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Hi, I’ve recently joined but been watching and reading posts for some comfort.
I am trying to get out of the cycle and thought I was doing so well. Abuse was mainly psychological but a lot of sexual manipulation and the physical that came with that.
When I dont talk my mood is so low, I cry all the time and it’s hard to fight. I break and message and that continues until he says something to trigger me to remind why I’m leaving. But this time hes being nice and it’s so easy and I dont have this low mood and anxiety attacks. I know this is just to get me back to the position he wants. But i find myself falling anyway.
Please help. I just want to feel normal again x
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Hi Lostone, yes it can feel difficult to fight the urge to contact him for sure for a while, it really is about making this promise to yourself and riding it out when you feel moments of weakness. The more time that passes and the benefits you start to feel as a result of going no contact help you build strength; then one day you realise that you nolonger feel these urges at all, this is just the way it is now – the way it needs to be, the way it turned out.
I used to dread getting his messages so to have removed this from ever happening now actually feels pretty good and it enables me to get on with my life.
Only you can draw a line here sweety. You know the relationship is toxic and it will never be how you’d like it to be, kind, loving, respectful, so the longer you put off no contact, the longer the pain and distress. It’s over, can either be now or several months down the line after going round in circles and suffering further abuse.
You can do this, but it means riding it out and not reacting from the pain, the pain can hurt so much that we often fool ourselves into thinking if I go back the pain will stop it, maybe I should be with him if I feel this strongly etc – doesnt work and it isn’t true hey; it’s how you feel only, and these feelings will and do pass. You need to speak to your logic and ignore the heart really for a bit and run for the hills; be with your pain but do not react from it x
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I found it helpful to replace the habit of texting him with another habit – usually texting my friends instead, but also posting on here. My reasoning was that that fulfilled the cravings for contact without contacting someone toxic. It stopped me contacting him anyway. Although I suspect that anything at all that makes you stop and think helps. So you could say that you wouldn’t text him until after you had made yourself a cup of tea and drunk it. And hopefully after that you have come up with something else to do. Distraction technique. It also helps a lot to delete their contact information – sure, you might be able to get it back, but it reduces the chances of impulse texting. Delete him from your contacts on your phone, and block him on social media. It gets better, you just need to get over the initial hump.
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For me I had to be pragmatic about it. I made the definite decision to cut him out. We had child contact to work out but I knew contact was triggering me a lot. I deleted his number stayed off fb etc. Broke away from his friends once I did this the trauma bond was gone in about a month xx slowly I got better and better xx
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Hi all, I’m finding this cycle getting wider and wider. The knowledge I’ve gained over the years has helped me see through ALL of his manipulative ways, that doesn’t mean I still don’t fall for them, I do, but I am so aware of all his ploys now. Even when he’s being really nice, I know it’s an act because sooner or later he does show his nasty side which strengthens my resolve. Their values are so different to ours, they abuse us in order to get control. If we gave them control of our lives I don’t think they’d abuse us in quite the same way but it would still be there in one way or another. Know deep in your heart that you are doing what’s right for you, he doesn’t have your best interests at heart one bit only his own and he’ll say and do anything to protect those interests even if for a while he seems to be the mean you fell in love with. Have you kept diaries of the abusive behaviour or of your feelings and thoughts? Reread them, remind yourself of what he is and has said and done. It is so hard to not feel bad about hurting their feelings, that’s because we are nicer people. Try and let what he says and does wash over you. Write it down so you see in black and white how he’s manipulating you. Mine is trying all sorts, his method of choice just now is how much he’s physically hurting or how he’s narrowly missed being seriously hurt at work. Tells me he’s not going to bed, sleeps on the couch, that is his choice. (I don’t think this would ID me) one minute he’s spending like there’s no tomorrow, the next he can’t afford a loaf of bread!!!
Have you read Lundy Bancroft ‘Why does he do that’? He explains and takes you through different scenarios, I’m rereading it for the 3rd time.
Also, don’t be so hard on yourself. Years of psychological abuse will take an awful lot of time to undo. I don’t call him unless I really have to, all his texts are nice ones.he keeps the vitriol for face to face or on the phone, which I record if I remember to.
Your time will come to be free of him as will mine. I don’t think will ever be totally free, something that affects us so deeply will have a lasting effect. What I won’t allow, is for it to impact on the rest of my life.
Best wishes IWMB 💞💞 -
I had a couple of months notice on our shared rental property after I moved out. So I didn’t manage full no contact until that was over. It was a couple of years ago now. But as I remember I had a series of decisions. First was not to talk to him on the phone because he was twisting things (this was only a couple of days in). Then the decision that no matter how much he provoked me, that I wouldn’t respond to anything that wasn’t in regards to practicalities that needed sorted out. This is pretty similar to a technique called grey rock, where you make yourself boring so they don’t pursue you as a victim. Then a week or so in, I realised that I could make things easier for myself by blocking him on my phone, FB etc, and only contacting him when utterly unavoidable via email. For me, because we had never emailed, and I was not a compulsive email checker (I didn’t have it on my phone) this was enough to start getting over the cravings to contact him. It was sheer hell for the first couple of weeks, and a common urge for the first month, but faded after that. I changed my phone, my number and email about a month after the legal stuff was tied up, but that was for my peace of mind, so he couldn’t contact me, rather than to stop me from contacting him, so I guess that the urges were pretty much gone for me after a couple of months, and that was even with the sporadic email contact.
Like DIYmum says, I think that the conscious decision not to engage was important. It would have been easy to use the email contact to continue the contact, and the abuse, but I had decided that I wouldn’t. Anything he sent not related to sorting details was deleted. I only responded if necessary – i.e. letting him know that my family would pick up my stuff on X date, that I had returned the key to the letting agent. But that was absolutely all. No “I miss you”, no responding to his accusations. No defending myself of my decisions. I think I only had to send 2 or 3 emails over the notice period.
Keep reminding yourself why you are not engaging. It’s worth a couple of weeks of withdrawal to regain your freedom.
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