- This topic has 17 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Not new here, sorry i haven’t shown much support to others lately.
I’m feeling so very confused (no change)… I miss him and still think all the time that it was my fault he eventually left.. I haven’t moved on and he has. Maybe if I had more direction things would feel better. I keep play v over times he left me and the reasons he used. He said I was ungrateful for things, selfish
And negative. Some may Remember the assault (Detail removed by moderator), he said I was ungrateful that night, that I caused problems over nothing. Sometimes I think he was right. I had lots of miscarriages and during the first he was very cold and wouldn’t talk, i stomped around the house and slammed a door, he stormed out and left me calling me selfish. I cant help thinking that other women wouldn’t have been so stroppy.
He always said if I learned to talk normally about tbings then there wouldn’t be a problem. If I hadn’t been acting so spoilt and silly then he wouldn’t have left.
I’m obviously not an easy person to be with.. so was it really abuse. I feel like I have to tell people about the physical abuse just to convince them he was an abuser but ultimately being with me could push any man to want to lash out.. so was he just doing what anyone would do. He’s happy with someone new now. And I have such little confidence and feel so worthless, i feel like I was never good enough for him and it’s no wonder he’s found someone better. I just feel like I messed it all up and it’s all my fault -
Hi Starmoon,
I’ve not been on this forum for a while. It’s great to come back to this safe place.
The thing about abusers is that what they see as others’ faults is glaringly obvious to them; yet they cannot see their own faults.
He was a cruel, unkind partner to you, but like all abusers, he would never admit that. They have a sense of superiority and entitlement: in their deluded mind, they deserve to be treated like royalty and think that they have the right to treat others exactly as they choose.
I know you have a hard time believing it was not your fault. But truly, it wasn’t. From all your previous posts, I can see clearly what kind of man your ex was ( not dissimilar to my ex ).
You deserve to live in peace, without questioning your own worth. Please realise that these abusers make a career out of listing other people’s apparent faults, and they always lay the blame at other people’s feet.
-
Hi Starmoon,
I’m so sorry you’ve been going through hell, doubting and blaming yourself. It isn’t you, it’s your self-centred, ex who is at fault. Having a miscarriage is traumatic enough an experience without being abused and abandoned on top. If he loved you and was a decent man, he would have comforted and loved you, sharing your sense of loss for your unborn child. Please don’t blame yourself. These men are experts at pushing the blame on to us, because they are not man enough to handle blame and responsibility for their abuse so they have to off load it onto someone else- us!
You are having a rough time now because you see him with this new woman, but pity her, she is still in the stage where she thinks he’s a decent person. She will be abused and hurting like you before long. You are a good, kind loving woman. Be proud of who you are. You escaped, you survived, you are free to rebuild your life and become the amazing woman you were always meant to be.
Focus on yourself Starmoon. Look after yourself and stay positive and strong. Build up your relationships with friends and family and get the support you need from them and Women’s aid, the helplines etc.
Good luck with your journey
❤️ -
Hi Starmoon,
Just wanted to tell you about what has happened to me since leaving my abuser. I knew, when I left that his behaviour towards me was unacceptable. No matter how irritating or upsetting you find other people’s behaviour, it is not ok to act abusively towards them.
The thing it took me months to start questioning was whether the things about me that he found so irritating were actually justified. You see, even after I left, I think I was trying to mould myself into the woman he said I should be. I had a lightbulb moment a few months ago. I had ended up getting a job in a high pressure all male environment. One of the things my abuser had tortured me about was that I talked to much and asked too many questions. So you can imagine what it was like having to ask my make colleagues endless questions about how to do elements of the job. After a couple of weeks of apologetic question asking, I said “I will eventually get the hang of this and stop asking questions”. The guy I had been questioning just laughed, and said “No you won’t”. You see, my asking questions didn’t bother him at all. I gained a bit of confidence and started being more myself – making “smart alec” retorts to stuff, being more chatty. You know what? This team of men that I was working with (none of whom even slightly fancied me, so who had no reason to humour me) liked me. They thought I was funny and smart. They got on with me.
These awful character flaws that my ex used as justification to abuse me weren’t character flaws at all. The only person they provoked rage in was my abuser, and that was because he was looking for reasons to hurt me, not because I was doing anything wrong.
It sounds like you are much the same. Not being able to talk about how miscarriage makes you feel sounds perfectly normal. Being quiet isn’t a bad thing (take this from a woman with a big mouth). We all do things that are less than ideal in a relationship – we slam doors, or yell or say hurtful things. None of these justify abuse.
I hope that things start to get better for you soon.
Tiffany
-
Thank you ladies
. I was feeling better this morning but then I found out hed lied about where he was taking the children and who with. He took his new girlfriend and they introduced the kids to her. I had no idea so hadn’t been able to prepare them or myself. I feel sick thinking of someone playing mum to my kids and without me knowing. I find it hard enough knowing my kids are with while im discarded. Clearly his relationship is going so well that he’s introduced her to the kids -
He is an abuser. He will be love bombing and forcing the speed of intimacy with his new partner because he needs a new victim.
