You nailed it. The double standards are very common. What you say about how if you tell him what hurts you he will do it worse - also very common. And, for me, further proof that they know what they do. And the fact that, as soon as you make it clear you are staying, they up the abuse, shows that it is who they are. That one shows that the abuser is the "real" guy, not the nice one we fell for in the beginning, and not the nice one who tries to win us back (or prevent us leaving) by honeymooning and hoovering,

And no ... there can be no trust in an abusive relationship. The only thing you can trust about an abuser is that, sooner or later, they WILL abuse.

"one of the major things that i have noticed is , when i make it very clear , whether in spoken word or actions , that we are ok and that im staying with him ,THATS when the abuse starts again...... "

This is absolutely true. I had a long period of peace at the end of last year and there was no abuse for nearly three months. This came after I went to a women's retreat and I was made strong enough to leave him. He knew there was something different about me.

Then his ex (mother of his son) phoned him and said she was having trouble with her relationship and he told her if she was in trouble she could come here to our house. I said she couldn't. He asked me why and I said because I feel insecure about it.

From that moment, he started up again and we went right back into the old pattern. As soon as he saw weakness in me he went in for the attack, shot me in the knees and brought me down. That's where I am now.

Now he's throwing me out of 'his' house and I've shown him how weak I am by begging him to give me another chance and he's currently ramming the boot in and grinding it.

"ive also noticed that when i tell him or show him that something annoys me he will do it even more !! "

Absolutely. Probably the only two things I've ever asked him are a: to close the bathroom door after he's been to the toilet as if he doesn't the whole house is filled with the smell and b: to wash his hands after he's been to the toilet.

He deliberately leaves the bathroom door wide open and he never washes his hands.

When I try to encourage his step son to wash his hands after he's been to the lavatory my partner has a go at me.

And these are the only two things I've ever asked him. I wouldn't dare ask anything else of him but these two things I really can't stand.

wow thats really an eye opener , both of you xxx

something else i wanted to say also that i forgot.....

in our house if we ask him to do something , theres always a favour clause to it.....
basically , if we ask him to do something , we owe him a favour !!....

take for instance......i have fibro and cfs so at times i cant bend and do normal things.....so i asked him to please clean the bathroom floor for me and to clean the bath..........his reply was.......AND I QUOTE................

" i will , if YOU clear the bathroom out for me first. after all whos doing who the favour !! "..........

surely thats not right? xx

I take it he doesn't use the bathroom then?

My ex used to think taking care of our son occasionally (ie, having him in the same room) was a HUGE favour to me - even though I was working, doing all the housework, etc etc while he sat on his butt chatting to his on line gf. Go figure.

Double standard - check.

Eccentric - check.

The other two I never experienced, but I very likely would have had I ever lived with her.

Her primary MO was "do as I say, not as I do" and I was completely flabbergasted that she could not make the connection between what she did to others and what others did to her. For instance, one time she went on and on about what an obnoxious drunk her dad's girlfriend was. And the whole time she was telling me, I was thinking that she is even worse. And she complained about her students were looking in her desk drawers, yet she is the biggest snoop I have ever met, looking through the yards and drawers of every house she goes into! Eccentric? How is keeping a vial of your own blood in the fridge, just to look at?

We always look for rational and reasonable reactions form abusers and it is something that will never happen. Abusers are Totally Weird and insidious, never able to give back anything logical.

My abuser took apologies on my part as a sign of weakness and used those moments to claim more abusive ground. They love to dominate and create fear, it is the evil food that feeds their twisted souls. No trust, only fear.

