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    • #49023
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Hi everyone,

      I am struggling at the moment with thoughts of him going round and round and round my head. It got so bad I had a sort of panic attack last night. I feel like I’m going backwards. This is normal right, the rollercoaster of recovery? I am struggling a lot with the cognitive dissonance of remembering how ‘sweet, nice, gentlemanly, respectful, polite and lovely’ he very much appeared to be at the beginning alongside constant new memories of abuse, subtle digs, criticisms and realisations about when he was cheating.

      It is just so so awful, I struggle to find the words to explain the awfulness of it. ‘Awful’ isn’t a strong enougn word but I’m not sure there is a word for how he behaved.

      I feel like what he did was the emotional equivalent of stabbing me with a sword made of ice. New memories keep emerging of things that confused me when I was thick in the fog of abuse that now make sense and each one is like a nick on my skin.

      The narrative in my mind was that I met a lovely man on a dating site who was cute, sweet, kind, sincere, genuine, boyish, gentlemanly and generous. I wasn’t overly keen on him at first and felt weirdly depressed after our first date, but I gave him a chance because he seemed to have a lot of the traits I had been looking for and had not been finding at all in all the others I had dated. We entered into what I thought was a mutually caring, monogamous, healthy relationship with lots of potential and a possible future ahead. I had doubts about him a lot but just thought it was my own anxiety because I’ve always had doubts about everyone I’ve dated, and felt guilty for being disappointed in him at times. Whenever he did or said something hurtful I just thought ‘this is what men are like, if you want a partner then you have to compromise, nobody is going to be perfect.’

      The reality of what was actually happening was so awful I still can’t quite get my head around it. Instead of the above, unbeknown to me I had been manipulated by a sociopathic, misogynistic, sadistic domestic abuser into dating him while he went behind my back and partook in all sorts of sordid things. I found evidence of cheating with I suspect multiple women, possibly men too, and he also possibly used to go dogging, and maybe sleep with prositutes too. There was a prostitute that used to hang out not far from his house who he flat out denied was a prostitute saying he’d ‘never seen her’ even though we used to drive past her standing on the street corner!. He used to mention things such as dogging, cheating and using Tinder to pick up women for sex when talking about his ‘friends’ or ‘bad people he knew’ acting like he was disgusted with them. To my horror, my research into these types taught me that they always talk about mysterious ‘friends’ when they are really referring to themselves. On top of that he was increasingly emotionally abusive with some physical abuse and sexual abuse, gaslighted me THE ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP, used my mental health against me, said I was imagining things, stalked, monitored and controlled me without me even realising, put me down, mocked me, teased and criticised me, blamed me for EVERYTHING, was incredibly cruel, hurtful and insulting to me whilst casting himself in a ‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings’ caring light. I’m also not sure if he was planning on maybe even killing me as he put his hands around my neck and later angrily denied it, had weird fascinations with parts of my body which he would stroke with a creepy glazed look in his eyes, and was always trying to get me to go down to his cellar and seemed to enjoy the look of fear on my face.

      Oh my goodness. It is the most confusing thing ever that I thought I had this lovely boyfriend, because as is typical of these men, the rest of the time he was incredibly ‘sweet,’ seemed like he cared about me, listened attentively, was happy to share my hobbies and go where I wanted. The abuse seemed to just be little incidents each weekend in an otherwise happy weekend. I mistook the control for him being attentive, romantic and liking me a lot and it felt wonderful after previously dating men who treated me like c**p and never had time for me. I remember loving going to sleep in his arms, waking up in his arms, listening to the rain on the roof of the house together. I felt so lucky to have met a sweet, genuine, kind, faithful, good man. I remember having many heart to hearts with him about my past and I thought I’d struck gold finding a man who was a friend but who I also found sexually attractive. I loved having a partner after years being single.

