Am I being gaslighted?

[whiteroses]

Hi everyone. First time here but need a safe space to try and understand what is happening, and to work out if this is all my fault. Been with my husband for (detail removed by moderator), and to all outsiders he is a very caring husband and dad that puts his family first. He is however very insecure, and relies on me and our daughter I think to make him feel good about himself. Over the years I have had to prove my love for him, and he has always had a problem with my work. At first I had to move jobs to prove I wasn’t having an affair (I wasn’t), then in my new job I had to stop wearing make up (detail removed by moderator). I also had to bail on any evening events and was never allowed (I can’t believe I let him do it) to (detail removed by moderator). Over time, and with some counselling for me that helped me understand I would never ‘earn’ his trust by acquiescing, things got better – (detail removed by moderator). In reality I still let him keep control. We got married abroad with very few guests – (detail removed by moderator) I stopped seeing friends (he works and has always worked shifts, and he would say it was unfair of me to go out and enjoy myself when he was in work). Anyway, things got better for a while but I realise now it was because he had what he wanted, my full attention – I only worked what he considered reasonable, and spent all my social time with him. Fast forward and we had a little girl, she is severely disabled (detail removed by moderator) Over the years since she was born, he has done numerous things, sometimes apparently because he is worried about me / cares about me – but the approach is always the same. If you don’t do this / if you don’t give me more attention – I’ll leave you. He threatened to leave me unless I stopped breastfeeding my daughter – allegedly because he was worried about how tired I was. He does love both her and us very much, but it feels very conditional – he will ask her if she loves him, and has said things like (detail removed by moderator) Between his shifts, and the needs of my daughter – I’ve become very tied to home with little social life. I feel like (though I can’t prove it) that the few times I have tried to do things he has tried to sabotage them – he says it is all in my head and that I am dragging up the past. I went to a friends’ for dinner – he calls and says our daughter is unwell (detail removed by moderator). Basically I feel like he can do what he wants around his shifts, but I have to ask permission to be able to do anything, and am restricted by the fact he works when I am off – such as weekends and evenings. True, that is just the situation, but I also wonder now if that doesn’t work for him as it means I am ‘controlled’ without him having to overtly do so. (detail removed by moderator) and I was always happy for him to enjoy himself, never moaned (genuinely didn’t mind as with her diagnosis things were very tough) and I felt he needed the space – but it meant I had no time out myself, and maybe I am resentful of that now and this has coloured my thinking – I don’t know. He even went out the night of my first birthday as a mum, leaving me at home with a colicky screaming baby. Fast forward to the last few years, he’s threatened to leave me numerous times because I don’t ‘pay him enough attention’ in various ways. He has gone back to a training course early when home at the weekend because I didn’t hear what he said to me (I’d been looking after our daughter on my own all week and had a chest infection and was knackered), he says things like (detail removed by moderator) I have to work 3 Saturdays a year – on one of them we were both working so I arranged childcare, which meant my daughter had to get up early – she was awake and excited to go to my friends (detail removed by moderator) I messaged him every day and our daughter facetimed him twice. I don’t know – should I have called him while he was in work? I just don’t do that. Sine Covid I have been working at home, and I only work school hours – (I always put our daughter and my family before my job) – but I am permanently being told my job matters more than my marriage. The latest is that because he works nights, I should make time in my working day to spend with him when he gets up as he is ‘bored’ in the house. He stomps around saying things like ‘ oh well, i suppose if you’re working I’ll go for a walk’ (of course I am working, it’s my working hours) or he lays on the bed half dressed and there is an underlying expectation I should go and have sex with him because he’s not here at night. I have tried to explain that I don’t think it is fair to ask me to choose between doing my job properly and him – but he just says in that case I care more about work. (detail removed by moderator) So now he is leaving, again, because my marriage is not important to me and I should be looking for ways to do anything to save it. He loves me and what is wrong with wanting to spend time with his wife? I do sometimes go for my nails doing in the day if I can work extra, and now that is wrong because I can find time for that but not time for him. I feel now like I should have tried harder, and maybe I have sabotaged this my not doing as he asked? He says he just wants to feel loved, but it’s always me that has to give or arrange time together – he has never in (detail removed by moderator)arranged to go out for my birthday, our anniversary. anything – its always been me. He even refused to speak to me for a week over my birthday this year because my parents were coming down and I arranged for us all (including him) to go out for a meal, and he came but didn’t speak to me because I should have arranged for just me and him to go out – but he never said, never asked, never suggested it. But again, I should want to – so it’s all my fault. And now my daughter – who adores her daddy, is about to get her life blown apart because I didn’t arrange to go the pub, and I wish to god I had, but I also think it shouldn’t be dependent on that. I can see he is hurting, and angry and feeling unloved, but I just feel I shouldn’t have to choose or do these things to prove my love? Am I wrong? Sorry – so much to say, so confused

[whiteroses]

