How can I fix this?

paulineb_2

chonorla wrote: »

balletshoes I agree with you totally.

This makes me so sad I grew up with an abusive father and I cannot tell you the amount of long term damage it has done to me. Your girls are living this hell too and yet still you do not see the damage it is doing, particularly to them.

"Telling" your daughter to not argue because she is "a cheeky madam" ??????? His behaviour is excused again, even towards your daughter.

I seriously hope you find a way out of this x

No, she didnt tell her daughter not to argue because shes a cheeky madam, shes told her daughter not to argue to save her (not the daughter), getting more abuse when the kids are in bed.

justme111

He is not behaving like a 12yo one. He is behaving like a complete scambag. You may behave like that as well but the fact that you do it does not excuse his doing it so not sure why you continuously say how bad you are. Well done starting counselling.

heartbreak_star

It actually took someone to say "Just look at what he's done to you" and hand me a list of how I'd changed for me to make the break.

I never realised this girl took a massive chance by doing this - she thought she'd lose me as a friend forever. I needed someone to stand up to me and all my excuses. Softly-softly sometimes works...but not always.

I hope you and your mum are OK now Paulineb.

HBS x

balletshoes

Anon34 wrote: »

I want to point out. That when I heard him say those things I jumped to my daughters defence. I told him to shut his mouth, however, once they were in bed I got the its your fault she behaves like that, you never say anything when she's cheeky, you don't put her in line. Great mother you are,

It's difficult to explain, but I want my children to have a family, I didn't have that and I wanted it for them so much, I failed once and desperately tried to hold on to this.

I still don't think you're anywhere near ready to listen and hear this OP - but I just want to run one more thing by you.

If you only heard your OH once say those things to your daughter, you can bet everything you hold dear that its not the first, or last, time he's said that kind of thing to her out of your hearing.

He is abusing her, he is abusing you, and he'll start on his own child too.

You want your girls to have a family where they can't express themselves, where they cower and tread on eggshells, because thats what their mum has shown them? You want them to be damaged and have as many insecurities in their lives as you had/have in yours?

paulineb_2

heartbreak_star wrote: »

It actually took someone to say "Just look at what he's done to you" and hand me a list of how I'd changed for me to make the break.

I never realised this girl took a massive chance by doing this - she thought she'd lose me as a friend forever. I needed someone to stand up to me and all my excuses. Softly-softly sometimes works...but not always.

I hope you and your mum are OK now Paulineb.

HBS x

Yes, it was a long time ago. Just over 30 years. Ive spoken a bit about it on other threads.

My mum was very lucky, she got out alive. She eventually managed to get him out by telling family, until then she hadnt and thats why I understand people who actually cant let other people know. You feel that youve failed. Also in my mums case, her dad had died of cancer very suddenly about 6 months before she married my stepdad, my gran was still grieving and she didnt feel she could tell her (although my gran was no fool and never liked my mums second husband).

And people talk about the term gaslighting. My stepdad actually went out of the house, having lit the gas taps on my mums cooker, I was at school, my mum and brother were in the house, she was in bed. My gran came down and smelled the gas and turned it off.
But when he was challenged he accused my mum of being crazy.
He thought my mum had come into money after my grandpa died but it had gone to my gran and thats probably the reason why he married my mum.

After she got him out, she started an advice centre in our home town, through womens aid, not a refuge, but advice, although a couple of women did stay with us when they were fleeing violence.
And sadly, some women died at the hands of their partners, the police having given out information of where they had moved to (wouldnt happen these days due to data protection).

Abuse can happen to anyone. My mum is a strong, intelligent (shes one of the cleverest people I know) and she ended up being abused and was just broken, thats the only way I can describe it.
But she recovered, people do.

Its just not always as simple as getting someone who is abusing you out, its very very complex, Im just happy that my mum got rid of him. Very happy.

chonorla

paulineb wrote: »

No, she didnt tell her daughter not to argue because shes a cheeky madam, shes told her daughter not to argue to save her (not the daughter), getting more abuse when the kids are in bed.

