i don't understand your reaction. Could you please explain?

Many of us, myself incl., learned how to be a good lil' victim/puppet in our childhoods, and went on to be involved in relationships and marriages with abusive partners.

Once you look into it, you'll find that's very common, unfortunately.

But the first step in healing is in facing the truth.

If the mere suggestion of facing truth is "triggering" and gets you defensive, it's a big "tell".

This is a safe place in which to work through all kinds of issues and get support from others who have "been there, done that" .

Key word=work.

I'm sorry. I thought perhaps it was triggering you.
You've been in an abusive relationship. So you are more sensitive some of these aspects. But not everyone would see the things going on in my relationship as abusive...controlling, less than normal, perhaps. But some horrible child abuse that I'm partaking in is stretching. Of course that's only my humble opinion.

And don't worry, I get the rules now... No venting unless you're willing to show the work.

Thanks.

Thank you for the helpful advice. I'm not sure I'm really ready for that. But thank you.

Please don't twist my words.

I have nothing to do with any "rules" anywhere but in my own life.

Do you not think that seeing their father treat their mother as a child abusive? Do you think that running lives on some arbitrary pt. system isn't abusive? Do you not think that running lives like a drill instuctor is abusive? Scraping a 16 yr. old's teeth? Having to be up and dressed and doing chore by 8AM on vacation days? Physical punishments because a boy is proud he has some muscles? Making his wife ask permission to see her friends? Having her on an allowance? Paying her bonus$ for sex? Giving her a hard time because he has to provide his children with a dinner?

Personally, just reading what you've written, i don't know of anyone who WOULDN'T see the things going on in your relationship as abusive.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist, nor someone who's gone through some of it themselves, to see that what's going on isn't fair to your or your children, is all.

What is the difference between child abuse and horrible child abuse? I think ALL child abuse...and spousal abuse...IS horrible. It doesn't require black eyes or cigarette burns to kill a soul.

I wish you well. I won't be responding to your posts anymore, as i don't want to be a factor in you not contributing here. I think you need the help you seek here, and i don't want to be a reason you don't get it.

Please write all you want, with no fear of triggering me. I've done the work. :)

GL!

Sorry that should have been "not really sure I'm ready for counseling."

Why do you feel you are not ready for counselling? What do you feel it would do that you aren't ready for? And what do you think it would take to be ready?

Lots of reasons really. I don't think I'm really ready to talk face to face with anyone.

Run through the reasons. You don't have to tell me or us, but you do need to tell yourself what it is you are afraid of. And try to deal with those fears.

I know this is an incredibly difficult time for you, and it can be hard to hear some of what we have to say. And perhaps that's part of why you don't want to see a counsellor? Please know we have your best interests at heart, whether our words are couched in gentleness and cotton wool or whether they come across as harsh and unyielding.

The truth is, I think I can on this occasion speak for everyone here when I say we are worried for you and for your children. We are worried about the damage he has already done to all of you, and about the further damage he is doing and will do. Sometimes our voices may seem shrill and demanding. That's because, from the outside, it appears so clear, even though we know it really isn't clear at all on the inside.

Take care, and really do think about why it is you don't feel "ready" to see a counsellor, and what it is that would make you "ready". I myself didn't seek one out until the morning after I spent most of the night on the phone to a suicide prevention line because it was the only way I thought I would survive the night. Don't be like me.

