Hi Anita,

I’ve broken down your questions as per the below:

1. Threats to have you taken away in a straight jacket: how often did he threaten that and what preceded his threats? Maybe you can describe the last time he threatened that. – He only threatened me with that once, but I found it to be scary. The day that that had happened, I was getting ready to go out for the afternoon with some friends.  He was invited, however declined the invitation and was encouraging me to go out. I was in the bathroom getting ready and he was sitting on a chair outside of the bathroom antagonising me – wanting to start a fight.  I kept asking him to leave me alone as the things he was saying were really starting to make me angry and upset. He would not leave and kept going with insults and that’s when I got the comment that I needed to watch myself or he would have an ambulance come and take me away in a straight jacket. I closed the door at that point because I was in so much shock, that I could not continue listening to it.  I don’t believe that my responses were warranting a comment like that – all I was asking was for him to leave me alone.  My replies may have been heated, but he did not respect my wishes to just leave me be as he was being quite cruel and hurtful with his comments.

2. Comparisons to ex girlfriends: can you give an example or two of such comparisons? Continually showing me photos of ex girlfriends, telling me how skinny and hot they were and how they were good wife material.  I am a size 10 and quite tall so not someone that needs to lose weight.  Because I had never been married before and they are all married, this makes them good wife material, but however I would not be a good wife or mother as I have never been married or had children (this was his argument).  He also told me that if an ex girlfriend of his from 10 years ago came back he would end it with me and get back with her.  We split at that point, but I accepted him back.  I believe he was trying to mould me into being the ‘perfect wife’ in his eyes or more like his ex girlfriends.

3. Comments on your weight and intelligence: can you give an example of each?  I don’t really know what to say about the weight, the only thing I can say is because I am not a model.  He wanted me to go to the gym 2 hours each day, however working full time, that was not a sustainable lifestyle for me.  He would tell me he liked skinny woman – straight up and down and would always push me to work out and lose weight to ‘keep my husband happy’.  He said that I eat too much.  I eat a very balanced diet, breakfast, lunch and dinner – he only wanted me to eat dinner only.  Intelligence – I have travelled some, however I have other priorities in life.  I am more career and property focused and looking to settle down in life.  He said that I am unintelligent and simple as I grew up in the country and because I am not as well travelled as what he is that makes me unintelligent.  He also wanted me to study to be an anaesthetist (because there is good money in that), even though this is totally way off what I would like to do – I am more into sales / marketing / creativity.  He wanted me to study this as it is the best paying job in Australia at the moment.  Because I did not want to study, I had my own interests that I was trying to explore, this made me unintelligent as well.

4. Comments on your lack of passion, motivation and inspiration: again, can you give an example?  I have a variety of interests and I don’t really have that one thing that I am passionate about.  He would just say that I didn’t have passion for anything in life, was unmotivated and uninspired.  I really can’t answer why he said these things and he could not give me examples as to how.  I think I’m quite successful and generally a positive happy person, I’m a little unsure where these comments came from.

All of these things that were said came from a place of anger and coldness.  To be honest, I don’t really know where a lot of these comments came from as they were just things that he said to me.  When I would try and prompt him for more information, he gave me answers that had no logic to them at all or I would not get any answers and had to try to fill the gaps myself.  Most of the time, it felt like it was more so he could feel more powerful and bring me down.  Eventually it did start to chip away at me and it affected my self esteem.

I found it all to be extremely hypocritical.  We were on level fitness wise, career wise, etc.  I do not think either of us were more intelligent then the other.  There was just a lot of push and pressure to be a certain type of person to keep him happy and in the end I was walking on eggshells and it was a very one sided relationship.  I was the one doing everything, pushing myself to look a certain way, dress a certain way, doing all the housework, making effort with his family and friends.  He did not meet any of my friends in the year and half that we were together and would say things like ‘I’m not interested in getting to know your single slut friends’.  A comment I find totally disrespectful, not only to me but to women in general.  In his down time after work, he would lie on the bed and you tube things for hours at a time or nap at 7pm at night.  While this was happening, I was going to the gym, cooking dinner, cleaning, washing etc.  He was a little sexist in his thinking, where woman still work and do everything around the house.  Having said that, if gender roles are coming into play, I was still paying my own way and I don’t think I ever got taken out for a nice meal.

Our weekends were still good.  We would go bike riding together, camping together and there was still happy times, hence my confusion.

I hope this has made sense to your questions Anita.. please let me know what your thoughts are.

Thanks,

Louise