How can I stop blaming myself?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Somers, MT
Posts: 31
How can I stop blaming myself?
My AH and I were together for years. We have 2 small children under the age of 2 together. I have 3 teenagers from a previous marriage. On Wednesday, he got drunk, came home, packed a suitcase and left while I was at a Dr's appt. He has gone to stay with his alcoholic ex girlfriend (whom he shared a teenage son with, although his son is staying with his grandmother and not with them) who split with her husband the week before. My AH is mean. He would say the cruelest, nastiest things to me. Unfortunately, everyone else thinks he is such a nice guy. He plays the victim to everyone and only a few people who truly know him know what he is really like and what I go through with him. I have bipolar disorder. I have recently made the decision to try to get control over it. I have started medication and counseling on my own. I would pick fights with him sometimes about things from the past because we never resolved anything. Anytime I brought up an issue, he would always turn it around on me to deflect focus from him so nothing ever got resolved. He would call or text his ex-girlfriend and meet up with her without me knowing. I would find out, confront him and sometimes he would say he did nothing wrong and other times he would apologize and promise to never do it again. But he would do it again. I asked him not to take my car to the bar. He would still tell his ex he loved her and said there was nothing wrong with that. He promised he would stop, but would do it again. He would talk to his ex about our relationship problems. A few months ago in rehab he promised he wouldn't do it anymore, but it continued. Now that he has left, I find myself taking a lot of blame for provoking arguments that according to him came out of nowhere. Sometimes, I can understand why he thought that but I tried repeatedly to explain to him that because things I had addressed before didn't change or issues were never resolved they still bothered me and sometimes I would just explode because it was driving me crazy. In the weeks before he left I really started to try to make a great effort to work on myself and my issues but he kept throwing in my face that basically because I wasn't fixed, my efforts didn't count. Since rehab, he made no efforts to stay sober or sober up again. Should I really be carrying so much blame for this relationship not working.? It makes me think that because it's my fault, if he comes back, I could possibly cave and let him back home because I feel I screwed this up. If I was nicer, maybe he would have been too. If I tried harder to control my anger, maybe he wouldn't have drank so much or lied to me, etc. The fact is, I tried very hard for 5 years. Although, I did get angry a lot and blow up and start fights, I still put a massive amount into the relationship and supported him and took care of him, etc. He never gave a fraction of what I did. And I think if I behaved better maybe he would have. Just to be clear, I have a wonderful job that supports my family so second-guessing myself isn't about fear over taking care of my family or anything like that. Advice please...
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
No, it isn't your fault. Alcoholics drink, and active alcoholics behave abominably in relationships.
You've got a wonderful job that supports your family, you are getting healthy, WHY would you want this abusive drunk back in your life? Whatever he's telling himself about why he left, the truth is that he found someone more willing (at the moment, anyway) to put up with him. Let HER deal with it while you enjoy some peace from the chaos.
Keep working on your treatment regimen, get healthy, and you can find a partner willing to value you for who you are.
Hugs,
You've got a wonderful job that supports your family, you are getting healthy, WHY would you want this abusive drunk back in your life? Whatever he's telling himself about why he left, the truth is that he found someone more willing (at the moment, anyway) to put up with him. Let HER deal with it while you enjoy some peace from the chaos.
Keep working on your treatment regimen, get healthy, and you can find a partner willing to value you for who you are.
Hugs,
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 16,246
heather....you might want to read the thread that is ongoing, right now, about emotional and physical abuse.....especially, read the article in the link that was posted by L:exie, yesterday......it is excellent.....
How to stop blaming yourself?
I remember from your previous posts that his treatment of your has been cruel to the extreme.
I suggest that you write on a piece of p aper.....words to yourself. Self talk.
Something like this: " He has abused me terribly. He has no right to do that. It is wrong. It is NOT MY FAULT. I did not cause it."
Carry it on your person at all times. Read it and repeat it over and over. Many, many, times. Every time you feel false "guilt".....read it again.