As I often do I sit here and look at my computer screen and I don't quite know what to say to you, justaguest. As a survivor, I feel a lot of compassion for you. I see someone who is trying to come to grips with this and having a really hard time doing it. I see someone reaching out here for support and answers, and yet there is something there that gets all twisted up and Im not sure helps you-I dont know. It must feel awful, to convince yourself that because you have financial security, an important husband, and healthy children that you have a life other people envy, only to realize that instead you are a victim, and your children are a victim, and that this gilded cage you are in is actually a prison in which crimes against your autonomy occur, and instead of most people envying your life you come to realize most are instead revolted by the hidden, inner workings of families dynamics. No wonder you are working hard to stay sane, and clinging to denial, who wouldnt want to put those rose colored glasses back on and see their world as beautiful again, instead of a dungeon, and see themselves as a domestic goddess, righteous, and self-sacrificing, instead of something as pitiful, and defiled, no different than those scared, desperate women in the shelters (which isnt how I see survivors but I think many would). What a dichotomy!
The monumental problem is that the more you start seeing things for what they really are, not only does it become impossible to ever really go back to our attractive and well-constructed facade of denial, and not only does the new cracks in the faade let in feelings youd kept out that wrap themselves around your heart like a wet and suffocating blanket, but the crushing, bewildering pressure of responsibility starts creeping in. When one is in denial, there is an aspect of being able to shirk the responsibility to DO something, because you cant fix what you arent aware of. However, when you become aware of the abuse, then there is the added pressure of, now something must be done about it-and that can feel so overwhelming and frightening, when all you really want to do is desperately go back to the world view where your life was good. A few nagging, annoying negative feelings might flit across your consciousness now and then, but youd track them down like a hunter tracks down a dangerous animal and cage them up and hide them away in the back of your mind, and then youd go back to abuse as usual, largely unware. But now that safe haven is gone. The wolves of abuse have taken off their sheeps clothing and you cant pretend they are sheep anymore. Now you are running from the responsibility of doing something about it, maybe your greatest fear all along, and that is understandable.
However, the abuses you and your children are suffering are not subjective-they can be objectively measured. There may be some degree of subjectivity when it comes to abuses, but in your case your family is objectively being abused. That is how far on the spectrum these behaviors fall. No if, ands, or buts about it. Your denial is already eroding and youve said it yourself-its horrible, and above all the evidence is in how you feel. Youre trying to stay sane-that tells you everything you need to know. You FEEL it. Youve felt it for years and those feelings are coming to the surface. All at once, and youre dealing with it alone.
Your children are being abused. I realize how devastating this realization must be, when youre relegated role, youre lifes work is taking care of these children you love above all else. To have your parenting questioned, to have it suggested you are not protecting your children in the same way an incest survivors parent does not protect them when so much of your very identity is tied up in the role of being a good mother must be soul-shattering. No one who loves their children EVER wants to be questioned in this way. I see why you rail against it, and how offensive that must be to you. That reality must be the hardest to face of all. Again, I could offer you empirical evidence of what even being exposed, if not the target (which they are) of abuse does to children-it is now considered technically and legally a form of child maltreatment along with physical, sexual abuse and neglect. I dont say this to judge you, because I am not that different-my daughter was 13 by the time I left my abuser, and it did shocking damage to her that wasn't immediately apparent. I could tell you all about it but at this point that clinging denial will just tell you that your situation is different, and that those things wont happen to YOUR children.
I understand, I think, the things you are wrestling with, and I have compassion for them. But sooner or later what you are experiencing will come to a crescendo, and SOMETHING will have to give, you will have to take some kind of action or you will buckle under the weight of the burden you are carrying.

Hi again justaguest.
As I said in reply #17, you will be ready when you are ready. The fact there are 71 replies shows how important this post is, and how many poignant points made here get to the heart of why we are all here. It is hard for people who care for me to give me advice, when I seldom take it.(I still am foot dragging out of fear, etc). They care;we care. I wasn't ready to make a move until I was ready. I have to say though, when I first came on here I thought it one-sided that people kept saying to leave. As someone said, once you start to know, you can't turn back. I realized finally that yes, I was participating in the abuse when I lived in denial. Thought I was protecting my kids from everything but it was impossible. And I was dying. When the pain of watching my son destruct became unbearable I finally decided that the whole nasty game was over. Yeah, they were right. No more headstands, no more cartwheels, no more acrobatics to try and fix things and play pretend. I knew what needed to be done. When you know you know. My only advice is to live in the truth. Yes, getting out has it's hellish moments for me. But I won't have to live my whole life and die squirming under the control of someone who doesn't even see me as having value in my own right. I hope you don't go quiet! ((hugs))

By the way. Going to counseling seems like a pretty safe first step to me. I think everyone should go! And I agree that for some of us, we got ourselves into situations based on what we knew growing up. So there is some very old baggage going on. It is so freeing to get rid of some of that old stuff!

Okay, I am going to be blunt with you, and you can take if for what its worth. This will be long, so read it, dont read it-up to you.

