Out of the fire and into the frying pan?

[Anonymous]

I was in an abusive marriage and Social Services and the Police got me out of it. Although I really did not ask them to, because I wanted to keep it a secret that I was trying to get help for myself. But I have a disability and so I needed to get on some sort of Benefits fist so that I didn’t end up homeless. But even though I wrote to Social Services and asked them not to tell my Husband or our Landlord that I had contacted them, the next day the Police showed up at our door when I was home alone, and they were urging me to get out of there, and the Landlord was right behind them, trying to find out what was going on. So then I knew my Husband would then find out I had contacted Social Services, so I was pretty much forced to leave with the Police and never go back. The problem is, I then had no place to live. And so that is how I wound up having to live with a person that I met online. Although at first, before then, I was staying with my ex-Husband’s Son and his Girlfriend for awhile. But that ended up a sort of nightmare in and of itself and I had to get out.

So now I am with this person, I will call him my ‘friend’ since I don’t know what else to call him. I found out since then that he was accused of Rape but got out of it, I guess because of lack of evidence. He also was in jail for (detail removed by Moderator) to his ex-Girlfriend’s (detail removed by Moderator) and also did the same to her Son, but he claims he doesn’t remember any of it.

I don’t even know where to start to explain how he is. I am about (detail removed by Moderator) older than him. I am Religious and so after meeting him on a (detail removed by Moderator), and him finding out my situation, he was very nice on the website forum and he told me he wouldn’t let me end up homeless and that if I wanted to, I could come and stay with him.

Before I moved in with him, I had told him that if God wanted us to be together, then after praying about it I would consider that. He agreed to that. I had told him I needed to have a room of my own. I would not get into a Relationship with him unless and until God let me know that it was acceptable to Him, and he agreed with that.

To me, it seems like he is an abuser but in a different way. I feel like he is more like my Prison Guard. First of all, he had a one bedroom place at the time and so I slept downstairs on the couch with the living room door closed. I got on Benefits and had a little money of my own, and so I told him I was going to buy one of those Sofa Beds for myself so that I could sleep on a real bed for a change. Then he comes a little later and tells me not to buy a Sofa Bed because he found some (detail removed by Moderator) for me to sleep in, the implication was that he wanted me to sleep in his room with him and I said NO WAY.

We ended up finally moving into a (detail removed by Moderator) bedroom house. They let us have it under a sort of emergency situation and because they had put in a walk-in shower for my disability and a stair rail and so on.

Anyway, now I stay in the living room all the time during the day and have my own bedroom at night to sleep in. He has no job and stays in his room all the time. He would do things like quickly open his bedroom door when he heard my door opening, or if I was in the bathroom, he would open his door as soon as he heard be going out of the bathroom. And when I am in the Living Room as soon as he hears my door opening, he comes down the stairs. I literally cannot even go to the bathroom without him coming down the stairs and into the kitchen which is across from the bathroom. And if he hears me making myself something to eat in the kitchen, here he comes down the stairs to find out what I am making. Sometimes he waits until I am done making it then here he comes knocking on the living room door to see what I am eating.

If I get a phone call, he will come down later during the day to ask who it was that I was talking to on the phone. If he hears my playing a video and there is a man and woman talking on the video he thinks it is me talking to someone so here he comes down the stairs and he knocks on my door. I used to be able to get up early in the morning to spend time with God but now every time I get up, no matter how early it may be like 6:00 or even 5:00 I hear him walking around upstairs. When I first come to live with him he got up at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. Its like I cant have a moment alone without him trying to nose into what I am doing. It is creepy when he leaves his bedroom door open a crack, and I know it is because he wants to hear what I am doing.

And he does things like to annoy me, purposely, I think it is because I declined to be in a Relationship with him. (detail removed by Moderator)

He does things like throws a tantrum, as if he were a little boy, but it it scary since he is a grown man and quite large. Like one time, when his Mother and Stepfather (detail removed by Moderator), were went over there to use their (detail removed by Moderator), And my ‘friend’ got into an argument with his Stepfather and ended up literally sitting on the floor in the front hallway by the front door and folding his arms like a little kid, waiting for me to get done (detail removed by Moderator)s, He always does that to get his own way, and his Stepfather always gives in to him. He could simply have just gone a (detail removed by Moderator) to our house but he had to cause a scene.

