PieRat

Yikes, that is freaky.

theuncertainty

I think this part completely fits my STBXAH. I think he likes to see himself as the protector. We would argue (about his alcoholism and our related behaviors/actions) and at about a foot-and-a-half taller than me, stand in my face and he would loom over me, tense his shoulders/arms/fists, turn away/walk out suddenly. Just leave. He would come back to me with he would NEVER hit me and tell me the story where long ago he went after and beat up his sister's boyfriend with a bat when he hit her. It was never reassuring. He threatened to kill himself if I left.... He forced me. He scared me. I'd try to do the dishes or clean the kitchen and he'd yell at me until I'd 'hide' in the bedroom.

I'm confused. I'm gone. Been gone. I'm safe. I'm still scared, but I'm still having a hard time deciding whether 'yes he was emotionally abusive', or 'no, I was and still am too sensitive and he's right: I'm seeing it wrong. It was just the alcohol'. I'm so glad I have a counseling session in a couple hours.

Still Waters

BTW, the links here won't work for me.

I get:
Still Waters, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Jenny1232

I have these same thoughts/feelings. I just started reading the book, "verbal abuse survivors speak out" and everything you listed indicates, YES, HE WAS ABUSIVE... I know it's hard to accept... Describing what you described sounds like abuse to me.

transformyself

Wow. Great Thread! I can't believe some of the horrific scenarios posted here. Makes my blood boil.

This helped a lot. With the exception of a history of alcohol abuse, AH doesn't fit these described characteristics. I think that's the bottom line. He's not an abuser, we just had a very sick relationship. Maybe he could develop into one, with the right person. We were together 13 years and yeah they sucked in a lot of ways, but he had never behaved that way before. I think personally it was the combination of him hiding his affair and my relentlessness that created the dynamic between us. I wasn't myself, certianly, crying constantly and begging him to just care about me. Ugh, it makes me want to vomit now. He was riding the wave of control all right, and I handed it right over to him. I think that's why when I took my power back, there was no struggle about it. I just loaned it to him for a minute, that **** was mine!

Sure he was a drunk, cheating ******* at that time, but he in no way fits the bill of a classic dominator/ abuser. He's kind to animals and children, avoids weapons, avoids sports and other dominating games and guys who are macho, is generally gentle and thoughtful, gay guys love him because he's gentle and adorable. He IS however an A and that keeps twisting about who he is. Keeps changing that brain chemistry.

My sister is married to a scary, clever, manipulative abuser that had me fooled for years. She was in danger when she left him, still could be, depending on how drunk he gets or how he cycles up. And my cousins best friend was murdered at 8 months pregnant by the abusive boyfriend she had just left. It was horrible. He told her he'd kill her if she left, and did. Killed her and her unborn baby.

AH has never said anything like that to me. Never threatened to kill me if I left him, never tried to control who I talk to or what I do, but he does try to control me in other ways. He is passive aggressive but when I create a boundary, he respects it. Especially since that incident I described two years ago.

If anything, I could have been catagorized as an abuser, what with all my controlling and dominating behavior. I even seriously thought about running him over with the car during his affair! That's how sick I was!

JenT1968

verbal abuse is abuse and shouldn't be "put up with" but it doesn't automatically escalate. It is a risk factor that identifies people who are more likely to escalate into physically/sexually violent behaviour. There are others.

If it were a sure-fire predictor of violent behaviour we could have task forces primed to swoop in and lock-up verbally abusive people.

Crossing the line into physical and sexual abuse is a very significant step for both the abuser and the one on the receiving end. Odds are that if a woman fears she would be in danger if she leaves or attempts to enforce a boundary then she is right to fear that and needs specialist help to extract herself from the situation. Clearly some people also need help realising that they are fearful.

From my reading of your situation, you were confused, in enormous pain because of his affair, and continuing contact with this woman. He was verbally abusive and you were afraid, but the focus of your fear was that he would leave you, was continuing the affair. I don't get the feeling that you were afraid (either overtly or subconciously) he would escalate into violent behaviour and maim or kill you or your children if you attempted to stand up to him, you were afraid that if you stood up to him, he would cease to love you. Am I right? In which case your internal, subconcious analysis of the dynamic appears to be correct; he de-escalated. We have to trust other women's internal assessment of their dynamic, after-all they are the one's who have lived it minute to minute and picked up on all the minutiae that cannot be expressed to people outside of a relationship, or even conciously processed.

