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    • #146106
      Scarecrow
      Participant

      I have to write this all down and hope that someone will be able to relate. I don’t want anyone else to feel the way that I do right now but at the same point, selfishly, I also don’t want to be alone.
      I feel that my relationship is heading towards abuse – this is not my first rodeo – but I have stopped trusting my gut and so I need some help.
      I have noted below the things that I am/have been dealing with so please bear with me:
      • As soon as I wake up he messages me – he knows what time I wake up on a weekday but at the weekend he messages me as soon as I go onto Facebook – almost as though he is sat there staring at the app waiting for me to come online.
      • He has an alert for whenever I post something on Facebook.
      • Complains that I don’t see or react to his posts.
      • He has to be touching me all of the time – if we sit down together he is practically on top of me, if I move away he follows, until I get annoyed.
      • Took him a long time to realise that I am serious when I say I don’t want help around the house, in the garden, putting my food shopping away – I like to be independent and I wont let anyone take that from me. (Detail removed by Moderator).
      • He would tell me many, many times a day how beautiful I was, how lucky he was to have me and that he loves me. Cute once or twice, smothering more than that.
      (Detail removed by Moderator).
      • Almost crying at work because I hadn’t said good night to him the night before via message (as I had fallen asleep).
      • We have a surprising amount in common – but in the back of my head I wonder if we do as I remember his eldest saying that he didn’t know that his Dad was interested in something he had told me he was interested in.
      • Constantly, in all sorts of conversations, telling me that he is ‘not the alpha male type’ when I have never suggested that he was or that I wanted him to be.
      • Told his adult children, ex wife and mother in law personal things I had told him without my permission – I suspect as he doesn’t like my ex and wanted to s**g him off to people.
      • Constantly wants to post pictures of us on Facebook or tag us in every single thing we are doing. If I take the pictures because I have a better camera he will go on and on until I post them on our pages – its nice to have memories but I don’t live to post my life on social media.
      (Detail removed by Moderator).
      • Insulted my ex’s looks, like a b****y teenager! He expected me to go along with him but he is the father of my children and they look like him! I got annoyed with him over this.
      (Detail removed by Moderator)
      • Getting moody when I hugged our male colleagues – I wouldn’t let it stop me but he would give me a pained look along with jokey comments about me eying up different men we worked with.
      • Constantly looking over my shoulder to see who I am texting/watching me play games etc.
      (Detail removed by Moderator)
      • Inappropriate jokes (as he calls them) – (Detail removed by Moderator)
      • Now, the worst part – he is a leech and has to be touching me all of the time. Honestly feels like a sex pest and I feel like a piece of meat. He barely gets through the door before he is all over me. He can not read me at all, or he can and he doesn’t care. We were sitting watching tv at my house and during the ad breaks he would start kissing me but I wasn’t interested. At one point I actually peered around him to continue watching the tv but he did not stop or even seem to notice that I wasn’t in to it. The worse part is that we went out (detail removed by Moderator) having had sex before we went out, and when I got home I was exhausted – visibly yawning my head off and said that I wanted to go home and go straight to sleep. Got into bed and he was all over me, he had no intention of just sleeping. I froze (having been a victim of sexual assault previously), I didn’t move, I didn’t make a sound and I didn’t interact with him at all. He didn’t even notice, got himself off and then gave me a kiss and said goodnight.
      Thank you if you have gotten this far. I don’t really know what I am expecting from this, perhaps validation that I am not overreacting when I say that I need to find a way to end this relationship and I am not sure how?

      Scarecrow

    • #146109
      Eclipsed
      Participant

      Hi Scarecrow,

      His behaviour sounds exhausting. From your post, I honestly can’t get a handle on whether its manipulative ‘love-bombing’ or whether he’s co-dependent to the extreme. The fact his eldest told you he never helped out around the house makes me think its the first. That he’s trying to paint himself as an amazing boyfriend – the pushing of happy social media posts reinforces that notion for me – so that his abuse slips under everyone’s radar. That constant, cloying behaviour, whether its a manipulative action or through low self-esteem on his part is so tiring. The sexual aspect is very concerning. You don’t say how long you’ve been together (If you did and I missed it, apologies) and although you’ve said you don’t want to be alone, it has to better than this man who honestly sounds very immature – the neediness, the bragging, the ‘snogging’ in public despite it making you uncomfortable etc. I wish I had some advice to give you in terms of ending it, I’m still working on that myself and don’t wish to be a hypocrite but I do want to say you absolutely are not overreacting, the behaviour you listed is not that of a healthy relationship x

    • #146118
      Cosmicasca
      Participant

      He sounds predatory to be honest. I totally agree with Eclipsed about the codependent traits and about the concerning sexual aspect where he just uses you and can’t read you. I think his codependent traits might turn out to be just a veneer and he’s actually more predatory than his needy ways initially suggest.
      I can see why you’re worried about ending it. Do you know how things ended with his ex? How did she escape and what was he like? Might be valuable information that will help you get out safely x

    • #146154
      Scarecrow
      Participant

      Thank you both so much.

