I really don’t know what to do. Feeling very triggered today and like the cycle

[VictoriaCav]

Hello,

After a period of relative calm, I am back in feeling of numbness and confusion.

I went through quite an extended period of verbal and emotional abuse a few yrs back with my long term partner. I sought councilling which helped,  but he found out that I had confided in a friend and went ballistic. During this period over a few rows, I gave him a no holds barred evaluation of what I thought of him, (i.e. not good).

We have tried to make it work for sake of child. But (timeframe removed by Moderator) there was an incident and he brought everything back – saying that he had the right to be angry at me at that point. He is now saying that I am the abusive one and that he is walking on eggshells around me. I asked him if he still wanted us to be together, he didnt answer that. But said he is not a bad man and that I am the one with the problem.

He has a catalogue of things in his mind that he brings up in these arguements.

I spent the rest of the day in silence, not knowing what to say or do, because I feel certain that anything will be wrong.

I did snap at him recently,  when he left (specific detail removed by Moderator), (after I had been cleaning all day to get things tidy), he brought this up and listed multiple things that I had left around. Fair enough.

But the reason for my confusion is that:

1. He doesn’t seem to want to resolve anything

2. He cannot accept that his past behaviour was wrong, (in fact he now is blaming me for that behaviour) My councillor, who helped me immensley confirmed that it was 100% abuse

3. He says I don’t respect him, yet he has zero respect for me, (there is no thanks for anything I do , in fact he has told me previously, why should he thank me – i should just do it)

4. I am concerned that maybe I am causing alot of the problems? I know I’m not perfect and I do try to bite my tongue, but things do come out sometimes.

5. I just don’t even know why he wants to be with me since he seems to hate me so much.

Couldn’t eat yesterday. That feeling of nerves is back in my stomach.

Fed up of wasting my days going over and over everything. Think that trust between us has completely broken down.

Sorry for the rant and hope you are all having a better day than me.

[Cherries]

Its a really common tactic for them to call us the abuser, and to shame/guilt us for raising issues or daring to talk about this to people outside of the relationship.  Remember they do not act like this outside in front of others so they are concerned with protecting their image….and they kniw what they do otherwise why hide it?Like you if I raised one valid point I would have an avalanche of things sent back at me as a defense.

What I do is unimportant because you did all of that….now fix it or you’re disrespecting/hurting/ignoring me.

Depends on how big a victim yours is. Mine was rarely aggressive but lord the victim hood. My first husband was the other way.  Not anywhere near the victim status just he was the boss and I ought to know that.

Both were controlling just in very different ways.

The power balance is off, so you snapping at him does NOT have the same affect on him, as him snapping at you.

Its like if someone attacks someone else…the victim isn’t the aggressor because they defend themselves are they.

They sow confusion and they are good at it. If you can’t think straight its hard to be anything but controlled by them. They break trust in your own opinions of yourself by invalidating/gaslighting/blame shifting etc. Over time we bend ourselves more and more to avoid their displeasure/earn love etc. We hope if we just do that enough the relationship will recover and it will work. Eventually it erodes who we are to a massive degree, so slowly we did not even notice until we hit crisis point.

The subtle stuff is deadly for this.

In a safe relationship you wouldnt have to bite your tongue. You could say hey this bothers me and they would care enough to listen and compromise,  not turn it all back around on you, make everything your fault and make you realise there is no point having an opinion because it just always ends like…that.

I left in the end. My mr nice guy wasn’t really that nice and it was not going to get better if he couldn’t own any of it. Wasn’t much of me left by the end

Hope you’re ok. This stuff grinds you down horribly doesn’t it x

[VictoriaCav]

Hi @Cherries

Thank you so much for replying, it means alot. And I’m so very sorry to hesr about what you went through and I hope you have got your “me” back now?

This is all so true. It is all mostly behind closed doors. I had that “feeling” that something was brewing for a few weeks now – but somehow it always manages to blindside me.

I feel like he just wants to obliterate me, (not in a physical sense).

I have this impending sense of doom about tonight. I’m pretty sure that he wants me to accept all blame for everything, which i am not prepared to do. I’ve been having that “make sure everything is clean and tidy – don’t poke the bear” feeling (but who knows what will poke the bear?)

I mean a while ago he suggested that I try and do a creative project. So when I did, he didn’t seem at all interested and in fact this has now been used as proof that I do nothing all day – I can’t win.

Sorry, winge over. Most days I can cope, but this was a bad one, (I know it was truggering because my body started shaking this morning – which it dud a lot a few years ago). We internalise so much but it wats of breaking free.

[EvenSerpentsShine]

It’s interesting that he had an established form of abuse in place in your relationship in the early days. You then disrupted that quite seriously by 1.going to see a therapist 2. Telling someone outside the relationship about it.

It seems almost as if he backed off and regrouped at that time. Figuring out an updated way to abuse you, having done some reading up, so that he has all the terminology to become the modern day victim.
Even the fact that you are now stunned into silence by what he’s coming at you with could be interpreted by him as the ‘silent treatment’ of the abuser.

I really feel for you, your post was difficult reading for me.

[EvenSerpentsShine]

Cherries has it spot on so there’s no point me repeating, but I do really feel that the aspect of this that you’ve both put your finger on so well, is that there’s really no winning in these situations.
It’s easy to believe that we can’t win because we haven’t found the right way to do it yet.

You know, the conversation that will get through, the reasoning that will make sense, the magic key that will turn that lock.
When actually the answer to this is that we won’t win because that option isn’t on the cards no matter what, ever, ever.

[VictoriaCav]

Thank you EvenSerpentsShine, for both of your posts.

I am thinking that the only thing I can do now is to seriously discuss splitting up, (which terrifies me and I can’t bear the thought of co-parenting). I just don’t want to spend all of my life apologising for something that was done to me and made me feel like I was losing my mind. I think I’m realising now, that this is what will forever happen.

Thank you both. You have no idea how comforting it is to be able to talk and to hear words that are encouraging and grounding.

 

 

[EvenSerpentsShine]

I wonder if it may be quite upsetting to enter into a conversation with an abusive person about splitting up. Especially if you have a lot of unprocessed and raw emotions around it. Worry about your child and so on.

Bearing in mind that you probably won’t win in this conversation either!

Seriously though.
You do have a therapist. Could you talk to her about it, or another objective person in your life, even someone at your local domestic abuse centre.
There’s a lot about domestic abuse in literature and online now, both in articles and videos, and of course there is also a forum like this, where you can read and ask how others approached it before you leap in.

Its always a really helpful thing to educate yourself as much as you can about these things.
pre-warned is pre-armed and all that.

In the meantime, try and keep your relationship with your partner on an even keel and observe as many of the ways the relationship works as you can.
It can spark some quite aggressive behaviour to talk about ending a relationship with an abuser, so maybe an idea to make your plans quietly if you can.

 

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