kv816

I read the post about domestic violence and codependency and a lot of what they put as "common behaviors with codependency" are also common behaviors for abuse. I for one have often felt like my xabf must be always be a victim. Every discussion we've ever had, 9 times out of 10 he was the victim in a situation. Reading the article about DV and codependency and listening to how alcoholism is a disease, it makes me think that maybe he IS a victim (though I don't think what I see as his being a victim to is what he sees as his being victim to).

As a codependent, I always wanted to know where he was and who he was with and what he was doing. I wanted to know that he wasn't doing anything stupid or risky (being with another woman, getting a DUI, getting into a drunken brawl, etc). But the fact is, this desire of knowing every move he made was controlling on MY part. Granted I was doing it to, in my mind, protect him from the consequences, but ultimately I wanted to control his actions. THAT is abusive according to behaviors for abuse.

I've heard many talk about controlling finances. He's only allowed so much money for "these" purposes. I would do that so he only had the money to buy necessities and not alcohol, but, it goes back to what I first said of "controlling finances". Now, of course, having been run into the ground from him taking whatever amount he wanted for whatever purpose he wanted, I know I needed to in order to protect myself but it's still my way of controlling him. Controlling finances is abusive according to behaviors for abuse.

I remember with my first husband he used to monitor my computer activity ALL THE TIME. He checked history, had a keylogger, HAD to have my password for every account and if he didn't he'd hack my account to get in and see what I was doing. I remember someone gave me a little flier for DV once and monitoring computer/phone activity was a sign of abuse. And I thought about that last night and realized for the last year or so I did the same thing to xabf. I had the keylogger, always checked history, logged into his myspace page on occasion to see what kind of messages he had. I did it to going back to knowing his every move--what he's doing, who he's with, etc. But when I read that article about codependency and DV I thought "OMG, that's ABUSIVE of me!!!"

Is it early and I'm thinking too deep into things? Or am I making sense?

I've just thought for so long that I was the victim, because of everything he did and said to ME but when I thought about it last night I realized that I was throwing just as much back at him as he threw at me.

Break it down......he came home, drunk, throwing things, yelling, screaming, being accusatory. I defended myself...yelled, screamed, back. I even left a few times, disappeared for a few days intending to not only just get away and feel safe BUT I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him sit and wonder WTH happened to me? I ultimately left to hurt him. It's a typical fight for me with my A. But when I break it down I see that my reaction was because of what he did, what he said. Had he not done it, I wouldn't have done it. Almost as if my yelling and screaming back at him was OKAY because he was drunk. It's the "I did it because you made me do it" thing.

Lord, I heard that from him ALL the time. It was often my fault. But when I think about it I realized that a lot of what HE did to me was a lot of the same things I did to him too.

I lived with an alcoholic. I am co-dependent. He was emotionally, verbally, mentally abusive. He lost his temper and threw things a handful of times. But that never gave me the right to monitor his computer activity, control his finances, defend myself by telling him his thoughts were crazy, stupid, or he's only thinking that way because he's drunk.

I guess today I'm realizing how much fault I DID have in our relationship. How much of it really WAS my fault. How much MY actions really did make him a victim too.

Other thoughts are welcomed but please don't attack me. I'm only trying to really understand my role in all that went wrong. I am feeling right now like some of my actions really were full blown and/or borderline abusive and if so these are things I need to work on to avoid in the future. Having been cheated on by my ex husband through online dating sites did not give me the right to monitor xabf's computer usage while we're together.

tjp613

Congratulations -- this sounds like major progress to me!! Keep up the good work!

nothappy

Sounds like you cared a lot more than I do or just hang onto hope with more determination than I do. Maybe some of your responses to his alcoholism could be considered abusive but they could also be considered emotional self defense as well. Maybe not very effective self defense bet still...

I try really hard to be who I want to be despite AH. It's so hard sometimes. I don't yell, scream, throw things... because that's not who I want to be. I don't worry about what he's doing or with who because, I have no control over his behavior. I don't check his computer or phone because I already know he's a pathological liar, I don't need anymore information to prove it. I do tell him I'm not talking to him about something because he's drunk and completely unreasonable... sometimes I don't say it quite so nicely. And sometimes I get so depressed I can hardly get off the couch. Maybe I should yell, throw things and watch his every move instead.