      The weakness in me he exploited was that I was desperate to be loved, held, touched, for a companion, partner and lover after years of unintentional celibacy!! I am worried if I go back to that nun-like state the desperation for sex, touch etc will build up and I’ll end up with another abuser. The guy I dated (detail removed by Moderator) years before him was also alarmingly controlling and sexist so despite loads of time off dating I still ended up with another abuser. But I feel unstable emotionally and like I have a huge bag of pain I need to work through, understand and heal before I can go near another relationship. Sometimes I think I should try to set up a ‘friends with benefits’ situation that some single people have but I know deep down the thought of it depresses the hell out of me as I just want a loving man in my life and not someone who just has sex with me then disappears.

      I know I’ve repeated myself here from previous posts but I am struggling with it all again so wanted to write it out, thanks for listening and for any advice on how to get through all the memories replaying and the frustration, anger, sadness, disbelief, despondency, lack of hope, exhaustion etc.

    • #49024
      Tiffany
      Participant

      My abuse started out as a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship because I was at a stage where I felt too vulnerable to date. So I don’t think you can use that as a safe alternative sadly. I don’t know what the alternatives are, but I think it probably starts with us getting out of the headspace where we long for partner. It’s hugely frustrating of course, but I can’t see any other way forward.

    • #49025
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Thanks for your reply Tiffany, that makes a lot of sense actually. The main reason I ended up with him is the same reason I feel so desperately rubbish now, and that is that I want to feel loved, feel safe, feel complete with another. But of course, that means that I am walking around with an inner emptyness looking for someone to complete me and save me from the pain, rather than being a complete person myself and wanting to share my happiness with another. No wonder I’ve been attracting these abusers like bees to honey and repelling the healthy men. The healthy men must see the emptyness within and think ‘crikey, she is not coming from a place of love, I need a partner who is whole and can offer me love rather than somebody who is wounded and feels empty and wants to be looked after’ and the abusers think ‘great, another wounded, lonely soul looking for someone to take away the pain, ripe for exploitation, now which mask shall I use today?’

      I just found a good quote which explains this well:

      “The most profound and beautiful experience in life is the sharing of love. But we can’t share our love unless we are filled with love. When we learn to fill ourselves with love from our “Source” — whatever that is for each person, such as nature, spirit, God, the energy of the universe — then we come to our partner with inner fullness rather than with inner emptiness. Rather than needing a partner to complete us, we desire to share our completeness with our partner.”

      So next I need to figure out how to fill the sadness, emptyness and heal the pain within? I feel like I’ve been trying to figure that out for years and have not got too far wih it. At least this whole sorry experience made me realise that I have been dating abusers after a rubbish childhood which made them seem normal and have some serious healing to do but in order to heal it feels like I have so many more steps to take. I’m so, so tired and wish I could just be one of the normal healthy women who had a good partner and could get on with her life.

      I’m struggling with self care this week, I use my only energy to set up bills and sort out my new place then just sit on the sofa like a zombie. I went to bed at 4am last night for no real reason just that I couldn’t find the motivation to move. I used to do lots of exercise, hobbies and volunteering and now can’t bring myself to do anything. What is wrong with me and why is this happening? Maybe it’s just because I’m exhausted, there have been so many challenges lately every single day I have no energy left and can barely keep my eyes open.

    • #49032
      Serenity
      Participant

      Hi Sushine,

      We can stress ourselves out further by feeling frustrated and worried about hitting a low point.

      Yes, you will have horrible dips sometimes. At these times, be extra gentle with yourself. Go the extra mile in showing yourself real gentle kindness.

      I look back at the last X years sometimes and would how I could have not seen him for what he was. But that’s hindsight for you. At the time, I had no confidence in my own thoughts, because he did such a good job of making me think I was imagining or exaggerating things, or that I was somehow to blame.

      So many women beat themselves up for ‘not seeing it.’ But abusers work very hard at not giving you the space or time to catch your breath and reflect. They make sure that we are focussing on them 24/7 or that they are always there to control our thoughts. It’s only time and space away from them that makes the muddied waters clear.

      I think my ex was involved in darker things that I imagined. I found out after he left his he had tried to take innocent people’s livelihoods away from them, and I have a feeling that he may have slept with a very suspect woman even years ago. I was too exhausted being a mum to face it.

