Is it abuse? New relationship questionnaire

[Marie]

Hi everyone,

We know from what so many of you share with us through the forum, our Live Chat and emails service, that it can be really hard to identify abuse when your experience is being invalidated and abusive behaviour is being normalised. Because of this, today we’re launching a new relationship questionnaire to support you to explore if you might be experiencing abuse.

Take the relationship questionnaire here.

Take care,
Survivors’ Forum team

[Pastie123]

I get called names every day.
got called a piece of s**t (timeframe removed by Moderator) by my (age removed by Moderator) year old son. I was just having a heated discussion about how clipping a clean dog is better than clipping a dirty dog.

my partner disagrees then my son just pipes up “(quote removed by Moderator)”

his dads response was “(quote removed by Moderator)”

I am angry & I am hurt but it was bad enough being spoken to by my son’s dad . Now I have 2 people to contend with when I shouldn’t have to contend.

 

[Lisa]

Hi,

Thank you for your post. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. It must be really hurtful to feel you are dealing with it from all directions. You deserve to be treated with love and respect.

Do have a look at the other boards on the forum-you may find this helpful to look through and to reach out further on here.

If you feel like you are in need of some additional support, you could chat to a Women’s Aid worker in confidence via our Live Chat service. They won’t tell you what to do but can discuss your situation and signpost you to other support that’s relevant for you. You can access the chat service here.

Best Wishes

Lisa

[Maylundy16]

I have taken a while to grasp acknowledge whats going on i saw on another forum reckmmedation to read a really useful book by lundy bancroft ‘why does he do that’ and i kinda just had this feeling of it is abuse it is not in my head.

I took part in this questionaire although my relationship is (number removed by Moderator) years in and answered yes to 10 as it says ever happened the explanation really helped to understand different elements and how its still not ok. eg. doesnt have to physically stop you but the how he makes me feel to change my decision or second guess and sway to please  to then change how he is being towards me.

Unfortunately ive now had conversation up front and honest addressing and pointing out. Im getting same response i have had. I ackowledge what your saying and sorry i made you feel that way.

‘I am trying been working hard on my self. I want to work on relationship dont you? I at this point pointed the years of choosing to try.

Am i just being gullable now like i stood my ground but hes saying especially last (number removed by Moderator) months and not giving it long enough he is working on himself but it takes time  and granted there has been bit of change but he keeps saying to move foward into future need to forget past.

I feel like that is true to a degree but also past is effecting future,im so emotionally and psychologically damaged become shell of myself and i dont even know if im seeing things that arent there based on past making triggers so am i truley not giving him chance to show the change?

 

[Lisa]

Hi Maylundy16,

I’m so glad that you found the relationship questionnaire helpful and thank you for sharing about your experience using it.

When confronted with their abuse, or simply with a partner not being happy, one of the tactics that abusers use is to promise change but this is really to try and keep the situation as it is, there’s no genuine desire or intention to change their behaviour. Your partner is adding guilt into it to try and make you feel like you owe him a chance to change, which is shifting blame onto you. That’s also what he’s doing by saying you need to forget the past and move forward, putting the responsibility on you. As you point out, there have been many years where he has had a chance to change and has chosen to continue to abuse you.

If you wanted to start your own topic about this, you might find that you get more responses from other users.

Take care and keep posting,
Lisa

[Author]

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