Home→Forums→Relationships→Difficult one for me …Verbal Abuse
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Suede.
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April 10, 2016 at 7:50 am #101415
k8tyBParticipantHi all 🙂
I have been looking back on my diary after the end of my relationship and noted that I wrote a lot about what was going on in my relationship some months ago and also some of the emails exchanged between myself and my ex partner and was a bit alarmed at the tone of the emails and my diary entries . In a couple of entries I wrote how I didn’t like the way my partner was treating me and how I think the relationship was bordering on abuse.
I then found a book called the Verbally abusive relationship and can identify with so much of what was written in the book . What throws me is the fact that even though I wrote about what was happening to me in my diary, it never seemed to really click at the time? It’s almost like I didn’t quite have a name for it ,or as if I was in denial or something .
Some of the things I identified were the constant walking on eggshells so that he didn’t get upset, the pouting and refusal to engage in anyway , by text phone email or even in person . Always feeling like I wasn’t trying hard enough or doing enough for the relationship , he would ask me what have I done lately for us . Every little thing made him angry for days on end, half the week would be gone before he got back to normal . I felt like I always had to agree and apologise . When I did apologise and he thought I wasn’t sorry enough I felt as if he was punishing me until he was satisfied I was suitably sorry . In one of my diary entries I remember saying to him it’s as if he wants me to bare the skin on my back so he could whip me . And he blamed me for just about everything and said his REACTIONS were due to my ACTIONS and if I just did or said one thing or another he would be fine . Last time I stood up for myself at the very end of the relationship he came back at me so forcefully it was like being surrounded by a hurricane , I was left feeling physically ill . When I disagreed with him on anything he would accuse me of trying to start an argument, and I would find myself always having to try to explain what I meant or what I said and it never really made any difference. He would try to tell me who I am and always say ..” the truth is ..” and I’d say that’s your truth, not mine, which would make things worse . I used to think that he was trying to break me, and I said to him on several occasions that I am not his enemy and he acts sometimes like he hates me . He’d say of course I don’t hate you . It was all very confusing and made me feel very unbalanced .
Has anyone ever experienced anything similar ? And I would be happy for any thoughts or experiences anyone would like to share.
Thank you all in advance,
Big love
k8tyBApril 10, 2016 at 9:50 am #101440
AnonymousGuestDear k8tyB:
Welcome back! Part of your diary is the previous thread on record here with our frequent correspondence. Did you re-read it as well?
I read part of it before responding to your new thread. I was wondering about the psychotherapy you started in late January: is it still going on? What have you learned there and where is it going?
Congratulations for having your last boyfriend where he belongs, in your past.
Regarding your bewilderment in your first paragraph above: “What throws me is the fact that even though I wrote about what was happening to me in my diary, it never seemed to really click at the time? It’s almost like I didn’t quite have a name for it ,or as if I was in denial or something”
It is very common for us to see what we need to see and not see what we don’t want to see. There is the reality, and we take in what is convenient for us at the moment to take in. If you need to feel loved desperately, you will pick from a person’s behaviors toward you those loving gestures so to feel loved. And you will excuse and turn a blind eye to the behaviors that are abusive.
anita
April 10, 2016 at 10:53 am #101441k8tyBParticipantDearest Anita,
Thank you for your welcome xx I have gone back and read the entries on the forum as well and I’m glad I did , for me it’s like a lesson in helping me to examine myself a bit more .
As for the psychotherapy, I had to stop for these past few weeks as it got a bit expensive but I am due to start again in a week and I am really looking forward to it. I have learned from the few sessions I have had is how much my childhood has impacted on my life , it has opened my eyes to my own behaviours and in some situations how much they mirror those of my mother and my father . And you too Anita, you help me see that as well . It was really food for thought .
I used to think of myself as a smart and capable individual who would run or stand up to any form of abuse in any relationship, and it does surprise me that I have endured it so long. Your last paragraph does make sense, and it makes me wonder when did I become desperate to be loved ?
Thanks again Anita ,
Peace and love
k8tyBApril 10, 2016 at 11:46 am #101442AnonymousGuestDear k8tyB:
This opening-the-eyes experience in your therapy as to how much your childhood impacted (and still impacts) your life, this experience is an ongoing kind of experience, meaning:
Your eyes opening is not a one time event. They open and you go: wow, i didn’t know and you think that now you know-
Only there is more opening of the eyes yet to happen, more to see. And then, over time, yet more to see.