      When I read that we need ‘self-love’, I often think how it should sometimes be presented as ‘self-respect’ or ‘self-worth.’ I think loving oneself can sometimes seem like a very tall order. I think realising that you need to respect yourself, your body and your individuality is somehow more reachable. Yes, I agree we need to love ourselves- but this may come later. It’s like we may not feel able to love or like everyone- but we can certainly treat everyone with respect. And so we can ourselves too.

    • #49033
      Tractor
      Participant

      Hi sunshine

      I’m feeling exactly like you today. I’ve very recently ended my relationship and everything you you have described is how I’m feeling right now. Completely deflated feel like locking myself away and licking my wounds. Why why why are we attracted to abusers. I’ve had two lovely guys and both bored me and so I think it must be o me I’m attracted to danger! I’m starting cbt soon because that’s my issue like I can’t let somebody treat me nicely as all my adult life I’ve allowed men to abuse me. I’m feeling completely broken today x

    • #49058
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Thank you Serenity and Tractor, it always helps to come on here and speak to others who have experienced this.

      Like you Serenity, I was so exhausted, drained, anxious, and low to even think about him being up to things behind my back, it never occurred to me as I trusted him completely and at the time was 100% convinced that any problems were all my fault due to having ‘anxiety problems’. It would have made no sense to me that he was cheating, it was only when I added up all the little things that I’d noticed and dismissed that this horrific nightmarish picture emerged of who he really was. I think that’s one of the most painful things about it, how wonderful he seemed to me at the time when he was doing the most awful things behind my back. The massive contrast between what I thought was happening and the reality has caused me so much trauma.

      I was thinking today that I can see him a bit more clearly now, and can see all of the abuse and manipulation more clearly and objectively. A helpline worker described what I’d experienced as grooming, the same way child sex offenders groom children. I mistook his grooming of me for being in a relationship with him. I can see now with a depressive realisation that I wasn’t in a relationship at all. He needed me to believe I was so that he could carry out his plan, the same way child sex offenders make the children believe they are in a ‘special relationship’with the abusers by buying them gifts, meals out etc. I have had training for child protection in a previous role and remember they said to look out for children who suddenly had lots of gifts, or who talked about a new ‘special friend.’ It’s horrible and very sad to think about children who experience this and awful to think that I too was being groomed and had absolutely no idea, it makes me feel sick.

      He was the tightest person I’d ever met so he never bought me a meal out but he used to buy in a certain type of food I liked for breakfast and took me on a few trips to places of my choice. These were like my ‘treats.’ Because he was so tight and also abusive, I really appreciated these treats and thought that he must like me a lot to treat me occasionally, which feels sad to write. I remember thinking he was almost weirdly patient because when we used to go out for food we would sometimes have to try three different places to find somewhere that catered to the type of diet that I eat. Even my genuinely loving ex boyfriend from years ago would have got a bit grumpy about it and actually that would have been a normal response, but the abuser was all ‘anything you want’ with a slightly unnatural calmness during these times because he needed me to see him as this ideal boyfriend who was patient and generous. He was probably seething underneath. He’d always have been abusive before and would be abusive after these episodes but because he’d been ‘the best boyfriend in the world’ during these times it kept me stuck and confused about him. It’s the mean/sweet cycle, the cycle of abuse, the honeymoon period and it is the thing that keeps us stuck in the fog for much longer than if they were only abusive.

      Realising all of this feels like a sort of injury, does that make sense? It makes me sort of shudder and catch my breath because it’s all just so, so awful on a level that I struggle to get my brain to comprehend. I think the awfulness of it is also a reason why I didn’t see the truth initially because it meant opening up my mind to the possibility that he was this lying, cheating, misogynistic abuser and that just seemed absolutely unimaginable at the time. It required the kind of cognitive dissonance that felt like it could tear your mind apart.

      I feel so sad that I got groomed by an abuser. Why do other women get to meet kind, loving men and have families while I just get groomed by abusers and asked out by creeps? I feel very alone. I really need to work on building up my life again especially socially as I am very socially lacking at the moment.