I guess first of all, even if you dont see yourself as like me, or like the rest of us I see you as a kindred spirit, because we share a common and life changing experience-being abused. None of us signed up for abuse, NO ONE EVER WOULD. You may feel judged by me, I dont know specifically.you might even feel villainized by me. I can almost guarantee that no one intended on villianizing you. Sometimes, as much as you read on here even when you dont post, it seems to me like you forget you are talking to abuse survivors. To villianize you I would be villianizing myself-and I dont do that. I dont see abuse victims and survivors as villians. I have stated before and will state it again-I failed to protect my daughter from an abusive environment for 13 years of her life. Dont you think it pains me to say that? Dont you think that I feel guilt about that every single day? What I did to protect my daughter left her vulnerable to the fallout of abuse. I was not protecting her at all. Do you think its easy for me to say that? Do you think I dont love my daughter every bit as much as you love your kids? Do you think I didnt over-intellectualize all the reasons to stay and that they sounded any different than yours? Do you think because I couldnt protect her I didnt try, or want to (because wantin aint getting)? Why do you think I say it? Because that is the TRUTH as I experienced it. I say it because as a kindred spirit, as someone who has experienced the horrors you are experiencing, my admitting that MIGHT help you or your kids. Do you think I see myself as a villain, or by extension you? I dont. I see someone who was caught in an undertow of abuse and couldnt even tell which way was up anymore.

As someone who considers you a kindred spirit, I hope you dont go away, because I think this place can help people. I see you vacillate between wanting that validation and being terrified of it. I empathize with how horrible that must be. Because of how you vacillate I often struggle with how to best support you, what you might find helpful, because when you come here and I respond I do want to help and support you. At bare minimum most people want validation, but even that appears to me to hurt you, to have someone say YES, it IS as bad as you think-probably worse. I cant know what parts of my validation youll be hurt by, I can only be honest and answer in a way I think might be helpful. It seems like you want me to say its horrible for you, but your kids are doing and will do okay, or yes, its horrible, but not horrible enough to suggest leaving or counseling? I mean, I dont know.

I personally dont care if you get passive aggressive-I actually say GOOD FOR YOU! That shows a brick in the wall coming down (and I know because Ive taken down many of my walls brick by brick). Whats behind a wall is often a sentinel of anger and defensiveness. Regardless of how you may feel, this is a safe place to do that-BECAUSE I DO NOT JUDGE YOU FOR IT. I accept it and I dont think less of you for it-I think its part of the process you unfortunately have to go through in your situation. I feel not one bit different about you after you posted it than before. I feel compassion for you-is my overriding feeling, and again that sense of comradery as someone whose been abused. Someday you might actually get to the part of the process where the anger is placed on the person who is responsible for it-your abuser, and when that happens I think youre going to understand you havent even scratched the surface of it. You think I havent seen displaced anger before? Im an active member of a form for survivors of abuse. You have every right to feel anger, you have every right to stand up and say I feel villainized and I am angry about it. I would love nothing more than for you to feel accepted, and cared for on this forum. At the same time, I will always show my acceptance and care for you by being honest with you, and saying what I wish someone would say to me. Hopefully I say it in a loving way, and hopefully if I dont you call me on it. The last thing I want to do is treat a victim of abuse the same way their abuser does.

So on that note-counseling, you dont feel ready to face it yet. Okay. That is the best reason you could give, because to indicate you cant because of logistics just says its not that important yet. If it was-youd find a way. If you had cancer youd find a way to get the chemo you needed, even if your H didnt want you to have it, wouldnt you? Abuse is like a cancer of the psyche.

