Tagged: emotionalabuse coercivebehaviour
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 1 month, 1 week ago by Lisa.
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3rd October 2024 at 6:31 pm #171628LlamapartyParticipant
Hi everyone – this is my first post. I am going through separation from my husband at the moment and have (detail removed by Moderator) young children. My concern is that I was in an emotionally abusive and coercive relationship but sometimes I am not sure. I have moments of feeling sure that it was, and other times I think it was just toxic. (detail removed by Moderator).
So here goes… At the start of our relationship he was fun, loving and said he wanted his next girlfriend to be his wife. This offered me a security that I hadn’t had before and made me feel special. There were a few red flags at the start with him flirting with a couple of my friends, but I put that down to teething problems. He also seemed to be still attached to his ex at the start which made me feel insecure, but eventually these things faded and we did have some good times together. However, the control became clearer when I moved in with him. He would be very particular about everything from the way I cut the vegetables to the way I spread butter on his toast. He would have a way of telling me off and making me feel small/annoying. Every single birthday the presents which I thought were thoughtful became an issue. He would say they were rubbish/c**p and even romantic gestures were put down. He wouldn’t apologise in arguments which I found frustrating but when things were good they seemed so perfect. So I just took the bad with the good. Then I started to become suspicious of his times away with work. He always seemed to drink a lot on his work trips away so I looked into it. He lied about flirting with a girl from work, I know this as I came across a picture of (detail removed by Moderator). This unsettled me and made me feel insecure and he would just get defensive and shout at me instead of giving me the reassurance I desired. Flirting and attention from other women seemed to be something he thrived on, but at the time I thought he was a good looking guy, so some things perhaps weren’t his fault. Time went on and he said he wanted to get a house with me. So we moved into our first home together which was lovely. His control over where we lived and the household financial admin I saw as caring at the time. We then got married. He didn’t want me to have much of an input with the wedding organisation and said I wasn’t allowed to (detail removed by Moderator) at the wedding, which he knew would have meant a lot to me (detail removed by Moderator). He was against my (detail removed by Moderator) having any involvement. He was controlling throughout the day and even during our first dance was telling what to do, how I should be acting which I didn’t like and it did cause arguments. On our honeymoon I was unwell. He put pressure on me to have sex – saying things like it wasn’t normal not to do it on our honeymoon and we wouldn’t be married until we did. We did but I did feel uncomfortable. After our honeymoon sadly I had an illness which did affect my ability to deal with every day tasks and intimacy. I hoped he would have stepped up and looked after me, and he did sometimes but often made me feel like a burden. I did eventually get better so we decided to have children which was really exciting and something I had always wanted. We had a baby and he was very protective over the baby at the start. My (detail removed by Moderator) at the time was being supportive and my husband told me I couldn’t have her at the hospital – not even for a visit. He also said my family couldn’t come to the hospital at the start. I was heartbroken at this as could have really done with the support of my (detail removed by Moderator). When we were home he forbid my (detail removed by Moderator) to stay at our house. She had to stay nearby at a hotel. He never wanted anyone to come to stay and started to make negative comments about my family and my close friends. He was also make comments about what I was wearing and told me I shouldn’t wear shirts or certain colour combinations as it wasn’t feminine enough or clashed. After having our baby there were a couple of women I suspected he may have been cheating on me but he’d just get angry with me when I asked about it. So I left it in the end as need to focus on the baby. After this he started to be really negative about everything and everything I did was wrong. He’d be snappy, hard to be around, swearing and shouting at me occasionally. It got to the point where we wanted to create a sibling for our first child and i talked to him saying I couldn’t put up with the negativity anymore or the putting me down and he needed support and a big change was needed if we were to have another baby. He promised he would change, and after the chat he seemed better again. However, after we had the baby things got a lot worse. He would shout, swear and put me down in front of our (detail removed by Moderator) child. He would also constantly slam doors, threatened to break my personal items, told me he hated me, our family and the house we lived in, threatened to leave, called me a s**t wife if I hadn’t done the housework to his standard or tidied everyday, and the final straw was when he called me ‘effing useless’ in front of my child and he would quite often say these things in an aggressive way getting up in my face/would’t let me speak. Friends would tell me they didn’t like the way he spoke to me – it was like a mother speaking to a child kind of vibe. He then had an affair with someone we knew and gaslit me about it for months. Made me feel like I was mad even suspecting him. I couldn’t believe it when I found out for sure that he was having an affair but it reassured me that I wasn’t going mad! He even told people I was controlling and wouldn’t let him go out (which was so far from the truth) I just asked him not to go out with the affair partner of which he replied ‘(detail removed by Moderator)’
As soon as he realised I knew about the affair he suddenly wanted a divorce and did not want to sort things out. He hasn’t once admitted to the affair. So my question is, has this been emotional abuse/coercive behaviour? Or just a toxic relationship? After being gaslit for so long I don’t feel sure of much, but if this was abuse I need to seek further support.
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4th October 2024 at 9:33 pm #171646LisaMain Moderator
Hi Llamaparty,
Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your experiences with us.
What you’ve described absolutely is domestic abuse. He was emotionally abusive, putting you down, swearing and shouting, calling you names, gaslighting. He was controlling, about the ways you did things, finances, what you wore, who you got to spend time with, support you could access. It was coercive because he was using threats and making you scared to control you. There was also physical abuse, a lot of people think this means direct assaults, but slamming doors and getting in your face aggressively are both examples of him using his physicality to scare and intimidate you and these behaviours indicate a higher risk that he would’ve escalated to a direct assault given time.
It’s really common to not feel sure if something was abuse. It’s hard to see when you’re in it, behaviours get minimised and normalised. You’re not alone in asking these questions and I’m really glad that you’ve found this forum to reach out. You mentioned seeking further support. You could use our Live Chat service to speak with a Women’s Aid worker, who can discuss your situation with you and signpost you to other relevant support. For ongoing support, you could get in touch with your local domestic abuse service. You might also find the Freedom Programme helpful. It’s an information course designed to help women survivors learn about domestic abuse and make sense of what they’ve been through.
Take care and keep posting,
Lisa
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