Positive (and truthful) self talk is very powerful.
You may have to repeat this to yourself every day...or many times each day...for weeks.....
do it.
dandylion
****I think you have been abused and mistreated and neglected for so long that you have lost yourself. You are believing his words over YOUR OWN TRUTH. You know the truth and you know what you know. But, you don't trust yourself anymore because your identity and self confidence and self esteem have been stomped into the ground. this is what happens with prolonged abuse....BUT....you can (and will) get it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How to stop blaming yourself?
I remember from your previous posts that his treatment of your has been cruel to the extreme.
I suggest that you write on a piece of p aper.....words to yourself. Self talk.
Something like this: " He has abused me terribly. He has no right to do that. It is wrong. It is NOT MY FAULT. I did not cause it."
Carry it on your person at all times. Read it and repeat it over and over. Many, many, times. Every time you feel false "guilt".....read it again.
Positive (and truthful) self talk is very powerful.
You may have to repeat this to yourself every day...or many times each day...for weeks.....
do it.
dandylion
****I think you have been abused and mistreated and neglected for so long that you have lost yourself. You are believing his words over YOUR OWN TRUTH. You know the truth and you know what you know. But, you don't trust yourself anymore because your identity and self confidence and self esteem have been stomped into the ground. this is what happens with prolonged abuse....BUT....you can (and will) get it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: W Washington
Posts: 11,589
Should I really be carrying so much blame for this relationship not working.?
guess you'd have to ask..........WHAT relationship?
a relation-ship comprises two people in a boat, rowing in tandem to reach a destination. a TEAM. using a football analogy, a team can't be successful if the center turns around and punches the QB in the nose.
guess you'd have to ask..........WHAT relationship?
a relation-ship comprises two people in a boat, rowing in tandem to reach a destination. a TEAM. using a football analogy, a team can't be successful if the center turns around and punches the QB in the nose.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Heather, you are emotionally sliding back and forth between his accusations that you were/are bad and caused the marriage to fail and your own self-knowledge that he was a cruel alcoholic who betrayed you and your marriage many times.
It is like an emotional pendulum where you swing back and forth from the furtherest outpoints - his blame of you versus your belief in yourself - without pause.
You can stop swinging and find your center. Try to write down the truth of what happened. Here are some of the points you've mentioned.
That, from what you have written, is the truth about him. No matter, what the truth is about your own behavior, he has written his own list of who he is, and whatever you did or do, he will still remain who he is.
The question for you is can you heal and grow yourself while still tethered to this man? If the answer is yes, then try to keep him. If the answer is no, then let him go gladly and start to center your own life on how you want to behave, how you want to feel, how you can find and give joy to those you are in relationship with.
From my experience, now three and a half years out of a 20 year marriage to a then abusive alcoholic husband, and from reading these boards, many of us break from our spouses at the point you are at with your husband. At first, we, having been brainwashed, think we are the sole problem. Then, we move into thinking our partner was the whole problems.
Then, as we heal and become more and more who we want to become, we look at our own behavior and see how our co-dependency contributed to the problems of the marriage. This is VERY different from accepting the blame from our alcoholic partners that they did nothing wrong and we did everything wrong. This is true insight that comes of introspection into our own lives, and choosing how we want to course correct to be happier.
It is okay to question and review our own past behavior and understand where we were complicit and where we are not proud of our behavior. We own what we did as much as the alcoholic owns their behavior. The difference is that to change and grow, we need to restructure the way we live, and that is most often done, especially when the alcoholic in our life does not want to stop drinking, on our own.
It begins now with our first reflections of what we wish we had done better, and our growth beyond that accelerates when we are on our own and can more clearly see how we can choose our behavior rather responding in a negative knee-jerk fashion when our alcoholic partner kicks us.
You are not there yet. You are still trying to recapture the fragments of your self identity that he has split apart. Just live through this time period, feel with your heart, but think and take action with your head. From what you say about him, you and your children will be much healthier and happier the farther you move away from his profound disruptive dysfunction and into more stable, happy and functional lives.
