financabuse

[financabuse]

Thanks KIP and all! It is a little too early for me I think.

I don’t know whether it is abusive or not because as fizzyl said, probably everyone has moments of stress and that is part of being human but I, myself, do not really feel in a good enough position to be able to tolerate the ‘normal’ ups and downs of a relationship.

But really all is ok. I do hope to have some time to myself over the next weekend or so to think it all through.

Thanks Thanks Thanks all!

[financabuse]

“then I start thinking it must be me. I must be at fault because why would someone behave like that.”

This is a huge societal problem – it is not you, it is our whole society. We victim-blame as a first port of call. Someone has been raped and the first thing that goes through so many people’s heads is “Where was she? What time was it? Where were her friends? What was she wearing? Was she drinking?”

the FIRST thing. It is horrific. And we need to change it. You are NOT at fault because someone behaves like that. THEY are at fault. And we need to start thinking like that as a society.

But apart from that PTH – I am just a no-one with very little expertise but I emphasise this, that as a complete stranger I am concerned for your safety too … do please take note of KIPs post. I have no experience but the sub-text of your posts seems to say to me here is a man who ‘wants’ to hurt you. Perhaps at present, fear of the police and consequences for him is keeping him in check but if he felt he could get away with it, he would leave you black and blue. That is how it comes across to me.

I would just stay with someone – or have someone stay with me just to be on the safe side.

I am sorry his mother seems to be both enabling his abuse and abetting it and also suffering from it. But presumably that is something she has done for years and years and years — and it is not going to change and you are not going to change it. That dynamic precedes you – and is not yours to solve.

Stay safe and well. And take all the advice of the excellent people on here as much as you are able to at any given time.

[financabuse]

Thanks Fizzylem. I am a bit swings and roundabouts at the moment. I decided yesterday that I wasn’t fit or ready for a relationship.

Having sat feeling wobbly (still) from such a minor, minor thing – and reading posts on here, I then got annoyed with myself and said “Look, this sitting all day feeling shit and reading WA — this is stupid. Just stupid. You are clearly not happy so don’t fall into a pathetic heap of manipulable-ness and non-agency just go ffs. You don’t NEED a relationship.” And it is true, I am well set-up to be on my own and I don’t mind it. So as I was meant to be going to my mother’s (detail removed by moderator) anyway to help her I thought I would simply explain I needed to go this weekend and attempt to get some space – at least to think.

So I packed up my basic stuff and put it in the car with the dog. And I felt so unemotional about it. Neither happy nor sad, just practical. And I also looked at my relationship in such a cold, cold light – suddenly I looked at my boyfriend in my mind’s eye and I could see nothing that I liked at all. And I felt so cold and so clinical and so devoid of humanity.

And I got in the car and drove — and I don’t know whether these things transmute through the ether or what … but about 40 mins later I got a call. I didn’t pick up. But I picked up the voicemail when it came through. And he was really sick. (detail removed by moderator) and thought he had terrible food poisoning. He was asking me to come and pick him up from the station … because he really thought he was going to pass out or collapse. So of course I went.

And here I am back. And I still feel cold and detached in some ways – but I am not showing it. I really think I am becoming someone very cold.

But he is better – and we are now going out (detail removed by moderator) and I still feel weirdly detached from everything. Just removed. But I don’t think he is abusive, I think it is more that I still have some big problems that need to be worked through that’s all and I don’t want to hurt anyone but I think I may need to sort this somehow on my own.

I feel very weird. And I am not sure why I am writing or telling you (anyone) this! But thanks for your kind replies. Everyone here is so good. I am glad there is such a space for people.

You know, because even if you don’t write but just read …. there is so much positive information in all of the posts. I hope all is well with you.

[financabuse]

Firstly, you genius for having managed to do it!!

Secondly – and this is only my personal experience (which is limited) but people, it seems to me, can get inside my head. Perhaps I let them in … I am the sort of person who even when I read a book get so lost within it, that when I look up I am initially surprised that I am not in Chicago, Iran, Sydney or 18th century Lake District (whatever the book is about)!

