How to distinguish between general abuse and reactive abuse?

[Anonymous]

I posted a thread awhile ago with the full general story of my ex relationship. The replies were helpful. However, I still feel very guilty for my behaviour and although the fact it was obviously wrong is never in question for me, I am still wondering who was the perpetrator of the abuse and who was more reacting or if it was even from both of us. Are there any ways to tell the difference? Does anyone know any good articles on this? I have had mixed reactions. Some people to seem to think it was more me and also think that what i was traumatised by in the relationship was trivial and don’t get it. Like my boyfriend thought it was trivial too. Maybe it was. I am so confused still and miserable most of the time. Since posting on here i have been doing some research and for example this (well written and helpful) list fits my ex very well as he would do all those points apart from triangulation. http://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-n*********s-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/
However, I still some of myself when I read certain articles about abuse of course as how I behaved was bad. And also I just don’t know maybe all the covert emotionally abusive things he did were more reactive to me. Here is my old thread https://survivorsforum.womensaid.org.uk/forums/topic/need-perspective/ if you haven’t seen it but I don’t expect you to read as it quite long. If I was to write down two separate lists of the abusive things he did and then the abusive things I did then it would look even or my list would look worse so does it even really matter about the context or who was more reacting? I actually did that lists on another forum (not sure if I’m allowed totally about that here?) and actually got a very blaming reaction from one of the moderators and now I feel guilty for posting on any forum about any of this because the other members have probably suffered abuse similar to what I inflicted on my boyfriend and i don’t want to upset anyone. I’m really sorry if it is as I am an abuser I think. When I spoke to him after he broke up with me he said that sometimes he would feel like crying walking to work in morning when we were living together. That is so sad and I feel so bad.

[KIP.]

Hi there, if you were an abuser you wouldn’t be on here. You would feel no guilt or empathy. You would have moved on without a second thought to whether you were abusive or not. Not caring what sort of hurt you left behind you. You would be too busy concentrating on your next victim. My abuser used to drive me to hysterics and retaliation as part of his enjoyment. he would pick an argument over my getting the wrong milk. Humiliate me and actually smirk. Did you get any enjoyment out of your so called abuse? I often caught my ex with a smug look on his face afterwards. It might be helpful to speak to the helpline on here or definitely get in touch with your local women’s aid. You are obviously a caring person with a conscience. That not your typical abusive behaviour. Abuse can take years to recover from. It affects our confidence x

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much your replying. Yeah I have behaved terribly and not like my self – most of it was trying to involve him in my OCD rituals after I developed extreme OCD after he became an element in trauma for me – so I ended up acting controlling about it like getting him to wash his hands and stuff after he touched something dirty and asking him if he’s washed his hands when he comes home and stuff. I know it’s really bad and I would hate to feel like how I must have made him feel. But although it was bad and i’m going to make sure I never behave like that again I guess it was in a way a fear reaction against his behaviour towards me and an unhealthy defence mechanism from him making me feel unsafe and I was not like for the first year we were together because I hadn’t been traumatised by him yet. And yeah I guess at least I feel bad about it and yes it always made me feel bad. I actually feel like I would pick arguments over little things like little disagreements or things which reminded me of how he had hurt me before because I became so fearful, anxiety ridden and hyper vigilant. I never felt good about it and would always apologise but still. My ex did actually have some kind of smug look on his face at times. Other times he would just look genuinely angry/hurt but when he was more in control I did sometimes look at him as he was saying cruel things and I was crying or getting wound up for example and he would just have this look on face like he was doing it on purpose and almost enjoying it. But then sometimes he would seem remorseful.

Anyway thank you. It’s difficult to remember those things that you say a lot of the time as one minute I’ll see it all one way and then the next day or minute I’ll be back to thinking the other way. It makes sense though thank you. It’s like a minefield or puzzle of different things I keep remembering or points/perspectives I keep thinking of. The other thing which makes this harder for me is that the only other long term relationship I had was abusive too (except not so bad/intense partly because the only person I ever really loved was my recent ex). Except it didn’t get so bad until the very end when he just destroyed my self esteem as he was annoyed that I was depressed because of my family situation even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong to him. Anyway, I actually spoke to this old ex recently for the first time in ages as I was trying to keep busy seeing some old friends from my old school (different to the recent one I’m still trying to get over) and he actually said it was my behaviour which was the reason we broke up. I was thinking ‘no I broke up with you because of how you reduced me to a shell of a person when I was at my most vulnerable’ (it annoyed me because I had forgiven him and assumed he’d changed) but I didn’t even say anything because I almost believed it or rather I was fresh from my recent break up with my recent ex and feeling guilty about that so I felt guilty for disagreeing with anyone or standing up for myself. So it’s like if they were to get together (which they won’t because they don’t know each other) then they’d probably just both blame me so it doesn’t look too good on me.