If you want to, you can read prior threads that people like me have posted by clicking on our name at the left side of the post box, and choosing prior threads that we have started. It will let you have a look into our past and our progression. You are welcome to do that with my posts. Also, English Garden wrote a superb post in the stickies about "What Abuse Is" and my story is there as well.
Keep posting, keep strong, value and love yourself, and we'll be here for you.
ShootingStar1
It is like an emotional pendulum where you swing back and forth from the furtherest outpoints - his blame of you versus your belief in yourself - without pause.
You can stop swinging and find your center. Try to write down the truth of what happened. Here are some of the points you've mentioned.
- He is an alcoholic.
- He is abusive.
- He is cruel.
- He betrayed your marriage multiple times with his ex girlfriend.
- He gaslighted you. (He shifts your perceptions so that you don't believe what you KNOW happened because he says it didn't)
- He did anything and everything he could to shift his own accountability for his own behavior into blame on you.
- You have Stockholm Syndrome where he, as the powerful "captor" emotionally controls you, then doles out just enough positive to make you think he is on your side.
That, from what you have written, is the truth about him. No matter, what the truth is about your own behavior, he has written his own list of who he is, and whatever you did or do, he will still remain who he is.
The question for you is can you heal and grow yourself while still tethered to this man? If the answer is yes, then try to keep him. If the answer is no, then let him go gladly and start to center your own life on how you want to behave, how you want to feel, how you can find and give joy to those you are in relationship with.
From my experience, now three and a half years out of a 20 year marriage to a then abusive alcoholic husband, and from reading these boards, many of us break from our spouses at the point you are at with your husband. At first, we, having been brainwashed, think we are the sole problem. Then, we move into thinking our partner was the whole problems.
Then, as we heal and become more and more who we want to become, we look at our own behavior and see how our co-dependency contributed to the problems of the marriage. This is VERY different from accepting the blame from our alcoholic partners that they did nothing wrong and we did everything wrong. This is true insight that comes of introspection into our own lives, and choosing how we want to course correct to be happier.
It is okay to question and review our own past behavior and understand where we were complicit and where we are not proud of our behavior. We own what we did as much as the alcoholic owns their behavior. The difference is that to change and grow, we need to restructure the way we live, and that is most often done, especially when the alcoholic in our life does not want to stop drinking, on our own.
It begins now with our first reflections of what we wish we had done better, and our growth beyond that accelerates when we are on our own and can more clearly see how we can choose our behavior rather responding in a negative knee-jerk fashion when our alcoholic partner kicks us.
You are not there yet. You are still trying to recapture the fragments of your self identity that he has split apart. Just live through this time period, feel with your heart, but think and take action with your head. From what you say about him, you and your children will be much healthier and happier the farther you move away from his profound disruptive dysfunction and into more stable, happy and functional lives.
If you want to, you can read prior threads that people like me have posted by clicking on our name at the left side of the post box, and choosing prior threads that we have started. It will let you have a look into our past and our progression. You are welcome to do that with my posts. Also, English Garden wrote a superb post in the stickies about "What Abuse Is" and my story is there as well.
Keep posting, keep strong, value and love yourself, and we'll be here for you.
ShootingStar1
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Pa
Posts: 4,872
heather, I want to say only one thing really. You mention you have bi polar. You mentioned all of those ways that you have tried to resolve the conflicts. I am not seeing you as the one, who has the problem with trying to resolve the conflicts. I think sometimes you might want to hold onto that bi polar for a reason for it to be your fault, so that you can try to fix things. I think that you did all that you could.
I know that I was always looking for things that were wrong in me, so that I could fix that. That wasn't going to work either. It wasn't me, and it wasn't you.
I was depressed when I was married, but you know what, all the anti depressants in the world, would not have made him treat me any better.