But if I let them in, I can’t push them out. It would be nice to be able to do that – but they root around in there like some alien parasite and for me, it takes an effort of will to keep on shutting it down and it didn’t happen overnight.

But it did happen.

I am quite interested in the psychology of it — we have made a number of strides, positive strides in being able to describe the type of mind and actions of an abuser so that some of the descriptions of narcissistic behaviour are almost carbon-copy to what is going on … it is that good. The understanding and the delineation of narcissism has been so very helpful.

But I think we have limited research at present into the mind of the abused. And I understand that because it could become perilously close to being something akin to victim-blaming if one is not very, very, very careful. Nonetheless I think it might be helpful to better understand oneself, if that were possible, without doing greater damage.

I think you are doing well. I think perhaps it won’t exactly be a miracle-change but I think there will be moments that do suddenly feel like an epiphany, a real shift in perspective has happened, I think other parts will feel like hard slog … I think it is a mixture. Not always euphoria and relief. Not always misery and vulnerability. But always better.

I found it hard to kick that person out of my head. The phone would go and like some automaton, I was almost programmed to have to pick it up … against my own will, even though I also knew it would simply entail a whole load of abuse down the phone until it was finished and he put the phone down. Those 1960s films of brainwashed spies acting after hearing a codeword somewhat sums it up!!

It doesn’t make any sense and that is why ‘no contact’ can the best option in my view, if possible.

I hope I am not being unhelpful. I am sure everyone has their own journey but I think you must be doing brilliantly and I suspect some of the regular posters here will REALLY be able to help you with their wisdom and insight.

[financabuse]

Yes I feel so much better for the walk. I got completely, totally and utterly drenched – had to change all my clothes, my hair is still soaking wet … and yet, suddenly I realised what was freaking me out was that I had reverted ‘mentally’ to immediately feeling powerless again as if I was now utterly stuck and I couldn’t change my situation.

Yet as I walked, I changed from that mental state into thinking — wait, you still have agency, if you don’t like it you can leave – in fact you should leave and you have that right.

And I suddenly didn’t feel back in that powerless, endure it but make no steps to change it mode. I remembered I could do something myself.

And with that thought, I don’t feel so sick or squeamish at the thought of tonight and being here and him coming back … which suddenly was filling me with dread (but that is how it WAS and not perhaps how it IS just I had reverted mentally – not necessarily that the situation was abusive but that I had automatically returned to an abused mindset).

Anyway, I am probably babbling. I think I am making steps — as you say. I must be … I just don’t want to get it wrong. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to be mentally stuck as I was.

Thank you for listening and thank you for helping — and I do wish I could be of more help to others on this forum (I have read many posts) but I think perhaps donating is a better way for me to give back, given my lack of expertise in this!!

[financabuse]

“Worst may be a bit of a personal struggle with our emotions sometimes before working out what to do – is this what happened here?”

I hope so.

As to how I feel – well a little bit heart-sore, that funny sensation of not exactly pain but something discomforted directly behind the chest bone and a bit shaken, shaky maybe. But apart from that all well.

Thanks for all your brilliant advice fizzylem. I will take it to heart and I think I will try to discuss it further, maybe this evening ….

I am off to take the dog for a walk, which is always a good thing and more to the point the dog loves it!

I do worry that I don’t have those ‘natural’ boundaries, natural instincts that just sort of cut abusive behaviours off at the pass. Perhaps that is something that can’t be taught … some people just are wired in a way to be far too ‘mindful’ of others at their own expense. They make for lovely people of course, but perhaps they are also easy targets to manipulate, because they are always second-guessing things and taking what is said at face value.

I am unduly upset – and I just wonder whether that is because there is something more ‘off’ in that conversation than I can tangibly put my finger on, and my gut recognises it even if my brain can’t.

Thanks

[financabuse]

Thanks so much FTC. This “but I know we love each other and trust each other, so usually at some point we end and start with an ‘i love you’.”

