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Dealing with an Abuser

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  • November 23, 2016 at 9:00 am #120996
    Ellie
    Participant

    This is really hard to explain so I will do the best I can.
    Just some notes:
    -The abuse is emotional/psychological
    -I can not get out of this situation, yet. I’ve looked at it from a lot of angles and I’m stuck here for another 2-4 months.
    -The abuse is ONLY directed at me, not my kids or my husband.
    -I am NOT the only person who has dealt with her abuse. There are FOUR separate relatives (and extended family) who have nothing to do with her as a direct result of her abuse towards them OR towards someone they love.

    My family and I fell onto hard times. After exploring a lot of options, we decided to move in with a relative. I knew going in this person was difficult to live with, but until we moved in – a lot of the abuse she has doled out to others was NOT spoken of. Had I known some of this stuff going in, I would have tried a lot harder to find an alternative.

    Right now I am struggling to:

    A) ignore/rise above the abuse towards myself. It is no longer to my face – and because people started calling her out when she blames -literally- everything on me, she now uses the code phrase “someone” but makes sure to yell it so I can hear it. My husband, also, unknowingly, showed me a passive aggressive facebook post she made about me the other day. This caused me to have a panic attack. (I unfollowed her months ago because of the passive aggressive posts she was making about me. I DO plan on unfriending her once we move, but I know that whenever I do it – there will be a massive tantrum thrown because this has happened with another person in the past. I’d rather keep the “peace” as long as I can while we are here.) I know it shouldn’t matter, but it really hurts that she is directing such negative energy towards me and spreading it around to other people.

    B) The fact that my husband doesn’t treat her much in the same manner as she treats me. I don’t mean “meanly” or “abusively”, but just generally go about business and not initiate anything with her. I am not saying this feeling is right, but I had a revelation about this just an hour ago – which is why I decided to come here and post. This is causing issues with me feeling angry at him, just for being a nice human being.
    Again, I know this feeling isn’t right, but she gets very smug and more passive aggressive towards me when my husband is friendly with her. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it just made her friendlier towards everyone (even if that excluded me), but she seems to read his courtesy towards her as aggression against me and it makes her do a lot of passive aggressive actions.

    C) The fact that during ALL these years NO ONE will actually call her out on her overall actions. I am not talking about actions towards myself here. I’m talking about the transgressions she has done against the other family members who have ceased contact with her. There is one family member that she *thinks* she has contact with, but he, in reality, has NOTHING to do with her —- and somehow, she has no idea he is not speaking to her.

    I’m really not sure what I’m looking for here. I do not have any idea how I am supposed to carry on for another 4 months (the max time we will be here). Literally, the only thing that gets me by is that if I go, then my children are stuck here with her and I DO know that my daughter will be the one she turns this awfulness towards. (We have had run ins with her over this. *I* actually called her out on her treatment of my daughter – which is a big part of why all of the toxicity is aimed at me for almost an entire year.) I have never had to live in such an emotionally toxic environment before. I do not understand how the other two adults (husband and his sister who does not live here) can go about and ignore all the ugliness she causes. Yes, right now it is almost all directed towards me, but she has shown in the RECENT past that she will turn the ugliness towards children if there isn’t someone else to blame her problems on.

    November 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm #121006
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ellie:

    I am supposing the abuser is your husband’s mother or blood relative?

    Your husband, on one hand, showed you a passive aggressive post about you that the woman put on Facebook, and on the other hand he doesn’t stand up for you and acts friendly to her. You feel that because of his friendliness, she feels comfortable abusing you. You also fear that if you left the house, she will abuse your daughter.

    Her abuse of you, in person, is blaming you and yelling at you, correct?

    What I would do is gather a meeting: get the abuser, your husband and your children together. Tell everyone what the abuser has done toward you that is abusive (not the stuff on Facebook or outside the house, only the stuff in the house that your husband and children are witnesses of),be specific. Then tell them all that if she doesn’t stop these specific behaviors starting NOW, you will be leaving the day after she resumes those specific abusive behaviors.

    Then follow your words with action. Move to a shelter for abused women (if such exist), call the police and ask for them to take you to such a shelter, or to a place where you can be protected. Before you leave tell your daughter and other child, in front of the abuser and husband, that you will check on them and if they will be abused, that you will see to it that they too will be removed from the house the day after. (This will teach your children by your powerful example, that abuse is not to be tolerated, not from ANYONE, and not for any length of time).

    anita

    November 24, 2016 at 6:44 am #121028
    Ellie
    Participant

    I should clarify. She has not personally spoken to me in MONTHS. Most of it is now stuff she loudly proclaims to other people and (apparently) “vaguebooking” on facebook. She WAS verbally and emotionally abusing me to my face. I did stand up to her and call her out on certain actions, but it really only made her aggression towards me worse. My husband has stood up to her numerous times on my behalf, which is why she no longer speaks to me at all. It’s more the knowledge that it’s going on that bothers me. I know she blames me for everything because any time someone comes over (which is actually pretty rare now), she makes a point to say the stuff where I can hear it (and she gets a bit louder too).

    When I said no one calls her out on her behavior, I was referring to past issues that she still blames on everyone else. Everything is always someone else’s fault. Even things she can’t really blame on other people. I am getting the brunt of it now because I am here, but if I wasn’t – it would be someone else’s fault. I should have been more clear on that. Honestly, if he had not stood up for me at all, I would have taken the kids and left a while ago.