To add, to a already very long post – sorry – just can see it is very one-sided! My husband took his most recent job because it would ‘help with childcare’ as the shifts (detail removed by moderator) – he has never been able to turn down overtime and when I suggest he doesn’t need to (I also earn a good wage) he responds by saying it’s something he can do for our daughter’s future – which I get but I am I think resentful that it has limited my own life for so long as a result. We are financially comfortable and I know he sees that as ‘providing’ for his family, I can buy what I like, and he is pretty happy for me to spend money as long as ; in his words’ I don’t waste it. We do however only have a joint account (he has others but I don’t) because years ago I had to close my own account down as he thought I was ‘hiding money’ from him. He says I am not letting go of the past, hanging on to all the things he used to do, and I don’t appreciate the things he does now. He does take time in the school holidays to help out as we don’t have a holiday club option, which is hugely helpful – but again, do I need to be grateful to a dad for looking after his own daughter? (detail removed by moderator), which is lovely, but leads to an expectation I should use that day only to do anything for myself. I think I am also jealous or angry even because he tells people (detail removed by moderator) so it’s not like he is doing anything he doesn’t want to, and he certainly never took time off before to do things that might not fit in with his idea of fun. Is that mean of me? Am I the one wanting praise or validation?

[Better-days]

Hi I don’t have too much advice because I’m still in the relationship too and I totally get how exhausted u feel regarding him feeling un loved and insecure. My partner says twenty times a day I don’t love him or no body loves him or cares about him he says it infront if the kids and my oldest feels sorry for him. He also works hard and I should appreciate that but after all these years I am just done feel nothing for him. He’s put me through so much I could write a book. Iv not too much advice but understand u completely I don’t think your partner will leave these men r full of empty threats.

[whiteroses]

Hey @better-days thank you for the reply -so good to know I’m not alone (though not good to find out how much this seems to happen). He too belittles himself in front of our child, often in a way that suggests I ‘think’ the same – which I don’t, and she recently has started using the same language about herself. I feel like I have to be here, to be the calm rational role model she needs. But it is so exhausting like you say. Sending hugs your way too.

[Hereforhelp]

Hi and welcome to the forum Whiteroses… inread your post and can hear your confusions and concerns… your husband isn’t going anywhere, he is threatening to exert control over you and your relationship… what can be confusing is these men can be so very nice as well and we can tear ourselves apart trying to get back to the nice partner. .but he doesn’t exist and is part of the abuse. Have you read Living with the Dominater by Pat Craven? That’s a good book to help understand Domestic Abuse.
It reads that your husband sort of micro manages you (control) …that must be exhausting for you.
Massive hugs
Keep posting
HFH ❤️

[whiteroses]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply @Hereforhelp – I so appreciate it. I just looked at the book you recommend and will definitely check it out. Fair to say I am definitely micro-managed in many ways, though he would not agree. It may be he does actually leave this time, ( I want him to for my sake – but am so concerned as to the upheaval for our daughter), but I know -as you say, that it’s a power play really (and maybe a desperate attempt to feel loved – or am I being too generous?). Over the last (detail removed by moderator), I’ve become more immune to the threats and not given in like I used to – which has led to each ‘I’m leaving you’ episode to get more dramatic and he’s had to take each one further. The most recent he actually acknowledged his behaviour has been dreadful (first time ever), but said it was a ‘cry for help’ because he feels so miserable that his wife doesn’t pay him attention and can’t I see how unhappy he is -allegedly I’ve ignored him for (detail removed by moderator). I know love comes in many ways, and people show it snd need it differently, but as well as working and being the main carer, I do all the housework, cook every meal, make him coffees in the day (when I am working and he isn’t – he never brings me a drink – expects me to come to him with one) we’ve been on numerous holidays and have spent time together (mostly at events I am not interested in but that he is) as a family – so I genuinely do not know how I have ignored him, and yes he does always thank me for the meals (I don’t expect him to), and tells me I look nice, and he does lots of stuff in the garden, but I’d like time to do the garden, and he just runs round and does stuff then gets angry if I don’t go out instantly and look at it to appreciate him – am I ungrateful? What I really want is him to wait till I have finished work and we could do the garden together, but he won’t – I have asked – because he is otherwise ‘bored’ as I am working. Yes our childs’ needs make ‘alone time’ with each other very difficult, but that’s difficult for me too, and I don’t see why I am the one that has to organise it every time if he wants to spend time together too. Last time he went so far as to tell our daughter he was leaving because I’d not reacted enough to his telling me he was ending it, and I was prepared to go on holiday without him when he declared to me he wasn’t coming – he finally changed his mind (detail removed by moderator). The trigger for this was that I’d worked a necessary (detail removed by moderator), and although I arranged childcare so he could sleep before a shift- he refused it, then said he would be too tired to go ahead with our (detail removed by moderator) plans to go away, cancelled it upsetting our daughter, and telling me it was all my fault because I should have done the right thing and not gone to work, and it was the ‘only thing’ he was looking forward to and I’d ruined it. I just saw the ridiculousness of it all and could no longer apologise for something I had not done wrong, which forced him to get more and more extreme with his ‘leaving me’ performance. In the end – I felt so sorry for him as he genuinely seemed so hurt and upset, that I decided to give it a final go, but the first thing he said when we’d agreed to try again and spend more time together was a comment about (detail removed by moderator), and I just felt like he only wanted me as a trophy. Now I have not apparently kept to his ‘terms’ or made enough of an effort to spend time with him in the day, which has led to the latest episode. And tonight he has gone to work without his (detail removed by moderator) – he is a very very private person and will not ever discuss things with other people, especially his friends – hates it if he thinks I do, and has refused over and over again to go to relationship counselling (apparently I want to do so to (detail removed by moderator)????), so having people notice he is not wearing his ring is a big step. I keep wavering, I want to tell him to go and it’s over, but if I am no longer making him feel good about himself, the only person who is satisfying that need in him is our daughter, and I am so worried for her as I can already see that she is starting to always do what he wants – in play, in spending time together – and she is very vulnerable because of her disability and needs to know that it is ok to say you don’t like something or don’t want to do something, and that you can do so without someone withdrawing their love for you or punishing you in some way. On the one hand I don’t know if I am setting a bad example by staying, or if I am needed as the buffer. There is no question he loves her, and she him, and he makes her laugh in a way I don’t – because he parachutes in for the ‘fun stuff’ but he also ‘needs’ her validation such that I find extremely worrying. Anyway, maybe I won’t have to make the decision if he just goes finally, which is cowardly of me I know, but having this forum is keeping me sane at least, thank you.

