Is he still abusing and controlling me?

[twinklesky]

I have been lurking for a while but this is my first post here. I've seen that you are all so helpful and full of wonderful advice for people, and although, to be honest, I've tried to avoid posting by hunting for someone in the same situation, I haven't been able to.
The reason for the avoidance is I just don't know where to begin.

My partner and I have been together 3 years. We have a 2 year old child and we live together in a council flat in both of our names. Since the start, he's had an alcohol and drugs problem. When he would drink he would fly into violent rages, never actually 'hitting' me but throwing things, pushing me, grabbing my throat. He was extremely loving afterwards, and I craved that, really, as I was very insecure. I saw his deep paranoia (for the first year I couldn't raise my eyes above pavement level in case I made eye contact with a male - this continued on and off but has thankfully stopped now. He didn't TELL me not to raise my eyes but would scream and shout and call me slag, slut, whore, so I made the desicion to do it and I think he liked that - it wasn't his fault that way) as love for me, that he couldn't bear another man taking me away.

Things came to a head last August when I had to phone the police and he was arrested for assault. It was a minor incident, in comparison but things had been getting worse for a few weeks and I felt at breaking point. He was convicted of assault and sentenced to attend the IDAP program (domestic violence course)as well as a two year community sentance.

I made the decision to give him another chance. I know many people would say that was stupid, I should have left while I had the chance - but I'd believed for ages that if he was just made to see what he was doing, how much he was hurting me he would change.

He is attending the program and has made postive changes to his life. He rarely drinks, certainly doesn't get drunk often and if he does, which is probably once or twice this year, we have agreed that he won't come home and will sleep at his dads. He hasn't touched drugs since the arrest.

He is very careful not to exhibit controlling behavior, as the course is teaching him. For example, he will always be positive about me going out for the night, not try and make me feel bad (or, as he used to do, worried, like "well if you go out tonight I know what you are like you'll probably get drunk and get off with someone well just wait until I go out tomorrow then you'll see")

He has changed - a lot. I don't feel scared to come home anymore. Yet I don't feel happy. I decided to forgive and give him another chance - he told me he wanted to change for the sake of our son and me. But I still feel like he owns me.

I feel like the course is teaching him how to control me in a new, more undercover way. Could I be being paranoid? It's so hard to give an example, I've read here about emotional abuse - he displays many of the 'classic' signs - the 'jokes' that I'm an idiot, the accusing me of nagging however nicely or reasonable I ask him to clear up after himself. The telling me that he gets to make more decisions because he earns more money. I work 26 hours a week and run a small business from home that isn't very profitable, to be honest. He wants me to get a 'real' job so that we can get 'things' a corner sofa, a flat screen TV - these things don't matter to me. He wants to keep our son in nursery because they can 'provide for him better than I can - they do more things with him that I do"

He reminds me constantly about money and how much I spend an that he pays the council tax and the gas & electric. How he drives me around, as I can't drive. How he supports my business by taking me to craft fairs. I'll say "Oh I cooked dinner, would you mind just washing your plate so I can have a little sit down?" "You sit down all day, I'm on my feet, and by the way, did you take any money out of my bank/go to the bank for me/clean the litter tray?"

I feel like maybe I'm not giving him the chance that I told him I would, that I can't forgive him for how he has been in the past. You probably know as well as I do how hard it is to leave someone - I don't have any family around here, he knows I don't have anywhere else to go or any real finance to do so. I've asked him to leave but he says he wants to live with his son - and I won't take that away from him.

We just had a big row because he came home for lunch and said he had to go really soon, I said, oh but you get an hour and he started saying that I was so needy and clingy and needed him here and can't I cope without him, I must be jealous of him and his job because I don't do anything all day (I work evenings)

Does anyone have any advice for me? Is there a way to get him to realise he is still hurting me, just on a less obvious level than before, or do you think it's time to give up?

Thank you for listening xx

Do you see yourself with him, being happy, when you are older? When DC are in school? When DC have left home? Do you see yourself being happy with him ever?

Do you love him? Do you want your child growing up in this?

I'm so sorry that things are rough for you, and I can sympathise greatly... Really I can.

But yes, he is abusing you still - you don't deserve to be living in constant fear. Also think of your child. I'm sure you don't want to be living in fear for both of you.

