Is it my fault.. my anxiety

[Starmoon]

This morning I noticed an old college friend had a baby a few months back, I scanned threw some posts and she looks so happy, her and her partner both do.
Then I wonder why I didn’t deserve that happiness too? I’m thinking back to when my youngest was born. I have anxiety so in general I stress over silly things. I remember getting overwhelmed because he’d had his family over most days, he’d asked his niece over and I finally asked him to tell her not to come. Then the bottles needed sterilizing and I had a melt down.. I think I told him he must be mad at me for canceling with his family. Are those that seem to have supportive men just not like me? It wasn’t that I ever meant to not appreciate him or to upset him. Is having anxiety just totally unacceptable? When he assaulted me, it was (detail removed by Moderator) and I’d felt under pressure in the restaurant because there was no (detail removed by Moderator) options I’d like. Then I felt so useless and like a failure and like he was too good for me because I was so rubbish… then he left calling me ungrateful, I tried to explain that I wasn’t but I can see how it looked. Because I tried so hard to explain it resulted in him assulting me. He was so frustrated and angry at me.

[KIP.]

It’s not your fault. He is the only one responsible for his actions. If he was indecisive about what to order in a restaurant would you cause an argument then assault him. No, it’s solely his dysfunctional behaviour. When you had your new baby I’m sure you were exhausted and just wanted peace and quiet to bond with the baby. That’s what I wanted and my ex insisted on bringing people round to the house. Even invited his parents to stay! Completely ignoring my wishes. No wonder you were stressed. Rightly so. You felt useless because he made you feel that way with his behaviour. Leaving you with no self worth, no self esteem and no self confidence. These feelings make us cling even harder to our abusers. Yes, you deserve to be happy and you can be happy without him in your life. It will take time but the first step is realising that abuse is never ever the fault of the victim x

[ConfusedAgain]

I had the same thing straight after little one was born his parents stayed and his mum was taking over and I was the bad guy for getting upset when I just wanted to be left alone to bond with baby and when it all went t**s up ,offourse it was my fault. I have anxiety too and he never tried to understand, all he cared about was other people before me and bubs. Dont look at other peoples posts because its like torture happy pics doesnt mean they dont have issues ,wehad so many pics on social media of everyone thinking we are happy and perfect butfor it wasnt true, I have been miserable for ages xx

[backtome]

I had the opposite. I desperately wanted some family to visit me, either his or mine (especially mine) as I wanted to ask for help and to get things off my chest and just generally feel like everything I was feeling was normal and get advice etc. But nope, no one was allowed to come over, he even kicked off one day because my mum phoned me to see how we were! I wasn’t allowed to post photos of the most precious and amazing thing in my life onto my facebook and ended up coming off fb in the end because people were messaging me asking if i was ok etc. It was an awful time. Why do they not just let us be the mum’s we want and need to be. x

[Starmoon]

Backtone I’m sorry to hear he did that :(. It’s so hard when you’ve just had a baby. And you do need support.
I was scared to tell him if I disagreed or didn’t want something to happen. He’d tell me that me being scared was the problem.. I guess i just never know 🙁

[backtome]

Starmoon, exactly, I didn’t feel like i could do anything relating to my little baby without his say so. I wasn’t allowed to pick her up when she was crying (he said I was spoiling her), or give her a bottle when I thought she was hungry (he thought I’d make her fat) or give her a dummy. I did stand my ground on the dummy point in the end because she was chewing her hand an awful lot and he kept stopping her from doing that too so she couldn’t self soothe at all :(. At one point he quite aggressively pulled her hand out of her mouth and shouted at her, and I mean I’m talking when she was a tiny tiny baby, not even (detail removed by Moderator) months old.

I was, and still am, scared to make any parenting decisions at all and that made the anxiety 10 times worse.

I hope you’re finding it helpful being in the forum like I am and that you get some reassurance from this. x

[Starmoon]

I understand being scared to make decisions incuse it causes a problem. It does help In the most part being on here.. but your partner was so obviously controlling, I understand it mite not have seemed that way, but how unfair to stop you comforting your own baby. My ex wasn’t like that, so it’s always going to have me wondering if he was abusive. When baby was tiny, he went out and wasn’t back until the morning, then hung over until the afternoon. I was tired and I’d worried about where he’d been but didn’t want an argument. In the afternoon he came downstairs and announced he was going to get the snip. I told him I didn’t want to talk about something like that as I was tired. Then he started talking about where the baby would stay on the evening we got married (we never ended up getting married… but the wedding was booked). I was anxious about her saying with his mum as she’s elderly and I wasn’t comfortable leaving her at all. I wanted her to stay with my mum as my eldest would be anyway… I understood he didn’t want his mum to be left out but I wasn’t sure she’d have managed… and I was just overly worried. I felt like if I told him those things he’d be angry and misunderstand me. So I tried to say again I didn’t really want to talk about it at that time. So he stormed off upstairs and started packing his bad. When I shouted how unfair it was of his to leave after he’d been out all evening he told me I was clearly still angry for the night before and I should’ve said instead of causing more problems.. but I hadn’t seen it like that… He ended up pinning me against the wall and trying to throw me down the stairs because I shouted at him about him leaving. Maybe if I’d just had those conversations and had the guts to talk to him instead of being anxious- he wouldn’t get so angry and frustrated

[KIP.]

Ask yourself how you would behave in his position. You would be loving and caring and wanting to spend time with your new baby and the mother. You would be putting your future wife’s needs before your own. Allowing her to leave the baby where she was most comfortable. It wouldn’t have mattered what response you gave him, and you know this because you tried not to give any response, and that still got you abused. He stormed off to pack his bag because he knew this would hurt you the most. There is no reasoning with an abuser. They go straight for the jugular. They show no mercy. And they enjoy it. It’s not you, it was never you. Eventually the penny will drop, the lightbulb goes on and you realise what a total nasty loser he really is. Can you imagine a friend repeating these stories to you. You would be appalled. Try not to overanalyse his every move because sometimes they throw in some really normal caring behaviour. Just to keep us totally confused and so they have something to throw back in our faces. Total dysfunctional behaviour.

[Starmoon]

Thank you kip you’ve been so helpful lately.. yes his loving caring behavior is what threw me so much… he’d done the garden recently and helped decorate the hall way and various things like that. So when I ’caused an argument’ he called me ungrateful and said he did everything but nothing was enough.. for years I’ve said the things he does for me or the family aren’t even to do with what I’m arguing about. X

[Author]

Posts