# Abuse and how it messes with your head.



## sammie11 (Oct 13, 2017)

Gosh. I have successfully ended my marriage. We told the kids a few days ago...on our 10 year wedding anniversary, in fact.

Being alone? Fantastic. I love it. I can feel, think, believe what I feel, think and believe. I can be me. Such an immense relief.

I would love to hear from others who have been in abusive relationships. Since we split up almost 2 months ago, there have been a number of times that one of us will reach out to the other and attempt to patch things up again. Every single time it happens I stupidly get excited and begin to think we'll be A-Ok. Then it happens - I timidly approach the issues I need to see corrected before I will ever live under the same roof with him again: name calling, destroying things around the house, "diagnosing" me and my issues, defining me. 

I bring these things up and it instantly begins to happen again. He tells me I'm full of ****, I'm making a big deal out of nothing, I'm abusing him by telling him he has problems (which I am very careful NOT to do btw, I just tell him I can't be with him when he treats me in certain ways). He just can't seem to hear me or stop this abusive behavior. I don't understand how it is that I am such an easy sell time after time when he has shown me through his actions that he has no intention of taking responsibility for and correcting these mistakes.

Worst of all is that the things he say hurt so badly. Today in an email he told me I am incapable of love and compassion. He told me I was already ruined when he met me, hearkening back to my childhood (my father was daignosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and molested my sisters.) I am aware that this has taken an emotional toll on me. It is so hard not to second guess myself...to me it seems he has some issues that are making a relationship impossible, but when he says these things to me I can't help but wonder...is it me? Is it me and I just don't know it?? )':


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

My Grandma was a Sammie.
Good women she.

And no, you are not ruined. You are healing.
Stay away from him, for at least 81 years.

Why? You ate one year too many times waiting for him to get better.
He got more....bitter.

Take your time and enjoy the quiet, the absence of criticism.
Oooh, ain't it sweet!


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## Elizabeth001 (May 18, 2015)

Quit sticking your hand back in the fire. You know it burns. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

You have invested your love with him. It is hard to not desire him and the investment.

Getting counseling for yourself will help your clarity.

Sorry. You deserve caring love without abuse.


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## Spicy (Jun 18, 2016)

If you actually go through with this and leave him and move on, you won’t beleive how you managed to survive there as long as you did. You will feel almost odd when you start to experience genuine happiness, after so long of misery. I want that for you.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

Elizabeth001 said:


> Quit sticking your hand back in the fire. You know it burns.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


THIS. Stop setting yourself up. Stop communicating with him. When he sends rotten things in emails or by text, SAVE THEM, but do not respond. Embrace this end and the freedom you are gaining. He will never, ever change.. not for you, not for anyone.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

I am just out of one as well. It feels horrible.
Mine claimed I was Bpd...
The last incident I stopped by unannounced to tell her goodbye before she went on a trip, and she berated me for showing up without "warning", said she didn't want to talk and was busy and such. Mean as anything.

She'd treat me horribly, getting mad about little things and withholding affection and acting cold. Little things like not giving her a back rub 1 day out of 20, or not taking the trash out fast enough to suit her. I raked her yard, fixed her car multiple times (big jobs), did errand after errand for her.
One evening I was going to see her my truck overheated and I needed her to drive 30 min to come get me and take me home. She said she had a beer an hour ago and she'd be late getting back and she had to work the next day. I had to call my dad. She left me stranded. Never apologized. Said she didn't drink and drive EVER. Well one beer an hour ago, yes ONE-- that isn't even illegal. That hurt me. I told her so. She never said "I'm really sorry, I can't come get you".... just kinda said it kinda like "I'm not coming, deal with it".

It crushed me mentally to know I was allowing it all. I finally got upset and broke up with her. That really got her angry although she never texted or called again.
She never saw what she did and never apologized. If she had, well would have had a super happy relationship because I was crazy about her. In many ways, she was amazing. Pull out gift cards at a restaurant to pay, couponS. An amazing, perfect lover.
But when she got angry, which became more and more often, she was a different person. Turn the switch from loving partner to cold, hateful, slam-the-door-in-your-face, "I think you'd better just go" angry.

