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.
Dear Daily Strengthers,
I contributed to this forum several years ago, but then stopped because I started going to therapy. I was in a relationship with a man that I thought was the love of my life. After a year of dating, we broke up. I was devastated but tried to move on with my life. He did not want to get back together.
I have moved on from the relationship in many ways, but in other ways I have not. Things were going okay in my life, but then I found out he was engaged to another woman. All of the pain and emotions that I thought I had moved on from suddenly resurfaced in my life. I realized that I was stupid for letting this man come into my life, but I was hoping I could post about our relationship online to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I also want to get clarity on whether or not it was an emotionally abusive relationship. My friends have told me that I have problems standing up for myself, and don't have good radar when it comes to men.
I have outlined what I believed to have been emotionally abusive aspects of my past relationship.
Relationship history:
I met this man, Greg, on an online dating site. We met in 2010. We dated for a couple of months. Greg took things very, very slowly during our courtship. Greg was the first "nice guy" I dated. He did not kiss me for over a month, which I found to be odd. He took things so slow that I was about to dump him because I was used to dating jerks in the past. After about our fifth date (which was boring and had not gone well), he texted me and I broke the bad news to him. He insisted that I give him another chance. He came over and picked me up after work, and we had our first kiss that night. Honestly, he wasn't the greatest kisser, but because he was nice, I felt I should give him a chance.
The next several months of dating him were magical. He would show up with flowers every time he picked me up (so many that they were overflowing my vase), and surprised me with little presents of things that I liked. He showed me that he listened and that he cared about me. He was always on time and he texted me every day. He introduced me to his friends, wanted to meet my family, took me to church (all of this was initiated by him by the way). He asked me to come with him to meet his family over the December holidays. He did everything possible to move the relationship forward. I was thrilled.
However, there were signs of emotional abuse early on in the relationship. He didn't like it when I talked about other guys in front of him. My friends thought it was weird that he was buying me so many flowers (which is a huge red flag as many people have told me). He started saying things to me that he didn't celebrate holidays (including his birthday) and he was allergic to nice places. I ignored all these signs because I was so in love with him. He took me somewhere special on Halloween, and we also spent a low key Thanksgiving together. So I didn't really believe him when he said he didn't celebrate holidays.
Then, we hit a rough patch in December. He was having problems at work and I was having problems with my family. I became depressed. One night I cried and told him that I was depressed and I had been miserable since we started dating. I apologized for what I said because I didn't really mean it. But things were never the same after that night.
I saw him a few days later and he tried to get out of taking me to meet his family over the Christmas holidays. I told him that I was really looking forward to meeting them the following week, and he dropped the subject.
We drove up north to meet his family on Christmas. We didn't talk that much on the way up, and he played the music in his car really loud. Anyway, I met his older sister and her family (which went great) on Christmas and then we spent the night at his father's house.
When we got to his father's house, he started acting differently. He had reservations about kissing me goodnight when we were in his childhood room. The next morning, when I woke up, there was an Itunes gift card by cell phone. I was thrilled and thought it was a Christmas present for me. He was out getting coffee, and when he came back in, I thanked him for the gift card. He snapped, "That's not for you." I was taken aback by his behavior.
I went to go take a shower and said hello to his father. His father told me the shower was a little funny, and asked Greg to show me how to use it properly. Greg demonstrated the funny handle, and then he left so I could shower. I was shocked when I turned the handle on (both directions) that the shower was either extremely hot or extremely cold. Greg had failed to mention the temperature change to me. I ended up taking a towel bath using a little water because I couldn't use the shower.
I went back to his room and changed, and his father and girlfriend asked me how my shower was. I told him it would have been nice if Greg had told me about the drastic change in temperature. Greg gave me a sick smile, like he thought it was funny. I was pissed.
I didn't say anything because I wanted to make a good impression with his family. My Christmas present was a trip to a nearby town that I'd always wanted to go to. He had made a reservation at a hotel and got the romance package.
We checked into the hotel. Unfortunately, it was my time of the month, so nothing too physical happened but there were some bad things that happened at the hotel. He was texting his friend the entire time we were waiting for our table (and even texted him a little while we were at the table). When we got back to our room, he wasn't feeling well (he had a high fever). We fooled around a little. The next day, I was ready to work out and go for a swim in the jacuzzi down stairs. He didn't want to go with me because he said he wasn't feeling well. I felt so lonely going to the jacuzzi and exercising by myself. I was pretty upset when I came back to the room.
