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.
Hi, I am trying to understand myself and why i have done the things I have so as to grow and (hopefully) stop making the same mistakes.
I grew up in an emotionally abusive family. My mum suffered from depression and was periodically suicidal. I remember going off to school and mum telling me that she would be dead when I got home. Coming home, unable to breathe, sneaking in the front door and... Yes she is alive! Feeling responsible to hide all medications in the house when she is depressed because she threatened to overdose. Of course she used these threats to control us all. Dad was remote and uncommunicative and there was noone to talk to. I have suffered from depression and anxiety all my adult life.
I have been married for 19 years and have 3 lovely children. Ourarriage has not been a happy one. When I married, I had no idea how to communicate and relate in a normal way and a lot of craziness ensued. My husband has told me countless times how awful it is to be married to me. He feels frustrated with the lack of intimacy and honest communication in our relationship ( these are not things I excel at although I do try). Over the years his frustration turned to anger and his anger to verbal abuse. I accepted it for years as being my fault and grew up hate myself and accept blame for everything. We are now trying to sort out the mess. He is trying to take responsibility for how he speaks to me and I am learning to speak up for myself.
The dilemma I am having is that the more I start to get honest with myself
and how I am feeling the more I realize how crazy I was. When I married my husband I wasn' t in love with him. He was a good friend and I relied on him a lot ( in a dependent kind of way) I told myself that I would learn to love him and the feelings would grow. He felt a need to 'rescue' and help me and kind of saw this as his purpose in life. He has continued to try to rescue/ advise/ control/ define me for all these years til I feel like I am not my own person anymore. Now I am becoming increasingly resentful at his control and wanting my freedom and he feels deep down the lack of real feeling and intimacy. I feel like a selfish bitch for marrying him without having genuine feelings for him even though my motive was to learn to love him. How crazy does that sound? Why would I do such a thing and lie to myself and to him? Can anyone understand this? And what do I do now that I realize it? Do I continue to fake it til I make it ? Do you think you can make feelings of love and trust grow when they are not there. Am I just being dishonest to him and to myself? SO confused!
I grew up in an emotionally abusive family. My mum suffered from depression and was periodically suicidal. I remember going off to school and mum telling me that she would be dead when I got home. Coming home, unable to breathe, sneaking in the front door and... Yes she is alive! Feeling responsible to hide all medications in the house when she is depressed because she threatened to overdose. Of course she used these threats to control us all. Dad was remote and uncommunicative and there was noone to talk to. I have suffered from depression and anxiety all my adult life.
I have been married for 19 years and have 3 lovely children. Ourarriage has not been a happy one. When I married, I had no idea how to communicate and relate in a normal way and a lot of craziness ensued. My husband has told me countless times how awful it is to be married to me. He feels frustrated with the lack of intimacy and honest communication in our relationship ( these are not things I excel at although I do try). Over the years his frustration turned to anger and his anger to verbal abuse. I accepted it for years as being my fault and grew up hate myself and accept blame for everything. We are now trying to sort out the mess. He is trying to take responsibility for how he speaks to me and I am learning to speak up for myself.
The dilemma I am having is that the more I start to get honest with myself
and how I am feeling the more I realize how crazy I was. When I married my husband I wasn' t in love with him. He was a good friend and I relied on him a lot ( in a dependent kind of way) I told myself that I would learn to love him and the feelings would grow. He felt a need to 'rescue' and help me and kind of saw this as his purpose in life. He has continued to try to rescue/ advise/ control/ define me for all these years til I feel like I am not my own person anymore. Now I am becoming increasingly resentful at his control and wanting my freedom and he feels deep down the lack of real feeling and intimacy. I feel like a selfish bitch for marrying him without having genuine feelings for him even though my motive was to learn to love him. How crazy does that sound? Why would I do such a thing and lie to myself and to him? Can anyone understand this? And what do I do now that I realize it? Do I continue to fake it til I make it ? Do you think you can make feelings of love and trust grow when they are not there. Am I just being dishonest to him and to myself? SO confused!
it sounds very confusing.
From what you write, it sounds as though you don't know what yourself is anymore because you feel as though it has been ddefined by other people including your husband. you feel guilty that you do not love him and that you do not have feelings for him. you feel bad they are not there.
it sounds to me as though you are looking for validation about it being ok to walk away? I would say that one of the things stopping you from making a decission is that you are blaming yourself for being in this situation. whether you were wrong or right to marry your husband when you didn't love him, you did it and beating yourself up about it won't change it. focus on all of the things you have begun to realise recently about your past and present situation, and accept them for what they are, without self blame. you were a different person then, and you did what you thought or felt was right at the time for you, even if you now think in hindsight that it was the wrong decission. I would say that now you must focus on your future, and doing the things that are right for you now. Clearly you have responsibilities with your children, so it should be something you think about carefully. but many people have separated or divorced in the past who have children, so it can be done and, if it helps you to find yourself and feel free, maybe even finding someone who you do love, then it sounds much more healthy to me. living in a relationship where you are controlled by your own guilt and by the other person's wish to rescue you, when you no longer need to be rescued because you want to fly with your own wings, seems almost unsustainable. better not to have your spirit crushed and to do what you need to to find yourself.
Take care and God bless.
In any case, here's what I see:
As a child, you felt responsible for
keeping your suicidal mother alive.
Now you feel responsible for
keeping a marriage built on
quicksand, alive.
You were NOT a selfish bitch
for marryinng with less than
some specified sorts of
feelings. (If you haven't
"made it" in 19 years, do
you imagine the next 19
will get better or worse?)
Now that you've sorted some
things out for yourself, it would
seem like the time has come
to set things, not to mention
YOUR LIFE
straight.
By the way . . . . . not everyone
who is frustrated, becomes
verbally abusive. There is
NO EXCUSE
for ABUSE.
Get some help and support
for your confusion, anxiety
and depression.
Love yourself.
Take good care of yourself.
"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being."