[Anonymous]

I was in an emotionally abusive r’ship with my last boyfriend. We did not live together but were a couple for some time. I want you to know that before I met him, although i probably had some hangups, generally i was independent, free thinking, held down a really tough job for many years and had a decent amount of self confidence. I had never suffered from serious mental health problems. We split, although i’m trying to get over the relationship damage, i’m slowly returning to me. None of which involves crippling anxiety and insecurity. During the time that I was his Gf and towards the end I had a severe MH breakdown to the point of almost being sectioned in a psychiatric hospital. I was so terribly unwell. And this was all done by him calmly, quietly and with a smile on his face. His actions got so deep into my psyche, the blame, gas lighting, lies, manipulation, non communication, deceit, I could go on and on. I felt that I was a crazy, small, ugly, useless, pathetic nothing. I still have deep scars now due to all of what happened, we split (detail removed by Moderator) months ago. I am none of those things. There is so much reading available on emotional abuse, its covert, subtle and I felt blamed for every problem in the world and I took the blame.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for reply. I relate to a lot of what you shared. I was actually not happy before I met him as I have had a lot of other abusive people in my life including most of my family. Through meeting my boyfriend I actually improved a lot and became a lot happier, felt encouraged and understood for the first time in my life. He was the first person I fell in love with and it was all very intense. But eventually I did lose myself in the relationship at the same time. The fact he made me so happy and my past was so unhappy is what made it so much more difficult to not be dependent on him for me. It’s difficult to pick apart but I’m starting to realise that there is a more confident me which I lost and I think that part of me subconsciously new that I’d be giving it up even at the very beginning of the relationship. I sensed it. But I was so in love and wanting to please him and save him by just loving him and understanding him that I thought that feeling of giving up part of yourself and being compliant was a normal part of love. I remember feeling torn by being in love and also feeling like it was moving too fast and neither of us was ready or I wasn’t ready as I was feeling vulnerable. So I think my intuition was telling me something and part of me was resisting even then and knew that I would something of myself. And it was sense of having lost something of myself and slowly being gas lighted to believe there was something very wrong with/it was all my fault was making my react. But I didn’t know how to fix and didn’t figure out how to control my reactions. I didn’t even know what was happening and it was like I was split in two of thinking it was all my fault and trying to make it work and then reacting badly against it out of control. I have also suffered crippling anxiety throughout most of the relationship. I was not like this before..(only mildly) and I have felt suicidal and been through times where I was so physically stressed that I honestly don’t how my body didn’t just drop dead. I have gotten flu like symptoms and digestive problems from it (this happened when I was living in the horrible accommodation with him and couldn’t get out and then recently after he broke up with me).

Thank you for sharing your story and I’m sorry for what you’ve been through and how he made you feel.

And yes I couldn’t believe when I first started reading about covert abuse. It is so confusing and affective form of abuse because you don’t even realise it is abuse. It really should be awareness about it as so many don’t know what it is.

And yes that article is really good. It’s the best article/list I’ve found so far on covert abuse tactics. I watch the author’s youtube videos as well. Her channel is ‘self care haven’. As she gets straight to the point and is a good speaker. Someone on here (when I posted my full story) suggested that my ex could fit ‘The Water Torturer’ type of abuser which seems to correspond to covert abuse. It’s from a book I believe but if you google search it then a brief description should come up. Let me know if you find anything good too.

[Anonymous]

Dear Lyra, I have started to read the link that you just put on, it IS AMAZING!!! I have only read the first couple of pages but I can identify with it so much, my ex was a total headf**k but quiet, calm and controlled. I was like a poor little lamb to the slaughter. In my mind I was just his girlfriend, I thought we were normal BF & GF, he was a crazy man intent on something horrible. Thank you so much for the link. Any other info you have on this would be gratefully recieved. Thank you. X*X

[Serenity]

Hi Lyra,

Just to say, abusers magnify others’ faults and minimise their own.

They have zero tolerance for others’ issues and yet expect others to put up with all their behaviours.

I wouldn’t be surprised if your OCD worsened when with him, because it was the only way you could feel some order and control. My DV worker said that that what stood out about my marriage was the fact I was given no choice, I wasn’t listened to, I was negated, made to feel like a bad person for just being human…maybe it was one way you could feel a sense of order. Trauma shows itself in obsessive behaviours.

His attitude smacks of the arrogance of all our abusers here.

You will be better off living a life surrounded by kind and compassionate people. My ex was very arrogant and never saw any fault in himself.

Don’t let his blame affect you and his opinion define you. Typically, these covert abusers refuse to take responsibility for anything.

You don’t sound like an abuser. You sound like a good person who got to a state of pure trauma. 💛

(PS Have you looked up the Water Torturer type of abuser?)

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