Anyway, we drove back to the city. He dropped me off at my place. At the time, I was working in a restaurant and it was possible that I would be scheduled to work on NYE. He made some plans with friends and was planning on driving south to spend NYE with some friends then drive back up to see me after the ball dropped. I was hurt that he didn't want to include
me on his road trip. Anyway, the party ended up being moved closer to where he and I lived. I wasn't scheduled on NYE, so we went to the party together.
After Christmas, I had made the mistake of telling him that I loved him over the phone. I was the one that said it first. He said "I know." I was so hurt that he didn't say it back (plus the way he treated me at his father's house) that I ended up drinking too much on NYE. I blacked out and he took me to one of his friend's rooms. I said through my non sober mouth that he didn't love me and I was hurt that he hadn't said it back yet. He told me that he did love me but was waiting for the right time to say it.
The next month was our anniversary and my birthday. On our anniversary, I surprised him by taking him to a nice restaurant. That was the night that we slept together for the first time.
The next night, we went to a special place in LA. He told me he loved me on the way back home. Afterwards, he refused to kiss me for a few minutes because he wanted to go out with his friends. I was confused and hurt. After he left, I was angry and I texted him "You slept with me last night, the least you could do is kiss me for 10 minutes." He called me and asked me if I wanted him to come back over. But I said "No it's fine, go out with your friends. I just wanted to kiss you for a few minutes because you said you loved me in the car."
The relationship went over further south after that. On my birthday, he didn't want to stay out too late with me and my friends and he didn't want to stay long when we went to one of my best friends birthday parties. He didn't do anything special for me on Valentine's Day. The day before Vday (Valentine's Day was on a Monday) he took me to the same restaurant and bought me carnations. I got him a present; he didn't get me anything other than the carnations.
On Valentine's Day, he told me he would be busy helping his friend with a FAFSA application. I was hurt that he didn't want to spend midnight with me. At around 10 o'clock at night, he called me and said he didn't want me spending Vday alone. So he drives over to my place and we danced and kissed. He didn't stay over even though I wanted him to.
Over the next several months, things continued to get worse. We spent less time together and we would have occasional fights. It was often over things he did that made me feel hurt and he was trying to passive aggressively get me to get so mad I would end the relationship. He didn't spend his birthday with me. There was one incident where I choked at work, and he didn't call me because his phone charger broke and he wasn't able to charge his phone.
The last time I saw him, he and I went out to the same restaurant we went to. This time he ordered something different (I am on a special diet and he got something I was allergic to). We had a huge fight on the way back. He told me that he felt I didn't listen to him and was self centered, and I needed to date a guy who was rich and could support my extravagant tastes. I was very hurt by that. We had only gone to a few nice places (and they were only on special occasions). I had been respectful of his wishes "not to go to nice places" most of the time. I told him that I was starting to feel desperate and that I felt like I was throwing myself at him all the time and he was rejecting me sexually. We had only had sex once the entire time in our relationship. That night, we slept together again.
The next day, I called him and told him that I thought we should take a break from each other. He agreed that we should break up and take time to figure ourselves out.
I started dating again, and really missed him. I wrote him a heart felt E-mail that told him how i really felt. He told me that he really did love me but he knew he was treating me badly and needed time to himself.
After two weeks, I called him and said I missed him. He wrote me an e-mail the next day that said he couldn't be in a relationship right now, and to respect his decision and that he needed to be away from me for a while. I was devastated. I stopped contacting him initially but I was madly in love with him and couldn't live without him. Over several months, I repeatedly tried to reconnect with him. He refused to see me, talk to me, or reason with me. He was so cold and heartless, and seemed so different from the kind man who relentlessly pursued me in the beginning, had to have me, bought me flowers and told me all he wanted for Christmas was me. I couldn't believe that he could just remove me from his life like that.
Anyway, fast forward to present day. We have been broken up for several years and I haven't seen him since the day before we broke up. I haven't talked to him since 2012.
I found out that he recently became engaged to a girl that wasn't me. This was very stupid (and yes I am aware that I need to still be in therapy over this) but I looked him up on Facebook to see who he chose to spend his life with over me. She seems like a nice girl, but I was shocked to see that he had taken her on several nice vacations and bought her a huge ring. He told me on the last day he saw me that the only ring he could get me was one of those rings in the Cracker jack box. He also didn't see the point of buying an expensive ring because they get lost. Clearly, that wasn't the case since the opposite was reflected on his Facebok.