Don't know if I'll ever be the same. They make you doubt yourself as a person.
I hope I'm never in a relationship again where I doubt my own sanity.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

Ev, I am glad you got out of that.


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## sammie11 (Oct 13, 2017)

Ev, same thing, he declared me ill with BPD. I have read and heard from others that abusive people like these often project there on problems on others, which makes sense to me. He would tell me I was being abusive...when I calmly, kindly said "I'm sorry, I want to hear your problems, but not when you speak to me this way." It is crazy making because if you are NOT actually narcissistic or BPD or whatever then you actually DO hear and consider the feedback you hear from other people. 

It is mind boggling and very, very impossibly sad to me that someone can become this. I don't think my husband was this way when we met. ):


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

3Xnocharm said:


> Ev, I am glad you got out of that.


I second that. 

I hope it sticks.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

sammie11 said:


> Ev, same thing, he declared me ill with BPD. I have read and heard from others that abusive people like these often project there on problems on others, which makes sense to me. He would tell me I was being abusive...when I calmly, kindly said "I'm sorry, I want to hear your problems, but not when you speak to me this way." *It is crazy making because if you are NOT actually narcissistic or BPD or whatever then you actually DO hear and consider the feedback you hear from other people.
> *
> It is mind boggling and very, very impossibly sad to me that someone can become this. I don't think my husband was this way when we met. ):


Indeed. My thoughts exactly.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

I don't have a choice, really. She'll make it stick. In her mind I am the one that is crazy.
She literally has a different set of rules for everyone but herself.

She can be physically abusive. She can yell. She can break up with me or ask me to leave when she gets mad at me. She can ask me to do endless cray chores. But it does not go the other way. Her favorite saying was "I don't do tit for tat". "I don't do ultimatums."

But it was always ok for her to do these things to me.

I still love the old girl. But she thinks I'm a bad guy and won't change. In her mind, she really believes our problems are all my fault. Says so, even. She takes zero blame.
When one person thinks they are right 100% of the time, you know something is off.

I see my faults. But stopping by her home to tell her goodbye before she left for 5 days isn't me. It's her. She cannot accept that she may possibly be in the wrong. It is crazy making, for sure.
I'll get over it. I've gotten through worse.

I suspect it will be the last woman that I try to hang on to that pulls this Stuff.

I see the signs of it pretty quickly now.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

sammie11 said:


> Ev, same thing, he declared me ill with BPD. I have read and heard from others that abusive people like these often project there on problems on others, which makes sense to me. He would tell me I was being abusive...when I calmly, kindly said "I'm sorry, I want to hear your problems, but not when you speak to me this way." It is crazy making because if you are NOT actually narcissistic or BPD or whatever then you actually DO hear and consider the feedback you hear from other people.
> 
> It is mind boggling and very, very impossibly sad to me that someone can become this. I don't think my husband was this way when we met. ):


One day, when he was doing his normal thing of yelling at me, calling me names, putting me down I had a revelation. It was as though he was looking in a mirror yelling and putting himself down. It was all about him, not me. I was just mirror that he looked into when he hated himself.

From that day on, his put down and mean attitude did not affect me because I knew it was all about him. And I could not fix him.

You will never break away from him until you stop all interaction with him. How is it that you allow someone who is that hurtful of you and that destructive to you have any contact with you all. You have 100% control over this. You could stop it in one moment. So why have you not?


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## sammie11 (Oct 13, 2017)

EleGirl said:


> One day, when he was doing his normal thing of yelling at me, calling me names, putting me down I had a revelation. It was as though he was looking in a mirror yelling and putting himself down. It was all about him, not me. I was just mirror that he looked into when he hated himself.
> 
> From that day on, his put down and mean attitude did not affect me because I knew it was all about him. And I could not fix him.
> 
> You will never break away from him until you stop all interaction with him. How is it that you allow someone who is that hurtful of you and that destructive to you have any contact with you all. You have 100% control over this. You could stop it in one moment. So why have you not?