Sorry you are going through this...you deserve so much better.

i completely agree - the part about "when i show weakness thats when it gets worse"... thats one of the main things that reminds me that my ex IS an abuser (and its not just in my head!) - he will call and beg and cry to get me back, but the second *I* start crying instead of trying to comfort me, he gets MEAN! what kind of sense does that make?! and if i tell him how sad he's made me he'll get angry and say it's nothing compared to how sad i've made him!! it's like fishing... i think he just baits me and then once he reels me in he acts however he wants (which isn't anything like the nice "bait" guy!)

the double standards...

that was what made my blood boil the most!

the major one?

is I wanted to go out somewhere..I had to ask him in advance..then on the day, I had to make the house was spotless, everyone was fed. I had to tell him exactly when I was leaving, and what time I was going to be home, and I had to stick with it.

if I was going out in the daytime, I had to be back in time to cook dinner.

when he wanted to go out, he would tell me as he was putting on his shoes and walking out the door..he might or might not have been coming home for dinner, but I had to make sure that I made 'his' kind of dinner, just in case he 'did' make it home...

oh, and he went out every weekend. I went out about 4 times a year (when the kids were smaller)....

eccentric behaviour? he thought that potatoes caused leprosy, so no potatoes served in the house-rice instead. when I looked it up on the internet (trust me, I knew that potatoes didn't cause leprosy, otherwise I'd have no fingers left to type this comment!) but I just wanted to see if there was a kernel of truth to it, and that maybe he had twisted it somehow..of course there was nothing..so then he says:

Oh , so you trust everything you read on the internet?

another one:

sparrows drop lice on children's heads. that's how kids get lice. we had this beautiful hedge on the side of the house, and it was full of sparrows! they were beautiful! me and the kids used to sit in our front window and watch them..he always threatened to cut it down due to his fear of lice (even though our children never got lice!)..

then one day, I came home, and he'd butchered the entire thing..there went our lice problem..

yeah, eccentric....maybe not a vial of blood in the fridge (that is just REALLY unsettling!1)..but still, crazy....

When our kids were small, I went out with a girlfriend to a play. That was the one, single evening that I went out in all those years. When I got home at around 11, my H was sitting in front of the computer, my kids in front of the TV (I didn't usually allow them to watch TV). When I walked in the door, all three kids, from ages 1 to 5, ran to me because they were hungry! He hadn't fed them, bathed them or put their pyjamas on and it was way past their bedtime. I was tired, but had to do all of that with three tired hungry kids. He continued to sit in front of the computer. His only comment was, "We wanted to wait for you." So that means that preschoolers are making decisions for him?

I learned from that. I never went out again. He, of course, came and went as he damn well pleased.

I've been thinking about your observation of how when you make it clear you and him are OK, and you're staying with him, he gets worse.

I've heard so many times (and experienced it) that "when I was trying the most to get along--doing everything I could to accommodate him--that's when he would be the meanest."

And I always wondered why that was. Why was it that when I was bending over backwards to make our relationship work--to compromise--to try to talk about things etc.....it was the WORST!?

I think you nailed it--because when he thought I was going to stay with him, and that I was under his control, then he felt free to become the complete ******* that he is to me (and, I think, to everyone--deep down inside himself).

And that ^ is so opposite of how it should be in a healthy relationship...I think it confused me for a long time.

Wouldn't I be the nicest to a partner when he was showing me love and devotion, and trying to talk about things and make them work--and trying to do everything within his power to make me happy? Not abusive to them, like he was to me.

I feel for you being in such a relationship. It is crazy making stuff.

One reason, I truly believe they get worse when we treat them nice or say we won't leave is because it makes them hate themself even more and they have to project it out. And it makes them disrepect us even more because we know we are putting up with what we shouldn't and so do they, so respect goes WAY down.

Then you show them some spine and they get all puppy dog on ya. A crazy making game. And it is all a game, I promise you. My ex toward the end actually started slipping up and calling it a game. It's weird.

I started my own game. (grin) just to help mw towards the end. I noticed that anytime there was a big blow up and he would be yelling at me about this or that.. and accusing me of stuff, I would be like "what?" and feel kinda in the twilight zone.. not knowing what he was talking about. THEN within a week, he would do all the things he had been yelling at me about the week before.

So, the game was... listen carefully to what he says, cause it is a predicter of his near future behavior. It was uncanny.

(wry smile) amazing what we go through and the little ways we find do deal with it.

I pray for you to look very openly and honestly at your situation and ask yourself if you want to spend the rest of your life like this. A few years will make ya batty.

No judgment at all. Just hoping more woman listen to thier gut insticts early and heed them. They are protecting you from things you can't see coming.

thank you butterfly xx

and thank you you to everyone else who has replied xx