She also said her daughter is fully aware of the arguing and forever being told to be quiet to save her mum???? Does that not put a huge amount of pressure on the daughter?

He calls the daughter a nasty little liar like her mother???

I am sorry but that is not a healthy relationship in the slightest.

Pechow

I wonder if the bus photo incident bothers you so much because it's proof that he's willing to ignore other people's boundaries as well as your own. That woman would feel so violated if she'd known what he did and said about her. He doesn't care, shows off the photo, talks about her like a piece of meat to others.

Please read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_abuse

Acting nice is part of the cycle. It does not make him a good person, a good father, a good husband... none of those things. Lovely people are nice all the time, do not threaten their partners, do not blame them for things like chatting up other women.

balletshoes

paulineb wrote: »

Its not easy being in an abusive relationship. People get so ground down mentally that they cannot get up the courage to leave.
It took my mum two years to get my stepdad out. In those days there were much less support for victims of domestic abuse as domestics were seen as just that, even by the police.

I would be very wary of criticising the OP for not having managed to make the break by now (and Im saying this generally, to everyone who reads this). Sometimes when people are being abused over and over, that is their reality and they actually dont realise the extent they are being abused, bullied, manipulated, particularly if the person giving out the abuse comes over as lovely and charming to everyone else.

People who say (and Im now talking in general), one wrong move and Id be out the door, often havent experienced it themselves.

I'm not disagreeing with you pauline, however I don't think the OP sees any abuse in whats going on in her relationship or her home, and thats what I'm trying to get at.

But I think I'm in a losing battle here, and I'm so upset at the thought of what the children are having to put up with that I'm going to take a break from this thread.

I think of my own daughter, yes she can be a stroppy cheeky mare occasionally, she's 12, she's growing up, but she is free in her own home to express herself to both me and her Dad, home is her haven, her safe place, and thats the way it should be. She isn't afraid of us, she isn't afraid of talking to us. She doesn't feel like she's in the middle, or the cause of, yet another fight between her mum and mum's partner. She doesn't have an adult picking away at her self-esteem telling her she's mental or a nasty little liar.

Blackpool_Saver

paulineb wrote: »

Its not easy being in an abusive relationship. People get so ground down mentally that they cannot get up the courage to leave.


I would be very wary of criticising the OP for not having managed to make the break by now (and Im saying this generally, to everyone who reads this). Sometimes when people are being abused over and over, that is their reality and they actually dont realise the extent they are being abused, bullied, manipulated, particularly if the person giving out the abuse comes over as lovely and charming to everyone else.

exactly.....

paulineb_2

chonorla wrote: »

She also said her daughter is fully aware of the arguing and forever being told to be quiet to save her mum???? Does that not put a huge amount of pressure on the daughter?

He calls the daughter a nasty little liar like her mother???

I am sorry but that is not a healthy relationship in the slightest.

No its not healthy, but as I said before, people can and do get caught up in abusive relationships and those relationships end up damaging the people who are on the receiving end.

I dont know the stats but there are stats about how many times people end up going back to an abuser.

I used to work beside a girl who was abused by an ex. He was a drinker, he had mental health issues. He was jealous, she couldnt go anywhere unless he was with her. She tried to leave him on several occasions but went back and the words she used were, again like I said about my mums experience, broken.

Some people are not in strong frames of mind when they have been ground down by years of abuse. He was jailed in the end for kidnap because he used to go out of the house and lock her in and it was eventually a phone call to her family that got her the courage to get out.

Sometimes people on the receiving end of abuse go through enough without people saying, why cant you do z or y or z?

This is some peoples lives, its their reality. And sometimes people need to have a lightbulb moment and realise it is abuse rather than being told they are to blame, useless, fat, difficult. Try living with that over a period of years and see how mentally strong you are to deal with it.

And yes, my view is she needs to get out of this and get out of this asap. But thats me looking in from the outside. If it were so simple as people telling an abusive partner to go away and packing a case for them, people wouldnt stay in abusive relationships in the first place.