It is a gradual experience to see what was as it really was. This is because as children, it is too scary to see and keep being aware of what we see. Because we can’t change things and we are stuck in the situation we are in. So we push away from awareness the scariest things that are happening.
And for a child, the scariest is not necessarily scenes from a horror movies involving blood and all. Simply to be scared (of anything and alone, with no one to comfort the child- that is scary enough.
You asked “when did I become desperate to be loved?” My answer is: when you realized you were not loved. This is a scary reality for a child: to not be loved by the mother, the most important person in the world, for the child, the most needed.
So you closed your eyes the best you could, as every child would do (and does) in your situation. Pushing the awareness that you were not loved made it possible to endure your childhood, to not be overwhelmed by the fear in the awareness. But pushing the awareness away did not change the reality that you were not loved and that you were desperate to be loved.
anita
April 10, 2016 at 12:37 pm #101443
SuedeParticipantI have definitely experienced that myself. Was in a 20 year marriage and all the way through was verbally abused. I was treading on eggshells all the time feeling like I wasn’t doing enough to please. Feeling upset at every cross word or argument as it was always made out to be my fault and I was causing the issue. You feel like you arent worthy, no self esteem, feel ugly and unloveable.
It all ended for me 2.5 years ago when he turned to me and said he didn’t love or respect me and he’d had enough and walked out. I was left utterly broken as at the exact same time my mother was diagnosed with MND. It also transpires that he was having an affair with a close family friend as well… which he also blamed on me! for having pushed him out?!
After counselling, self help books, reading the secret and watching eat love pray, among losing my mother, losing my car and family home. I gave myself a life re-boot!!!
I can now say I am in the happiest place Ive been for over 20 years. I can look at myself in the mirror and say I love myself, I have a lovely new home, I have no stress, Ive lost 2 dress sizes and I feel amazing and I am just waiting to find the next love of my life and so know I will find it. You will find it again and you are loveable and worthy of being loved!April 10, 2016 at 1:34 pm #101449SuedeParticipantIve been working on making myself the best possible version of myself I can be. I am now so happy and everyone I know sees me and say’s I’m radiating happiness
April 12, 2016 at 12:35 pm #101629k8tyBParticipantDear Anita and Suede,
Thank you both for your words.
Anita-I am so looking forward to this process that I am about to go through, true there is fear there but I am also excited about becoming , like Suede says, ” the best possible version of me “.
I feel ready to heal..I’m not sure that’s the right word but it’s the one I’m using today.
Suede, I am happy that you are radiating happiness and you are in a much better place , for myself I am hopeful .
My relationship lasted for only a year and a half but I just couldn’t imagine being in it for another week once things came to a head. Back in December I was in such a bad way physically and mentally I thought I was heading for a nervous break down, he told everyone I was suffering with exhaustion because I was working too hard, his mum told me to take care of myself because he was very good at taking care of himself. I felt so unbalanced and it felt as if I was losing my mind. I did everything he asked and when it felt like I was finally getting somewhere he would change direction and that thing he asked for in the first place wasn’t right !! Nothing was ever right or good enough , I tried changing my speech once to encourage better communication, he sent me some message he found on the internet somewhere saying I was minimising the problems and I was being manipulative.
I once told him that I feel as if I was walking on eggshells and his anger wasn’t normal, he said because I feared his anger, I projected it onto him and then the thing I feared became real ( as in he got angry ) and it was my fault . I honestly could not believe what I was hearing.
Life is already a bit sweeter , I now look forward to my weekends again …before it was as if I needed to get myself battle ready .April 12, 2016 at 12:53 pm #101630SuedeParticipantDear k8tyB
Im glad to hear life is already a bit sweeter and you can at least look forward to weekends again! .. one step at a time and if you are ready to heal… you are part way there.
You may feel broken now but before long you may look back on it and see as I do as a life re-boot!I watched Eat, Pray, Love and so many quotes struck a chord with me “Embrace the glorious mess that you are” and my favourite one ” Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing.” – Elizabeth Gilbert.
I hope you continue to move forward and get stronger everyday – keep getting excited – there are so many opportunities opening up to you now and noone holding you back or putting you down and projecting guilt on you
x x x -
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