PS - I am not in my right mind this week because of contact with my ex, and I don't know if any of this made sense, so if anyone else can expand or make more sense of how we try to find things wrong with ourselves, so that we can blame ourselves, because we can only fix ourselves, I would greatly appreciate it.
I know that I was always looking for things that were wrong in me, so that I could fix that. That wasn't going to work either. It wasn't me, and it wasn't you.
I was depressed when I was married, but you know what, all the anti depressants in the world, would not have made him treat me any better.
PS - I am not in my right mind this week because of contact with my ex, and I don't know if any of this made sense, so if anyone else can expand or make more sense of how we try to find things wrong with ourselves, so that we can blame ourselves, because we can only fix ourselves, I would greatly appreciate it.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 34
There is so much wisdom here...The very fact that YOU are the one doing all the self-reflecting on this relationship - the highs and the lows and where you may have went wrong - speaks tons. HE is not doing that. He isn't doing that now as he runs from his problems and he wasn't doing that then in the midst of your marriage when it required the work to survive.
Please believe me that in normal, loving relationships partners do not run to their ex's for friendship. That is completely disrespectful and he continued to do it even knowing how it affect you. He was simply too selfish, too wrapped up in his own self to care about how it was affecting YOU. That would take ANY sane woman and make her angry, VERY ANGRY. Your anger is 100% understood and justifiable. Your reactions may not have been perfect but NO ONE is perfect and no one can be held to that standard. His consistent disregard for your emotional health and sense of security in the relationship would absolutely make you reactive - they would make anyone highly reactive/angry/explosive. That is YOU trying to be heard, to be validated in your feelings, to be respected in the best way that you knew how to FIX the relationship. Meanwhile, he is actively trying to BREAK the relationship as he continually engages his ex and now has his way of being with her as they are both now "single".
Let her have him. I do not believe that this will turn into a long lasting happy healthy relationship no matter what the two of them believe. Clearly they BOTH have significant issues within themselves to work on and rather than working them thru like YOU are, they are running away not realizing the problem is themselves. Their dopamine levels are probably going crazy and like all addicts they crave the "rush" they get from that. Once that fades, (AND IT WILL!!!!) it will begin to unravel.
Meanwhile, you will be in a much happier, calmer peaceful world and have built up a strong armor around your soul and will realize how this is the best thing that could have ever happened to you. Hugs to you!!!!
Please believe me that in normal, loving relationships partners do not run to their ex's for friendship. That is completely disrespectful and he continued to do it even knowing how it affect you. He was simply too selfish, too wrapped up in his own self to care about how it was affecting YOU. That would take ANY sane woman and make her angry, VERY ANGRY. Your anger is 100% understood and justifiable. Your reactions may not have been perfect but NO ONE is perfect and no one can be held to that standard. His consistent disregard for your emotional health and sense of security in the relationship would absolutely make you reactive - they would make anyone highly reactive/angry/explosive. That is YOU trying to be heard, to be validated in your feelings, to be respected in the best way that you knew how to FIX the relationship. Meanwhile, he is actively trying to BREAK the relationship as he continually engages his ex and now has his way of being with her as they are both now "single".
Let her have him. I do not believe that this will turn into a long lasting happy healthy relationship no matter what the two of them believe. Clearly they BOTH have significant issues within themselves to work on and rather than working them thru like YOU are, they are running away not realizing the problem is themselves. Their dopamine levels are probably going crazy and like all addicts they crave the "rush" they get from that. Once that fades, (AND IT WILL!!!!) it will begin to unravel.
Meanwhile, you will be in a much happier, calmer peaceful world and have built up a strong armor around your soul and will realize how this is the best thing that could have ever happened to you. Hugs to you!!!!
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Texas
Posts: 107
This is such a great thread. I too have a soon to be ex husband who blames me for everything. I was "always starting fights," I was a drama queen, etc. I too am now trying to sort out where I am at fault and where I'm not. I'm finding that my vision and reasoning is so skewed after being in this relationship. I don't know what to believe, and I am not always able to distinguish what is appropriate and what is not.