As far as the abuse of your kids and how you appear to feel you are saying you are participating in it-I can only speak for myself, I dont think you are participating it-I think you are not protecting your kids from it. Im sorry if it hurts you that I say this. This is based off YOUR OWN WORDS, the scraping the teeth thing which you wrote-you disagree with it-but it happens anyway, and you stand up to your husband and everyone gets punished. This is EFFORT, but not protection, Im so sorry. There is a difference, as painful as that is. I dont think anyone here is objecting to kids having chores, or privileges that are based on behavior-I say YEAY to that! What is objected to this the arbitrary, punitive nature in which this system is carried out by your H that you are powerless to stop, and so you twist it all up into being about discipline, when you KNOW its not because your very next sentence talks about how manipulative and controlling that system is.(?) Youre fighting the good fight for your children all alright and losing terribly. It must be so painful.
I commend every single difficult, terrifying, self-loving step youve taken to come to terms with all of this. Again, Id like to remind you about the fact you are talking to abuse survivors, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US knows how hard this is. And those people who struggle with No Contact, and sadly go back to their abusers, I admire and staunchly defend every one of them. THEY are doing something HARD that they STRUGGLING with and yet they are taking steps, and they are trying, and sometimes they experience failures and they try again. And their fortunate kids see someone who says NO to abuse, someone who has the resilience to fail, and get back up and try again until they overcome, and they will-because they keep trying. They are deserving of my respect and care.

I think it is very astute to see that abuse situations, especially when children are involved, are triggering, and probably the religion thing too, but I hope that does not minimize the quality of the advice you are given. We all seem pretty consistent in advise around here, and maybe its because like-minded people tend to stick together, but maybe its because there some wisdom in there that others might benefit from.

Thank you all so much for all the thoughts and advice. I really do appreciate it. Just a confusing time right now. And I will work through it.

We didn't go on the trip. I've worked hard to save money. Substitute etching as much as I can. But he always finds a way to take the money I earn. He "fines" me when I do something wrong. My son got in trouble at school, I didn't tell husband...$100 fine.

He has made it hard to access this site. He is using our router to track browsing history. I understand. We have teenagers. It's the responsible thing to do. But he won't allow me access to it. He typed in the passcode with allowing me to see it. He told my son he couldn't see the passcode because he's (my son) lied and cheated but was looking directly at me as he said it. I pretended not to notice and didn't allow that fight to start but tonight about 10:15 he asked if I was coming to bed. I wasn't sure how I wanted to answer and I was almost to the bed when he asked so I didn't answer... I just got in bed. He got mad at me for not answering. Told me how disrespectful I am because he ALWAYS answers me. (Yeah right...maybe after about 5 times). I even played his dumb little game and apologized that I didn't answer like he wanted. Still wasn't good enough for him tonight because then it was the no getting soft drinks. I've had some cash and a gift card from church, so I've bought some drinks. He even looked up my discover bill to prove to me I've gone to fast food for drinks since he told me not to go. He was wrong. I haven't put a drink on discover in a month. And I've even used my own money to buy him drinks too. Then he said he doesn't want me getting any food out until I've saved up $5,000. You see I have the nicer car (the family car) which requires more insurance so I cost us more money which entitles him to be free to spend more money on frivolous things that he wants. I'm not sure how I save up $5,000 when he only gives me about $2,300/month to live on. I've been doing good. Spending tight so I come in under that. I've been subbing to have extra...for food out, hotels when we have to travel... But nope I'm suppose to use that and the money I earn doing "extra chores" for him to save up $5,000. I told him he needed to pay for me to go to nursing school but that just made him angrier. We recently built a new house and our previous house hasn't sold. If I would just sell the other house I could make up the loss of income. Apparently it's all my fault we haven't sold the other house or rented it. It's all on me, although we've had offers he's refused. I told him I was sorry I made him build this house and I wish we hadn't. He thinks it's a God thing. I disagreed.

I don't know how I'm going to do it. It doesn't matter what I do. I can't get ahead. I just don't know how to do this w him anymore. I don't know how to stay sane. I'm afraid to go to counseling. I'm afraid they will tell me I really am the bad guy. The abusive one.

The counselor will
likely tell you that:

YOU ARE BEING
HELD HOSTAGE
and your children
are PRISONERS
OF WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want your life back,
it's out there waiting for you
Whether you reclaim it is
up to you.

Your children don't have the
options that you have. They're
depending on you for protection.
If they don't get it, they will end
up living what they learned under
their roof of abuse. That means
that they will either be textbook
VICTIMS
or they will
ABUSE.

The way your husband
abuses his family
is NOT your fault.

Allowing yourself
and especially
your children
to remain present
to be abused,
will ultimately
be your longest
and profoundest
regret.