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 am pretty upset right now. I know what you friends are going to say and I guess just maybe I need to hear it again.
If you don't know.... quick history...I was married to my childhood sweetheart for 23 years. Two kids: 21 & 19. Wonderful marriage and wonderful life together until three years ago. His prescription drug abuse and alcoholism bubbled over into an emotionally abusive monster and I left him and I took our daughter. I moved across the Pacific back to Seattle to be near family.
One year later, we legally separated. Another year later, we divorced. Now, another year has passed and he came to see me last week-end. He was withdrawing from all the pills and he drank his entire waking hours. My daughter spent a half hour with him and couldn't take anymore. I put up with him. I held him while he cried. I am ashamed to say that I had sex with him. He said to me, "This is heaven right now even though you are so fat now." I only heard Heaven.
My daughter said to me later, "I had a very good Daddy. But I haven't had a Dad in a long time and I don't need one anymore."
I told him that he could move back in with me and we could try again. I told him that I would stay with him because of what he meant to me and that I loved him still. I asked him if he was considering my offer. He said no. As he was leaving he said maybe. I see this so clearly. He wants to keep the offer on the table.
The man who is being charged with assaulting my daughter last year has filed a motion for her to be forced to give a defense interview. She can't seem to kick this guy. He is still controlling her! (Sound familiar?)
I don't want men to control my daughter and I anymore. I want it to end. I feel sick inside today. I feel sick and now I feel fat. I regret the entire week-end and the way he made me feel about myself and my life. I am just really very sad and I am very lost and scared. I want to give my daughter a much better example. I have to. She is the most important thing to me right now. (My son is doing well in college)
Things he said this week-end that i need to get off my heart...
"I looked in your refridgerator and all you have is fat. Protein and fat, fat, fat."
"Your apartment is really clean and uncluttered. Really clean. Huh. I am surprised."
"This is a nice apartment. It should be. I pay enough for it. I guess it is really mine." (alimony payments - he thinks everything mine is his)
"If our daughter doesn't answer her phone I am not going to pay her phone bill anymore" (he doesn't - i do)
"If she isn't going to hang out with us, I am not paying her rent anymore." (he doesn't - i do)
I know I am asking for the advice again. I know what you will say. I just ask you to please say it again. I need to hear it again.
If you don't know.... quick history...I was married to my childhood sweetheart for 23 years. Two kids: 21 & 19. Wonderful marriage and wonderful life together until three years ago. His prescription drug abuse and alcoholism bubbled over into an emotionally abusive monster and I left him and I took our daughter. I moved across the Pacific back to Seattle to be near family.
One year later, we legally separated. Another year later, we divorced. Now, another year has passed and he came to see me last week-end. He was withdrawing from all the pills and he drank his entire waking hours. My daughter spent a half hour with him and couldn't take anymore. I put up with him. I held him while he cried. I am ashamed to say that I had sex with him. He said to me, "This is heaven right now even though you are so fat now." I only heard Heaven.
My daughter said to me later, "I had a very good Daddy. But I haven't had a Dad in a long time and I don't need one anymore."
I told him that he could move back in with me and we could try again. I told him that I would stay with him because of what he meant to me and that I loved him still. I asked him if he was considering my offer. He said no. As he was leaving he said maybe. I see this so clearly. He wants to keep the offer on the table.
The man who is being charged with assaulting my daughter last year has filed a motion for her to be forced to give a defense interview. She can't seem to kick this guy. He is still controlling her! (Sound familiar?)
I don't want men to control my daughter and I anymore. I want it to end. I feel sick inside today. I feel sick and now I feel fat. I regret the entire week-end and the way he made me feel about myself and my life. I am just really very sad and I am very lost and scared. I want to give my daughter a much better example. I have to. She is the most important thing to me right now. (My son is doing well in college)
Things he said this week-end that i need to get off my heart...
"I looked in your refridgerator and all you have is fat. Protein and fat, fat, fat."
"Your apartment is really clean and uncluttered. Really clean. Huh. I am surprised."
"This is a nice apartment. It should be. I pay enough for it. I guess it is really mine." (alimony payments - he thinks everything mine is his)
"If our daughter doesn't answer her phone I am not going to pay her phone bill anymore" (he doesn't - i do)
"If she isn't going to hang out with us, I am not paying her rent anymore." (he doesn't - i do)
I know I am asking for the advice again. I know what you will say. I just ask you to please say it again. I need to hear it again.
Walrus, you are right, I know. NC is the beginning of true healing.
It's super, super hard, I've had to fight the urge to give in to my feelings. I've doubted myself, our mind plays tricks on us with the memories and for me, my codependency. I can help him, I can change him, I can make him better. But I realize that's not so. Much as I want it and wish it, it's just not so.
The good part is you are reaching out to all of us to support you and be here for you. He's showing his true colors to you, use that to your benefit and your strength.
They say such mean things, I know, I have the tapes running through my head but how can we not after so many years. It's going to take time to replace those with loving thoughts.
A book you may enjoy is "Love Isn't Supposed to Hurt" by Christi Paul. It helped me feel less alone and there's a lot of good stuff written in there, in my opinion she worded things really well.
Take good care of you. Keeping you in my prayers
I ordered the book today. Thank you for the referral. I love reading books like this. Every single flipping tidbit helps me.
