Is it actually me like he says it is?

[Stormdreamer]

Hi all,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I feel crazy and uneasy and very unhappy and just need to get this out for opinions.

I love my food, I eat a lot. I’m slim, but I also breastfeed my little one so I end up more hungry than usual anyway. So this morning, I had a small bowl of cereal at 7am… by 10:30 I was saying I felt really hungry. He said ‘You’ve already had your breakfast. You do what everyone else does, you have your breakfast and then you have your lunch’ when I started explaining about breastfeeding making me more hungry in general as it is, he began talking over me and saying ‘yes you don’t need to explain, I know this already, I’m joking’ and ‘you’ve got an answer for everything’ … when he asked me what’s wrong, I built up the guts to tell him that what he had said had bothered me, and he exploded with ‘Oh ffs, I was playing, you’re so serious, grow a sense of humour!’
After this… he said ‘I’m not the one who goes around calling herself a pig and calling herself fat’ … but I do that now because he very often than not makes pig noises when I’m hungry or am eating and also has a nickname of fatty that he calls me 🙁

But everything is my fault, it’s bevause I’m too sensitive and also to add… he also says he isn’t allowed to feel angry, annoyed etc etc any negative emotion because I don’t allow him to. It’s not that I don’t allow him to, I tell him it’s ok
To feel those things because it’s human, what isn’t ok is how he reacts to others over it e.g me and the children. But I’m to blame. :/ so now I feel abusive and controlling and manipulative and horrid.

How do you view this? Am I just being ridiculously sensitive? Am I to blame?

[bobbi]

Hi Stormdreamer I am new to the forums but from everything I have read his behaviour sounds overwhelmingly like gaslighting. It is not you!
His comments and behaviours are hurtful and emotionally abusive.

You are not to blame and are not over sensitive!

sending hugs and strength x

[starryeyed]

Hey Stormdreamer,

I think one of the main things to focus on is that you are feeling crazy and like you are the one feeling abusive. I think those are tactics used by our abusers in order to make them appear the victim and that we are the ones in the wrong.

I was always called over sensitive, had lost my sense of humour and couldn’t take a joke. I’ve been told I am controlling and can’t tell him what to do and that I have been emotionally abusive to him. They are projecting this onto us, to make us question our own sanity. To make us question our own feelings and believe that they aren’t valid.

The comments he says to you about when you should be eating ‘like everyone else’ is almost like he is talking to a child. My ex said things in a similar way, he would say I was really rude and correct the way I spoke and ignore me until I said certain things.

His ‘jokes’ aren’t funny, at all. You are allowed to eat when you are hungry and you don’t need to give reasons to him.

You telling him it is okay to feel negative emotions but it is more how he reacts to you and the children – this is definitely not an abusive, controlling or manipulative thing to say. It is communicating with him, or you are trying to at least.

I don’t think you are being oversensitive at all. I know that is hard to believe because I feel the same, I feel like I am overreacting. Emotional abuse is insidious.

x*x

[Good samaritan]

Hi Stormdreamer

Welcome to the forum. As one of the others says it seems like gaslighting. My ex would blame me for his affairs even when he was the one who chose to work away all week. They are good at blame shifting and projecting the feelings onto us. You wouldn’t be calling yourself those things if he wasn’t reinforcing them. Take care of yourself and the little one. Try also to reach out to an external support network. Hugs x

[Go green light]

Sounds exactly like my ex. They will create an argument where you can’t win because whatever you say is twisted. My ex would also talk over me/cut me off mid sentence, which I think showed he did not really have any respect for me or really want to listen to what I was saying.

[KIP.]

Just wanted to say that Abuse very often escalates really badly after child birth. It’s a very common thing for abusers to raise the game when we are vulnerable and they know that we are distracted looking after a new life. You would think at this time any gentle caring partner would be making your life easier. These abusers take childbirth as a green light to get worse. And we often blame ourselves and I’ve had doctors label me with post natal depression. Very far from it. It’s the dysfunctional abuse getting worse.

[freedomtochoose]

Hello there,
Just wanted to offer a few words of support. Aside from what the others have said – I would add no-one has the right to abusively comment on how much or how little you eat especially when you are breastfeeding.

Just to offer when I was breastfeeding, (which is a while ago now) – I ate the equivalent of a full meal each hour (yes each hour!) as well as endless pint glasses of water. And like you, I still lost weight. I put it down to the fact that my body was working so hard to produce food for someone else! Organisations like the la lache league (who you can turn to for 24 hour advice, google the helpline) re: breastfeeding – will only have kind words to say about what a marvellous job you are doing for your child.

Your body is doing an amazing job there for the next generation and you are doing very well despite these nasty comments from the person you mentioned. Just a thought.
all best
x

[Author]

Posts