Love the mirror revelation. It is so true. So many times my (ex)husband would say things about me - so angry, vicious, filled with contempt - hissing out these words at me....and what he said would leave me speechless, because from where I stood it sounded like he was telling me I was doing the things he was doing. One night, out of nowhere (I noticed a lot of the times he got angriest would be out of nowhere, and I had almost no part in the conversation!!) he began telling me how narcissistic I was, how selfish, how I am not cut out for family life....he ended that spree with a sad shake of his head, "What have you become?"


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Evinrude58 said:


> I don't have a choice, really. She'll make it stick. In her mind I am the one that is crazy.
> She literally has a different set of rules for everyone but herself.
> 
> She can be physically abusive. She can yell. She can break up with me or ask me to leave when she gets mad at me. She can ask me to do endless cray chores. But it does not go the other way. Her favorite saying was "I don't do tit for tat". "I don't do ultimatums."
> ...


(t/j)

IIRC, she broke up with you last year and then the two of you got back together. 

She may or may not be really done. Time will tell. 

But you deserve better. I said that when the drama with her was going on previously and I stand by it.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

The title of this post is spot-on.

My ex H was emotionally abusive and after 8 years, it had literally rewired my brain. I look back on the weak and pathetic, insecure shell of a person I was and I'm stunned that it could have even been me at one time.

I am so different now. The difference is like night and day. Things I would tolerate before, I have zero tolerance for now. Manipulative tactics that would pray upon my toxic guilt, now I call people out on, confidently in public no less.

Abuse does mess with your head, that's why you need to get clean away to properly heal and build a wall of resilience against it for the future.


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## Not (Jun 12, 2017)

Sammie, oh boy can I relate to the questioning part. Is it really him that's messed up or is it me? For me it was the revelation that there is something clearly wrong with my H and the fact that he can't see it at all and so you see first hand that people can be self unaware and so self unaware that nothing will ever change it. If it's happening with H then it could be happening with me too. That led me to question my own sense of self awareness and when coupled with the tactic H employs of blame shifting/rewriting history/gaslighting the self doubt can become intense. I figured I could be just as messed up as he was and not know it.

I finally realized I was caught in a self feeding cycle that was reinforced by his tactics. Stand firm in your conviction that you damn well know what you're seeing in him and that what you see is not in you. An excellent peice of advice that I received here is that you have to remember that he will project his bad intentions onto you but you will also project your good intentions onto him. 

I'm getting ready to leave after 25 years of this (D day is the end of November) and so I'm very glad to hear of the progress you're making after 10 years. I know my H is going to try to get me to recommit during our separation too and that's going to be hard in that it's going to force me to have to reject him again and he's not going to handle it well. It's going to be a rough few months.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

sammie11 said:


> Ev, same thing, he declared me ill with BPD. I have read and heard from others that abusive people like these often project there on problems on others, which makes sense to me. He would tell me I was being abusive...when I calmly, kindly said "I'm sorry, I want to hear your problems, but not when you speak to me this way." It is crazy making because if you are NOT actually narcissistic or BPD or whatever then you actually DO hear and consider the feedback you hear from other people.
> 
> It is mind boggling and very, very impossibly sad to me that someone can become this. I don't think my husband was this way when we met. ):


Have you read this book yet? It's a must in your situation. Will explain everything.


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## sammie11 (Oct 13, 2017)

Not said:


> I'm getting ready to leave after 25 years of this (D day is the end of November) and so I'm very glad to hear of the progress you're making after 10 years. I know my H is going to try to get me to recommit during our separation too and that's going to be hard in that it's going to force me to have to reject him again and he's not going to handle it well. It's going to be a rough few months.


Thanks, great to hear this kind of insight! And as for you leaving....for me, at least, the dread of it coming was far worse than actually doing it. I'm going on 2 months away now. It is blissful. I can just be me and those around me....they usually enjoy me or at least I don't bother them in any way. Good luck with your big leap!!


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