Is he right...more verbal abuse.

[micko]

My dh has been working long hours and weekends recently. This means I look after our 2 year old 24/7. I NEVER get a break... no family to help, no friends with young children, as he was a midlife surprise and theirs are grown up. I have two older kids but they are busy too college/work and school/exams etc. I am trying to set up my own business also but my toddler is very demanding which i dont mind and i try to do alot of stuff with him. We cant afford nursery care at the moment and he is very clingy anyway.

He has been assessed as a gifted child so he needs constant attention. I do try to take him to playgroups etc, he lacks socal skills as the hv warned me he might.

I have just announced that i am going to get up earlier in the mornings to try to get ahead of myself each day while he is still asleep and dh sneered and said i won't do it. Has called me lazy.

I said that I am really tired and he said "why are you tired?" My defense was small kids can be mentally draining sometimes and I don't get a break. His reply was "well what do all the others with toddlers do, and anyway i don't come home moaning about working."

It has been vile for a while. After reading the two current threads about verbal/emotional abuse i really feel as if i am a victim. The outcome of the row tonight i have been called a wanker and a twat. I tried to stand up for myself after reading the threads and said to him that he thinks he is a better person than me, he says no i just manage things better than you can.

Last week something happened wont go into detail but basically he said that i had not asked him a particular thing, i KNOW i did and he agreed. He denied it in public and i felt so stupid. He said to me how can you be so sure you said it when you don't even know what day it is half the time.

I realise that the book recommended on the other thread lundy bancroft, i bought it a while back, then dismissed the abuse thinking it must be me , and never read more than afew pages. I am going to read it if i ever get a chance!!

It is confusing because in between the vile outbursts he can be really nice for weeks so i am confused. He goes and talks about me to my older kids and i hate that.

He is really angry as we have a night planned out with friends but i obviously dont feel like it. He will be a real charmer( women love him..v goodlooking etc) and i want to stand up and shout do you know how horrible he can be!!

I hope i can come here just to put down how i am feeling and to get support while i decide what i am going to do next. I have had this for 18 years more or less and it is only really now after reading the stuff today that i think i am ok and it might just be him

Honey - you probably are OK. He needs to take responsibility for what he says. You've got alot on your plate.

Hope someone comes along soon who can give you advice on how to tackle this.

DH is wrong to talk to you in that way. If you have been together 18 years has he always been like this, or is it since your son arrived?

I am also interested in how a 2 year old is assessed as gifted - did he have behavioural problems that may have contributed to issues within your marriage? I am not trying to assign blame, just wondering whether the arrival of a demanding baby may have triggered something in your DH who may have thought his baby days were over?

He has been on and off from about the 2nd year of marriage to be honest.

My hv assessed ds at 2nd birthday. No I don't think ds has made a differenc really looking back i think it has always been there but you just tend to let it blow over till the next time and all of a sudden 18 years have gone by.

It sounds like he is either severely depressed or seeing someone else and trying to justify a distance from his family.

I may be wrong completely - am not an expert.

Calling you a wanker and a twat.....making you feel as if you are unstable or mad....

He is wrong and has no right to treat you badly. Don't know what else to say as I don't have personal experience of this but I just know it's wrong - he is wrong and you do not have to put up with this.

Great that you have decided to speak out and assess your situation, well done on taking that step.

You will get some fab help on here.

A loving partner would be supporting you, encouraging you, and taking an active role as a parent.

You need to find someone in RL to confide in.

Contact your health visitor and ask for contact details for parent and toddler groups.

Try and get out of the house every day, to enable your DS to run off some of that lovely toddler energy.

Build up your own social network, and your own confidence.

Speak to your GP about accessing some counselling; talk everything through with someone who isn't emotionally involved with the situation. It will help you to clarify things in your own mind.

You will gradually be able to see that you are not being treated with kindness or respect by your husband, and perhaps the two of you can work together to repair your relationship.

FWIW, if my husband called me a twat, we would be having an extremely serious conversation - nobody deserves to live in fear of being abused, whether physically or verbally.

Oh my love. In March, 2009 I will have been married 31 years. It has been the strangest of times. We have had four sons but sadly two of the boys have died - one at 7 months and the other at 7 years. Even now I get called a fat, lazy, smelly twat. I do know that I am overweight (after all we have mirrors in our house) lazy - not at all, and as for the other two words NEVER IN A MONTH OF SUNDAYS!!

This year our MY first grandchild was born. Another little boy - he is beautiful and brings utter joy to my family. My Husband now says 'You think you know everything about childbirth and bringing up children (I DONT) our DIL hates you (I DONT THINK SHE DOES) etc etc etc.

This will continue over and over and over again. I dont understand why these men verbally and physically abuse. Please think carefully about your situation. After many, many years of 'smiling' at the situation I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

PinkFrogs - do your grown up kids have any idea of how your husband treats you?

How do you react when your husband calls you these hideous names, pinkfrogs?

micko.....maybe pinkfrogs is trying to let you realise something........either get him to stop now, or know that it will carry on and probably get worse in the years to come.

nicko

You should take heed of what Pinkfrogs has written because that could be you.

