http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...oint-view.html
Emotional abuse. I have a very hard time writing that and not deleting the term.
Wow. Sitting here in tears. No wonder it's taken (taking) me so long to heal. No wonder my health issues have been complicated by and intertwined with emotional issues. I started looking up verbal abuse info for a relative and came across emotional abuse and my life instead. My husband doesn't try to isolate me or keep me away from others - his alcohol abuse effectively did that though. The rest fits us all too well. Now I understand how I related so well to the people at family week in rehab in some ways, but didn't in surprising other ways... I realized I don't even know what it's like to have a real conversation with my husband during a meal, either at home or at a restaurant. You know, the give and take interest in each other. It's a foreign concept. At first I thought it was the drinking, then I thought it was PAWS. Maybe some of it's related to that, but it goes far beyond that. He talks to others in a different tone of voice than he often does to me when we're alone. He trains horses and I've thought to myself quite often that he'd never treat a horse the way he treats me, emotionally/psychologically speaking. It's not the big things, it's the little things. NO ONE would look at us and ever think I was emotionally abused or that he'd ever do that. He tells me I'm beautiful, he says I'm smart. In words, he puts himself down more than he'd ever put me down. He would never call me fat or ugly or stupid, but I know how I've felt, I know all the tricks and manipulations he uses that are listed here. Some have been talked about in these forums as types of abuse - that first started making me aware of some of the tactics as
being abusive. A part of me still wants to say it's not abuse, that he doesn't mean to do these things, that... a hundred different excuses to that want to shout out 'but we really love each other!' Is this what love should feel like? No. It isn't. I do love him. 27 years together, and I know he loves me. We've had a lot of good together and I know there was real love in the past. And yet, this relationship we have today is not filled with love.
What about all the things we've done right together, as parents?
That doesn't negate the truth. My husband is very good at using emotional abuse to keep me at a distance. His "poor me" attitude deflects my thoughts of how he treats me because so much is going on with him. He's the martyr. I'm the martyr. Both of us are ill.
Some of it started a long time ago, in small ways. It increased over the years as his drinking did. Now it's worse because I'm to blame (his view) for him going to rehab, in spite of him knowing he needed help and asked for help. It's been leveling out as he has more time sober, but throughout each week it's still too often there. I want to minimize it and excuse it. I want it not to be true. I see where he's trying. I want to make a really big deal over those little steps.
I'm relieved because I'm not crazy.
I'm relieved because healing can happen when you figure out what's wrong.
I feel sick and lost, but I know it's okay to take baby steps. It's okay for me not to know the answers right now. I still feel sick and lost. Why do I want the blinders back on?
I'm tired of all this. I don't want one more thing to face, to have to deal with. I will. I can. I really didn't want to. I'm losing sleep. I'm gaining peace. I may sound crazy with all the back and forth thoughts. I'm not. That's 27 years of marriage being shook up and dealt with internally in a couple hours.
I am a codependent. I have been emotionally abused. I am not a victim. I am not going to live like this. I am healing.
I'm researching healing from emotional abuse. Any tips, articles, support, etc. welcome. Be gentle with the advice, please. I'm not divorcing him. I am willing to separate from him for my own sanity, if need be. Researching is hard so far. Most of the examples are so bad I want to negate the emotional abuse I am starting to see in my own life.