He is calling tonight but I am not answering. Just don't feel like it anymore. That feels like a positive step. Maybe the spell has been broken.
You only made a mistake. Sure, it hurts. Sure, maybe it set you back some. But you most definitely can overcome this and you don't need him tearing you down. He did you a favor by showing you his true colors before taking you up on your offer, because now you can take it back before he gets worse. And this weekend was just a weekend, so he was probably on his GOOD behavior!
You know what? It takes a lot of courage to admit to everything you did, and a ton of intelligence and awareness to acknowledge it's no good for you. You're way better off than maybe you realize.
I'm willing to bet you have more than pure sugar and Crisco in the fridge. Don't let him screw with your perception. When you're feeling and thinking clear, your reality is way more real than his will ever be on a good day.
You made one lil mistake. You can just change your mind you have a right. (Sounds like your daughter is proud of where you have come so far.) I had to see my STBX this week and I felt so exhausted just being near him. It made me remember how much more uplifted and positive I am when I am on my own without thoughts of him. I bet you realize that too.
Gem is right. You deserve way better. ((hugs))
He has been calling and texting and I haven't taken his calls. It hasn't been so much of a "No contact challenge to see how long I can go this time" but more of a "There really isn't anything left to say"
I have no words for me. None at all. I just wouldn't know what to say to him. He isn't a good man anymore.
If you drop a plate and it shatters, you can look at it and say sorry. It is still broken.
And don't let his words define you. I have no idea what you look like, but it doesn't matter. Even if you are overweight, he has no right to call you on it and no right to comment on the contents of your fridge (an alcoholic drug addict and he's commenting on YOUR health choices? Really? Talk about projection). Even if you are overweight, that doesn't define your worth as a person. It's completely irrelevant to your worth as a person. What's worse is, I suspect you are not overweight, since it seems only to have been his words that have made you "feel fat".
He doesn't define you, YOU do. Be the person you want to be and leave him in the dust where he belongs.
I have to add that my refrigerator is filled with healthy foods. He arrives and presents as a drug addict alcoholic. (GOOD POINT THERE) and wants to critique the way I live. Wow.
At least I am at the point of recovery where I admit I have been abused emotionally. Cruelly abused.
NC: 2 days, 1 hour, 51 minutes, 35 seconds...
This time it isn't about a tally. Truly, out of words for him. I have nothing to say. The compulsion to tell him something, hear something... it is gone.
I was did not go NC with my abuser for years because we shared a daughter. Although he never got a chance to look in my fridge he still criticized everything he could see from a distance (like my yard was untidy-he offered to come over and do my yard work), or things he was assuming about dozens and dozens of things, like my financial status, my romantic status.
When we were married, whenever I did things that met with his approval (which wasn't often) I was told how surprised he was I didn't eff it up. When I traded in the car I got in the divorce (which was 6 years old and paid off) and paid for a new car outright (how's that for my financial status buddy) I was told I didn't deserve that car because HE bought it while we were married (but I paid it off afterwards-community property baby-he thought that I got any community property at all was a travesty because I dared to divorce him). Also one day when I was forced to see him because of our daughter was at the hospital, he told me he was glad to see I'd lost some weight, because I was getting really fat. I weighed the exact same as the time he saw me last.
He also was not afraid to turn that criticism on our daughter. He wanted her to spend all of Xmas Eve day with him and she didn't want to, so he pressured her and guilt tripped her about it and succeeded in ticking her off, because she can see that stuff for what it is now.
It's the same shit-different guy.
I feel like you've really got this NC thing now. I feel like when you saw him this weekend, the fantasy met the reality-and the reality was what you were left with this time, the fantasy has finally dissipated because you got that long waited reunion you wanted and it was NOT what you'd hoped for by any stretch. Sometimes, as painful as it is-that is what it takes.
I went to therapy last night. She is going to help me go through some of the more traumatic experiences. We worked one up last night to go through next week. I hope this helps with the panic. I am taking ALL her other suggestions as well. I am so determined to have a good life. To laugh again readily.
I was invited to a birthday party later this month. I need to work up enough socialness to go or I will never get out of this rut. I need friends.
2 days and 11 hours of blissful no contact
When I first split with my ex, I was still seeing him for access visits with my then infant son because I was unwilling to allow him to see my son without me present (royally sucked, but at least my son was safe). I remember driving to the first one, about a month after he left, idly wondering what the criticisms of my parenting would be. The boy was 14 months old at the time, still had almost no hair, but there were a couple of wisps that were a bit long, so the first thing he said was "he needs a haircut!" The next was "why isn't he wearing shoes?" I told him that since he wasn't walking yet, I hadn't seen the need before now, but that he was actually being fitted for his first pair of shoes the next day. The response was "what does he need shoes for?" I almost laughed in his face. But really, all I could think was "is that all you got?" Cos if all he could think to pick on was a couple of stray wisps of hair and the shoes/no shoes nonsense, then I took it as a compliment.
Same goes for you - if he has to resort to attacking your weight (from the position of someone with much worse health choices) and non-existent rubbish food in your fridge, then I'd take that as a whole bunch of compliment. They need to attack and diminish and criticise, they do it like breathing. So a stupid bunch of criticisms like that just means he actually couldn't find anything genuine to criticise. Cos you're awesome and he knows it.