Seeing that he was so mean and played such cruel tricks on me didn't make me feel good about myself. Why did he tell me that he was allergic to expensive places, vacations and rings when he is giving those things to his fiancee? Why did he work so hard to pursue me, chase me, tell me he wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to spend his life with me? Does this classify also emotional abuse? Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Thanks for reading/skimming this. I really needed to get this off my chest. I don't want to get involved with a man like him again, and need some help from fellow Daily Strengthers...
I contributed to this forum several years ago, but then stopped because I started going to therapy. I was in a relationship with a man that I thought was the love of my life. After a year of dating, we broke up. I was devastated but tried to move on with my life. He did not want to get back together.
I have moved on from the relationship in many ways, but in other ways I have not. Things were going okay in my life, but then I found out he was engaged to another woman. All of the pain and emotions that I thought I had moved on from suddenly resurfaced in my life. I realized that I was stupid for letting this man come into my life, but I was hoping I could post about our relationship online to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I also want to get clarity on whether or not it was an emotionally abusive relationship. My friends have told me that I have problems standing up for myself, and don't have good radar when it comes to men.
I have outlined what I believed to have been emotionally abusive aspects of my past relationship.
Relationship history:
I met this man, Greg, on an online dating site. We met in 2010. We dated for a couple of months. Greg took things very, very slowly during our courtship. Greg was the first "nice guy" I dated. He did not kiss me for over a month, which I found to be odd. He took things so slow that I was about to dump him because I was used to dating jerks in the past. After about our fifth date (which was boring and had not gone well), he texted me and I broke the bad news to him. He insisted that I give him another chance. He came over and picked me up after work, and we had our first kiss that night. Honestly, he wasn't the greatest kisser, but because he was nice, I felt I should give him a chance.
The next several months of dating him were magical. He would show up with flowers every time he picked me up (so many that they were overflowing my vase), and surprised me with little presents of things that I liked. He showed me that he listened and that he cared about me. He was always on time and he texted me every day. He introduced me to his friends, wanted to meet my family, took me to church (all of this was initiated by him by the way). He asked me to come with him to meet his family over the December holidays. He did everything possible to move the relationship forward. I was thrilled.
However, there were signs of emotional abuse early on in the relationship. He didn't like it when I talked about other guys in front of him. My friends thought it was weird that he was buying me so many flowers (which is a huge red flag as many people have told me). He started saying things to me that he didn't celebrate holidays (including his birthday) and he was allergic to nice places. I ignored all these signs because I was so in love with him. He took me somewhere special on Halloween, and we also spent a low key Thanksgiving together. So I didn't really believe him when he said he didn't celebrate holidays.
Then, we hit a rough patch in December. He was having problems at work and I was having problems with my family. I became depressed. One night I cried and told him that I was depressed and I had been miserable since we started dating. I apologized for what I said because I didn't really mean it. But things were never the same after that night.
I saw him a few days later and he tried to get out of taking me to meet his family over the Christmas holidays. I told him that I was really looking forward to meeting them the following week, and he dropped the subject.
We drove up north to meet his family on Christmas. We didn't talk that much on the way up, and he played the music in his car really loud. Anyway, I met his older sister and her family (which went great) on Christmas and then we spent the night at his father's house.
When we got to his father's house, he started acting differently. He had reservations about kissing me goodnight when we were in his childhood room. The next morning, when I woke up, there was an Itunes gift card by cell phone. I was thrilled and thought it was a Christmas present for me. He was out getting coffee, and when he came back in, I thanked him for the gift card. He snapped, "That's not for you." I was taken aback by his behavior.
I went to go take a shower and said hello to his father. His father told me the shower was a little funny, and asked Greg to show me how to use it properly. Greg demonstrated the funny handle, and then he left so I could shower. I was shocked when I turned the handle on (both directions) that the shower was either extremely hot or extremely cold. Greg had failed to mention the temperature change to me. I ended up taking a towel bath using a little water because I couldn't use the shower.
I went back to his room and changed, and his father and girlfriend asked me how my shower was. I told him it would have been nice if Greg had told me about the drastic change in temperature. Greg gave me a sick smile, like he thought it was funny. I was pissed.
I didn't say anything because I wanted to make a good impression with his family. My Christmas present was a trip to a nearby town that I'd always wanted to go to. He had made a reservation at a hotel and got the romance package.