He did the same thing when my cat was ill. The Vet had told me if his legs started giving out it was probably time he should be put to sleep. So one night that happened and I asked my ‘friend’ to come with me to the vets because it was at night and I didn’t want to go alone. I was all upset and worried about my cat. Then I had called a taxi and he knew it and I went upstairs to his bedroom and he was just sitting there on his computer chatting to women on Facebook. I told him why isn’t he getting ready, the taxi was going to be here any minute> I didn’t say it in a mean way at all. Then he said I was like his ex-wife (who had left him)and he started turning his Furniture over having one of his fits. He told me I needed to get out and that he was calling the Police. Here I was all broken up and crying, thinking my Cat was going to have to be put to sleep and needing to get him to the Vet, and he was acting like this. The next day he told it ‘it was just his depression’ which is always his excuse, and then he told me next time if that happens just don’t pay any attention and acted worried that I would really leave.

Well, this is just a sort of outline of the way he acts. There is lots more, but these are the highlights. My ex-Husband screamed at me and hit me and so forth, but this is almost worse in a lot of ways, starting with the fact that he is always here 24/7 and I have no privacy or time alone. Like I said, its like I am in a Prison and he is my prison guard. Oh and my food comes up missing, when I get groceries online he would grab my receipt that listed all my food items to see what I had bought, etc. I have gotten to where I try to buy things that I know he won’t like, so he doesn’t either try to steal my food or try to mooch it off me. It seems that this is what he has done his entire like is to try to leech off of women, instead of getting a job. And his family seems to enable him to be this way.

[Anonymous]

Also I just wanted to add that he wil do things like stand directly in front of my cat because he knows it scares her. He used to do that with my other car before he died. I asked him to stop doing that. I think he still does it when she isn’t in the Living room with me. I have since gotten to where I try as much as possible to keep her here in the Living Room with me.

She was getting to where she was licking all the hair off her belly, and I looked it up online and it said it can get dangerous if the cat starts getting open wounds from licking too much. One of the things it says causes it is stress. After I started keeping her in the room with me here, the hair is starting to grow back on her belly. One time he told me he was going to ‘take her for a walk outside’, then he had an evil grin on his face. He knows that I don’t let my cat outside because I am afraid she will get run over. I have had that happen before to my cat in the past. I had a chair in the upstairs empty bedroom, there is just a bed in there because no one is using it so my cat likes to sleep on the bed sometimes. She would also sleep on the chair too. Well she no longer does that, and I caught him standing by the chair and she was up in the window, and I knew she was trying to get away from him. He does that so she can’t get by and out of the room.

Another thing he does is he will put his stuff right next to mine or on my side of things just to annoy me. Like for instance, in the refrigerator, one half is mine and the other his his, He will purposely set stuff halfway on my side and have that evil grin on his face. He was doing the same thing in the upstairs bathroom, setting his hairbrush and then his toothbrush over on my things, on my side of the window sill. One time, or actually several times, he has told the this same repeated story of how when he was (detail removed by Moderator), and he always gins about it, acting as if he is proud of that. I keep telling him that he already told me that, but he keeps repeating it. He just keeps getting creepier.

I cannot move out because I am so afraid I won’t be able to get on full Benefits, although I should be able to. I am afraid of getting my own house and then losing my Benefits money and then ending up Homeless. And I cannot look for a husband online, because he seems to nose into everything that I do. I tried calling Housing and a man came to see me when I was home alone. He was going to try to get me on Housing, but then my ‘friend’ applied for a house online supposedly because of the heater situation, and then the Housing guy wrote and told me he could no longer search for a house for me since my ‘friend’ had put a bid on a house for us himself. I guess I should never have told him about it.

Another thing that is weird is that he is constantly searching for women on Facebook etc. and even has different pictures of them on his wall or on his computer. Its like he goes from one to another. Yet he won’t leave me alone.

For awhile he was on Job Seeker’s Allowance and I was on his Claim but now it is the other way around and he is on my Claim. I just wish I could get out on my own but I am afraid to even leave. And I am afraid to even talk to anyone about it because I don’t want Social Services doing the same thing as last time. I was just lucky last time that I didn’t wind up in some Homeless Shelter or out on the street. For one thing, I am not giving up my Cat, I love her. And I can’t be around people with Cologne or Perfume, because of my Asthma problems.

