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.
This is really hard for me to post. I don't like the idea of being a victim or weak. I have always just taken things on the chin for the team and kept going... but I'm clearly not able to anymore. I really just need someone to read this and tell me what they think... any resources they used for support? Anything...
I have been watching emotional abuse and narcissistic abuse videos for about a year now. I have been married to a man I believe is a narcissist for twenty six years. We married right out of high school. We have two grown children who are having trouble in their lives and no matter what I say they have no respect for me due to the disrespect they witnessed for years in their childhood home.
I'm reaching out to you because something happened recently that has really stirred me up to a point of feeling like if I don't get out of this relationship now I am forever stuck.
We got into an argument and I was saying some valid things that would support why I was so upset(without going into details), he started changing my words around and saying that I was saying something else. No matter how much I restated what I said, he just kept harping on the fact that I didn't say what I did in fact say. He was twisting it around and kept chanting it at me. He has done this before about things he has said and done but never has actually demanded that what I said literally 3 mins earlier wasn't what I actually said. I tried so hard for nearly an hour to keep calm about it and I told him that I was going to record the argument (which is something I've been doing more and more in the past few years.) then he just kept on and on chanting at me and wouldn't stop. I ended up tipping the TV tray that was sitting in front of him and from where he was sitting, the tray hit him in the nose and instantly put a 1/2 inch cut on it. I was devastated, in all the years we have been together, I have never done anything like that. I wasn't intending on it hurting him, I just wanted him to stop. Even after it happened, I was crying and saying how sorry I was and pleaded with him to just please stop driving me crazy. The strangest part in all of it was that a complete calm came over him. He didn't lash out, he didn't yell at me ( I was fully expecting it) and he just calmly cleaned it up while I was falling apart emotionally trying to see if he needed stitches or what I could do to help him. He hardly said anything. I don't know if he was in shock or if he felt this was something he could use against me later. I convinced him to go to a walk in clinic and have it looked at, they put some glue on it and told him not to pick at it or put anything on it. I showered him with love and attention and cried myself to sleep that night. I felt so awful. At one point he did say, "It was an accident, stop crying" he also said "I have a feeling you're going to make it up to me with some really passionate love making" but I just flooded with emotions and couldn't stop. I verbally started owning everything wrong in our relationship. I actually started feeling in that instant that everything was all my fault, that I was to blame, it must have been me, I was the one who did that to him and now he might have a scar on his nose.
The next day he was picking at his nose and kept saying how much it hurt. I asked him to put ice on it and he wouldn't. I said please don't pick at it, if you remove the scab it will scar worse. He left it alone for a couple of days and then 4 days after the incident he called to tell me that the scab came off. I felt he was making a point to call me and tell me that just to make me worry he will have a scar. I said that to him and he lost the plot and said I was ridiculous for thinking that. Of course, I was.....
So now I'm at a point where I realize he is emotionally abusive but am starting to feel that maybe I'm becoming abusive too. I've always been level headed and sound but I am no doubt a co dependent since I was raised by a narcissistic father (He kidnapped me from my mother, so she was not present in my life). I just feel that years and years of being dismissed, disrespected, mocked and gas lighted has taken a toll on me. I was always such an outgoing and active person and now I am socially anxious and have no real drive for life. I'm currently attending community college classes for a career change but it takes all I have to study and because I'm becoming more socially anxious, I switched my last semester over to online classes only. Ironically, I'm in the honor society and THAT is my only saving grace for getting any kind of respect from my husband. He is a very successful man who was away 9 months a year for most of our married life due to his career demands. I still have friends from my youth that I have grown apart from, but their still friends. He and I have no mutual friends. We are a very isolated couple.
I desperately need advice. I don't know what to do and I don't know if I am strong enough to leave. We divorced once before in our 20's and It was such a terrible process because he waged such a terrible war on me and used our children as pawns to get me back.
I've prayed for answers or for the right way to handle this. I have seen a therapist that I sent some of the recordings too and she said without a doubt I am being emotionally abused but then I question whether the recordings sound biased since I am the one recording. I convinced him to see a different counselor that our daughter has been seeing and in each visit I feel that he manipulates the sessions to make himself appear different than he actually is at home. This new therapist has mentioned "his narcissism" but then will say he is a product of his upbringing and tries to get me to have some compassion for him as well as myself. I feel that I have had compassion and tolerance for so long that I have perpetuated this problem with him.