We checked into the hotel. Unfortunately, it was my time of the month, so nothing too physical happened but there were some bad things that happened at the hotel. He was texting his friend the entire time we were waiting for our table (and even texted him a little while we were at the table). When we got back to our room, he wasn't feeling well (he had a high fever). We fooled around a little. The next day, I was ready to work out and go for a swim in the jacuzzi down stairs. He didn't want to go with me because he said he wasn't feeling well. I felt so lonely going to the jacuzzi and exercising by myself. I was pretty upset when I came back to the room.
Anyway, we drove back to the city. He dropped me off at my place. At the time, I was working in a restaurant and it was possible that I would be scheduled to work on NYE. He made some plans with friends and was planning on driving south to spend NYE with some friends then drive back up to see me after the ball dropped. I was hurt that he didn't want to include
me on his road trip. Anyway, the party ended up being moved closer to where he and I lived. I wasn't scheduled on NYE, so we went to the party together.
After Christmas, I had made the mistake of telling him that I loved him over the phone. I was the one that said it first. He said "I know." I was so hurt that he didn't say it back (plus the way he treated me at his father's house) that I ended up drinking too much on NYE. I blacked out and he took me to one of his friend's rooms. I said through my non sober mouth that he didn't love me and I was hurt that he hadn't said it back yet. He told me that he did love me but was waiting for the right time to say it.
The next month was our anniversary and my birthday. On our anniversary, I surprised him by taking him to a nice restaurant. That was the night that we slept together for the first time.
The next night, we went to a special place in LA. He told me he loved me on the way back home. Afterwards, he refused to kiss me for a few minutes because he wanted to go out with his friends. I was confused and hurt. After he left, I was angry and I texted him "You slept with me last night, the least you could do is kiss me for 10 minutes." He called me and asked me if I wanted him to come back over. But I said "No it's fine, go out with your friends. I just wanted to kiss you for a few minutes because you said you loved me in the car."
The relationship went over further south after that. On my birthday, he didn't want to stay out too late with me and my friends and he didn't want to stay long when we went to one of my best friends birthday parties. He didn't do anything special for me on Valentine's Day. The day before Vday (Valentine's Day was on a Monday) he took me to the same restaurant and bought me carnations. I got him a present; he didn't get me anything other than the carnations.
On Valentine's Day, he told me he would be busy helping his friend with a FAFSA application. I was hurt that he didn't want to spend midnight with me. At around 10 o'clock at night, he called me and said he didn't want me spending Vday alone. So he drives over to my place and we danced and kissed. He didn't stay over even though I wanted him to.
Over the next several months, things continued to get worse. We spent less time together and we would have occasional fights. It was often over things he did that made me feel hurt and he was trying to passive aggressively get me to get so mad I would end the relationship. He didn't spend his birthday with me. There was one incident where I choked at work, and he didn't call me because his phone charger broke and he wasn't able to charge his phone.
The last time I saw him, he and I went out to the same restaurant we went to. This time he ordered something different (I am on a special diet and he got something I was allergic to). We had a huge fight on the way back. He told me that he felt I didn't listen to him and was self centered, and I needed to date a guy who was rich and could support my extravagant tastes. I was very hurt by that. We had only gone to a few nice places (and they were only on special occasions). I had been respectful of his wishes "not to go to nice places" most of the time. I told him that I was starting to feel desperate and that I felt like I was throwing myself at him all the time and he was rejecting me sexually. We had only had sex once the entire time in our relationship. That night, we slept together again.
The next day, I called him and told him that I thought we should take a break from each other. He agreed that we should break up and take time to figure ourselves out.
I started dating again, and really missed him. I wrote him a heart felt E-mail that told him how i really felt. He told me that he really did love me but he knew he was treating me badly and needed time to himself.
After two weeks, I called him and said I missed him. He wrote me an e-mail the next day that said he couldn't be in a relationship right now, and to respect his decision and that he needed to be away from me for a while. I was devastated. I stopped contacting him initially but I was madly in love with him and couldn't live without him. Over several months, I repeatedly tried to reconnect with him. He refused to see me, talk to me, or reason with me. He was so cold and heartless, and seemed so different from the kind man who relentlessly pursued me in the beginning, had to have me, bought me flowers and told me all he wanted for Christmas was me. I couldn't believe that he could just remove me from his life like that.
Anyway, fast forward to present day. We have been broken up for several years and I haven't seen him since the day before we broke up. I haven't talked to him since 2012.
