Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
My husband treats me like I am totally incapable of completing any task without his direction. Just for example, everytime I transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer, he yells out "Did you clean the lint trap?" He does this EVERYTIME!! He tells me how he thinks I should do everything from cooking to feeding the dog. Every day he comes home and asks "Did you give the dog fresh water when you got home?" He is constantly giving me orders. When I come home from work I find myself thinking, Oh I'd better do this or that before he gets home. I feel like I have no rights and nothing I say or do is right or good enough! Can anyone else relate to this???
I too copped the 'advice' on how to cook better, clean better, feed the kids better, shop better, dress better, EVERYTHING I did was done the wrong way. I put up with this for well over 12 years...every day was a nightmare of getting things done so as not to trigger him when he walked through the door. I think the last time was a Sunday and the kids and I had decided that we were going to have a PJ day and do nothing. He walked in from work, looked at us in our PJs, looked at the house and saw what an utter shambles it was in, then looked at me with vile hated and disgust. He said "what the F*** have you been doing all day? Why are the kids still in their pyjamas? So I looked him dead in the eye and said 'Because we wanted to!" Totally stumped him, lol. He was expecting a big long answer in defence of our laziness and I thought F him, we wanted a day off and we were bloody well entitled to have one. He said, well thats a really nice greeting isn't it. I've been at work all week and I have to come home to this filthy stinking pigsty, and a bunch of lazy animals. so i said "then go back to work if you don't like it, we have had a great day!'
....yeah we ended up having a huge fight, but it was one small baby step into gaining back my right to have an opinion, and to do what I wanted, not what he wanted. That was a few years ago, now I have advanced (if you can call it that) to pretty much 80% freedom in my own home and in my life. He has witnessed me expressing boundaries, and because they are said and felt with conviction (as in me BELIEVING I actually do have the right to do and say what I want, not be his puppet) then he hears it, and grudgingly accepts it. The only hold he has over me now is a financial one and the kids....other than that he does not exist in my eyes, just as I never used to exist in his. I am not mean or manipulative, I am not behaving like a bitch to him, I have just decided that its ok for me to have rights too...and it is!!!!!!!!! Just as it is for the rest of you on here. Ok granted my man is not physically abusive, but he sure as hell has come pretty darn close. I am afraid for my safety and that of my kids, but he is a relatively intelligent man so he knows he will be in jail and lose all HIS money if he ever did hit me. Also I have very big brothers who live nearby, and they'd enjoy kicking his butt!
I now talk to my man as if he is a child (when he honestly acts like one) and that too can be tedious and very draining. I say "if you're going to get angry I am not going to have this conversation with you", 'if you cant lower your voice and be rational I will not have this conversation with you", if you are going to get angry, or if you are just itching for an argument, go find someone who wants to argue with you, because I don't"...if he doesn't calm down I walk away. (yes I do often shake life a bloody leaf sometimes if he has managed to push some of my buttons) but I still walk away. If he follows and keeps yelling I stop and say " I have told you I do npt want to argue with you or talk to you when your in one of your moods so if you choose to keep talking be aware that I am not listening." He usually just throws some insults my way and storms off. I dont even hear the insults anymore, because I choose not to react to them. They are childish and immature and, more often than not, not even relevant to the conversation. His words hold no value to me because HE holds no value to me if he is being an arsehole!
Hope if your husband is not violent, and only if you have the strength inside to do it, answer him honestly! if he says 'did you put fresh water in the dog bowl?" say "yes, I always put fresh water in", when he says "did you clean the lint trap?' answer yes of course I did, you said yourself it works better if I do this, so I do it all the time!" when he says you know you should do this or that when you cook say "really, that sounds like a great idea..here you do it and show me how its done". This is how I started to build up my ability to answer back. ANY excuse for a yelling match will be grabbed by him to use against you. IF you have the strength and conviction in your tummy, IF you are not saying things that are questioning his judgment or contradicting him, he will feel as though his ego is being fed and that will keep him calm. He wants control more than anything, he needs it for his sense of security, take that away and he may become volatile. You will (hopefully leave him) but if not, then you will soon learn how to step back from an argument and watch him, and learn. If he is made to believe that an idea was HIS idea, then he will grab it with both hands and enjoy the glory that is not rightfully his. if he is made to feel questioned, he will retaliate. These days when I am barked at for not feeding the dogs or the horses or the cat or the kids...he asks (demands) have you fed the ...I just say No, you can do it now for me though, thanks!
I am not giving him an order, I am giving him an option that sounds like an order. If he retaliates with something like but I told you to, I say "I beg your pardon, you don't TELL me to do anything thank you very much!" and he will usually walk off mumbling little curses and insults. My point is, I stopped doing his bidding because I realised I am not his slave to order around, I am a human being with just as many rights as he has. I believed in myself, and that took a VERY long time to achieve.
Hope you can do the same honey, and sorry for writing so much.
He soon picked up on the body language real quick and hastily made his way to his bedroom.