Some men won't ever de-escalate. for some, walking away the very first time any red flag rears, even within your first ever conversation, won't be quick enough. fortunately they are not the norm.

There is a saying that "we teach people how to treat us": I don't believe that personally. In my experience people act towards others according to their own agenda, if you have to enforce a boundary (as opposed to explaining to someone that you don't like something fairly innoccuous, which they couldn't have known, and them being apologetic and never doing it again), you are in some way removing yourself from the effects or vicinity of their behaviour not "teaching" them to behave in a way you prefer. In reality, no-one needs to be told that threatening to kill your wife isn't a fun thing to hear. In your ex's case he might still be screaming abuse at women he is intimate with, you've removed yourself from his list, so you are no longer in the firing line.

ElegantlyWasted

"Why wasn't I killed? Why didn't my standing up to him escalate the situation, instead of de-escalate it?"

Personally I think alot of it is cya on the part of both public an private health care professionals. Violence should not be tolerated at all. The person subject to violence ships leave as soon as possible and get help. Only a very small fraction of a percentage results in really bad stuff, hut enough so that it matters. Verbal abuse and heated conversations can involve a very fine line and that line varies considerably per relationship. It's like the legal definition of assault; if it exists in your mind (you feel you are being abused) you are. My girlfriends son was exposed to daddy beating mommy until the age of two. It's scary, he manipulates his mother in the same way, has threatened suicide, and destroyed interior house doors in rages. He also tried to pick a fight with me because I asked him to go a little under 20 mph over the speed limit in a residential zone. He reason to mom was that "he egged me on". Got him in to counciling, he is basically a good kid at 20 and wants his rages to stop. If this falls apart and the cycle continues to repeat, I'm gone. Right now I'm willing to do what I can.

hadenoughnow

Sometimes the abuser does not resort to violence because they have experienced negative consequences in the past. My exah spent 5 days in jail for fighting when he was very young (before I met him) so he learned that if you hit people you go to jail.

That did not stop him from abusing me in other ways including threatening to commit suicide or take our son if I left him. Eventually he had no reason to threaten me as he thought I would never leave him (alcoholic denial at it's finest). For years I walked around on eggshells trying to keep him happy, after all he had so many problems (he is what Lundy Bancroft categorizes as the "sensitive" and "victim" types of abuser).

When I tried to detach the crap really hit the fan, and it got even worse when I filed for divorce. At one point before he moved out I was picking up the phone and getting ready to call 911 on almost a daily basis. He would follow me around the house, wake me up every hour at night, take my keys, stole my mail etc.

That is why leaving is the most dangerous time, the abuser realizes they are losing control.

I still have issues with exah harassing me by phone after being divorced almost two years (we have a 16 year old son) . He does not do it frequently enough for me to get a restraining order though. I let all his calls go to VM and keep the recordings just in case. He is still angry that he "lost" and that is scary to me.

theuncertainty

Ditto. I can view the Tips on leaving an abusive relationship, but get the same message as Still Waters for the other links.

Bolina

Some brilliant insights on this thread. You're all on form today!

Setting boundaries is a tricky one when abuse is involved. I am a big one for boundary setting but am aware that the most dangerous times for women in domestic violence situations is when they are pregnant and when they leave (the consequence part of boundary setting in action).

Domestic violence (and violence against women generally) is a massive problem, although murder is still (thankfully) relatively rare. Whilst there are steps that can be taken to minimise risk, let us not forget that violence against women by men would stop if these men stopped committing violence against women.*

I am doing some fact finding on the stats and their sources at the moment, but can share these from the US as a starter:

* On the average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day.

* 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.

* 1 in 5 female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. Abused girls are significantly more likely to get involved in other risky behaviors. They are 4 to 6 times more likely to get pregnant and 8 to 9 times more likely to have tried to commit suicide.

* 1 in 3 teens report knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, slapped, choked or physically hurt by his/her partner.

* As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.

* Ninety-four percent of the offenders in murder-suicides were male.

* Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96 percent were females killed by their intimate partners.