He's not a horrible person all the time, only if I have any feelings or problems with something he is doing or has done. He can be like a rock and so loving at times and it makes me question myself and the reality of the situation often. There are too many stories of things that have happened to list here. I need to add though that he nearly cut my fingers off once when we were just dating , much younger, by swinging a knife around threatening suicide when I broke up with him for feeling like he was too controlling. He has been violent with me a few others times in our marriage and went to jail for domestic violence once. He actually hired an attorney to have the record of his arrest expunged. He did go to anger managment classes required by the courts when I went to the court and decided not to press charges against my children's father. Other than a couple of aggressive headbutting in an argument he has not laid a hand on me since the arrest.
I had cancer in my late 20's and have had some health problems after that, which he tells me often that I exploit, usually when we are arguing and I tell him that I'm not feeling well. I'm 45 now and I honestly feel if I stay , I will either die from stress or be so miserable in my life that there will be no hope. I just feel so weak and not sure if I can endure a divorce and doing it all on my own anymore. I know that 10 years ago I was not as weak as I am now and it just seems to be getting worse.
Sorry this is so long and feels like reading a novel. it helps me to write it all out and collect my thoughts and how I'm feeling.
I went through a period where I literally hardly spoke, I just cooked meals for the kids while they were in High School and spent time in my room on my studies or on the computer. He never asked me what was wrong, if i was okay. He was okay as long as we were intimate. I did that just to keep the peace. I just shut down because I just didn't want to fight so hard to have a voice or be treated with respect.
The kids are gone now living on their own and he still comes and goes a lot with work, so I am pretty much alone for 3 weeks out of every month including weekends. That may seem ideal when your with someone like this but it's very lonely. It always has been. I can't tell him I'm lonely or it causes a 3-4 hour argument.
I have recently started fighting again to have a voice and an opinion and to say "whoa, that's not right!" and then this happens with his nose. Which by the way, as of this evening, you can't even really tell that it happened. There is no scar.
He has a hold on me and I don't know how to shake it. I wish my mom was still alive but even if she was, she didn't know how to support me, she didn't raise me and had co dependency issues herself. I just wish I had some kind of support system. I know that if I did, I would just leave. I sound pathetic saying that but this world is a scary place for single middle aged woman on her own, with a ex husband that would rather throw her as far under the bus as he can if she leaves him. I don't believe in cheating or stepping outside of the marriage to fix problems, I feel no matter how unhappy or justified you feel, affairs only compound the problem - so that's not an option.
I am 41 so only 4 years younger than you. The difference it is that I have a 2 year old little girl and the thought of raising her by myself is scary and all the drama he might cause me and my daughter if I do choose to leave! I am not sure if my husband is a narcissist or what but he is verbally abusive, and I find it hard for me to even label his behavior as that...
I also feel guilty writing posts her because there is so much good in him and he doesn't really mean what he does.... I mean he ruined a great day for us by calling me a stupid whore because I was confronting him about his behavior in the hallway of our condo and he said I was "raising my voice" even when I told him to never call me that again he said if I am yelling in the halls I am acting like trailer trash and I deserve to be treated as such....
Anyways, I am sad for you and I can understand how and why you are in this situation now. I am also so afraid my daughter will grow up not respecting me because he doesn't. Even in our every day life he is so verbally disrespectful to everyone. This morning he was complaining about woman c*nt drivers and they shouldn't be able to drive because they are all terrible and neither should the dumb asians, ni**ers, Wops.... I just can't even handle what he says on a daily basis even when he is not directing his words at me.....
Sorry I have no advice for you but I completely understand where you are coming from...
Just today I was told once again he didn't say what he said literally 2 minutes after he said it.
This is my best friend, a man I have known since I was 15 years old and his behavior just keeps getting worse and worse.
I know full well what I need to do, I am just so weak and having health problems that he knows he can stress me to a point of being flat on my back for a few days and then he love bombs me and the cycle starts over. I need to find the balls to leave when he's being sweet to me, but the aftermath is going to be so stressful I don't know if my health can take it.
Please take care of yourself and your little girl. My best advice to you is to never stop demanding to be respected but do it in a respectful way. Do not lose your cool, do not yell... if you can't handle the stress of it all, leave. Lock yourself in the bathroom until you can compose yourself.