      There are so many red flags but he is so different to my ex and so my brain doesnt (or doesnt want to) think i have the right to end things, more so as although we have spoken about a lot of these things some of it i have kept to myself so that i dont seem like i am having a go at him all the time and because i know he will cry and stop eating like he did last time. I would tell a friend to end things if they weren’t happy – so why can I not do it for myself?

      Feeling very low today but appreciate all of the support

      Hugs

      Scarecrow xx

      • #146155
        Eclipsed
        Participant

        I’m so sorry to hear you’re feeling low today, Scarecrow. I completely see where you’re coming from. I would be telling friends to leave if they described my situation to me. But it’s harder to be objective about our own relationships.
        I think that you feeling you have to keep certain things that are hurting you inside to avoid upsetting him is abusive in of itself. You are unable to communicate with him because of his reaction. I don’t know your partner but I would think he likely knows that is the case, essentially it’s like weaponizing your own compassion against you. That must be so tiring and will have a massive impact on your mental health feeling silenced for the benefit of him.
        I know it’s the hardest thing, retraining our minds to think a certain way, especially if you have been in an abusive relationship before, but even if there was no abuse within a relationship you have the right to leave it if its unhappy. I think for many of us the biggest step will be getting our brains to realise it. Sending you many hugs xx

      • #146254
        Scarecrow
        Participant

        Thank you Eclipsed, what you have said makes so much sense. The thing that i think has gotten to me the most is that I really thought that he was different – obviously i was wrong.

        I do know where i went wrong though so any future relationships would be less likely to progress as far as this one has. I told him everything about my past because i knew that there would be some times where intimacy was difficult or if i was a little closed off at certain things. What i did was essentially give him a list of all of the things that i probably wouldnt stand up to him over as i had never managed it with my ex.

        Anyway, need a nap now 😉

        Scarecrow xx

    • #146192
      redred
      Participant

      Some of the things you describe I totally empathise with especially the stuff about sex. My husband would always be trying to grope me and then act all hurt when I was like get off please because I was busy, not in the mood, or the kids were in the room! I have also been in a position where I’ve just like led there and he hasn’t seemed to notice that I’m not really participating but then after I think well I didn’t actually tell him to stop so I get confused. I think if you feel that it’s not OK that’s enough, you don’t want to feel on edge and uncomfortable. Especially if he’s looking at your messages and making jokes about hugging colleagues etc, like that sort of behaviour was part of why I’d start acting differently and worrying about how other men spoke to me in case it became an issue. I don’t have any advice really I’m so sorry but you are not alone and if it doesn’t feel right that is a perfectly valid way to feel

      • #146253
        Scarecrow
        Participant

        Thank you redred, i have been through this all before with my ex, which is probably why my walls are so high!

        I obviously cannot say how old i am because it would identify me but neither myself or my partner are young anymore, you would hope that all of these games etc would stop once you got passed a certain age, but they dont.

        I need to find a safe way of ending things as soon as possible.

        Scarecrow xx

    • #146193
      gettingtired
      Participant

      Yes there are so many red flags here. Don’t punish yourself though, we have all missed or ignored them. I had no idea about red flags or boundaries when I first met mine. Also, I’ve read about women getting into relationships after an abusive one and comparing it to the abusive one only to discover the new relationship is abusive but just in a different way xx

      • #146252
        Scarecrow
        Participant

        Gettingtired (totally relate to your name, in more ways than one!) that is exactly what i am scared of – that this relationship is abusive but in a different way to the last one. It is totally different to my marriage but no better really. The only positive is that we dont, and won’t, live together or get married.

        Thank you for your input, really does mean a lot,

        Scarecrow x

    • #146255
      Hereforhelp
      Participant

      Hey scarecrow, most definitely the start of a controlling relationship. If you have told him that his behaviours are not right for you and he doesn’t listen or just carries on putting pressure on you to remain in a relationship with him… honestly I want to say run scarecrow, or have sometime away from him to see where you are, feel into what has been going on and then take it from there, he should respect your wishes if you need some space.

      You are back in here for a reason.lovely, you recognise the feelings he evokes.
      Keep posting ❤️

    • #146284
      Darknessallaround
      Participant

      “I think that you feeling you have to keep certain things that are hurting you inside to avoid upsetting him is abusive in of itself. You are unable to communicate with him because of his reaction. I don’t know your partner but I would think he likely knows that is the case, essentially it’s like weaponizing your own compassion against you. That must be so tiring and will have a massive impact on your mental health feeling silenced for the benefit of him.”

      Wow, you could have been writing this about my relationship. That is exactly what I have done, for decades. It never gets any easier, and your mind never gets a break. It’s like being on constant hyper-alert.

    • #146501
      Scarecrow
      Participant

      Thank you all for responding to me, I am absolutely exhausted with it all and have no idea what to do next, x

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