I don't think I'm less of a co-dependent than you or that you are more abusive than me, only that we have been given hard challenges we've responded to as best we can in our own ways. My way is to make the best I can of a bad situation for as long as I can. Maybe I'm not abusive, just pathetic. I could see how many of the things did would make you feel like you had some control over the situation for both of your sakes. Don't be hard on yourself for having tried to find solutions to an unsolvable problem... and maybe getting mad sometimes. We all have to do whatever we can to try to take care of ourselves. If we're not hurting anyone else, so what. Did you hurt the poor, defenseless alcoholic or did the alcohol do it?

In the end, all you can do is take care of yourself as best you can and maybe, if you work hard and are lucky, be the best person you can be.

Still Waters

Controlling and obsessive - sounds like the definition of co-dependency I've read.

If the first step is admitting we are powerless - and you hadn't yet taken that step - then you still thought you could control him. Which, as we know, doesn't work too well

To give a little perspective as far as the controlling finances goes: I never knew when the debit or credit card would stop working, he'd change the pin numbers on me. When the CC stopped working, he went so far as to insist that I needed to call the CC co to get it fixed/changed, all the while he knew I couldn't do that since I was an authorized user on the account rather than a co-owner. I mean, we had a conversation on the phone about it where he told me he had just gotten off the phone with the CC co and they told him I needed to call. So not only had he changed the pin number, he was blatantly lying to me. So when I explained what the CC co had told me (that I couldn't make any changes to the account) he basically said I was incompetent and an idiot.

I ended up thinking I wasn't capable of having a normal conversation over the phone with a credit card company. That I was incapable of explaining clearly the problem.

Live

I thank you and hope we get some discussion and enlightenment here.

I was in a state of total confusion the entire time I was with my X alcoholic/abusive BF.

I did not know anything about alcoholism or abuse. The messages I received were contradictions...trying to understand how his alcoholism effected me and how the abuse was related. He also painted himself as the victim and blamed me. Trying to defend and protect myself from his alcoholism escalated his abusiveness and blaming me. Some of my defenses were "termed" abusive. Yet, I have the right to protect my money from alcoholism and abuse and I have the right to defend my self bodily and verbally and emotionally from both the alcoholicism and abuse.

Dv counseling helped me understand abuse. Al-anon helped me understand alcoholism.
But the interplay of the two separate issues and how to treat and respond contradict each other.

I spent 2 years after DV counseling and getting out of it all safely....still feeling compelled to try to understand and find out what really happened to me and with me.

Yesterday was the first time I saw this new information and it astounds me.
I have needed this information for over a decade and I, too, am going to be re-sorting and thinking and processing and going over things. Again.