If you are going to leave, you need to plan very carefully. If you give him warning, his behaviour could escalte, and you could be in more danger than you are now. You need to make sure there is somewhere safe you can go, and make sure there is no way it could get back to him where you have gone. It is a very brave desicion to leave an abusive relationship, but it is what is best.

Regardless of how well he treats you after an "episode" the fact he treats you badly at all is not compensated for.

I wish you all the luck and strength in the world.

Oh please leave him.

How do you get on with your parents? Could you go to them? Will they be supportive and horrified at the treatment you've been receiving? Or horrified that you've left your husband? Do they know the history?

Please go. You don't want your kids learning that this behaviour is normal and acceptable. You don't want to spend your life wishing.

They will be horrified that I have left. M Dad is of the 'You've made your bed, now you must lie in it" persuasion.

We are not married, by the way.

I need to make the desicion and leave, I know I do. It's just such a tough step to take and so sad that he couldn't just stop and see what he is doing to me :/

My dad was of the same persuasion...I still left.

My parents did bugger all to help me leave, and only had to rely on the secret stash of cash I had hidden away to get out.
He had his hands around my throat and spat in my face before I packed my black bags and left with nothing. I did not want my kids coming back and seeing it.

You may still love him...but please think of your kids. Is this the way you want to live for the rest of your life darling? walking on eggshells and anticipating setting him off? The anticipation will consume you, and its all youll ever think about one day, worrying about what he will think.

And in answer to your question...yes he is still abusing and controlling you.
Please leave darling. you owe that to yourself and your dcs.
itll be the hardest thing youll ever have to do....but on the other side, and ive been out 7 years now...by gos its the best thing I ever did.

I'd be dead by now.

It isn 't your dad's life and he should want what is best for you, not what he thinks is best for the image.

Don't kid yourself your child is unaffected by all this.

You're teaching him to abuse women, simple as that.

Get out. Yes you might lose your job (but actually, with help from Women's Aid that's by no means inevitable), but you will be able to move your fucking furniture wherever you damn well please. And you might not be able to have shelves, but when you do have them, you'll have got them on your terms.

Twinklesky

I am so sorry that you are in an abusive relationship, and yes, I think that's what it is from what you've said.

Your post about the oral sex was particularly telling - in this situation it is a controlling act, effectively paid for (in tasks), without enjoyment or equality for you. It sounds as if the intention (as with his words) is to demean you.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists includes verbal, financial, sexual and emotional abuse in the term 'Domestic Violence'. This factsheet explains their view on the potential impact such behaviour from your DP could have on your DS: Health and Growing Up Domestic Violence - its effects on children

Only you can decide wether you want to leave. Ideally your parents' support would be invaluable. I don't know your Dad, of course, but would it help to show him a leaflet like this? It is all very well to say you've made your bed and all that but part of that situation is that you have DS and your first responsibility is to him - his present and future wellbeing. I hope that in the end he will be proud of you valuing yourself and your child over putting up with a choice you made in the past.

Twinklesky, I'm sorry you're going through this. Yes, you are still being abused and controlled, but I want to come back to your partner's defence. This is a normal reaction in your situation. It's far more complex than the explanation I'm about to give you here but in a nutshell, it's due to 2 things: Firstly, even though you know your partner is abusive, your subconscious is looking for validation that he's 'not that bad'. This is because the thought of leaving is so overwhelming you want an excuse to stay. Secondly, like an abused child can be unbvelievable loyal to an abusive parent, you have a strong psychological bond with your abuser as a direct result of the abuse hes's meted out to you. Other posts on this site refer to traumatic bonding, which is what's affecting you.

The reason I'm explaining this is because I want you to understand that what you're feeling is normal, as is the depression, lack of motivation and tiredness that you feel on an almost daily basis. It's all part of being in an abusive relationship and is the very reason why people stay as long as they do. It's made worse by the fact that once a victim realises that they should really leave, but feels unable or unwilling to leave, they then have strong feelings of guilt for not leaving. Unfortunately, this only serves to make them feel more inadequate and more depressed, ironically making it even harder to leave. This is why it's important not to pressure someone into leaving, but to concentrate on telling someone what life can be like if they do (ie SO MUCH BETTER!!!!!!!!!). It's the same with smoking. The first thign your average smoker does when he/she sees an anti-smoking ad on TV is to light-up. The human psyche is weird that way...