Emotional abusers are more than adept at blaming everyone else but them for their problems. You cannot fix him nor should you attempt to. The problem you now have is extricating yourself from him after 18 years. These men do not let go of their victims easily.

I think you need to make time to read the Lundy Bancroft book you bough. Your H is definately in there amongst those pages because you will see all his behaviours towards you in there. These men can also be highly plausible to those in the outside world; it is only behind closed doors that their true nature emerges. The fact that his abuse is cyclical is also indicative of him being an emotional abuser.

How do the older children get on with him?. Have they copied his ways?. They've also grown up with his behaviours too.

My eldest son lived through the worst of times - the death of his twin and that of his brother. He witnessed all kinds of stuff. We would sit up all night talking about it. I am proud to say that he is now 26 and has grown into the finest man that I could ever wish for. He is gentle and loving with his partner and a wonderful dad.

My youngest is just 11!! I had him when I was almost 41 - he has never, ever known the same kind of problems. H has become much cleverer over the years. I remember finding out I was pregnant on my 40th birthday and thinking 'OMG thats me stuck now with this awful situation.'

My ramblings last night were somewhat fuelled by drink. When he starts calling me names now I mentally check them off the list and think 'nearly at the end now.'

I just didn't want you to be in this situation many years down the line.

Pinkfrogs - probably being able to talk to your son has made him the person you are so proud of today

On the other hand, it's sad that it all has become normal for you

51 is still young y'know.

I was 52 on Tuesday - yes I know it is still young - BUT I was brought up in a different age when the majority of people 'put up' with all the crap that marriage brought to them. When the children died I couldn't leave - I didn't have the energy mentally or physically.

My Oldest DS used to say 'When I leave school, I will get a job, save up and then we can get our own house and leave him to it.' Then when DS was 16yrs old his little brother was born.

All excuses I know - sometimes it is not easy to get away.

Eldest DS and H have a good relationship now - becoming a daddy 6 months ago has given him extra confidence and strength...his beautiful son is very much in love with his Mummy and Daddy.

I just hate to see other people putting up with stuff they dont have to put up with. Im great at giving advice but rubbish at listening to myself!

pinkfrogs... reading your posts makes me so sad. Especially that bit about you checking the insults off your mental list.

It's not too late for you to make a life without him you know. 51 is young!

I know

No - not excuses at all! More like horrendous and very sad circumstances in your life that made it all the more difficult for you.

Totally not the same, (there was no abuse whatsoever) but my mother was unable to leave my serial cheating father for 20 years, she never left him back in the day because 'you just didn't'. My gran was abused, and abused very badly, many serious beatings etc....I don't know too much about it (its the family secret) but she could never leave either and it must have been even harder for her in those days being Catholic, having no money, nowhere to go and 5 kids

At least nowadays there is tremendous support out there.

Thankyou to everyone.

Pinkfrogs you have given me something to think about. You are right I don't want this to be me.

My dh seems to be worse after drinking and he doesnt have to be drunk just a couple of pints will do it. Don't get me wrong the abuse is there at any time but the nasty stuff is made worse by drink.

Luckily my teenage ds is a lovely, sensitive boy and i have close relatonship with him. My dh accuses me of turning him into a wuss

Oh Micko - I have had those words said to me about my eldest son.....ignore and keep talking and loving your boy. You will not make him a wuss you will teach him how to be strong in difficult situations, how to express his feelings and most important how much his mum loves him.

Micko, I'm so sorry that you are having to deal with this, I know how utterly miserable day in day out being treated with contempt can make you feel- I used to visualize myself just driving into a wall at it's worst, and it was only the thought of what would happen to my girls kept me from doing it I think. That is the point it can push you too, feeling utterly helpless. I hope you do read that book and start to think about your options. It took me six months of hard slog to get out, but I felt ten feet tall when I did, and have found a man who treats me with love and respect.

Pinkfrogs (I missed your namechange!), I hope you do it one day. I don't mean to make it sound like you're a gimmer (love that word I learnt here this week ) but surely the fewer years left the more important it is not to waste them on arses like your husband, non?

I meant to post this about 15 mins ago, but I had a customer come in, so sorry if I've crossed with a few. Sending go get em vibes to you both! X

I have confided in someone close in rl and they were shocked at some of the things i said. I just feel so embarrassed and ashamed that i have put up with it, like i am crap and weak. But i never realised that their was a pattern to it all but there is.

Loving the word gimmer!!! I just take great pleasure in doing childish things like putting sugar instead of sweetners in my DIABETIC husbands tea

Never crap and weak!! NEVER. Strong as an ox springs to mind. Never crap and weak. x

A particular danger sign is the contradicting you in public when you are right: this is a nasty and definitely abusive technique to make you doubt your own judgement. Sending you sympathy and good wishes: you do not deserve this treatment.

Oh, I just remembered as well reading a study (talked about in a book about happiness by Oliver James I think) that looked at how new couples talked to each other and predicted uncannily who would still be together in 10 years. The ones who didn't make it were picked out by one element of their interaction with each other - CONTEMPT. Even though with the new couples in was veiled in banter etc, the odd little eye-roll and so on...it is poison to relationships and to people's personal happiness. I don't know if it goes away once it's crept in either, but other people might have experience of turning it around, I don't know. Something else to think about anyway x