Healing from a controlling relationship

[Camel]

I’m new to any forum discussing this but there’s this need to speak out about my experiences. I’m several years out of a controlling relationship but it took a couple of years before I knew how to label it. I see myself as a survivor in that I now feel whole and complete in my own skin. But still researching and analysing, this long after, must mean I’m still healing.

I know the term is bandied about a lot lately but it’s a fact – I was raised by a (detail removed by moderator) mother. She didn’t involve herself in her daughters’ lives, too busy was she creating drama and division. We walked on eggshells, tiptoed and whispered and kept out of her way. I became the pleaser, trying always to be good, trying to anticipate what would stop her rage. One sister became the rebel and embarked on dangerous and self-destructive behaviour in her search for love and validation. The other sister sailed through this atmosphere apparently unaffected though now she’s a full-blown n********t too. (I love and value them both, now were reconciled.)

I grew up with low self-esteem, despite being a high achiever. I had a distorted self-image and believed I was too ugly for a boy to like me. The first one that showed any interest became my boyfriend. I’m not sure I even liked him but I was grateful and forgave his explosive temper and his cheating. I’d already learned that relationships were full of drama; that love was conditional and would be withdrawn arbitrarily. I’ve had a handful of long term relationships and not all of them have been bad, but most have. I didn’t know what a healthy relationship looked like and I still don’t think I do.

The relationship that triggered this healing process was really bad. My research labels him a jealous controlling n********t and he had me crying and on a roller coaster of drama within weeks.

At the outset he’d told me how his wife had cheated on him and how his trust in women had been broken so we’d started out with an imbalance. He drank until he fell down and would get belligerent and nasty and start again with the same old arguments. He thought my life before him was open to his scrutiny. He wanted to know who I’d slept with and raged that I had to ‘tell the truth’. It was exhausting. I didn’t know at the time that I’d never ‘win’. If I stayed calm he’s say I was rational, a criticism, not emotional like him.

One time, I got us both to counselling; hoping someone qualified and impartial would point out his jealousy was off the scale. For an hour I defended myself while he ran through the list of imaginary men I’d slept with before him, no wonder I couldn’t be trusted now. He cried. He was so convincing that eventually the counsellor suggested that I was the one whose behaviour needed to change.

I didn’t want to move in with him but was bullied into it. My commute to work became horrendous and sometimes he’d come and pick me up. I’d dread him seeing me talking to male colleagues on the way out. He’d email me at work and expect a reply. He’d call me up to chat no matter how often I asked him not to.

My world shrank as I tried to avoid triggers. I couldn’t talk about work, about places I’d been to without him, about my favourite band (he was convinced I’d had a fling with one of them.) Once I went clothes shopping and he rang to check I hadn’t hooked up with an ex he remembered lived nearby. I cried after that call and bought a load of stuff I didn’t like because going home empty-handed would have been ‘proof’.

Worn down by his version of reality there was no time to reflect on how miserable I was.

Somewhat predictably, he cheated on me with his ex. Right from the start he’d talked about her and kept in touch but I truly never thought he’d be unfaithful. After all, he knew the pain of it, never tired of telling me. (I know now that he was triangulating, but hindsight is an exact science.)

Predictably, it was my fault (take your pick of reasons.) Also predictably I forgave him and hoped that now we were ‘even’ (my imaginary affairs against his real one) he’d let things drop. Nothing changed, of course. He took to taking his phone into the bathroom when he showered so I’d check it in the middle of the night. Everything was thoroughly toxic by now but he still wanted sex and plenty of it. I’d get secretly drunk and grit my teeth while he took his time. I favoured positions that meant I didn’t have to kiss him or look at his gurning sex face. I think at this point I had become genuinely psychotic but still I hung on. It lasted three years.

A change in circumstances meant we had to live apart. He maintained his control despite the distance and once drove across country to a birthday party, arriving as things were winding down but delighted to ‘catch me out’ talking to a man.

Finally though, the distance saved me. It gave me head space to see things as they truly were. I’ve read of others trapped for decades and am truly grateful that it worked out this way for me. It’s horrific to think of the alternative.

I’m a survivor but healing. I still have flashbacks but their power to floor me is diminished. There are mutual friends who shun me, preferring to believe his version of me, but I don’t miss them. I’ve forgiven family and friends for not saving me. Importantly, I’ve forgiven myself – that despite being intelligent, strong, independent and loving, I allowed it to happen.