Twinkleshy, please read the Lundy Bancroft book. It will really help you to understand your feelings and hopefully help you to see that there is a way through this. It is the best starting point you can make. FWIW, I was filled with inertia about leaving for a very long time. I too felt overwhelmingly tired on an almost-daily basis. The day I left I was homeless, had only what I was wearing, and two four-month-old twin babies in tow. Far from falling apart I experienced such a rush of euphoria it was unreal. Suddenly, I rediscovered my self-respect and therefore my zest for life and my will to make things happen. That tiredness just evaporated. I won't lie to you and say leaving is easy because it isn't. But I CAN promise you that if you can successfully leave this man your life will improve immeasurably.

Good luck.

I'll be honest and say the responses here are not what I was hoping for - but OptimistS you are so right in what you said here:

"This is because the thought of leaving is so overwhelming you want an excuse to stay"

I think that is what I was looking for from this thread, naively. I DO want an excuse to stay. I want to have changed him, made him a better person.

I guess I thought that the changes he has made are so significant, and they really are, his family are constantly telling him how proud they are that he has turned his life around - and, weirdly, so are MY family. My grandmother and my Dad both say to me that I am lucky to be with someone so willing to change for my benefit - "he could have run away, he could still be hurting you, he provides for you and drives you around etc."

Everyone is so PLEASED with the progress he has made - he is a calmer, more relaxed person. He makes jokes. Sometimes things are great for weeks at a time. But it's just these little niggles, these things I can't quite explain. It's VERY easy to imagine that this IS all in my head - that I'm just an ungrateful cow for whom no change, however significant, would be good enough.

I waiver between feeling this and feeling that I need to regain control of my life. I can't remember who I am anymore. I'll get that book from amazon this evening and have it delivered to my work.

Okay, Dittany, I can see exactly what you are saying about the enablers and I think you are right.

But perhaps my self esteem is now so seriously low that I am re-reading what I wrote to ensure I haven't made things worse than they are, because your reactions seem far more negative than I was expecting. I think I've been convincing myself that this is all OK. I'm shocked and upset, to be honest. I think I was expecting to be told that I am not really giving him the chance that he deserves, as this is what I have been telling myself. This forum has really made a difference to how I feel about this situation and I can feel my courage building but still actually leaving seems...unlikely?

Regarding the oral sex - the thing is, its not got the stage whhere I just offer it. He doesn't make me he doesn't ask for it. I just find myself saying, just before I go to work or whatever, "Will you clean the bathroom for me, please? I'll give you a you'know' what" Therefore - he cannot take the blame, theoretically, because I have offered. The way I have seen it is, he's asked for it before, I know it won't get done unless I offer, so it's easier to just say it myself - that way I know I'll come home to a clean house. Having a clean house and not tidying up after 8 hours of him trashing the place with DS is preferable and worth 10 minutes of putting my mind elsewhere.

Bizaarly, this week, things have been better. He is making a point of saying 'I love you' a number of times a day. In the car today driving me to work, he said he would miss me when I take our soon on holiday with my Gran next week. His words were "I don't want you to go because I will miss you, because I love you - and it is hard for me to say that, I don't know why, I have also had love from my parents but I find it hard to tell you how I feel"

I think that this thread has given me a new confidence which he has noticed and respects.

Sadly, your family have helped condition you to expect abuse in the home. They have taught you that you are only a 'woman' and that your needs, feelings and wishes come much lower down the list of priorities than those of a man, any man.
He is an inadeaquate piece of shit, basically. Scaring and controlling and degrading you is the only way he can feel good about himself. I expect he's an utter loser in the eyes of mentally healthy people (ie not his family or yours who unfortunately all take the viewpoint that women exist to service men and a slap or two to teach them their place is no big deal).
Do you want your DS to grow up thinking this is an OK way to live? If you were to stay with this tosspot long enough to have a DD< would you like her to be treated like this, put down all the time and obliged to suck cock?

I´m really pretty shocked about the oral sex thing actually. I am not averse to giving and receiving but I would never barter it. And the fact that you are the one offering it is of little consequence really, he has got you into the mindset that you SHOULD offer it in order to get what you want. It is extremely unhealthy, imo.

I agree with everyone else. You sound unhappy and I can truly truly understand how hard the thought of leaving him must be. I stayed in an unhappy relationship for several years past its sell by date and we didn´t even have a kid together, purely because i couldn´t get my head around starting over, where would I go etc etc. I eventually woke up and I was fraught with nerves over being alone for a short time and then was happier than I had ever been. I know with a kid in the mix everything is more complicated but you really must try to do it for him. You don´t want him to grow up seeing his mum being treated like this because he WILL notice and he will internalise it as the correct way for men and women to act.