Contact with your kids is a little bit different though. Is the child contact organised through a court order? Is there any way that you can specify that he can’t introduce the kids to new people etc without informing you first? In the normal world of course introducing your kids to a new partner isn’t a bad thing. But a normal person would do it with plenty of advance warning to the kids, carefully get them used to idea. Your abuser is obviously not doing this and just using it as a way to continue to hurt you. As he is willing to hurt his own kids in the process it is perfectly understandable that you are upset.
-
I was once the new girl friend. I was very naive. It was only a matter of weeks before he introduced me to his young child. He was still married, had only left a matter of weeks before I moved in with him. It was all whirlwind. I thought he must love me so much to make me part of his life so quickly. I thought id found my soul mate. I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. Trying to make his wife jealous. Looking back, it was probably part of the triangulation and hoovering and if she had taken him back I’m sure he would have dumped me in a minute. Fast forward decades and he’s done exactly the same to me. New naive girlfriend. He was actually still living with me when he went on holiday with her behind my back. Did the same with me and his first wife. Please understand that the problem is all theirs. Absolutely no empathy or moral compass. They live in their own selfish dysfunction world and nobody’s feelings are considered unless it’s to use them and manipulate them. He will never change. Please be glad that he is not targeting you anymore. That means that you have seen through his nasty mask. You are too strong and powerful for him. You won’t be abused by him. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Just stay that strong stable rock for your children. Something he will never be x
-
I’m so pathetic. After he assulted me I moved on to a degree because i genuinly believed he was an abuser and i deserved better but then I took him back and when he eventually left, i was left feeling it was my fault. I know I’m supposed to be amicable and to have moved on but I still love him. I know I’m pathetic but I had been hoping still that he’d come back. Him introducing the kids to his girlfriend is yet more proof he never Will. There’s no comfort in anything anyone says because he loves her and i was never good enough for him. Even if what happened was abuse, he only did it to me because of who I am, he doesn’t abuse her because he loves her. They have everyrhing I wanted and i am jealous.. I know people shouldn’t admit to being jealous but I can’t help it.
The only comfort I got from anything was thinking at least he only wanted visits with the children because he’d never had them alone for more than a few hours even when we were together, but he’s been seeing them for longer and longer and is clearly managing just fine, now they have met his girlfriend and obviously can and will function really well as a family without me. I know people say I’m their mum and can’t be replaced but I never imagined having to share my children with another woman… it’s ripping my heart in two. He doesn’t feel the same way about them or love them the same way I do or he would never have done half the things he did.. if he gets 50/50 access then it literally goes against every thing I ever believed was right in the world and just adds more to making me believe that maybe he wasn’t abusive… other wise why should he get everything he wants whilst I’m left so heart broken.
Even if I wasn’t still in love with him, i can’t stand to lose my children like that. I know I sound selfish and like I’m using my children as a weapon but surely I can’t be alone in how I feel. He’s coming across as Mr reasonable whilst I look the bad guy if I stop access and of course it goes to court then they won’t listen to anything I say about why I didn’t trust him. He will always win and I’ll never move on -
Try to get back to the mindset when you ‘genuinely believed he was an abuser’. We need to retrain our minds, our brains and our thinking. The only reason he wanted you back was because he saw you as weak and a victim. Picture the viscous unprovoked assault he made on you and picture him doing that to his new gf. This will happen because of what he is. There was a good fable on here about the swan who gave the scorpion a lift across a river when no other bird would. They got to the other side and the scorpion stung the swan. The swan was in pain and distraught and managed to as the scorpion why he had stung her when all she wanted to do was help him. He turned to her and replied ‘I’m a scorpion, that’s what I do. Try to ring the helpline on here. You need to talk this through with someone x
-
Your feelings of being to blame and that if you had behaved differently things would have been OK are completely understandable. Lots of women, including me, feel this way. Often we have been trained from childhood to feel responsible for any problems and to change ourselves in an attempt to ‘make’ others love us. We have never learned that we are lovable just as we are and that others are solely responsible for the abuse that they inflict. If we have not had enough unconditional love from early infanthood then it is hard to develop a sense of being ‘good enough’ just as we are as an adult.
The reason that it replays in adulthood is that we are driven to repeat the pattern in order to put it right. Sadly we end up with abusers because we think we can change it this time. We can’t. They are abusers and will. ot change without a level of therapy and motivation that they don’t have.
Often what abusers label as our bad behaviour and ‘acting out’ are normal behaviours to being abused. My abuser used to tell me that ‘I had stepped over the line.’ whenever I pointed out that he had treated me badly. If I became upset it was my ‘personality disorder’ or my ‘mental illness’.
The reality was, that I was behaving as any normal person would when insulted, humiliated and criticised. I did not recognise that my behaviour was normal and his abnormal because I was raised in an abusive family and because of social isolation, I spent little time around families and couples who were not abusive. What I lived with seemed ‘normal’, even if painful.
