Having a bad day

[Harriet123]

Hi everyone,

I feel like things are just becoming so difficult again. We’ve been separated for (detail removed by moderator) now but we have a child together who he sees (detail removed by moderator) of the time which makes things very difficult.

I feel like I was doing well and now I’m going backwards a bit. Why is it I feel like I want him to know about all of the pain he has caused me and to actually acknowledge and have remorse towards it? Even though I know this is impossible.

Why can he not just understand how horrible he was to me and still continues to be? What made it so easy for him to be so awful to me for so long and not give any thought on how it would make me feel?

All I did was love him and try and care for him and try and do my best to make him happier and help him with his struggles. Yet I was such an easy person not to love.

How do I heal from this and how will the pain end when I have to see him so regularly and have constant fear about how he as a person will affect our child as she grows up.

[Lisa]

Hello Harriet123,

I can really hear your frustration and the sense of injustice that you are feeling at the moment, in what you’ve described in your post.

It is normal to seek acknowledgement or remorse from an abuser during the journey of coming to terms with the abuse. It can stem from a desire for closure or validation for what we’ve been through.

Unfortunately, as you mention in your post, it is not common for abusers to offer genuine accountability or to display remorse for what they have done. This can be a difficult thing to accept.

I can hear how much you sacrificed for this relationship, and a period of mourning the time and energy lost is a normal process. Try to be kind to yourself through this.

Take care and keep posting,
Lisa

[Ariadne]

Hi @Harriet123,

That is one of the most painful feelings when dealing with this kind of abusive dynamic. I had never realised this until my therapist told me “That seems to have made you feel like you were not good enough”, and only then it clicked that this is what I was trying to express. All the time that I was there, available, caring, nurturing, attentive… and he couldn’t at least not call me names, or buy me a gift, or pull his weight… It sticks with us, this dissonance. They say they love us then they do what they do. We love them but are treated badly… It’s not fair.
And unfortunately, it is in the past, it is done, you can’t rewrite it. It is normal to want him to acknowledge his mistakes, his part in things, to feel like there is regret and possible growth. But closure like that is hard to come by, especially by these abusers. And it is another way to keep you tethered. The best way is to go “grey rock” in those situations. Do not engage, do not expect, and keep focusing on yourself and your child and what it is you want going forward.

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