All so he didn't have to feel "pressure" to earn (I worked full time, did all childcare, he went off every weekend gigging and brought home fuck all £, plus pissed about with a hobby business the rest of the time. My family bailed us out loads of times.)

Stressed our ND DD so much going on about her/my/other people's weight (she's tall and was a size 10-12) that she became severely depressed and struggled a lot at school.

Endless stropping about borrowing hundreds of thousands of pounds we couldn't possibly afford for some pie in the sky shite plan he hadn't thought through but was the answer to everything. When I nodded along to get all the details, did the research and presented him with the fucking obvious conclusion that it wasn't possible or sensible, I got shot down; the world was against him, I was unadventurous/Princessy/pathetic, despite this being our 9th big project and living in building sites, I never lived in a finished house for more than 2 weeks before he had them on the market. Nothing was ever good enough and we never earned anywhere near enough for a nice normal life in any of his grand schemes.

He's still like it now and hides the worst of it (for now) from his lovely partner of 5 years.

Yes, I eventually left him when my daughters spelled out how it was affecting them (I thought I was protecting them and it was only me suffering. Wrong). Our dds see him minimally and have zero genuine relationship with him but keep up an amicable front through fear of his volatility. He will die an angry and lonely man who has lost loads of friends, done untold emotional damage to me and our dds, and it will all have been someone else's/the world's fault.

He never cheated though, so tells the world (and his partner, whose exh did cheat on her) that he was the perfect husband and feigns bafflement that I could have "thrown it all away at the drop of a hat" despite years of me begging him to get help/issuing ultimatums. He did however keep on about how many women fancied him/were coming on to him at gigs. I wouldn't have given a shit if he'd gone for them as it would've given me a cast iron excuse long before I grew a spine. But he never did, I expect it was bollocks lol.

Accused me of bullying him every. Single. Time. I tried very carefully and calmly to discuss his appalling behaviour. Eventually I read about narcissistic abuse and it was like reading about my whole life. Took a while but I got out.

dizzydizzydizzy · 21/08/2026 22:45

Constantly told me I was lazy. Drove me to chronic illness and still told me I was lazy when I
was resting due to the illness.

AndiPandiPuddinAndPie · 22/08/2026 11:27

I have my list. On my list are 60 things that are the bad things that I remember most about my terrible relationship. I made the list so that I could eventually find my way out. I keep the list so I will never, ever go back there xx

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