* Most murder-suicides with three or more victims involved a “family annihilator” — a subcategory of intimate partner murder-suicide.Family annihilators are murderers who kill not only their wives/girlfriends and children, but often other family members as well,before killing themselves.

* Seventy-five percent of murder-suicides occurred in the home.




*I am aware that there is women on men violence too, although the figures show that most male victims of partner violence are in same-sex relationships. There is also women on women same sex violence and I am trying to source figures on those too so I can understand the full picture.

theuncertainty

Thanks for the book name, Jenny. I'll start looking for a copy.

keepinon

Looming over you in threatening manner, pulling phone from wall to prevent calling for help, grabbing arms to prevent moving, pushing, Threats about taking children, money, cars, phones, threats to harm your pets, other family members, your reputation at work or in the community, threats to harm self, blocking exits, preventing you from sleeping,cutting off your access to money, forcing you to have sex, these are ALL forms of abuse. They don't have to be punching you in the face.. its about CONTROL and that's ALL it is about. Not love, not booze.. just CONTROL.

bookwyrm

Bolina, after reading your stats I'm staying single forever.... Sometimes it feels like society hates women. Sigh.

transformyself

Jen you really laid it out for me. Thank you.

Dont' give up bookwyrm, don't let this depress you, all though I understand the compulsion. I work in a social justice field where we're fighting against horrific "societal norms' as well. I try to keep working and stay peaceful and positive, even when examining the facts.

I believe we live in a society that replicates the dominator model of society. If you're a reader, and have some extra time, read Dianne Reislers "The Chalice and The Blade," an amazing re-look at our historical roots as a world wide society that asserts there once were peaceful, woman-led societies here on Earth that shared resources and lived in a free, open society.

Here's a review from Amazon, because my brain isn't working yet without coffee;

Women played leading roles in the first Christian communities; Jesus' teachings had a feminist bent; ancient Hebrews worshipped the prehistoric goddess-mother well into monarchic times; and Nazis, with their system of male dominance, were a direct throwback to the Indo-European or Aryan invaders whom they crudely imitated. These controversial ideas and findings suggest the thrust of Eisler's highly readable synthesis. She convincingly documents the global shift from egalitarian to patriarchal societies, interweaving new archeological evidence and feminist scholarship. In her scenario, as women once venerated were degraded to pawns controlled by men, social cooperation gave way to reliance on violence, hierarchy and authoritarianism. The book, despite its jargon, is an important contribution to social history. Eisler wrote The Equal Rights Handbook.

DesertEyes

Hi there Transforme

ok, I am one of those folks, I'll see what I can do.

Because that's the way it _always_ happens. Women who get killed by their abusive husbands only get killed _once_. And that is on the _one and only_ time the violence escalated to the point of murder. Nobody ever gets killed the first time, or the second, or many many times after that. You only get killed the _last_ time.

See, _all_ alcoholics start that way. Every single alcoholic on the planet started out life as a perfectly normal baby. The whole problem with alcohol addiction, and any other addiction for that matter, is that it is a _progressive_ condition. They _all_ get worse eventually. The trick is that you never know how long that eventually is going to be.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If he's done it before, he'll do it again. If he's still drinking then sooner or later it will get worse. The only way to stop the slow, deadly progression is to get into recovery and stay on it. The only way to not go down the "down escalator" is to get on the other one

ok, turn it around then. Imagine this scenario :

What if he had been doing his usual behavior, followed you out to the car as you got in, started pounding on the hood while you started the engine....

and you were totally blind drunk?

What are the chances the alcohol in _your_ brain would have given you just that little, tiny push to just nudge that gas pedal just a little bit? Just to scare him. Nothing more.

Honestly now.

That is how must women die. When the partner is blind drunk, didn't _want_ to kill her, just wanted to scare her, just a little. He swung his fist at her shoulder, but he was so drunk he got her right on the temple and killed her. He just shoved her against the wall, but he was so drunk he didn't realize she was wearing heels so she tumbled down the stairs and broke her neck.

That put an end to it ..... _that_ one time. Alchoholism is progressive, there will be another time. And another. What about the next time? and the one after that?

No woman has ever been killed because of what happened the _last_ time. They always die because they failed to predict what would happen the _next_ time. The ones that survive are the ones that get out _before_ there is a "next time".

Am I making sense with all that? It's hard to explain with just text on a 'puter.