Should I have trusted him? NO! Not with anything!
The healthy thing for me to do would have been terminate the relationship and leave when the alcoholism and abuse reared it's head.
I have spent years wondering why I didn't.
I didn't have weak boundaries with dating relationships before him. Quite the opposite.
I am still learning.
There are innumerable hooks bound up with both alcoholism/codependence. Remember, alcoholism is a family disease. Alcoholism effects the SO in deep and significant ways all over the place and into every part of our lives.
So does abuse.
The biggest mistake I made was thinking the abuse was a result of the alcoholism and that if the alcoholism would get better, that would end the abuse.
I read everything AA and Al-Anon.
I was prevented from going to Al-Anon. I thought he was trying to protect his alcoholism.
Abuse also has a bunch of hooks in it. In fact, at it's root, that is greatly what it is about. Abuse is hooking a hostage into power and control dynamics whereby the victim is truly a victim.
Alcoholic related codependence is an attempt to control the alcholism.
I did not enter that relationship with a mindset to control that person.
The truly abusive personality DOES from the beginning intend to control the person, and reduces them from a person to a posession and believes it has this right of entitlement.
The foremost expert on researching and explaining the abusive personality is Lundy Bancroft. He has a well known book that has been out for a few years. I am sorry I cannot remember the title to it. I know it has been referred to and perhaps cited in some of the stickies.
My favorite book for understanding the verbal, emotional, psychological abuse is an older one by Alice Walker titled "No Visible Wounds." I do not own it for reference. I gave it away to someone still in the mess after I had got out. I think parts of it can be viewed on Amazon.com.
At this time, I believe I was guilty of the codependent type of control tactics as addressed by al-anon.
I did disrespect him as a person, he became the alcoholic to me.
He did have the right to drink and to ruin his life. I did not have the right to try to control him and his alcohol use as I attempted to. Through various means that could be termed abusive but not in the true meaning of ABUSE.
My responses and reactions to his ABUSE were attempts at self-protection, survival, autonomy, independence...in other words, my basic rights to my self. It was self-defense. And everyone has the right to self-defense.
I am not ready to go through it all thoroughly right now down to the nitty gritty details.
But I think a KEY indicator and something to look at and ask ourselves....is:
Do we replicate the same dynamics in every relationship we form?
That clears it up for me.
He does the same thing over and over with every girlfriend. Always has and over a decade later still does. This extends over numerous, and I mean in his case, MANY girlfriend/wives relationships.
This was not true for me. I dated and had relationships. Prior to meeting him, one man slapped me and I ended the relationship on the spot and never looked back. Later, my last husband became ill and he slapped me, I phoned 911 and insisted on pressing charges. I did not try to placate him and all the other dynamics that go with the abusive relationship. I did not want to end the marriage. I wanted us to get help. He chose to divorce me. He now acknowledges that he was ill and had not been himself for sometime and this rings true to me. His personality and behaviors changed drastically.
I did make amends years later to the XAABF for my codependent-abuses.
Another thing to look at is the ABUSIVE personality does not accept blame or ownership of actions or intentions. That personality does not seek help or recovery, they avoid it.
The fact that we are putting our time, effort and energies into looking into what we are or may have done wrong and how we can change ourselves pretty much exonerates us.
The ABUSER does not want to change, they want power and control and believe it is their right and they are entitled to it. The only way you see them in treatment is when they are forced, usually by the law for domestic violence crimes. The success of any treatment is so low that Mr. Bancroft does not seek to rehabilitate the ABUSERS so much as he does to protect the victims from them. They have no motivation to cooperate or change. They believe they are right and what they are doing is their right.

This is what I have learned. So far.

I am very interested in discusion, examination of these issues, and in my own health and well-being as well as others who have or do share my plight.

Thank you again, so much.
This information and discussion topic is long overdue for me. I have been looking to understand what happened within me and to me and it's effect for years now.

Live

Thank you NotHappy and StillWater! I was typing as you posted. Both of you make perfect sense.
It is still hard to keep it all from looping together in confusion in my head!
I guess I am into two different types of recovery, and it is needed, and there is where I still get confused at times.
Which thing in me is an effect of codependence and which is abuse...since they need to be looked at differently.???????

Still Waters

I agree, that we have to deal with them individually - co-dependency and the abuse issues. It's confusing.

I just had a thought, this new thing from my AH, him asking for permanent alimony, is merely another way for him to control me. How better to track me and my movements than to keep me tethered to him in that way? It just continues.

CatsPajamas

One of the recurring themes at my Al Anon meetings is this: if you want to know if there is alcoholism in a home, watch the partner/spouse/boyfriend. Often that person is the one with the more public and truly bizarre and crazy behaviors. In our situation, I was the one running around trying to make sense out of things that didn't make sense and trying to keep order in a life that was twirling out of control.

I've lived in craziness, abuse, isolation. I remember questioning my own sanity and mental health more than once. I remember being terrified - paralyzed- if I had to make a decision because if I made the wrong one, all H*LL would break loose.

Some of my behaviors were nasty for sure, and I had some shame as a result. By working my own program of recovery, I had the opportunity to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.... and later on in the program I had the opportunity to make amends when possible (except when to do so would injure myself or others)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is light and life on the other side, and this recovery stuff works if you work it.