I’ve decided to stop searching for a partner. I’m in my early 50s, never married, childless (happily), have a great career and do what I please. I’ve never been more content. It wouldn’t suit everyone, I get that, but life is just so peaceful right now. I also worry that it could happen again. I’ve been an easy target all my life and even now I’m not sure I’d see the signs in time.

[Camel]

One of my sisters was a victim of physical domestic abuse. She suffered in that relationship for ten years. That’s what I thought abuse looked like.

I didn’t know anything about mental abuse. This sister met my ex several times. She didn’t recognise the relationship was abusive either.

It sneaks up on you and makes you crazy.

If I could give advice to the younger me I would tell her that someone who claims to love you wouldn’t make you cry. I’d tell her to get out of there the first time he says she’s flawed or that it’s her fault he got angry or jealous. I’d tell her that a new relationship shouldn’t need to be fixed and that she doesn’t need fixing either.

I wish I’d know this at 16. Instead I swallowed the romantic claptrap doing the rounds then. Get a man, any man, and then put his needs ahead of yours. Make sure to like the things he likes. Change your style if he likes your hair long or doesn’t like your makeup. Don’t be a nag. Be careful not to bruise his ego. Be forgiving as boys will be boys.

And this is how we’re primed for abuse and don’t even see it coming.

[Flowerchild]

How they shrink our world…

It’s like the tide coming in, isn’t it? You start out on a lovely beach but end up with your toes gripping a wobbly rock, surrounded by water.

It creeps up unawares until you can’t call your soul your own.

Your wisdom and insight has been hard won over a long time, darling, but I’m so glad you’re out and free!

Flower x

[HopeLifeJoy]

Hi Camel, welcome to the forum, what a heartfelt story, I am so pleased for you that you are out of your abusive relationship and happily enjoying your life.

I am not so sure if we already knew when we are younger if things would have been different…I was pushed as a four year old down the stairs by a classmate and needed stitching on my fore-head, I forgave her but my father told me after speaking with her that she confessed to have done it on purpose to see what happens.
My father advised me to keep my distance from her, she isn’t my friend, actions speak louder than words and no friend pushes down another. She is a bully. Not everyone is a nice person. Try to recognise them by their actions.
I did kept my distances from her during my entire childhood, aware of the notion of bullies, only to then as a teenager befriend her again, forgetting the lesson my father has thought me.
She is no longer my friend now.

Forgiveness for one self is powerful, it is the healing balm for our wounds 🙂

I thought too until last year that the only form of domestic abuse is physical. Never ever would I have guessed other forms of abuse existed. Mental, emotional, financial…

[KIP.]

Welcome and I appreciate you sharing your wisdom. I’m a similar age and feel so lucky to have a second chance at life. I intend to grab it with both hands. I’m enjoying being single. My freedom was hard won and I live with the consequences of his abuse daily but I have the final say on who gets to be in my world and it won’t be toxic people anymore. Power to you ✊️

[Camel]

Thank you so much for your positive replies. It’s been quite a release writing things down.

Occasionally I feel like a fraud as I know others suffer far worse and far longer. But I also know that’s the old victim trying to rationalise. Just because I didn’t stick it out to beatings doesn’t mean I didn’t suffer.

A funny thing about coming through the other side is now I seem to see it everywhere.

There’s the young woman who lived with her boyfriend but he insisted they have two double beds in the same room. He wouldn’t say they were a couple. They got engaged a few years ago and while I don’t know all the details I imagine she’d started to drift away and this was how he clawed her back.

There’s other examples. I don’t know if I’ve become hyper-vigilant and am just projecting my experiences. I know I can’t save these people, assuming there’s anything they need saving from. But I do remember clearly two outsiders who on different occasions both asked me why I was putting up with the ex. Their comments didn’t influence what I did but if enough people had said something, maybe I would have stopped to think?

It can only be a good thing that it’s now a crime to control and coerce in a relationship. But the accounts I’ve read about so far have been so extreme. I wish there was something to be done before things got that bad.

[Alicenotichains]

“My world shrank as I tried to avoid his triggers”…. wow that is a sentence I can relate to. Thank you for writing this- it’s powerful stuff. I look back at my previous existence and I shudder. It’s such an awful thing to have done to you. Time, distance, it all helps the healing. So glad you are in a happier and more peaceful place now x

[Author]

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