    The thing with my husband showing me her facebook post was that he legitimately had no idea what it was. She was vaguebooking about karma and he asked me what on earth was she going about. The timestamp confirmed that is was around when I took my son upstairs with me. (Note: Not to keep them away from her, but my son was hurt and after several minutes of trying to calm him down, I decided to take him up with me.) I only mentioned he showed it to me because I was upset and called my mom later and she asked why was I even on her facebook. It was more to clarify that I am proactively making sure my run ins (in person or virtual) are limited.

    Him being friendly to her is just his nature. He is nice to pretty much everyone. He will not go out of his way to spend time with her, but, especially since we are in the midst of holidays, he will tell her we are not going to be here around certain days. It really bugs me because she reads into it so weirdly. It’s more like a cliched teenager-mean girl thing. She doesn’t read it as him doing a general roommate courtesy (a courtesy she will NOT extend to us), but as an act of aggression towards me. (When she feels she is “winning”, she does a lot more passive aggressive things.)

    I am definitely going to think about what you said on leaving. I just really do not want to leave my kids with her. Once we move, I definitely want to try to get them (especially my daughter, who is 10 and more aware of the… not normal… things going on) into therapy to help us all move past this.

    I was really hoping for ways to cope with what is happening especially since the end is near.

    November 24, 2016 at 8:59 am #121043
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ellie:

    What I understand from your clarification is that the relative with whom you are staying was abusive to you but your husband stood up for you many times and as a result she is no longer abusive, not directly. She dislikes you and makes it clear to you and that bothers you a lot.

    Clearly, you can’t change how she feels about you. I am glad she changed her behavior toward you. Accept best you can that she indeed doesn’t like you, so that it doesn’t bother you that much. Don’t look at her Facebook postings: don’t go out of your way to find evidence and proof that she dislikes you- you already know that.

    Don’t complain to your children about her indirect passive aggressive references to you (real or imagined, at times) Don’t burden them with it, it is not fair to them. I don’t know if you have, but I am mentioning it just in case.

    Regarding certain behaviors on her part, indirect references to you- you can confront her about those, such as saying: “I feel like you were talking about me when you said …I will appreciate it if you do not do that.”

    anita

    November 24, 2016 at 9:45 am #121047
    skateboardP
    Participant

    Hi Ellie,

    1) Thank you for sharing your post, coming out about abuse is very difficult, whether it’s in the form of verbal / emotional / physical abuse. Any type of abuse is challenging but emotional / verbal abuse is even more tricky because there are no physical evidences of the abuse // wounds even though they very much exist in your heart and your mind. I am so so sorry that you’re going through this right now, and in this environment where you don’t really have a choice, my heart is with you.

    This is where I need you to gear up. I don’t know the situation with your kids but I can’t imagine that if I did have kids I’d want them around her either – so if they go to school & things like that, and if you aren’t working, that’s the time to get out of the house. Do not be in that environment more than you need to. Schedule walks and other activities into your day so that you know you’ll be spending time outside of that environment. Even though you are strong and an adult it’s clear that this abhorrent behavior is taking a toll on you – I would really suggest trying to look for a community based counselor as well so that you start having someone help equip you with the tools to work through these issues. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ has information about finding therapists // support groups.

    This form of abuse seems to be narcissistic abuse, people like this woman are very difficult and poisonous to be around. And I don’t want you to ever feel bad about feeling that way because it’s true. In the spiritual world we sometimes get too caught up in “rainbows & butterflies” and fail to realize that without recognizing that this behavior is UNIVERSALLY wrong we stop ourselves from moving forward. If you’ve ever doubted that what this woman is doing to you ISN’T okay, TRUST me when I say that her behavior is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable and shameful.

    Unfortunately, this behavior has possibly been going on in this side of the family for a while now so it becomes normalized which is even worse. Victims have a much harder time standing up for themselves because people adopt an attitude of “well that’s just how he / she is” which is even more insane. It’s so crazy the lengths that people will go to make excuses for other family members. I’m 23 and have cut off my entire family because of my one brother’s narcissistic abuse – you don’t deserve this. Even if you didn’t have somewhere else to live, you don’t deserve this.

    Statements of neutrality are BY FAR the best thing that there is in these types of situations. If you can abstain from responding, please do so. These people thrive off of energy of others and more importantly their reactions to their behavior. If you can, keep ignoring it, but I’m highly concerned about your mental state and your internalization of these words / actions – this is why I think therapy or a support group is so important.

    Of course, I’m sure you feel a sense of urgency about getting out of that environment as soon as possible so keep looking for places // resources because I think that a slight amount of escapism can be healthy in these situations. It’ll make you have something to look forward to and alleviate the pressure of feeling trapped in this environment.

    What about those four other relatives who want to have nothing to do with her? Would they understand that you need a place to stay? I know, I’m sure you all have explored your options but I really think that could be good / meaningful – keep looking keep looking keep looking.

    If you can order the book Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward and read it, it was life-changing for me and taught me so much about the mindset of the abuser. The abuser seems so powerful and so strong but in reality the abuser is VERY weak and that’s why they do what they do. It’s like a child throwing a tantrum and flailing their arms all the time. It really is about them and not about you. So sad.

    Please respond and keep us posted on how things have been. Stay strong and I pray that these four months breeze by for you and your family so that you can have a better and safer place to live. Once you leave, NEVER talk to this person again. You don’t need it.

    Much love,
    P

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by skateboardP.
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