Cats

Ago

By the end I was displaying all of the behaviors I found so disturbing in her, I had become what I would consider "abusive" and even typing that I choke and want to write "yeah but yeah but"

I thought I had gone crazy, and I called all of my ex-girlfriends to find out what I was, who I was, and had I ever displayed these qualities before, but upon reassurance, still was afraid, I had become someone I didn't recognize

This is why I guess I get "triggered" here with some posts, my exagf fingerpointed and blamed me constantly for everything under the sun, and although at first it wasn't true, by the end it was, the abuse made me into an angry person I didn't recognize any more, and it was this incessant barrage and litany of blame and abuse and gaslighting that as long as there was "blame" it would just "loop" in my head, and once I removed myself, read this article I could go about changing myself back into the person who I had always been, it didn't matter any more who had set the fire, the important thing was I was on fire and I needed to

A put it out

B make the necessary changes to insure no one ever lit me on fire again.

What saved me, I mean literally saved me was this article:

Physical & Emotional Abuse Discussions at DailyStrength: Worth Reading and re-posting...

If you are wondering if you suffered from emotional abuse I beg you to read this article, it saved my life and sanity

sailorjohn

Well, have spent a lot of time as a 'victim' and carried a lot of unearned guilt, not sure if I'd be willing to spend a lot of time blaming myself. I'm thinking for myself, it might be more useful to accept that my behavior was/is unhealthy, and let it go at that.

Ago

For me abuse is abuse, no matter what the reason, she ALWAYS had a "reason" and an excuse for her abuse, and for me there is NO excuse for tolerating or committing abuse no matter what.

For me There is no such thing as "justifiable" abuse, ever, not for any reason, that's like "I hit her because she deserved it", no not gonna happen, not gonna be tolerated, not gonna be allowed.

This is a bottom line for me, as long as I justified either my or her behavior it was OK for it to continue, this will never take place to me, near me, by me, or around me for the rest of my life.

Period.

Things like "my abuse of him/her is justified because _________" is something that makes me bare my teeth in fear, this statement terrifies me

Laverene

Although the 'fault' is something I try and take out of the equation I feel the same way.

My ex, one night, when we were fighting, picked up our yellow lab and slammed him into the wall, kneeing him as he did it. This was the first and last time any physical violence occurred in the house.

I go over that night sometimes still. He had released the dog and neither one of us (the dog or I) were in danger but I punched my bf a couple of times before I regained control.

I'd love to claim self defense but it wasn't. I hit out of anger. That night I became physically abusive. And by my standards, that is not okay.

I also monitored my ex's activities in several ways, violating his privacy. And by my standards, that is not okay - but this went on for years.

This last relationship came to a crumbling halt in part because I found myself being lied to about his alcohol consumption and when my house guest left the house, I checked his bags and found two bottles hidden in the bottom. I stopped myself right there and decided if the relationship makes me feel that I need to violate someone's privacy, somethings got to give. The truth was he had already put me and my animals in danger via his drinking. He was lying. I knew those things before I snooped.

This is the difference between me now and me then. Then I stayed and snooped, then I found myself hitting back and justified it all - now I refuse to be that person. I didn't like the suspicious, confused, scared, wrapped up in untrustworthy situations woman I was for so many years. I take other options now which in this last relationship was to walk away.

I won't lower my standards and myself anymore. I won't justify my behavior by someone elses.

Laverene

Yes I did leave after 7 years. I left 20lbs underweight, throwing up every morning and night, choking on my food and feeling like I was suffocating some nights my acid reflux was so bad. Panic attacks that I mistook for heart attacks. Zero self esteem, angry, scared, confused. I was shattered, a shell of the person I once was.

If that helps you understand any of where some of my motivation lies in taking an inventory of my actions and beliefs. I will not end up that way again. It has taken me years to unravel the damage done in that relationship. I'm still working on it.

