Am I the abuser

[Starmoon]

Hi, I saw a post on social media recently where someone mentioned ‘reactive abuse’… it instantly got me wondering if maybe the way my ex behaved was because I was abusing him and he reacted?
I’ve been single ever since we slip aside from a couple of short term things… mostly now I want to stay single because I worry about being in such a toxic situation again. All of my relationships prior to my ex were also pretty toxic… and I wasn’t always the nicest person I could be. With my ex, I remember feeling resentful towards him, I felt as if he thought I was lazy and that I did nothing… but then I often feel that my dad thinks the same about me, and assume others think it too… so it doesn’t necessarily mean they do think it.
My ex would often make suggestions on how I could be more organised, I often felt he was having a dig that things weren’t how he liked them… so then on one particular day, I came home (after taking the children out) to find him in the (detail removed by Moderator) and the kitchen a mess, I felt so childishly resentful that he was allowed to leave the kitchen a mess yet he’d judge me if I did it… (but perhaps that was all in my head anyway) so I started stomping about and cleaning it up… I’ve read women writing these sorts of things about men, about how they sulk and stomp around… well that’s me, that’s what i did. Eventually he got so annoyed that he started smashing the house up, ripping the (detail removed by Moderator) off the wall, throwing things… and then eventually packing his bags.
I really just wanted him to know how it felt to be judged… but perhaps he never judged me anyway.. and perhaps I am the abuser after all. It’s such a minefield. I’m paying for private therapy and my therapist says I’m a good person but she doesn’t know everything yet 😢

[Starmoon]

For a lot of the relationships, I was out of work and really lost for direction, my confidence was low and I was always paranoid that I wasn’t good enough for him, that he thought I didn’t do enough. In reality it was everything I thought about myself.. so I wonder now if a lot of what I though was abuse, was me just assuming the worst in him… and then subsequently pushing him to reactively abuse me back?

[KIP.]

You are definitely not an abuser. An abuser would never seek out therapy or be on this website. When you say you felt like he thought you were lazy. We don’t think these things for no reason. My ex would call me lazy and demand the house was always today but keep moving the goal posts until I felt I just couldn’t cope with his demands, when I tried to talk to him about it I was called lazy or ungrateful and it made me feel worse so I just stopped trying to reason because there is no reasoning. His final reaction of trashing your home just about sums up an abuser. So don’t let his voice stay in your head. You’re not an abuser. As a victim it took me a long time to stop feeling guilty and shame. Therapy really helped get his lying negative voice out my head. Reactive abuse sounds like the abuser pushing us for a reaction and being upset and exhausted and looking after children and coming home to have to tidy up the house and huffing about it isn’t abuse and is no reason for a man to react like that. He is responsible for his own behaviour but I can tell you that abusers very often overload us with work, childcare, housework and dump everything on us just to keep us spinning. It’s not you and never was x all men aren’t abusive. Have you done the Freedom Programme and read Living with the Dominator?

[Camel]

Hi Starmoon

I agree with KIP. Nothing you describe about yourself sounds remotely abusive. For a start you’re introspective. No abuser is ever remotely bothered enough to question their own behaviour. You sound like a lovely woman who has spent her life putting others first. This couldn’t be further from abusive.

We all get p*ssed off sometimes. When you stomped around the kitchen you weren’t abusing him. You felt you couldn’t tell him directly how you felt, so you were making a point. The way he reacted? Now that really was abusive! At the very least his actions were completely out of proportion. It must have been very frightening and scared you off expressing how you felt afterwards. In essence, he issued you a warning – toe the line or incur my wrath.

I think you have to stop expecting yourself to be perfect. When your counsellor says you’re a nice person try to believe her. There isn’t anything bad about you she’s yet to discover. Well, no worse than any normal person.

Hopefully your counsellor will help you come to terms with why you tend to fall prey to abusers. Right now you’re taking all the blame so work with her on your self-esteem.

[Author]

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