Is it abuse or is it me?

[Nectarine]

Afternoon all

I’m new here. I have been with my partner for many years and i’ve started to realise that our relationship has been abusive. I feel like I have known this all along and I’ve just buried it but now i’m looking it in the face.
This is my confusion though; the big realisation came after someone I know was being really flirty with me. Nothing happened, and nothing will, but I loved feeling seen like that.
Now my problem is that I’m doubting myself – like it’s now part of my programming to assume that I’m a bad person for feeling something else – is it/was it abuse? or am i sabotaging my relationship because i want to be single/with someone else –  and what does this say about me? do i just like the attention?

So i want to list a number of things that have happened over the years and ask, if you agree that this is abuse, and also to confirm to myself that I’m not going mad. I think saying them out loud to people who are open enough to understand and be honest with me is something i really need.

It began at the start of my relationship with my partner, very early on. There was an incident where i had slept with my ex and lied about it. I’m not proud of that but i was very young. He found out and in the midst of an argument about it he slapped me. I was completely in shock. I remember he left the room and there was this silence and i couldn’t recall how much time had passed but i just sat there frozen. Eventually i got up and left the room intending on having a shower and then getting dressed but he was leaving my apartment and basically begged and persuaded me to get into his car and talk about it. So i did. He drove back to his house in a rage aggressively and the entire journey he shouted at me for what i’d done, there was no conversation about the assault. I think i blocked most of the journey out to be honest.
We have been together a long time now, and although there has never been another incident of physical abuse there have been other things which i’m convinced i let him get away with because i have been in some kind of PTSD from that first incident – if that makes sense.
Stonewalling/silent treatment. I had to get rid of social media because of jealousy and have only just got it back, I had to change my phone number at one point. Terrible road rage. making up nicknames for me that ‘are only a joke’ – how is it a joke when its just the 2 of us?! we went on a weekend break (timeframe removed by Moderator) organised by (detail removed by Moderator) and he was horrible the entire time; making negative comments about the whole trip like he didn’t want to be there.
Even recently i went to the park with a male friend and we went on the swings, and he said that “it was weird” because i’m too old for that. Honestly i was just having fun.

This stuff doesn’t happen all the time, the above is a compression of events over time. Please let me know your opinions on this because I kinda feel like I’m going mad.

Thanks
Nectarine

[Nectarine]

And i would like to add that there was nothing in the flirting, but it made me realise that i could feel differently. I have no desire to be with someone else. I just want to feel the peace of being with myself but the thought is breaking my heart.

There have been numerous incidents of aggressive driving and silent treatment. The more i read about these types of abuse the more i realise that its happened to me.

I’m finding it hard to reconcile

[Atsah]

None of this is your fault! My ex was so charming with my family they loved him then soon as we got married things changed he said i don’t have to be nice to you or your family now you are mine.friends i had known for years  and used to go out with he became very jealous of and made excuses up as to why we couldn’t see them.in the end i lost all my friends they would turn up to see me and he would turn them away.my ex was same in the car with road rage even when our children were in the car if he was cross with me he would say it was my fault he was angry when driving.he scared all of us on many occasions in the car.i left him ages ago and it was so difficult and still is but at least i have my freedom now and have made new friends. i am  having therapy and it is so hard to re live it all.she also made me think about something i hadn’t even recognised as being abuse felt so stupid not to know.i am older now and he has taken up many years of my live  both living with him and the aftermath. Although it’s really hard to leave and i left with hardly anything you will get through it and shouldn’t have to put up with any kind of abuse.you will find the strength from somewhere..wishing you all well

[feelingtrapped01]

A lot of this sounds like mine and my now husbands relationship. Really similar history, he has held a mistake I made when I was (age removed by Moderator) over my head for over (timeframe removed by Moderator) years. I have lived to please him and make it up to him to the point where I believe he felt for years he could treat me however he liked. I wish I left so many years ago, before we had our child and married and it feels so much harder now. I wouldn’t change our child for the world, but I wish I hadn’t brought her into this situation.

I can’t tell you to leave, but I would love you not to make the same mistakes I have and sleepwalked into a very unhappy toxic abusive marriage with a young child. It doesn’t sound like you are yet married with kids. Do what your gut tells you.

i have had that feeling of enjoying feeling ‘seen’ – that is your body telling you something. You wouldn’t felt that way if you felt loved and appreciated.

i hope you do what’s right for you x

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