The thing about the attack on the dog is that most people seem to have that first knee jerk reaction that you have. If someone hurt my kids/animals I would hurt them back. I too, felt justified for a long, long time about it. But when the smoke cleared, I spent a lot of time thinking about physical abuse. For me, hitting out of anger is NOT okay. I don't give two flips what the other person does, it doesn't justify my behavior.

A lot of that comes down to reclaiming my boundaries as well. This is you - this is me. I control me and the person I am. You don't get to take me down with you.

Still Waters

For me, violence in self defense is fully justified. Whether that be defending me, my child, someone abusing my animal, or someone abusing someone around me - say..an infant.

ElegantlyWasted

I try to keep it as simple as possible. I know I can't control what I can't control. Eventhough my inability to sometimes drives me crazy. I ultimately focus on the simple question of whether or not I trust my girlfriend or I. I do. It ultimatly means that I have faith in her. If someone is sociopathic enough (alot of addicts are),they can pull off all kinds of crap and lie about it. Look at the real evidence; if you're not comfortable w it you should leave For me it was a real struggle early on as my GF is a professional match maker and does meet w clients at bars. When I think about it I know it is business, period. I make the conscious decision to trust and have faith in her and leave it at that. Serenity prayer in action!!

Laverene

That's why I'm careful with saying hitting out of anger. The thing is in this situation, I didn't strike out to protect anything, the danger had passed, I was just pissed. I think that's the distinction that gets lost when I relay the story. I could have easily and safely walked out of that house with my animals but I choose to hit back. I'm not okay with that decision I made.

Hopefully, that makes sense.

I once hit another ex whose response to me breaking up with him was to strangle my kitten. I have no remorse over that. I had two choices, physically intervene or watch him break her neck. I am comfortable with what I did in that situation.

Although, I must add that he then turned that violence on me and I came close to being murdered that night. Violence to pets/children is a tactic used by some abusers to control via fear and/or incite you to violence so they can feel justified in coming after you directly.

In both these cases, I could have protected my pets proactively by making better choices in who I subjected them to. From my viewpoint, these events didn't just happen in a vacuum. All I can do is make better choices in the future.

Still Waters

I think we all should have a punching bag in our garage or spare room Good exercise.

Bolina

To me it comes down to the Golden Rule. Treat others as I would wish to be treated myself.

Have I always lived like that? Hell, no. Do I live entirely to that rule now? No. Am I aware of how I act and make amends when I fall short? I'd like to think so.

Moral relativism doesn't sit very well with me. He/she did X, so I am perfectly justified in doing Y (when Y is something like snooping, hitting, bitching, or some other disfunctional behavior in which I would not normally partake) - that kind of mindset gets me nowhere except yet more pain.

Boundaries work much more effectively. And are entirely within my control, rather than relying on someone else to comply to rules.

kv816

I'm just now reading that article and my eyes are bobbing up and down. lol I don't have time to finish it (have to hop in the shower for work) so I'll have to late. But a lot of what's being said in this article is jumping out at me. I see myself having done a lot of those things, mainly out of anger and aggravation at xabf. The one that really got me was making plans to do something, him not doing it but then twenty minutes later he's off with someone else doing it. That seemed to happen a lot. But I never (and still don't) really think of it as abuse. The fact is, here it's me. There it's whoever AND a case of beer. So it wasn't so much that he didn't want to be with me, it's that he wanted to have his beer. Because I was always second best to his fix.

I'm going to finish this article later. Thanks for posting it.

JenT1968

yep me too, I've said it before, I do react in abusive ways with partners when threatened and not wholly concentrating. Is this a pattern for me? I think so, I am attracted to, and attractive to, unhealthy people. The react to me with unhealthy abusive, learned behaviours, and I sling it straight back.

My intention isn't to belittle or abuse or control or confuse, my parents had these behaviours in their relationship, this is how I learned to be a "partner", my intention is to do "what I have to do" to "defend" myself when attacked. Outcome is the same though isn't it?

This isn't a comfortable place to be, and in all honesty, its uncomfortable because I don't like to think of myself as abusive, not because I feel sorry for those I've hurled this crap at (which is on that list too isn't it).