You can be happy, you can do what you want, you can go where you want and see who you want. You can be with someone who makes you feel good about yourself. Wouldn´t you want that for your friends and family? Why don´t you want it for yourself?

Can you extend your stay with your gran when you get there. Just to get your head around what it's like not to be around him for a while, not to have to barter for things being done, not to have to clean up after him.

Twinkleshy, I can really identify with what you're saying. When my ex beat me up and we split up, we were apart for 6 months with my telling him I wouldn't get back with him unless he got help. I stupidly believed him when he said he had and we were together for another 5 years. He never laid a finger on me in those 5 years. He knew that I would walk out if he did so he changed to much more subtle ways of controlling me that made me sound completely off my trolley if I tried explaining them. It got to the point where I was convinced that it was me. If I could just try harder, be more tolerant (after all, I wasn't perfect, was I?), realise how far he'd come instead of looking at how far he had left to go.... etc. I ended up convincing myself that actually we had a really good relationship all things considered - so much so that we planned to have children. Once I had the babies he was, to give him his due, fantastic for the first month, then the novelty wore off and he was worse than ever. This time, with two babies in tow, I couldn't stick up for myself as well as before and things quickly deteriorated until he had me up against the wall by my throat and threatened to kill me (because I asked him to look after the kids for me to go to work - I was the breadwinner, by the way).

Now, more than two years down the line since I left for the second time, I look back and I am HORRIFIED by what I put up with. Now, it's really clear that what he was doing to me was abusive and I can think of all sorts of incidents that, if someone else told me they were experiencing, I would say things like "oh I wouldn't put up with that". But that's now. Back then it seemed normal, or even that I deserved it or that he was really trying (like the time he threw a glass of water over me and I thought it was a big improvement on hitting me). A good rule of thumb in an abusive relationship is to reverse your roles in your head. Would you do to him what he's just done/said to you? If the answer is no, chances are it's abusive.

Please, please get hold of the Lundy Bancroft book. I guarantee things will make so much more sense if you read it.

Sorry this post is turning out to be so long but another thing I want to address is your comment: "I DO want an excuse to stay. I want to have changed him, made him a better person." I totally understand this. I remember feeling the same and feeling rather proud that it was ME who had managed to get XP to change, as I thought. I hate to burst your bubble, but the truth is that it is just another means to control you. Abusive men know the old chestnut about a woman wanting to be the one who 'tames' them (my X even used those words) and they play on it for all it's worth. The most important point though (and this applies to all people who need to change, whether they are abusers, addicts or alcoholics) is that it is the ABUSER who needs to change for THEMSELF, not for anyone else. Attempts to change to satisfy someone else always fail, it has to come from within. If your partner really had changed or was making progress, he would recognise that he needs to do it for himself and that for you as a couple it may be too late because of the damage he's already wreaked. He may be gutted if you left him but would accept your right to leave knowing that your feelings mattered as much as his and that his changing was benefit his future regardless of whether or not he's with you. The instant any comments come out about doing this for you, you know that his efforts are not genuine.

If you're not ready to leave yet, don't give yourself a hard time. The decision has to be yours when you are ready. I know it appears impossibly scary and impossible to contemplate. But just keep telling yourself that you CAN do it if you WANT to. Read as much as you can about emotional abuse. For me it was knowlege that finally made me see through it, and then my children that gave me the impetus I needed to physically leave.

Good luck twinkleshy and keep posting on here as long as it gives you support.

I understanding looking for an excuse to stay - looking at every tiny little thing they've done, that they've changed, as a comment at the back of your mind going, "Isn't that enough?", as well as everyone encouraging him. But its really not right or healthy for you or your child to stay in that enviroment. You're both at risk, emotionally and physically, while you're staying with him.

Although the comments you've recived here may not have been what you wanted to see, I hope that maybe they will give you the encouragment and the perspective to see that the way he is treating you, and the way your relationship is functioning, is not a good term.

Questioning your staying there, planting that first seed, is the key.

And remember - regardless of how he is treating you now, reagrdless of how tender and caring he may be seeming, people who abuse their partners don't just "stop". The thought is always there, the risk is always there, the desire is always there. Please don't allow yourself and your child to be exposed to such mannerisums.

Stay strong.