I also tend to do replay our difficult periods and the last breakup, this is part of the pattern of behaviour that I outline above: internalising a sense of inadequacy and uselessness and taking responsibility for things that aren not your fault. Now that I recognise the reasons for this I am making an effort to interrupt the pattern, so whenever I catch myself replaying them I try and think of something else or do something to distract myself.
The truth is that no matter what we did, said or changed, our abuser would have found a reason to abuse us. That is what they do. The only way that would have allowed us to remain abused would be if we stopped existing as a person and became a robot that automatically met all of their needs. And that, as I am starting to learn is a form of living death
-
These awful character flaws that my ex used as justification to abuse me weren’t character flaws at all. The only person they provoked rage in was my abuser, and that was because he was looking for reasons to hurt me, not because I was doing anything wrong.
It blows me away how similar these abusers are! My abuser used to tell me that I talked too much in social situations and that others thought I was boring and didn’t really like me. The reality was that he has severe ASD and is very, very socially awkward. I am convinced that he was envious of my sociability and wanted to destroy me.
I am still trying to recover from the effects, and from being a very confident, quite extrovert person I am now almost completely silent in company (when I have some!). I also second guess a lot of what I say and assume that I have little of worth to contribute. My business means that I have to interact with clients so I am getting better.
For me, the psychological effects of this type of abuse are worse than the bruises and physical injuries from an earlier physically abusive relationship that I had.
-
Iris, can I just add that even if we met all of their needs, they would still continue to abuse us because abusing us is one of their biggest needs. To dominate and make themselves feel in control x
-
-
Hi Starmoon,
The reality is that you have no idea what your ex’s relationship is like or how will it progress. All of the statistics show that he will behave in the same way – abusers do not change!You are grieving for something that never really existed. He is incapable of a mutually supportive, equal and loving relationship. He abused you and no matter how you changed he would have carried on.
As for their creating a stepfamily, that is also very difficult and a minefield. Stepmothers often struggle to adjust to their partner’s children – they are a reminder of his past – so don’t torture yourself with thoughts of some Disney like family!
I am sure that WA and others can give you advice about childrens’ contact with an abusive ex. I don’t know what the current guidelines are, but I had to accept my physically abusive ex seeing our son regularly. It hurt, but I tried to make the best of it, and I just tried to make sure that I did my best for my son.
-
Thankyou everyone again, iriaatwood, what youve said about repeating patterns from childhood makes a lot of sense.. my overriding memory of how I felt as a child was that I was a burden, not very clever and basically not liked by anyone. I have always just assumed that most people don’t like me and thought why should they like me because I’m not a very nice person… I dont know why I feel this way. I have happy memories as a child, my parents spent money and took us to nice places. They arent very emotional people though and weren’t really concerned about ‘feelings’ and i was always ‘too sensitive’. My mum isnt abusive at all but I’m not convinced my dad isn’t… he reminds me a lot of my ex. Having said that, he never did any of the appalling things to my mum that my ex did to me.. is that because my mum didn’t argue back like I do?! She’s not down trodden but he has never ever said sorry for anything to her or me. We clash now more than ever and our relationship is totally broken. He always thought I was too emotional any way so now after going through all of this, he looks almost angry at the mere sight of me.. and me attempting to talk about any of this whilst he is around just results in the most awful arguments. He still insists that my ex was abusive but he won’t listen to anything I have to say.
I know I need to work on a lot of that in therapy but I just can’t afford it at the moment. Kip, the assults were never unprovoked.. all of them were because I was arguing with him and saying I wasn’t happy with something he’d done. If I hadn’t shouted or argued he wouldn’t have assulted me… but actually I dont care about the physical assults. I’ve recovered from them but not everything els -
Hi, if your dad had attacked your mum physically because she had argued with him, would that be okay? No it wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have provoked him or deserved it. No one does. The bruises might have healed but the emotional damage because of them hasn’t.
Since getting rid of my abuser I see right through bullies and I won’t tolerate them anymore. Even if it means having no relationship with them. I won’t be abused by anyone ever again. Hang in there. You’re not the one with the abusive nature or you wouldn’t be on here x
-
the assults were never unprovoked…..If I hadn’t shouted or argued he wouldn’t have assulted me
This is so sad.
You. like so many of us, have been trained to believe that it is your fault and that you deserve the abuse.
It is not true.
No one, no one should be assaulted for anything they have done or said. Partners who are not abusive will walk away from or engage in an argument without assaulting you!
I know several women who have never been hit, criticised or called names by their partners – ever. They have cried, become upset, become irrational and criticised their partners and not been abused. What they did experience was the normal, non abusive response of someone who loves you: trying to find out why, trying to console, arguing back (without humiliating or insulting) or walking away. They are not angels either – they behave like normal people – something I didn’t learn until I was much older.
Try and imagine how you would treat someone you loved who has just had a major loss and is very, very upset…….That is how you should have been treated.
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