It’s that really. I don’t mind arguing (I don’t particularly like it but I am ok with it) if I think underlying the argument is that. That sense of no matter how irritable … there is a solid base of love, compassionate love, behind it. People do annoy each other, that’s a part of life — we are none of us perfect.

I am trying to put my finger on what was wrong with that last argument. And I can’t. I can’t articulate it or even grasp it with intellect. It is a ‘gut’ feeling. And having ignored those in the past, to my detriment … I don’t want to do it again.

But thanks so much. I think this site is fantastic. And that is very much due (almost 100% due) to those that post with such compassion and such kindness and such a depth of understanding (through experience and just through decency). All of that decency that is twisted against us and put to such bad effect by the abusive, is actually wonderfully expressed and put to such positive use here … would that the world were more like that!

I will toss and turn a bit more in my head about it all. Maybe I will bring it up in fact with him — but I am so nervy, so suspicious of giving anyone ‘ammunition’ to use against me (ie “well you were in an abusive relationship in the past, so it is likely YOU that is the problem not me”). I have lost trust. I am unsure.

Because I am ALREADY analysing my own behaviour, looking to see whether I triggered it, whether I wasn’t sufficiently sympathetic, whether I was too logical, or too didactic in offering a potential solution, whether I should have given more space, whether I can solve it by handling it differently in future …. it is all just ME ME ME ME ME about being the problem and I think (intellectually) I shouldn’t be thinking like that. I should be thinking “No. That’s not ok – actually what HE did was not ok.”

I wonder why I find THAT so hard to internalise. I can write it. But inside myself it is still somewhere all self-blame. 🙁

[financabuse]

Hello Scapegoat. I only posted the other day and I am no expert but I hope you move away from him. You wrote: How dare you treat me like this, I have done nothing to deserve it.” I really think I have lost the plot. 

I don’t think you have lost any plot.

How dare he treat you like that … is right!

It is not right. So I hope you get angry and leave (when you feel able). He is a (detail removed by Moderator), who feels good by putting others down. Urgh! He is the waste of space – not you.

I wish you a very good outcome in whatever you do.

[financabuse]

DIYmum and Always Sorry are spot on SM.

I wish you all the luck as you navigate out of this. Getting your own perspective back having been held in the perspective of the abuser for so long is a weird thing but so necessary. Kick them out of your mind, they don’t belong in there – mind control is NOT love.

[financabuse]

I would add that I am now, very recently, in a relationship with another ‘giver’ and it has REVOLUTIONISED my life! Really.

Just having someone who will equally get up in the morning to feed the dog (ie there is no expectation it HAS TO BE ME every time) and says ‘No I will do it, you stay there’ and after that bring up a cup of tea to bed ….. Ha! Who would ever have thunk it was possible.

Someone who, when I am stuck with something does their level best to help … EVEN IF it means going out of their way.

Someone who will pick me up at the airport, who doesn’t think everything has to be prioritised only one way where the thought of doing something for someone else with no obvious gain for him is not incomprehensible/outside the bounds of possibility, who will share (and as you rightly said above – he says whatever is his is mine but he can trust that I would NEVER take advantage and vice versa). Who knew it could be like this??

We should have been educated. I came from a family of all girls and went to an all girls’ school (not that I think that necessarily has any bearing) and my father was a very gentle, decent man — so I had no understanding, no experience of narcissism and did not recognise it at all, initially thinking perhaps that it was being ‘male’, I think and I wasn’t sufficiently sophisticated to handle it therefore the fault lay with me (of course). Now I think I can spot it a mile off. I see it and I think ‘I know your type’.

There should be videos shown at school so that a person can clearly recognise what is going on. Remember seeing it in their classroom and when it happens five years later, know ‘that is a classic abusive technique’ let me think here then – perhaps I am NOT the wrong one – and this is one of those classic red flags we were taught about ….

[financabuse]

Thank you so much AlwaysSorry (great username btw – someone steps on my foot and my first reaction is ‘sorry sorry sorry’ – it was MY foot THEY stood on!).

Yes you nailed what is a very difficult thing to pin down — that turning something against you that isn’t true in the first place and is something that is, in fact, the polar opposite of what you are. ie. you a gold-digger me ungenerous.