Mike

transformyself

Of course you make sense Mike but I think you have me confused with someone else. Did you read my post?

You know that seperation between an abuser and a drunk that folks keep talking about? That "alcohol doesn't make an abuser an abuser, it may amplify it but he's an abuser, that's why he did it!" That sort of thing?

There have been no incidents like that since i stated my boundaries. None. And I don't know if I made this clear, but even though he was getting more verbally abusive, there was never physical abuse between us. Nothing like what you're describing, like what others have described here.

For instance, this
never happened. This does not in any way describe AH's "usual behavoir." This doesn't describe a one time behavior. Ever. The incident where he said, "I"m going to kill you if you don't stop crying," happened when I was following him, crying and yelling at him


NOT THAT I WAS IN IN WAY SHAPE OR FORM RESPONSIBLE FOR HIM SAYING THAT, but AH has never followed me aggressivly, or exhibited any of the classic abuser behavior folks talk about, and I don't believe he will. If he chooses to keep drinking he'll kill himself slowly and lose his memory and get confused but I don't buy that just because you're an alcoholic, you become abusive.

Yes, he's raged at me for stuff, which is one of the reasons we're not in a relationship, we don't respect each other. And Lordy when he was still in his affair, I let him rage at me all the time because I was afraid he'd go back to the homeless **** he was seeing. But that is why when put my boundaries in place, he respected them, and still does. Now a days, if he gets loud, I just say, I gotta go, and he respects my boundaries. There's no mysterious, scary life threatening situation brewing out there that I just odn't kow when it will strike.

I don' t believe all alcoholics turn into abusers. Sure, they're twisted and get more so as the disease progresses, but we teach people how to treat us.

Soooo, thank you for that analogy, but seriously, you don't have to worry about me. But I"m glad to see your cute little helmet head again...

DesertEyes

Yup. I did. Several times. Very carefuly. Thing is, I can't hear your voice, I can't tell if there's tears in your eyes when you say those words, can't see if your hands are shaking, or maybe you're rolling your eyes and laughing.

So that gives me _two_ things to worry about.

First, the fact that you are even _thinking_ of possible violence. That alone worries me, because normal people in normal relationship don't _ever_ think of that. Because I can't _see_ you and _hear_ you, I decided to answer your question on the safe side. I'd rather make the mistake of being too cautious than not enough.

Second, there are a _lot_ of folks who read these posts but never write. And the posts live forever on the internet, people pull them up years and years after they are written. So I'm thinking of all the women who are reading SR on their cellphones, hiding under the bedsheets so their abusive husbands won't find out. I'm writing for them too.

Yeah, you did. And I truly hope he never does.

well hold on a sec. Now you are confusing me. As far as I can tell he is showing _one_ behavior for sure. He drinks.

oh I agree completely. Totally. My point is that just because you're an alcoholic, you're going to get worse. "worse" depends on the individual, and how _quickly_ they get worse also depends on the individual. And yes, many alkies never become abusive.

That's what worries me. Raging is another classic abuser behavior. I see _two_ such behaviors; he drinks and he rages. If he follows the common pattern, both his drinking and his raging will get worse.

Good. I'm really glad to hear that. Here's something that I learned from a teacher many moons ago. Treat it like the gas in your car. Today it's good, but if you give it enough time it won't be good. So keep an eye on it because given enough time it _will_ change.

only cuz I care about you You've got a really big heart and you're always reaching out to people in pain around here.

* lol * Yeah that cute little helmet head avatar was made for me when I started dating my lovely lady, who's a biker chick. I had to learn all about that whole social culture. I was in a bit of culture-shock there.

Mike

transformyself

Oh, I see. What got me thinking about this was Buffalos post about how her husband is abusing her. I told her just to put boundaries in place, like I did, but that wasn't right. Looking at the thread, and many others like it, I realized my situation was different than these classic domestic violence situations. For all the reasons we've discussed here.

This happened years ago with my AH, before I left, but not immediatly before I left him. My standing up to him and reestablishing my boundaries stopped that verbal abuse. It's a boundary I still hold, and he respects, which is what confused me. I was thinking about that time in our lives and wondering what the hell? Why did we have that and it turned out so differently than any of the other situations I'm reading about?

That's why I was thinking of it.

