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.
Fighting with the feeling that if I hadn't have given in and slept with him straight away when he gave me the affection I had so desperately craved for him, that it may have carried on. He may have changed, and giving in so easily to him made him lose respect for me. I don't know. I'm having a bad night.. want to call him. Going in circles. I've spent a couple of months feeling like I was over him and could see so clearly.. now somehow I'm back to this and my foggy judgement. It's been 8 months now since it happened. I feel pathetic that this is such a huge part of my life whilst he's probably forgotten it happened. I just get so sad thinking that if my actions were different maybe things between us would have been to. I know some of you have addressed these issues before but it looks like i need the help of your reassuring words..again.
Thanks for listening to me ramble..
Thanks for listening to me ramble..
If YOU had just done this, or that, or whatever, you would have deserved better treatment. That is exactly what an abuser tells his victim, over and over, until she starts to believe it is true.
Don't believe the lie.
A decent person would have treated you with kindness and respect regardless of what you did or didn't do.
An abuser will abuse, regardless. If they can't get away with abusing you, they lose interest pretty quickly. If, for some reason, he thought you were someone to be respected, he would not have treated you better, he would have moved on in search of someone he could victimize.
It's what they do.
Different if he didn't respect you! So you haven't made him treat you like this, nor could you have captured and contained his love because its wasn't there!
I know it's hard to face, trust me I've faced it myself, but if you read my link on here you'll see what he has done!
All you did was follow your heart, that's it, your not weak for doing this, you're genuine, real, and honest (everything he will never be) he's the looser, honestly, he's the one who can't feel. He'll never know what real love feels like, he'll never know what a connection or equality feels like, ever!!!
But you will, one day, and it starts with the self.
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Physical_Emotional_Abuse/forum/16849908-how-you-fall
It's long but so worth the read! Please read it xxx
Please know that no matter what your actions were, things would be no different between you & the abuser. This is on him. He isn't capable of a normal loving caring relationship. It would have only gotten worse.
Maybe it will help to know that what you are feeling is normal. It's very common to 'recycle' feelings & thoughts even after we think we should be better. it's not unusual to go for a while thinking we're over them. Then BOOM we're hit w/the craving and yearning and wishing and hoping. I've been out 8 years & it still happens, just not so often and it's pretty fleeting. But it took a lot of therapy to get to where I am now. Hard work, but well worth it.
I liken this recycling to part of the withdrawal process. Once thru the physical withdrawals which can take months, there are the emotional & spiritual withdrawals and they can be a b****h. And they can last a long time. It's especially bad around special dates, b-days, anniversaries, holidays, etc. Plus, there is a time phenomenon that occurs w/many other kinds of withdrawals - 30, 60, 90 days, half year and year where the 'urge' hits and can hit hard.
Honor your feelings. The more you resist them, the longer they hang on. Take good care of you - be kind and gentle with yourself.
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When he was nice to you, treated you with apparent affection and respect, think of it as if you came home after a tough day, he puts a big smile on his face, holds a chair for you and asks you to sit down, shows he cares about how tired you are, says he'll fix you a drink, etc etc. But as soon as you sit down, he pulls the chair out from under so you fall to the floor - as he intended all along. He wasn't really being nice, and he didn't lose respect for you because you sat down too quickly. Had you taken longer or refused to sit down, he may just have walked away in disgust because his fun little trick didn't work, or he may have tried harder. But either way, there was no way you were ever getting that drink fixed - the intention was always to pull the chair out.
And same with your actual situation. The intention was always to devalue you. Perhaps because you slept with him straight away it meant he was able to devalue you sooner than he otherwise might have (or perhaps not), but that's the worst that YOU did by your actions. You didn't cause his abuse, you didn't cause him to lose the respect he never had.