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I will never recover or get over this I don’t know what I did. He called me asking about the kids I don’t even know what I said anymore but he told me I’d made his life hell. Destroyed his life and he had no choice but to leave me. That’s I’m mentally unstable and that’s what he couldn’t live with… He had no choice but to leave me while I was losing his baby. Then I called my mum in desperation and she came down telling me we need to get solicitors involved but I’m not strong enough and nor do I want that fight. How can I live with myself if I destroyed his life. How can I do that…. Knowing I deserved to lose our baby alone because I am such a head case. My mum thinks it’s easy but I don’t know anything any more… I wasn’t healed but I had had the tiniest little bit of hope over the last two days in thinking maybe it wasn’t all me… I’m talking the smallest bit of hope. Just enough to give me the strength to get out of bed and feel I was worth at least that day. But now I am right back in the pit of self loathing
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Why have so many of us treated our abuser’s words as Gospel? Why do we put so much store by the views of someone so unkind and deluded?
The days I feel free and most myself are the days ( like today ) when I am suddenly clear-minded and can see him exactly for what he is.
I feel free and at peace, because on these days I am looking at the truth squarely for what it is.
These abusers will ALWAYS blame their victim.
The day we start to heal is when we accept that this is their own erroneous view and that we don’t care what they think- because their view of reality will always be twisted.
I was having coffee with a friend a few weeks ago and felt down and she said to me: ‘I could understand you being upset if he was a really nice, kind, moral person, and he criticised you. Then, you’d think he might have a point. But your ex is dishonest, cruel and selfish, so why care what he thinks? He’s nothing. His views are nothing.’
Another friend who has been through am abusive relationship was called all kinds of things by her ex. He put her down about everything. She said the day she began to be free was the day she stopped letting his selfish opinion define her.
Only this week, a childhood friend has chucked her partner out of the house. She has a newborn baby with him, and was previously divorced. They had just bought a new house and she had found a teaching job. All looked rosy- at least from the outside. Apparently, there was financial abuse already, and control. He wouldn’t let her but new clothes or make-up. He was jealous of her talking to any males, even colleagues. Her parents said they had to intervene in a row where he was accusing her of all sorts and putting her down.
I texted her to offer my commiserations, offering my support. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a reply back where she seemed to express great resolve: that she had made the decision, and all would be well. I could sense such determination in her words. And she wasn’t wasting time blaming herself.
I know many of us here are givers and blame ourselves for the behaviour of our abuser, but I really think the only way forward is to drill it into our brains that we are not to blame, the abuser chose to behave as he did, and in fact he almost certainly knew what he was doing in hurting you and making you react. These abusers are attention seekers and they are histrionic. To them, a peaceful life is a boring life. They need to create hurt and drama- it gives them a thrill. Of course, they won’t admit this.
Our abusers will treat the next person the same.
Yes, they make us emotional and even unstable due to their cruelty. Abuse has that effect. We mustn’t hate ourselves for having natural reactions. We are human.
If I were in contact with my ex, he would be saying all kinds of poisonous things, making me out to be guilty of things I am not and denying his own abusiveness.
That is why I am no contact. I really think you should be too. He is venomous.
Your challenge is to realise is version of reality is badly skewed and to then minimise contact. He is one person in this world, and not a very nice one. And most- if not mainly all- people wouldn’t agree with his views.
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Yes, and this wise friend who told me the above is so lovely, and she is losing her lovely husband slowly to cancer. Life is so topsy-turvy.
By the way, Star Moon, I was thinking that another important aspect of facing the truth about our abusive situation is to accept that sustained abuse very often causes what might be loosely termed mental health issues in the victims. Victims rarely come out unscathed.
For example, I need to accept that his cruelty caused a deterioration in my mental health, in terms of my succumbing to agoraphobia, panic attacks, depression, anxiety, cope, an increase in alcohol consumption, unhealthy eating, dysmorphia ( where I found myself ugly ) etc.
This is nothing to be ashamed of. No one, as I say, comes out unscathed from abuse. Even well-trained soldiers suffer PTSD.
Your partner is trying to make you feel guilty for reacting to his abuse. This is in itself abusive : denying someone the freedom to experience and express natural reactions to things. When the person who is abusing you denies they are even doing it, it can drive you mad and make you feel barely human. this is because they are treating you as less than human.
Don’t feel ashamed of your issues in front of him. This is what he wants you to feel. Instead, assertively acknowledge the damage being with him has done to your mental health, and lay the blame where it should be. Tell him (if you have the misfortune of having to be in contact with him again ) that yes, you are suffering, and he caused it. This is why you want no further contact.
Toss the self-blame and shame aside and lay it squarely at his feet, where it belongs.
They can try to make us feel bad all they like about our deteriorated mental health, but the thing that has caused it in the first place is their own noxious behaviour and abusive personality. x
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Hey! I agree. I know exactly how you feel, honestly because it’s me also. I have horrendous gut wrenching guilt and regret at everything he blamed me for. I did become mentally unstable, unable to function in the most basic of ways as I was, looking back so scared of doing or getting it wrong. I couldn’t drink a cup of tea, without being criticised in some way and I beat myself up and still do for not being mentally capable of ignoring what are really insignificant issues. When u are constantly living with it though and he has free access to do this to you, you won’t get anywhere. My mum forced, and I mean marched me down to a solicitor in order to stop the cat and mouse game he was playing with me. Even that felt like a task too huge, u might as well have asked me to climb Everest. I did it though and I went no contact as he advised. I ended up changing solicitors for a specialist in this thing, not because he did anything g wrong but in his advice as he recognised the games He was playing and it wasn’t his field of expertise. Ask your local WA contact for a name. She was amazing, cut through all the rubbish, the invitations to counselling and mediation…just to enable him to manipulate and abuse further. I made him a sensible offer, made funds available for him to leave me alone while house was sold and he rejected it all. They don’t want a solution to the practical side, they want engagement and fuel from your emotions. It drove him crazy and did make it escalate his behaviour when I went no contact, started following me, tracking me through my phone. Sent the most emotionally blackmailing messages that made me feel awful. On one and only occasion I felt weak and wished him well and hoped he’d get the help he felt he needed via text. HUGE mistake, this was weakness, he knew it and it got worse again. No contact it the key. I would seriously recommend reading he Tudor…no contact. It’s written by a self confessed n********t and made me realise, although I have my lapses this is a whole different species of human we are dealing with. My ex made myself and my three children homeless because we said we couldn’t live with his aggression anymore. Three months that went on for before I got the help I needed. Don’t make the same mistake. Go no contact, get a solicitor who cuts through the cr*p and actually has a personal passion about defending these cases. We are back home now and it’s still the hardest thing to do. He has left various notes and cards around house for me to find. Some are loving and desperate scribbling a from him others are cards from his friends offering support for the hell I was putting him through. Literally ALL I did was get away yet I’ve been made out to be a crazy witch. I am crazy just now because of what I’ve been through but I’m hoping it will get better. I doubt very much though he will ever change. Don’t make the mistakes I did. My mum drive me crazy and still does but let her get u to the solicitor. Just do it. Hand the responsibility to someone else. You have done all you can. X
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It’s not back to square one. You now know how toxic contact is with him. Your post this morning was so positive and up beat. Now contact has brought you right back down. You will pick yourself up again and this had been a harsh lesson. He is so cruel and uncaring. Stay one hundred percent no contact. Let your mum sort out a solicitor. I had to let the professionals take over and I just wasn’t thinking straight x
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