      I have just bought myself a takeway. It feels a bit sad and lonely. My ex always used to order in a certain type of takeaway when I stayed round on Sunday nights and it always felt like a nice cosy thing to do together and was the only time he actually paid for a meal for me. Again, just another example of him grooming me. My friends almost all have partners now so have little time and interest in me. It feels exhausting the thought of going out and trying to make more friends. I feel like I need some meaning in my life. I think I will look for some cause I can help out with, alongside a part time job and an exercise class or two. I need to connect with other humans and be involved with things again, being as isolated as I am currently is just making me depressed and an easy target for another abuser.

    • #49060
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      I was just going to add, it feels hard adjusting to life alone again. When he entered my life everything changed and we spent so much time together, every weekend and several weeknights. I found it suffocating but also really liked having a partner. It is so hard adjusting to being just me again, not knowing the future not knowing if I will ever meet a normal man again for a real partnership, or whether I’ll just be alone forever. I think the wintry weather has set me back because it reminds me of the duration of our relationship. I can’t believe the summer has been and gone, I barely did anything and feel like it was only a month or so ago that I was in a relationship with him.

    • #49084
      Tiffany
      Participant

      SunshineRainflower, the wintery weather is setting me back too, I am so much gloomier in winter. I might have to start my Christmas crafts early this year to cheer myself up – I have been trying to make a few new Christmas decorations every year – I started when I was with my abuser because he hated Christmas and I wanted him to be able to see why I loved it. Failed of course, but I would like to reclaim the tradition for myself.

      Recently when I have been struggling with self care I have come back to Serenity’s post about family and how we can self-parenting and self-oarent ourselves. I find it makes it much easier to do nice things for myself in that frame as I know what I want from partners and family. It doesn’t always feel like I should do these things for myself, but so long as it is a reasonable thing you would like your partner or your mother or whoever to do for you then it is ok for you to do it. On this logic I have bought myself chocolate which I will not share for when I am pmsing, something I always wished my ex would do. I also put flowers in my bedroom, in this case picked not bought, but I will buy myself flowers again in the future.

    • #49088
      SunshineRainflower
      Participant

      Thanks Tiffany, good idea about remembering to self parent and self partner so that we provide ourselves with what we need. Isn’t it funny that a lot of us struggle with that, I wonder why that is. I struggle to go to bed, get up, even have a shower some days even though being clean is one of my favourite things in the world, and making myself food to eat.

      This morning I had a cry remembering how I used to love waking up next to my abuser on Sunday mornings early on as he seemed really affectionate, caring and thoughtful. He would always go downstairs and make us coffee and fix up a type of breakfast I liked and I remember thinking how wonderfully domesticated he was and thoughtful of him to buy in my favourite food. I felt very cared for and looked after which seems to be something I crave due to not feeling loved or cared for in my childhood. I can see now that it was just another type of grooming, he knew that I’d think he was this thoughtful caring guy if he made me some nice breakfasts as he will have known that a lot of normal men are a somewhat undomesticated.

      This morning I have made myself a really nice coffee using the coffee machine 🙂 I loved how tidy my ex’s house always was hacing previously dated messy guys (although I think it was because he was always tidying away evidence of what he’d been doing, he let slip that he’d had his car fully valeted twice in two weeks, and from what he said if we kept going out I would be expected to do all the housework) so today I am going to attempt to finish my packing and do a really good tidy up, as I am living rather chaotically between two houses at the moment and being tidy and organised makes me feel much calmer.

      I have also bought some nice little pumpkins for Halloween, and cut some fresh flowers from the garden. I’ve spent a lot of money lately as I needed to furnish my new place but I am going to save up for a big needed purchase, either a sofa as I currently only have a couple of chairs to sit on, or a much needed new computer to help me with my work. Maybe the universe will help me out and some good deals will turn up.

      I was remembering this morning that I’ve actually achieved the huge goal I set myself in the summer: To get my own place! So I am going to think of ways to celebrate that, I keep forgetting that it was this big goal I’ve wanted to reach for years and I really need to acknowledge what an achievement it is. I bet my abuser would be annoyed that I left him and moved on with my life and got my own place, onwards and upwards. xx

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