When my kids were growing up I was pretty calm most of the time and when he would talk down to me instead of defending myself, because I knew it would turn into a massive fight in front of the kids, I would cry. The kids would see me cry a lot and that's not healthy. I will tell you my kids don't have a lot of respect for my judgement now because of the dynamics of our relationship but both have told me that they would not blame me for leaving. They love their dad but they know full well how he can be if you disagree with him or have thoughts of your own.
I am hoping it all works out okay for you. Please keep in touch. I need friends right now who can relate. I don't want to fester a problem and talk to people and make it more of what it is... I want to beable to evaluate things with a level head and just stay safe.. emotionally and physically.
So he did it again. He said something and then a few minutes later changed it all around and said he didn't say it. He was totally disrespectful and even kinda downright hateful about it and then said he didn't say what he said and that he in no way was he talking to me "in that tone." You know the tone I mean right? The tone that lets you know what a complete moron you are for even suggesting something contrary to what he has already decided in his brain is the right thing to do (like not prepare for evacuation of a hurricane headed our way, because it's too soon to know where it will go to in FL yet.) When all I wanted to do was reserve a reasonably priced place for us to stay further up north in the event we do have to leave since we are pretty close to the Gulf of Mexico where we live and may get evacuated as the storm gets closer. (All of the stores around us are completely out of water and there are no hotels available for up to 400 miles away.)
So It ended in another pretty intense argument of "you just said this". "no I didn't say that.", back and forth and then I just hung up. He proceeded to text me and tell me that I couldn't handle ANYTHING during stressful times. I texted him back and told him that what he was saying about me was untrue and that handle stress as well as anyone and I did this time until I disagreed with him (not to mention this is a pretty stressful event)... it went on and on...by the end of it after a few more calls and hang ups etc I was literally shaking and begging for a time out... just needed some time. (he has never handled my needing time that well, but this time he did.) And I went ahead and booked a place for us and my disabled father and our daughter to go too northern Florida just in case.
I decided to reach out to our therapist. She has defended his behavior to me ("He does that because of his Mother") in our one on one sessions and when we go as a couple she doesn't get a clear picture while we talk and really doesn't get the point of what I'm trying to explain because he constantly interrupts and puts a different spin on the point that I'm trying to get at. She actually said that him saying something totally opposite of what he said before or telling me what I said when I know I didn't say it was just matter of two different perceptions in the argument. Which by the way he now uses her exact words when we argue. So I reach out to her and I send her screen shots of his texts that were pretty sure considered to be verbally abusive in nature. I ask her to take a look at them and then I just texted that I am at my wits end and really don't know how to handle this anymore or how much more I can take of it.
She read it and didn't reply. I figured she may have been in an appt so I just sent her another text and said "when you get a chance please read these so that we can talk about this at our next visit. I said , "don't know if you consider this abuse but I feel that it is, I know that I have co dependency issues because of my father but I consider myself to be a prett healthy level headed person who always looks to healthy people; even as a child growing up, I would stay with friends for months and observe and learn from healthy families." I said "and If you do not normally counsel people who are being emotionally abused, I understand and I will seek out other resources, and I have also reached out to emotional abuse forums for support"
She wrote me right back and this is what she said. "I do handle abusive relationships and I was going to suggest a codependency group for you but I wanted to talk to you first since you are highly suggestible." She also said "It's clear by what you wrote that you think that you got all of the right tools by observing your friends families growing up but clearly you only got what you thought you needed or what appeared to look good on the outside to you."
So I sat with that for a bit. It kind of shocked me but being a co dependent I immediately started questioning everything again. I know full well what's happening in my home and my instincts are telling me how toxic it is and yet I have this therapist that we've seen a total of 2 times together telling me that I am highly suggestible and couldn't really make heads or tails of what the second part of what she said even meant.. I looked up highly suggestible and it basically means that anyone can tell you anything and you will believe it. For example, if someone says grab an umbrella its raining, you will grab one without checking first to see if it's raining. I can tell you that If it was someone I trusted, yeah I would grab an umbrella without checking... but if it's someone who is constantly telling me that my reality isn't reality and that things being said are not being said etc...I can tell you NO, I won't... and that is the whole point of fighting for myself with him.. I'm not going to be told that I'm saying things that I never said or that he has said and done things that he never did on a regular basis. How is this considered highly suggestible?? Am I highly suggestible because I'm a 45 year old woman and need a therapist and a support group to give me advice and support? I'm so confused.
