Hi Eric

I’m sorry today has been a unique day for me. I can’t really be here for you today as much as I’d like to be. I might have some time later tonight to write back to you properly. Otherwise, it’ll be tomorrow.

I know that it’s really tough for you at the moment and I’m sorry.

You don’t deserve the pain that you are experiencing right now. I would encourage you to use any self-soothing skills that you’ve amassed.

Take it a little bit of time at a time. Do your best to distract yourself and get through these difficult moments. You have been so brave posting those pictures. It will require you to be brave a while longer. But you are strong even though you might not feel it right now. You’ve had painful experiences before and you’ve gotten through them.

Hi Tee

Thank you for understanding and for not asking more questions about the abuse. It’s difficult to talk about.

Your explanation regarding Anita’s comment was very helpful. It helped a lot, after that it kind of clicked into place and I understood what she meant and what her intentions were. I didn’t feel any pain about it after that.

Regarding the staying silent for peace. I think it’s a very personal choice. There is no right or wrong answer. It’s personal preference.

I appreciate that you gave me the opportunity to discuss feelings about all this.

The comments did bother me because she expected that she could express herself, yet I should stay silent despite how I had been treat. I expressed to her before, if she wants me to stay silent. She should cease making these types of comments.

I value healthy communication, that’s why I think this community is important. I get along well in the workplace where again healthy communication is valued. In the workplace if one person starts ignoring another coworker. That’s not acceptable. I also felt that ignoring people was a form of abuse for someone who values talking to everyone.

It was additionally hurtful because I had communicated with her for a long time. I actually considered her a friend. But one interaction that she felt uncomfortable with was enough to start treating me unfairly.

Anyway… My point was that when someone finds drowning or suffocating shocking to the point of disbelief. It hurts because are worse things that happened to me.

Hi Tee

I see the confusion. I was very small as a tween because I was starved. The sexual abuse was fairly minor. I didn’t really notice it until I started to hit puberty when it started to escalated and I developed a sense of modesty.

It was when I started to fight it that the drowning and suffocating started. As an adult now, looking back I see myself then as a small child. I wasn’t a toddler.

Hi Frozenfireflies

Unfortunately, Anita has chosen to leave the forum. I’m not sure if she will return.

Your thread reminds me of arguments that I’ve had with my husband.

Common themes, criticism, feeling unheard and the difficulty with compassion and empathy. Feeling hurt during disagreements.

For us, we both have previous histories of abuse. Having disagreements is a trigger for us.

It has been particularly hard for my husband to stop raising his voice because his family culture is quite loud. It’s been quite a long journey before he was able to make headway.

It’s unique because difficulties with verbal abuse which sarcasm, hostility and criticism can fall under are very common in society.

It’s sounds like you are trying very hard to help him change his behaviour. It sounds like he feels defensive when that occurs during arguments.

It is easy to feel blamed on both sides when someone critiques our personality or behaviour. You expressed feeling this too.

I was researching somewhere about this issue for myself and I read that these behaviours only stop when we refuse to interact with them.

This is actually what calmed things down and helped with my husband. When things start to get heated I just say we can talk about this later when we’re both feeling calmer and walk away for a time. I don’t ignore him. I just do something else in the house and wait until we’re both feeling calm enough and ready to talk.

Frequency of arguments is really important too. Too frequent and it is hard to recover. Calm times are needed. This might especially be important for someone such as your husband who feels overwhelmed a lot. Is he the one that often initiates arguments?

It helped him to understand that my intense fear of raised voices is because of my previous abuse. Instead of feeling like I was afraid of him he began to understand that I was afraid of the memories raising his voice triggered.

Another thing that helped is trying really hard to manage my own behaviour. That way he didn’t feel like he was the only one with issues to work on. We did it as a team together. I have pain issues and can get argumentative when I’m in pain because it distracts me from it. By noticing when that I’m in pain after physical activity and just not talking during or afterwards I was able to cut down on arguing. Now, there is no talking we just relax and watch tv then.

I wonder if there are any common times arguments occur for you both?

You mentioned that your husband finds it difficult when you are emotional. This doesn’t mean you need to change who you are or suppress your emotions. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. But perhaps helpful habits to help with this can be developed since he expressed difficulty with his own emotions when this occurs?

I hope you don’t mind me using that as an example.

Communicating needs can be helpful too. It seems that chores are something he complains about. It’s good that you have been trying really hard. It’s difficult when people have different standards. “Could you please do X?” instead of a disagreement I would imagine could be helpful to you.

This could be framed as “I find it helpful when you remind me to do something because I forget when I’m busy. When there is something you would like me to do could please remind me… Insert your name did you remember to do X?

Again this is just an example. Please let me know if any of this is helpful or unhelpful. I’m not trying to blame anyone, just share what helped us.

I’m sorry to hear that there are difficulties with intimacy. It’s a challenging situation that you are in.

If you shared pictures of your relationship on social media for Valentine’s day I would consider it to do with the date. Giving her the bag you expressed anxiety about too.

I’m just curious how she responde and trying to understand what happened. Last I heard you were unsure about posting online. Did you go through with it?