I have ended up having to be put on High Blood Pressure Medicine now, and I know he is one of the biggest causes of that. Just like my poor cat with her anxiety problems now.

[lover of no contact]

Welcome to the Forum can’t talk. Please keep posting and reading the other ladies posts and you will gain strength to get away from this man. He gets a kick out of upsetting you and constantly trying to engage you and never give you a moments peace. He is encroaching on and has no respect for your boundaries. Harassment and intimidation. Its good you let it out with us, those behaviours are very hard to live with. Sounds like he has a sick personality. For now you have to put up with it until you find a way out of this toxic living arrangement but living with him long-term will not possible. I would ring Women’s Aid and they may be able to offer some guidance and support.

Keep posting for support. Don’t try and deal with his dysfunctional behaviours on your own.

[SaharaD]

Hi Cant Talk and welcome to the Forum.

If you want to leave an abusive situation, they usually place you in a refuge or in a hostel/ council bedsit. You have your own room with fridge and you usually can lock your things in the kitchen cupboard. You keep everything else in your room. You don’t have to interact with other residents if you don’t want to.

If you are on job seekers or disablity benefit or sickness benefit, you will get housing benefit to help you pay rent.

the only problem is the cat. If you have a friend who can keep the cat, until you are properly rehoused than that would solve the problem.

It really is no way to live. The CAB and other charities can help you sort out your benefits, the initial application or any problems afterwards.

My benefits are handled by the welfare office at my hospital helping with my mental health disability. They know everything about me and my illness and they scan everything into the computer to keep copies.

They won’t put you in a homeless shelter. Those are usually for people coming straight off the street.

It seems to me that you haven’t live on your own at all or for many many years. yes it is daunting but there is help out there, you just have to ask. I have a carer you comes and helps me and I have support workers also to make sure I keep on top of things.

It’s only really down to you. So try to get yourself out of the situation. He’s not going to change. You can call women’s aid. it’s confidential and anonymous, they won’t call social services. They can help refer you to a refuge also.

A nice man I was dating, offered that I could move in with him but I knew that he was being a bit naive about the whole thing and he barely knew me and my mental health episodes can be quite severe. I gently denied his offer and stated that I needed to be independent. Not needing a man as a crutch and I need my own space and to sort out my own problems. Now I live on my own no one sees my meltdowns apart from the medical staff and/or the police that properly trained to deal with me.

Now I live on my own it’s not easy but I have a lot more peace of mind than when I was living with someone very similarly nasty as you are.

If you plan it carefully, you can get out without too much upset. Only you can set things in motion and do the research.

[Anonymous]

@lover of no contact Thank you for your observations and your advice. It is difficult for me because to everyone else, this man seems just fine, and of course he is viewed as a hero for giving me a place to live. And of course I am grateful for that. But they don’t see the things that he does in private and even in secret to me. What I mean s that he doesn’t outright do things, he does things to ‘get even’ with me for any little thing that he thinks I have done or said to ‘attack’ him. And it can be the stupidest things too. I have to walk around being so careful not to ‘offend’ him or else something will happen.

[Anonymous]

@SaharaD Thanks so much for all the information. I don’t have any friends because I have basically been isolated for so long and never had a place of my own. So I wouldn’t have anybody to keep my cat for me at all. I have pretty much talked to all the different places, welfare rights, citizen’s advice bureau, women’s rights, and so on, but only about the idea of getting on permanent benefits. So I guess that now I need to start talking to them instead about this whole situation that I am in.

One reason I am afraid to do that though is that at one point, I sort of hinted to the DWP about that online, where they were saying to contact them if you needed help. The next thing I knew two people show up and basically forced us to reapply as a ‘couple’. So now I don’t have benefits of my own. Which was strange since both of us had told them even before I got here that we were not in a relationship at all. When they were there after talking to us, one of them said, ‘If either of you want to come outside and talk to us privately about anything, feel free to do that now’. And I was thinking, ‘Yeah right! I am going to do that with my friend sitting here knowing that I am divulging things to them, probably about him!’

And so at this point, I fear that anything I say to any of these places will only make things worse for me.

[Author]

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