I found out that he recently became engaged to a girl that wasn't me. This was very stupid (and yes I am aware that I need to still be in therapy over this) but I looked him up on Facebook to see who he chose to spend his life with over me. She seems like a nice girl, but I was shocked to see that he had taken her on several nice vacations and bought her a huge ring. He told me on the last day he saw me that the only ring he could get me was one of those rings in the Cracker jack box. He also didn't see the point of buying an expensive ring because they get lost. Clearly, that wasn't the case since the opposite was reflected on his Facebok.
Seeing that he was so mean and played such cruel tricks on me didn't make me feel good about myself. Why did he tell me that he was allergic to expensive places, vacations and rings when he is giving those things to his fiancee? Why did he work so hard to pursue me, chase me, tell me he wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to spend his life with me? Does this classify also emotional abuse? Has anyone here been in a similar situation?
Thanks for reading/skimming this. I really needed to get this off my chest. I don't want to get involved with a man like him again, and need some help from fellow Daily Strengthers...
There is one very simple answer to this: No contact. Do not look him up on facebook. Do no think about it. Delete him from your life. He will no longer bother you.
Good luck to you.
I apologize for my extremely long post. Probably should have put it in the journal section, but I just needed to get it out there.
I wasn't perfect in the relationship either. Both of us were very immature at the time, but I do realize that towards the end his true colors began to show. The kind, caring man that he portrayed himself to be in the beginning was not who he truly was.
He did do things to me that drove me crazy. My self esteem hit an all time low (I was a very happy person before I entered the relationship). I sensed from the beginning that he had very low self esteem. And to make himself feel better, he had to make me feel terrible.
You both have helped me see the light. Are there any books or websites you can recommend that will help me see the signs so I don't enter a relationship like this again?
One of the things
you wrote that really
jumped out at me
was, ostensibly,
showing you how
to operate the wonky
shower faucet handle
but "neglecting" to tell
you about the serious
problem with regulating
the temperatrue.
I have to tell you that
one thing that abusers
really love is to see
their victim be thrown
off balance or be
unpleasantly surprised
as the result of the abuser
withholding vital information.
I, also, urge you to seek
counseling, to help
process what you went
through. Also, focus
on YOURSELF. Practice
daily SELF-CARE. This
really does help.
Please consider that
there was a reason
that this relationship
didn't make it. Regardless
of what happened, didn't
happen, what has evolved
in both your lives since
then, this relationship
bombed ------ probably
because he wasn't
capable of helping
to make it work. If
he had been, you
might still be with
him.
Please take good care
of yourself.
Sending you hugs
and wishes for
healing and
happier times.
I haven't been able to enter a relationship since I ended things with him several years ago. I have dated but I am scared that I will get into another emotionally or physically abusive situation.
I've been focusing on myself, and that has definitely worked but I still need time to heal. I was lucky, as you both have said, that this relationship ended when it did. There is something wrong with me that I tolerated that kind of behavior and let it go on as long as it did.
IleneW - what happened with the shower should have been the end of the relationship. If I had been a stronger person, I would have ended after the visit to his father's house. My ex hinted several times that he was uncomfortable around his father and that he had been possibly been abused by him as a child. I could never get it out of him what happened. Either way, he has abusive tendencies and I am glad I am no longer his victim.
Consider yourself lucky your free from him. Continue to work on yourself and heal. Hang in there!
That's not to say that some of the things he did/said weren't mean or borderline abusive though. All I'm saying is that many of the relationship problems with him that you described could very easily be due to him having significant problems in how his brain is wired to handle adult relationships.
Unfortunately there isn't a cure/fix for this type of problem. Someone with an adult attachment style problem can only learn to live with it and how to work around it the best they can. Having a partner who understands their attachment style is also particularly helpful in overcoming it, so it may be that perhaps he started getting treatment after the breakup and he possibly hit it off with his now wife due to her possibly having an understanding of his problem.
If you look up "adult attachment styles" you should get plenty of results that link to psychology articles that discuss the matter more clearly.
Some of my good friends are male, and if this happened to any one of them with a woman, I would say it was abuse too, and would absolutely support them in any way I could to get out of the situation.
Calling someone self-centred for being on a special diet, and somehow linking it to expenditure? Why wasn't his mind on his partner's health, rather than money he flat out said he wouldn't spend for the sake of it? Negligence where the temperature of a shower was concerned...and SMILING afterwards? This person sounds like a narcissist, if not a psychopath or something. Non-adherence to special diets has been known to KILL people. The shower situation put his partner at very real risk of burns.