It is somehow because it is the opposite of both who one is and what one is doing – that makes it so hard, in some ways I think. So you would be ‘a gold-digger’ if you wouldn’t stay in a relationship where you had so clearly said at the outset how important marriage was to you. Aaaarrrrgggghhh! So twisty. They are just so unfairly twisty!

I think half of the reason my ex was interested in me was because he saw I was a natural giver (I don’t know why – perhaps low self-esteem or something but I was always the first to offer to pay even with friends or grab the bill or pay for the party food or get the tickets and say no, no, don’t worry about paying back it was a great night! And not just financially – I would be the first to WANT TO offer a lift to the airport, drive someone back at night, go out of my way to help with time, effort or money) so it was a double-whammy when my ‘good point’ was thrown back in my face as a bad point.

Ugh – it is so hard to explain. But there we go.

[financabuse]

By the way, I want to add that I think encouraging you to go back to the workplace where you were assaulted is a particularly vile thing to have done.

You know he may be superficially nice, he may be charming and so on BUT he is also a huge negative and there are only really two ways of managing this – a. leave and either find a person who is an adult and can love you and support you/or live happily by yourself (preferred option I would say) or b. stay but THEN you would have to find and be given some proper coping mechanisms to deal with all his cr*p because he is not going to change.

The truth is you cannot reason with such people. They do not respond to reason … at best they respond only to consequences and even then, the consequences have to be quite severe to get a change/response.

And why would you take that on?

(detail removed by moderator)

So you know, you could stay but I don’t think you SHOULD stay. He will suck the life out of you and then complain about you being half-dead.

Go and have a full life – away from flipping vampire, truthless ar$eholes.

And if I were you, I would bring up the fact that he encouraged you to go back to that workplace and make him explain it! (Well I wouldn’t because I am weak myself but if I were a better person than I am – then I would!)

[financabuse]

Thanks diymum! I really appreciate the reply – now I am close to tears … oh dear. I think I will take the dog for a walk. 🙂

[financabuse]

Oh and I would just add about the mother thing. That is exactly where my ex is now too — he has always lived off women …. his girlfriend before me, a very sweet-natured French flatmate for a while, me and now back to his mother.

He was ‘a designer’ which meant he sat around doing bugger all because, as I understand it, to work a 9-5 was beneath him. In his view, the world was meant to provide … he is an old Etonian so not as though he didn’t have a first class start in life re. education but unfortunately no trust fund (life is just so cruel and unfair!) and he had every opportunity available but no, he wouldn’t work at such a lowly thing as a job.

I don’t want to blame ‘mothers’ as they get far too much stick anyway – however, I think there is a recurring theme where the boy can do no wrong and they run around after them regardless of behaviour and that then can become a ‘default’ mode for the child when he becomes a man, just expecting an endless stream of mothering-slaves to attend to their every whim and being outraged when that ceases to be the case. Some grow up and out of it – and some simply never manage to do that.

[financabuse]

Hello Mrs Cookie

This is my first day on the site and I am far from an expert but I am with 100% diymum’s point of view. Classic abuse. And you seem like me – far, far, far too quick to see it from the other person’s point of view and question yourself and I think this makes us ‘catnip’ for abusive types because haha – we fall for their sense of entitlement, their twisted viewpoint so easily.

I also had no ‘bruises’ to show. But I agree – read Lundy Bancroft, start reading about narcissists, it will amaze you the almost play-by-play recreations of things you thought were unique.

He is a SPOILT brat. He is entitled and YOU deserve better. And stuff his twisting cr*p right where the sun doesn’t shine … and something I never did but wish I had, call him out on it the moment he starts with the lies. I still don’t understand quite why I never said anything, I would fall completely silent (perhaps out of a desire not embarrass someone, or perhaps because I thought lying was such a terrible thing to accuse someone of — I really don’t know but I wish I did).

He is who he is – he may well have some good points BUT he is entitled and abusive towards you. In my view! Good luck with getting the entitled prat out of your life.

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