Abuse?!

[standtogether]

I am having a bad few weeks of doubt. I feel like I’ve been doing this for the (detail removed by Moderator) since I left my ex.

I’ve done the freedom programme and now understand he was abusive in areas but I still feel like he wasn’t as bad as some of you have had to put up with.

I worry that I am just the Over sensitive, dramatic, neurotic person he said I was. What if I’m just a bad person whos self obsessed and can’t see my own problems?

We have a daughter together and I have no contact now (he still sees my daughter on a (detail removed by Moderator) with drop offs from my mum) which helps but I even feel bad about this (he obviously has told me how ridiculous I’m being) we still need to have contact by email which I have said I will check weekly but there is usually something to sort.

I just feel like I was pretty insecure myself in the relationship and when I was pregnant and after my daughter was born, pretty upset and even angry with him.

I worry I was as bad and I have called false abuse and it was just a toxic relationship. I would hate to think I’ve overreacted and like he says I’m keeping his daughter from him. I’m getting all this helps from various charities and I feel like ‘what if I‘m just a fraud’?!

I have some definite esteem issues to work on and am really trying as I want to be the best example for my little girl and show her how to be strong and independent.

I am so sorry if this post is so insensitive as I know so many of you wonderful women have had and are going through such horrific experiences.

Can this all really be the years of brainwashing and gaslighting or maybe he just didn’t like me and I can’t accept that?!

Thank you so much for reading.x

[Wants To Help]

Hi there,

Oh I can so relate to your post. For years I also lived in DENIAL that I was being abused. All of our relationship difficulties were down to the fact that I was too full of myself, too flirtatious, too ‘tied to my mum’s apron strings’, too emotional, too serious, put the needs of my friends before him etc. Then when our son was born, well, I clearly had gone a bit bonkers because he decided I had PND and was not in a fit state to make any proper decisions about our son, so he booked me an appointment at the GP and I went on anti-depressants. But deep down, I knew there was nothing really wrong with me, it was the way he treated me all the time that got me down. But by then, he told me that I was mentally unstable and if I was ill he would get custody of our baby due to that, and me being on anti-depressants would prove it all etc, and I ended up believing him.

To the outside world, we were fine. I had a great job, but I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to return to it full time after the baby because he thought the right place for a mum was at home so I was only ‘allowed’ to go back part time. That didn’t bother me because I wanted to work part time then too, but it was only years later I realised that even if I had wanted to work full time he would not have accepted that.

Then because I ‘only worked part time’ I was expected to do more at home. He would message me when he was ten minutes away on his way back from work and I had to have a cup of tea waiting for him. If I didn’t he would kick off. If I was on a phone call when he got in from work he would go mad as my attention was not immediately focused on him – and he’d been out at work all day working hard to provide for us both now that I was only working ‘part time’ and bringing in less money. Yes, it was a toxic relationship, but it wasn’t abusive (as I told myself).

So things got worse, I got more sad, more down, more depressed, so to him I became more moody, boring, no fun to be around, neurotic, paranoid, ridiculous, stupid, he only stayed with me for the sake of the baby. When he got really angry he would walk up to me shouting so much, spittle foaming at the corner of his mouth, he’d put the tip of his nose on the tip of my nose and shout right in my face, but that was okay, because he hadn’t actually hurt me or assaulted me (as I told myself). He’d then step back and punch a hole in the door and tell me I should be grateful he hadn’t punched my head. I was so creative how I explained that hole in the door to family (as I told myself) but years later, they all told me they knew it was a punch mark. My cooking was also not to his standards. Actually, I was expected to guess what he’d had for lunch at work and not duplicate it at home for the evening meal, because when I did, he would sneer and criticise he wasn’t eating that twice in one day and he’d go and scrape the meal in to the bin and expect to make something else. But it wasn’t an abusive relationship, we were just having some difficulties because I wasn’t quite myself after having a baby.

So I stayed. And then I emigrated to a new country with him to further his career because that is what would make things better. For us to start again, just the three of us, away from my family and their influence and continuous visits to our house. They were too interfering, that’s what the problem was, I needed to cut myself free from them and we could start again. I could give up work altogether and he would be the main bread winner in this fantastic new job. I was such a tw*t, I fell for it and we went.

And things got much, much worse, and the violence on me began. And then I was totally isolated, in a foreign country with no family and no friends and he had me all to himself.

That’s when I had to wake up and realise this was not a toxic relationship. This was abuse. And I got out.

So don’t beat yourself up. All of us here have been there. We’ve all questioned ourselves and whether we are to blame, but we’re not. These men are also free to leave us at any time if they are unhappy, but they don’t leave. They stay and they choose to abuse.

[Headspinning]

Very relatable! All the minimising we Robin our minds!!
I think if we find our way here to this forum it’s for good reason.

@wantstohelp – you totally got me with the “it’s not Abusive, it’s toxic”. And the spittle as he shouts. If we don’t admit it’s abusive we don’t have to deal with the abuse. The minute we accept we are being abused we either have to challenge it or remain and accept we are a “victim”. None of us want to accept we are knowingly someone’s “victim” but tackling it is hard, and potentially leaving is downright terrifying!!! So minimising is how we allow ourselves to stay.
I’m very glad to say I am out now. I wrote a list of all the abusive incidents I could remember – ever retracing texts to remind myself. That list helps when I am tempted to minimise.

[iliketea]

The book Healing from Hidden Abuse is really interesting about the term toxic and abuse and the other terms and boxes (is he bipolar?, is he autistic?, is he schizophrenic?) we put them in to try and help us understand and justify what is going on. I’d recommend downloading it on Audible and listening to it if you can. It makes it really easy to understand, I’ve got the book too but its easier to get through listening probably, if you’re anything like me these days, the PTSD from it all has affected my ability to concentrate and read for long. Honestly if you listen up to chapter 7, skip all the blurb at the beginning about how the research was done, its a couple of hours of listening and it will totally answer all your doubts, I promise.

Do you have old diaries or records of what you went through? If not could you start writing out what you remember?

Im going to bump a post – This is My Abuser….
It is all abuse, it is about Power and Control and HOW it makes YOU feel.
It’s not you, its him.
When you are pregnant and afterwards the person who is supposed to love you should be holding you up and supporting you, 100%, YOU did not do anything wrong.
Yes it was a Toxic Relationship by the sounds of it, but that IS abuse. He is/was the Toxicity. And its not “just” , it was an abusive toxic relationship.
Does any of that make sense?
x*x

[standtogether]

Thank you all for your responses. It really helps to hear and thank you for sharing your own stories with me.

I got the trial for audible today and downloaded Healing from hidden abuse. It’s brilliant and has already affirmed everything for me again!

I have been writing things down now, it’s so strange but I worry when I think I’ve felt bad about writing them down.X*x

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