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.
I have been so stupid to allow the emotional abuse. Why didn't I get is sooner. I am mad today. Thank God I am all the way across the country from him.
For goodness sake, please do not feel stupid. We are all in the same boat. You have left a lot sooner than a lot of girls/men.
Please feel lucky you are clear across the country from him.
Now do yourself a HUGE favor and do NOT pay for his ticket to where you are!!!!
Allow yourself to live abuse free from now on!!!!
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))))))))))))
Abuse is confusing. It takes a long time, even years, to truly see what is going on because you are too busy fighting small fires to see the raging inferno.
Just be glad you are out.
This video was very good at explaining a lot of it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html
There are so many reasons we "allow" it to happen. One of my favourite analogies is the one of the boiling frog. If you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump straight out, but if you put a frog in warm water and slowly heat it, the frog will boil to death. It's the same with abuse - they don't start out with the abuse, they just turn it up a notch at a time until we either leave or it kills us.
I also don't believe it's really true to say that we "allow" it. How many times did you tell him he hurt you or that it wasn't acceptable? How many times did you try to reach him, to try to get him to understand? Also, they tear us down so that we feel so low, and then they manage to convince us that it's really all our fault anyway. We shouldn't have pushed the issue, we are unforgiving, we have no sense of humour/can't take a joke, we misinterpret everything and only see the worst in them all the time, we are just too sensitive, and on and on and on it goes. And because we are caring and sensitive and genuine people, we DO look at ourselves and (since nobody is perfect), we do see our faults. And so we believe that if we can just do better, if we can just eliminate those faults, then we won't be so annoying or so ... whatever, and they will love us again, like they did in the beginning before they realised how awful we were.
It's all a game to them. And the aim of the game is to keep you focused entirely on your faults and their strengths, so that you have absolutely no time to see your strengths or their faults. They do this any way they can - belittling you, keeping you confused, keeping you stressed (eg about money), lying to you, stonewalling you, whatever it takes to keep you focussed on how to make them happy so that they will love you again.
We are none of us stupid for having fallen for a con. It's a clever con, it's a magic show, it's smoke and mirrors and lies. And because we don't operate that way (and they don't admit they are operating that way), of course we don't see it. My parents were both emotionally abusive, I've had 3 serious relationships, all abusive. I've been free for more than 4 years and active on this board for more than three. And I can say that one of the most valuable lessons I've learned (reinforced constantly) is that I will never ever understand how and why they can do the things they do. Because I can't fathom acting or thinking that way myself. And that's why we take so long to see it - because we can't believe that someone can say they love us on the one hand and then treat us so bad on the other. Something just doesn't work in that equation, the two are so mutually exclusive that we convince ourselves we must be wrong. When they are putting on the love show, it feels SO good, that MUST be true. So when they tell us it's our fault when they are NOT putting on the love show ... we believe them.
You have been through enough. Please don't continue to abuse yourself on his behalf by calling yourself stupid or blaming yourself. It's not your fault, and it is NOT stupidity to believe in someone who claims to care for you - and who appears to show that sometimes too.
I was married to an
emotional abuser
for just shy of
seventeen years.
And I am
not a
stupid person.
Neither are you.
LOVE YOURSELF.
That's the only way
back from abuse.
It IS very confusing - how were you to know?
Keep moving forward, more and more clarity will come. And please feel free to ask questions, vent or otherwise post here whenever you want or need.