Is there hope?

[Tikva]

I have come to the realization that I am in an emotionally abusive relationship. My SO has a serious temper and has used it as a tactic to control situation (I.E if you don’t leave the room you will set me off…if you rush me then it’s your fault I lose my temper…and so on…) he also will withhold affection and make me feel like I’m not “good” at a lot of things. At this point I feel like he is always on edge and putting me down in some way. I have begun to just leave the room when he does so because there isn’t any way to reason with him.

He has terrible anxiety and has become so crippled by it that he barely would leave the house unless I helped him to get himself together. He finally decided he wanted help and is going to go to a center to begin intensive therapy and any other necessary treatments to help his mood disorder.

My question is: is there any hope for him to treat me better? He claims he wants to but his self centered and abusive tendencies speak otherwise. Basically is this person a lost cause regardless of the help he gets?

Thank you.

[Newbeginnings1234]

Hi, my Husband went to therapy as he was basically forced to by his employer. I also thought that he might start treating me better but it made everything a lot worse. The physical abuse didn’t start until after he started therapy and the emotional abuse got much worse. Maybe in your situation it might make things better but I just wanted to warn you that things might get worse and he might use the fact that he’s in therapy to justify his behaviour. I don’t know whether you’re thinking of leaving or not but if you are then maybe start thinking about planning it in case things get worse x

[Tiffany]

This sounds very like my abuser. He had a temper and alternately blamed me and his mental health problems for setting it off. When he finally went to therapy, he used what he claimed his therapist had told him to manipulate me worse than before. Therapy basically gave him more sophisticated tools for control, mental abuse and gas lighting. And the physical, sexual and financial abuse continued.

Fortunately this opened my eyes to the fact that he had no intention of changing his behaviour towards me. I left a few months after he started therapy. My only regret is that I didn’t leave sooner.

[Lisa]

Hi Tikva, welcome to the forum. I am sorry to hear what you have been through. It is so important to remember that your partner is always responsible for his behaviour, there are never any excuses for the abuse taking place.

I would encourage you to get some confidential ongoing support in place just for you. As you can see from the posts above it is unfortunately unlikely that he will change. It will be a good idea for you to get some support in place to help you to work through what is right for you. Details for your local domestic abuse service can be found here

Best wishes

Lisa

[HopeLifeJoy]

Yes he is a lost cause.
He will learn new techniques coming out of this center to control and abuse and manipulate you even worse than before.
My ex was very explosive and I asked him to seek help for his anger and temper. He did. I think we had one good talk about it then he got worse and abused me even more, with new techniques on top of staying explosive. It’s as if he went to therapy to learn new methods to abuse me.

Concentrate on yourself, on your life.

[Tikva]

Thank you for the responses everyone. It seems from what all of you have said that it’s common for abusers to use what they learn in therapy as a new abuse tool…yikes…I’m so sad about this but I have a feeling given all your experiences that most likely he is always going to hurt me. Thank you again.

[Author]

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