I texted her back and told her I was unclear by what she meant and asked her to clarify and then i sent a few more lengthy paragraphs of how I was feeling (it was flooding out) and even mentioned that this could be considered text therapy letting her know that I understand her time is valuable and if she needed to charge me for just reading my texts and/ or calling me that would be okay. She didn't even respond. I have heard nothing back from her at all. Not even a "I hear you and let's talk at your next visit."
So now I'm even more confused. I'm questioning whether the problems are coming from me because I texted a therapist in a time of being overwhelmed to ask her to take a look at an example while it was happening (during normal business hours) and to advise when I saw her. Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing? Maybe texting your therapist is inappropriate... because I'm being emotionally beaten down, I guess I'm more desperate to find some kind of support and resolve that I needed to send that and express myself. Instead she texted back what I would consider a sharp barb at me and then never replied again??? What is happening? Was it a barb? or did I just take offense because I wanted her to see what he was doing and instead I felt she pointed the finger back on me? Does she feel I'm narcissistic because I may have crossed boundaries by texting her? I can take criticism, hell as you see I put myself through my own criticism.... but emotional abuse can happen to a perfectly healthy person, right?................................ I guess the difference is a healthy person would know better to get out of it before she let 26 years of this insidious behavior take it's toll. Sigh.
If your still here.. thanks for reading.
I think you need to find a new therapist and maybe see them without your husband. This is one of the reasons I haven't pressed my husband too hard (even though he refuses) to go to counselling.
From what I have read on line most Councillors don't have proper knowledge or resources to deal with verbally abusive relationships or Narc individuals.
She is not helping you and just "reaffirming" that you are the problem, which you are not, in my opinion.
I don't know if my comments have helped you but I hope you keep yourself well!
But hold onto this. In your heart, you *know* the truth. You still know that. No matter what he says to you or does to you, he's wrong. It doesnt actually matter if your therapist believes you or your best friend or your mother or us. You know. It's about trusting that judgement of what is going on. And freeing yourself from him. You can do it--but you need to plan carefully, and be aware in advance that part of his revenge will be getting most people who know both of you to blame you. Ignore that. It is predictable. They're not on the inside. He is, and he knows what he is doing. Your only option is to escape totally from him, no contact, no guilt. Would he feel guilty about what he has done to you? Even if he says so to get you back, he will not mean it and he will not change. If he ACTUALLY loved you he would stop the moment you said 'this is bad for me' and he would try to work through it with you. Instead, he blames and gaslights. I mean, I don't know you but I think you explained your experience just fine, I didn't have any trouble in recognising where you are coming from. You don't seem confused. The confusing thing is that society teaches women to please and be uncertain, not definite and confident. Only when we grow up and learn that its a big lie, and we are not dependent on anyone else, can we finally be free to trust our own judgement. Here you are, ready to do that--good for you.
I'm sure I will continue to write as things play out. This seems to be a good place to document my feelings and to sort the dirt from the clay so to speak.
To the outside world, we are a perfect healthy family - husband has good job, I run a successful business and we have a happy 3 year old daughter. When we socialise my husband is charming, quick witted and gets on with everybody, at home he is negative, angry and generally an energy drain - the complete opposite!
It wasn't until I had my daughter that I realised he was verbally and emotionally abusing me. He dismisses what I say, is patronising, condescending, twists words, blames me for everything (even saying that the mint in the garden isn't growing because I picked a few leaves 2 weeks ago!)
I stick up for myself because I don't want my daughter learning that its OK to be spoken to like that.
We argue every weekend, usually Saturdays. At first I thought no, I will fight my corner to try and set boundries - this didn't work at all. My husband has an aggressive loud voice and doesn't care about others feelings and is hellbent on 'winning' the argument at any cost. It always ends up with me breaking down and crying ( I hate conflict ) - my daughter has witnessed this a couple of times and the last time I promised to my husband that I will never argue like that again in front of her. So I didn't argue back for a week, which made him worse. Tonight his mood flipped again from nothing and I suffered a barrage of insults of why I am not good enough and that I should be doing better ( I should make more time to keep house tidy, I should do this, do that etc etc). I don't know what to do to avoid the conflict, he doesn't care who he hurts when arguing, I know when I leave him he will make it horrendous for me but I know I have to do it soon. I didn't react tonight and I noticed he was angrier - banging stuff in kitchen, throwing things in the garden, I was quite scared, hence why I am online trying to find support/advice.