Manicpanic, I love what you said. The fact that we're the ones self reflecting, trying to own our behavior and see where we need to change, does speak volumes! I don't know what my ex is doing tonight, but I can guarantee that he is not thinking about how he may have been wrong or what he did/didn't do to contribute to the failing of our marriage. He is feeling self righteous and is convinced that everything was my fault.
Anvilhead, I love your analogy! I'm going to steal it (because I love football). The team definitely won't win if you have your center punching your quarterback in the nose :-)
Manicpanic, I love what you said. The fact that we're the ones self reflecting, trying to own our behavior and see where we need to change, does speak volumes! I don't know what my ex is doing tonight, but I can guarantee that he is not thinking about how he may have been wrong or what he did/didn't do to contribute to the failing of our marriage. He is feeling self righteous and is convinced that everything was my fault.
Anvilhead, I love your analogy! I'm going to steal it (because I love football). The team definitely won't win if you have your center punching your quarterback in the nose :-)
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Somers, MT
Posts: 31
I love posting here because everyone here has so much wisdom and advice from experience to offer. Sometimes I find myself posting, like this morning, because I need a pick-me-up or reassurance. I think I really do know in my own head that I did everything I could for the relationship and for him. No matter what I did, though, he would still say to me, "What is it that you really do for me?" It's ludicrous when I think about it. I have supported him in rehab/sobriety about 6 different times. I have paid to support him (because half the time he didn't have a job and when he did he spent all his money on booze and keno). He actually said to me that because I can afford to support him and our family myself, he didn't understand why I need his money. I have catered to him thinking if I took better care of him he would want to be nicer to me. I have tried to encourage him to get and stay sober because our family needs him. I sent him over $1000 in 2 1/2 months during his last stint in rehab for cigarettes, phone cards, and whatever else he bought, then paid $600 for his plane ticket home. I single-handedly cared for our home and 5 children (and sometimes his teenager with the ex mentioned above) while he was gone for 4 1/2 months (because he had moved out 2 months prior to rehab). At no point did he actually seem appreciative or gracious for any of this. He certainly never showed any gratitude or appreciation by being nice or anything. It almost feels like this whole time he acted like I was just supposed to do these things for him. I felt very confused and thought maybe I just hadn't done enough, so I would try even harder. And it never mattered. His attitude was still one that said he was owed this or deserved this and it was just expected of me. It is actually very disgusting to me at this moment that I put up with this for so long. Ugh!!
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Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 34
Heather,
He clearly does not see how great he had it with you - although I suspect that soon he will. How many women are really going to be ok with a dead weight that cannot support himself, that requires rehab, that cannot even handle a household??
You sound like an incredible catch that got into a very bad relationship and you tried your darndest to make it work against all odds.
You DESERVE better - so so so much better than that. You deserve a relationship built on a foundation of mutual respect and trust. One where your qualities are admired and you feel adored, loved and taken care of. That is out there, I promise you. And your ex just gave you the greatest gift of freedom.
You now have the opportunity to truly work on yourself to unravel why you allowed yourself to be treated this way and get back that self-esteem to KNOW that you are worthy of so much more that this one short life has to offer. So many beautiful, brighter days lay ahead of you.
He clearly does not see how great he had it with you - although I suspect that soon he will. How many women are really going to be ok with a dead weight that cannot support himself, that requires rehab, that cannot even handle a household??
You sound like an incredible catch that got into a very bad relationship and you tried your darndest to make it work against all odds.
You DESERVE better - so so so much better than that. You deserve a relationship built on a foundation of mutual respect and trust. One where your qualities are admired and you feel adored, loved and taken care of. That is out there, I promise you. And your ex just gave you the greatest gift of freedom.
You now have the opportunity to truly work on yourself to unravel why you allowed yourself to be treated this way and get back that self-esteem to KNOW that you are worthy of so much more that this one short life has to offer. So many beautiful, brighter days lay ahead of you.
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