I fail to see how anyone could excuse this behaviour, or characterise it as merely mean/borderline abusive. It IS abusive. Saying anything less to a person who has been through it or is going through it, is a dangerous thing to do. Partners who have done these kinds of things to people in the first instance have often ended up killing or maiming them.
I would run screaming from this type of person, and I have several times. That has been proven to be the right course of action because whatever it looks like on the outside, they don't treat people well. The ones I have cut myself off from have abused other people both before and after me, in public and in private. All they do is continuously seek victims and abuse them.
Appearances are famously deceptive when it comes to abusers, and even things like engagements/marriages mean nothing. They don't mean that it worked out great with someone else. They are usually done for show, and/or to lock the next victim in before they have a chance to get away. There is certainly no romance about it with an abuser, even if it looks like there is. The "look" is all there is to it, and is all they care about. Then they simply abuse someone who is now called their husband or wife, instead of the previous partner/boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.
LAngel2003, consider this as a lucky escape. Ironically, the ones who have it worst with these people are the ones who do stick around for the long haul. All you actually get is more abuse. I'm glad you got away from this abuser, and I hope you continue to see why that was a great thing, and find peace and healing.
1. He keeps going off with his "friends" (including valentines day!)
2. He was initially trying to be the perfect bf with all the flowers, etc. (like a show -- look what a great bf i am, etc.)
3. You only had sex a couple times the whole time you were together and he didn't seem to like to kiss either).
4. He brought you to meet his parents (look ma and pa, i have a gf, I'm not gay)
5. You suspect he had issues with his father (not uncommon in gay men).
6. The relationship ended when you wanted more emotionally and physically from him instead of just playing along with his "perfect fantasy."
Maybe the new girl was happy with the perfect fantasy and didn't need or want the real stuff. Maybe she is not interested in sex, etc. It's not so far-fetched. He needs a cover story and he finds the one that is the least difficult!
Sorry if this seems crazy (It's just another possibility). The biggest factor in this for me is that he was avoiding kissing, sex, etc. pretty much the whole time! Let's see...how many guys do that? It's still abuse when someone is trying to use you for their own agenda whilst secretly hiding another life! And it would make you feel confused, disoriented, etc.
I would like to point out that an aversion to physical intimacy (kissing, sex, etc) is not neccesarily an indicator that a man is gay or an abuser.
Personally, I am not comfortable with either early in a relationship due to the abuse I have gone through over the course of my life. If a woman threatened to (or actually did) dump me, because I disn't feel ready/safe enough to become that physically intimate with her as soon as she wanted I would feel devastated and betrayed. I would feel as though she had only been using me and was dumping me when she couldn't get as much out of me as she wanted.
As I said before I myself have an adult attatchment style problem. The type I have is called an "anxious-preoccupied" attachment style, which was the result of how my primary caretaker throughout childhood (my mother, who is also one of my main abusers) interacted with/around me. What this attachment style means is that although I deeply desire a healthy and loving relationship I have overwhelming difficulty trusting myself AND any partner I may have.
One of the issues that this causes for me is that while dating someone my attachment style problem can frequently cause a mild psychosis like state where certain cues and expectations are unwillingly interpreted as having multiple meanings. Even when the logical side of me recognizes this the psychosis-like effect of my attactment style are strong enough to blur them together to a debilitating level.
For example: if I were on a date and while saying goodnight my date was leaning in for a kiss and giving clear verbal and non-verbal cues that they wanted to kiss it would suddenly not be obvious to me what they wanted (whereas if I were an outsider watching the same scenario unfold I WOULD see and understand the cues just as easily as anyone else). In this situation half of me would know that I was expected to kiss my date at that point. The other half of me would be overwhelmed with countless other interpretations that suddenly feel equally as likely (if not more so) as what the logical half of me knows is going on. This could include: feeling that maybe she is just messing with me and doesn't really want to kiss; thinking maybe she just wants to stand closer while saying goodnight and doesn't want to kiss; believing that she doesn't really want to kiss and that if I were to try kissing her she would like I was sexually assaulting or something and dump me; etc.
It's like suddenly experiencing multiple realities overlapping each other and having to figure out which one is the real one when they all look and feel equally real. As you can probably imagine this would likely take quite a toll on someone experiencing this on a regular basis.
However, I did comment on the other behaviour exhibited by the poster's partner, which is DEFINITELY abusive. I don't see you addressing that; I see you avoiding it.
Lastly, the poster came here to seek support after being mistreated. This is NOT actually about any of us, it is about HER.
https://www.psychopathfree.com/content.php?274-It-s-Not-About-You