I have read alot about signs of emotional abuse and he ticks about 90% of the boxes. Like other posters he has good days where the house is calm and I am not treading on egg shells and if something gets spilled on the floor he doesn't stress. He was very apologetic after his outburst tonight and suggested a weekend away together to reconnect (the last thing I feel like doing).
I don't have any close family - my dad lives far away and I hardly see him, my mum died 8 years ago and my brother died 13 years ago. I have Aunts/Uncles/Cousins but I am not really close with them.
I am starting to distance my self from his friends as mental preparation for when we do split up, I am trying to build a support network and hobbies / interests so that I have a life outside our home/marital life.
If anybody has any tips of dealing with conflict, please share because I have tried everything. I know I will leave him once I have saved enough money and worked on myself a bit but I need to find a way of sustaining my emotional strength whilst I live with him until I leave.
Didn't realise how much I wrote, feel better for sharing already though! x
I still struggle with how I will do this. I have a rare auto immune disease from the stress of previous cancer (Something they don't tell you that cancer can do to you even when your in remission.) and some days if under more stress, it takes all I can do to get out of bed. I don't work because he is only off work one week a month and although I worked in the medical field for the majority of our marriage when the kids were growing up, he really doesn't want me to work because we can't plan anything on the week he is off. Although I'm beginning to think a part time job would help me keep my sanity. The problem is it also helps to distract me or balance the abuse and I stay. I also worry that I would be calling in sick a lot, and I hate doing that. My internal question is, if I get away, will I feel well enough again to feel I could handle working? My instincts say yes but I just don't know....
I know in my heart what I need to do. It's getting more and more clear to me everyday and I am so afraid if I don't I'll be 55 years old and regretting that I didn't go but I guess, as in most abuse situations, you worry that you are making more of it than it actually is and you will regret leaving.
I sent a recording of one of arguments to a friend last night. She's an online friend only, we have never met in real life and she does not know him at all. I felt safer sending it to her. I just needed an honest take on it. I asked her to listen and not to side with me, to be brutally honest and tell me if she thought I was out of line or abusive as well or just any feed back she could give me. She listened and said "Omg, he doesn't even try to listen to you at all and see where your coming from." she said she feels it's all about one thing. "Control".
Sadly this is what I'm resorting too because this is how broken down my own sense of reality has become. My instincts are in tact, I know this, but my sense of right and wrong and my part in all of it is so incredibly distorted. I mean he's successful and smart and socialized (on a professional level, not a personal level) with people without questioning every word he says and the interactions. I struggle socially, I'm not successful and although I'm smart, everything I say seems to miss the mark. As I typed that I realized that people's words shouldn't have a mark. - but that's how I feel, like everything I say isn't appropriate or serious enough or intelligent enough. When I told the therapist this, she said "who's problem is that?, Your's or his?" When I told her I was never like that growing up or when he was away 9-10 mths a year so I'd say it's probably the relationship's problem, she said "Nobody can make you feel anything". So there again, I left there feeling like it was me, I was feeling this way and it wasn't anything he does or says and I'm just blaming him.
Are you starting to see the reason why this is so hard to navigate? I'm getting older, I want to make the best of the rest of my life. I may only live another 20 years and I want to be happy and feel whole again but what if it's not my marriage? What if I'm making more of what it is? What if I'm just really sensitive and just feeling inferior because I just do? I ask all of these questions and yet... I KNOW that every time I want to be heard, especially in a disagreement, I have to pick up my phone and turn on the recorder, to get him to talk to me with some decency and be willing to listen to my side of things (sometimes it's just a miscommunication and he automatically assumes what I mean without even giving me a chance to explain it.) and even then he struggles to contain himself and be respectful. Shouldn't that be enough to know?
This is a link to a previous post w/over 200 responses and I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, responses confirm this.
https://www.dailystrength.org/group/physical-emotional-abuse/discussion/couples-counseling-and-abusive-relationships
If that's not enough, there are way too many therapists who don't have a clue as to the dynamics and effects of abuse. So they end up 'siding' w/the abuser because they can be so darned convincing.
Please just get therapy with a specially trained therapist who understands the dynamics/effects of abuse and who uses specific modalities that work to release trauma.