I remember one of my oh so many threads that was justifiably locked, and you gave me the chills by scolding us for fighting on line and taking up your time. when there were women fighting for their lives from abusers. I was glad you made that boundary because i remember and respect it.

Nice that your icon was made especially for you. I really like it.

JenT1968

to be fair, actually, what stopped that verbal abuse was him making a decision to stop it after you clearly described what your boundary was. He didn't put you in the position of having to enforce the boundary. Make no mistake, I did the same thing, I did not have the same outcome.

aboutdone

Hi Transform,

I lived with an abuser for 15 years, emotionally, verbally, and physically. He was/is an alcoholic and also passive aggressive. I have 3 children with him. We have been divorced for 4 years.

I've had full bottles of beer thrown at me, punched in the back of the head, slammed into the wall, choked out so many times I lost count, and a loaded gun held to my head. My car has dents in it where he kicked or punched it, as I was driving away from him while he was raging.

I have been called every name ever created and then some.

I had a restraining order on him for a year after the divorce was filed.

What I learned in counseling is this.....although it was not my fault he was an abuser, the reason he tended to abuse, was because I was nagging at him or demanding he answer a question of mine. Passive aggressives do not deal with this well, and I could and can out talk/ out debate anybody. So he would get so upset with himself that he couldn't compete he would many times choke me to just get me to shut up. It was all his own feelings of insecurity/inadequacy, etc.

When I finally filed a restraining order, and had him thrown in jail for slapping me to the floor, he finally realized I was serious, and I wasn't taking anymore crap from him. That was 4 years ago. Since then he has a new GF and at visitation pick up with the kids he has always made it a point to let me know he has changed and he doesn't get mad anymore.

Well, thats all good, except, he does. As long as I don't engage in a touchy subject with him everything is fine, but the minute I tell him no, his eyes change like a chameleons and he has to storm off. He hasn't changed, just the dynamics have.

My personal opinion is that while you were in the crying/begging state your AH couldn't stand it. It causes them to have so much pressure internally knowing that they are the cause of your pain, but refusing to accept it, and they lash out, at us. They project their inner feelings on us, instead of themselves, and of course add alcohol and it amplifies.

I think with your explanation that at best he was a big bully, and you called him out. Once a bully realizes they can't push you around anymore, they stop. All bark and no bite, you know?

I also think, that when we move on with our lives, set boundaries, and no longer engage in the games, they come to respect us. That is if they aren't truly abusive people.

Don't get me wrong, abuse is abuse, but there are people that just are bullies, there are people that simply intimidate because they can, and then there are the truly evil people that are purely abusive by nature.

Very often, we are able to lead our A's to sobriety, simply by finding recovery for ourselves. We lead by example. Once they see we have serenity, they start wanting it to.

One of the things I read on the Divorce Busting website, in relation to walk away spouses or otherwise known as those that have checked out of the marriage and are actively involved with someone else is this....To salvage that relationship, and get your marriage back, the best odds are to quit being the cry baby, the nag, the one who is so broken hearted, and get a life. It is so hard to do when your world is crashing around you, but if you can abstain from those actions, it takes the pressure off the spouse and they gravitate back towards you, instead of running away from you.

Seems in your scenario, that is probably what happened. Once you set the boundary, and basically portrayed a backbone to him, he started respecting you as an individual and probably more so, because it alleviated a lot of stress in his life. Make sense?

Thanks to the lovely curse that daughters marry men like their Fathers, I have spent my entire life, dating, or being married to bullies or abusive men. There is a difference. In recent months I have learned how to set boundaries, how to walk away when I need to, how to detach, and how to love from a distance. I also know now, what things I do that escalate bad situations, and work on that as well.

I don't think that a true abuser, ever learns. In fact the statistics state very few of them are rehabilitated even with intense counseling. It has also been determined, that it is rare for a person to enter back into a physically abusive relationship with the person that abused them in the past, and not be abused again, usually because the triggers are there.

I guess that is like expecting a recovered alcoholic to go to a bar day in and day out and never relapse. The likelihood of that happening is minimal.

I don't know if any of this makes much sense to you, bottom line, I think he just realized he couldn't bully you anymore, and so he stopped. It wasn't necessarily a need/control issue to the point of having a disorder. He just did it because previously it was allowed, and then you no longer allow it.