[Lost lady]

Hi Whiteroses. Sorry you are going through this too.
It is so exhausting constantly trying to keep them happy and take the blame for everything and heartbreaking when they use your children against you. He is always causing drama then telling the kids i am a bad mom
I’m afraid i can’t offer much advice as i am still in my relationship but i know how you feel.
Mine has threatened to leave many times but never does and i wish he would but when i asked him to leave when he was cheating he refused and said we will always be together
I try really hard to distance myself from him emotionally but i get pulled back in as soon as he uses the kids
I have spoken with help lines and they are very helpful
Stay strong x

[GoldenFish]

Dear whiteroses,
Welcome here and hopefully the forum can provide you with some emotional support.
My thoughts reading your post is that you are ‘on a leash’. If you stray away, he threatens to leave. In my view, is playing on your insecurities and is unlikely will leave. It is a hard situation to be in because you may be constrained financially or for any other reasons to stay. You don’t want to separate the child from the daddy she loves. It doesn’t even sound like you want to separate but rather understand your feelings. What I’d like for you to take away from my response is not to blame yourself, whatever the outcome will be in the years to come. You have tried and can go as far as you can without a reasonable response. We can loose ourselves in our minds with all the possible interpretations so ground yourself to the facts and don’t ignore your owm meeds. Keep safe and takr care.

[whiteroses]

Thanks @goldenfish. It’s been a few days now and it’s very clear – as predicted, that he is not leaving. But I am being expected to change ‘my behaviour’, allegedly putting everything above him – I work less hours than I am supposed to, squeezing in childcare and housework, but that is not good enough, I need to cancel meetings to go out with him during my working hours. Like you say, his preference (though he denies it) is for me to be contained somehow. Though apparently he’d be happy for me to spend time with my family and friends if he felt more loved by me in the first place. I have tried to say that a reasonable response to feeling unloved is not to to threaten to leave (over and over again), and that me spending time with a friend (who I might see once a month for an afternoon with our daughter in tow), or being at my parents (again, maybe once every few months if I am lucky) is not a rejection of him. But he says I should ‘want’ to be with him more, and by me attending meetings (in my working hours when he happens to be at home, is me putting my work before him)……exhausting. I am not an insecure person (I don’t know what sort of emotional state I’d be in by now if I was) and knowing I have great friends albeit I don’t get to see them much, and a very lovely family again although they are not close at hand, helps massively. I know in my heart I have not caused this, but I feel a huge responsibility to my daughter to try and keep making it work, but I am scared that in order to do so, I may have to lose myself and any freedom I have. And I don’t know if I can do that anymore. Interesting that what he really wants is ‘the wife he married’ – that wife used to do everything and anything to try to ‘prove’ she loved him – because I’d never encountered anyone like it, who needed so much attention and stroking of ego, but that wife ended up isolated and lonely, and has learnt in the long run it just makes no difference what I do – it’s never enough. I feel it’s like trying to tame or keep a lion in the house (not that he is violent at all) – can you feed it enough so it is content and full, so it’s still safe to keep your cat as well? Ridiculous analogy really but it is kind of how I feel – can I give him enough of what he wants to still have other things in my life? Feeling stronger though, thankyou to everyone

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