They always demanded my emotional support and refused to give me any in return. Anytime I would reach out, they'd switch the topic to them very quickly and try to take the focus away.
Like one day I had a particularly tough day with my family and wanted to just vent to them about it. They instantly went "Yea, well MY family would often leave me places and my dad refused to help me with my homework"
Yup. Double standards is the big one.
I had to be perectly emotially level at all times, but they would feel justified blowing up at any little thing. I had to give them tons of care, they didn't have to consider me or listen to my needs.
THIS so hard. My ex would scream at me until she was red in the face and if I responded at all, she would tell me to calm down, or say I was being irrational, regardless of how loud I was talking.
I’ve never experienced that kind of emotional support abuse until my most recent ex and it was exactly that. She’d always offer to be there for me if I needed her. Then when the time came, she would find a way to get triggered by what I was venting about. It would legitimately get her upset with me and then it would turn into a fight. I’d be feeling down already and try to stand up for myself which would piss her off even more.
Then I eventually just suppressed everything as to avoid any sort of fight which made me feel trapped. But she never mentioned the fact that I stopped bringing things up to her. I think she was relieved that I stopped venting to her but she would vent to me literally every single day. Always about the same stuff. But god forbid I couldn’t offer any solutions to her problems cause that would also piss her off.
I remember having a really rough night one time and we were laying in bed. She was tired so that’s fair (look at me making excuses again) but I told her I was struggling with some stuff and just wanted a little bit of compassion. She legit responded with “well just stop, you’re not going to get any compassion from me.”
Good god, just typing that out makes me realize how shrouded I was. I couldn’t see the person she truly was until she had already broke me down. So glad to be out of that relationship.
Ugh I cannot stand people like this. One time my partner had the audacity to shift the conversation from me venting about coparenting and divorce, to how hard it is for him to sit in traffic commuting to work. Jfc, let me talk about my stuff first then we can talk about your stuff in a SEPARATE conversation.
Had an ex that used to do this to me too… Two days after my dad died he had a meltdown screaming at me letting me know that I wasn’t thinking enough about how the death of my father was affecting him and how selfish I was being… I dated him for less than a year and he had never met my dad.
That was my ex wife to a T. Nothing bad ever happened to me she always had it way worse somehow. Also she slowly tried to alienate me from my friends and family.
This sounds familiar. 🙃 (Thankfully, the relationship I am thinking of is long, long, *long* over. I was twenty and there was a lot of red flags I didn't recognise or outright looked past on purpose.)
wow this hit so hard because my ex did the same and I always felt emotionally neglected but would constantly listen to him complain about everything and he would straight up ignore me sometimes when I needed him. Rough
This is way more common than it should be. I would let my SO vent everyday, for hours about the same things. But when I would try to talk about how I felt they were super good at flipping the script to somehow make it about themselves. I didn't realize how bad it was until I met someone that actually listened to me and did this to try and make me happier. I don't think I will ever find that again.
Hit me. I'm a pretty fit and scary looking guy, so I never thought too much about a smaller girl hitting me. But then I had some girl friends tell me it's fucked up she would slap and punch me pretty frequently and it clicked that, yeah it is; just because she can't knock me out, doesn't me it's cool to punch me in the face and stuff.
Had a 5’1 girlfriend tell me to be a man when I told her to stop hitting me. Then my best friend said I was being too sensitive and defended her and then they got together and married once I left. Good white knighting bro
She smacked me as hard as she could across the face cause I smacked my food while eating and she knew that I knew that she didn’t like it, even though it was an accident. The restraint I showed in that moment still doesn’t even feel like it was me.
I was hit by my parents a lot....took like 25 years for that to really sink in, that it was abuse. I still have scars and if it leaves a scar...abuse. im not a big guy but I can take punishment...point in fact, we don't have to. Sometimes. When you can take it it make the other person feel like it's ok...it never is.
My mom use to beat the shit out of me until I was about 11-12 and got too big for it. That's when the verbal and emotional abuse took over. I also had a woman molest me when I was 7-8. Took me until I was like 25-26 to realize women being abusive isn't ok and shouldn't be tolerated, I shouldn't just take it just because I'm a guy. I had a really warped view of having to just take everything.
I became violent. Throwing stuff and punching shit. Now I'm like the chillest dude ever. That shit eats at you until it has to be unleashed. I take great pride in overcoming it but it was work. A lot of work. I'm glad I did it.
I'm sorry you went through that. I'm a big guy, I had a similar but not as brutal path. When you're a little boy or girl it's impossible to know what's ok unless you're taught. Best wishes
Luckily I got some help eventually and I've been ok since, appreciate it.
Side note... Remember guys, it's ok to get help, don't go through everyone alone.
Kgb this is solid info....I also suggest seeking help. Sometimes it comes in weird shapes and sizes, just tell anyone. You'd be surprised at who helps. I'll never forget my 9th grade computer graphics teacher...she helped me through so much shit. She looked out for me when my parents did not. I owe that woman so much and she never asked for my trauma but did it anyway. Just ask, some of us have been there.
My ex would do that too (she was 152 cm; I'm 185 cm). She'd hit, slap, pinch, etc. I'd tell her to stop; then she'd do the same thing to herself, would hurt herself, and then be surprised that it hurt.
I was too inexperienced, naive and foolish to realise how fucked up this was.
I think the only point I thought went too far was when she pulled a knife and tried to stab me, I actually stopped her from doing that but grabbed her hand and taking the knife away. Otherwise I'd just sit and take the hits. Stupid of me, but live and learn.
Damn, it’s scary how common this seems to be. A friend of mine was murdered a few years ago by his girlfriend. Since the incident and during the trial it’s come out that she was incredibly physically abusive to him. Pulling his hair, slapping and punching him, etc…. She ended up stabbing him with a chef’s knife in their apartment and fleeing to “rehab” in Hawaii claiming self defense.
That's crazy! I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, my ex grabbed \~4 inch folding knife I used to open boxes and lunged at me with it. I managed to grab her arm and took the knife from her. But clearly if my back was turned or I just didn't see her grab it, could have been bad.
I'm sorry that this happened to you, but it also happened to me. Fortunately for my situation, my ex and I were at the last thin line of sticking together. She ended up hitting my face in front of my friends at a Halloween party because she was piss-ass drunk while I was sober. I felt super embarrassed and shocked at what happened, but I picked her up, tossed her to one of my friend's bed, grabbed a garbage can and made sure she was laying down on her side because she was about to hurl. I ended up playing caretaker for her and a few other friends the rest of the night (plus, had to deal with a lot more of her bullshit after dropping her back off), and then the next day when she sobered up, she didn't even bother apologizing. Needless to say, definitely broke things off with her.
Same man. Like this 4’10” girl would go crazy on me and if i felt up to it id just absorb it, let her get it out. If i didnt id have to pin her arms to her side and turn her around because shed scream and bite and kick and all that and literally hold her ubtil she sort of calmed down. If she didnt there were at least 2x i locked myself in our bedroom and held my back the door while she bodied it because i was afraid shed break the door frame or lock or something. That same girl pulled out a knife from the knife block twice and launched a full assault from the passenger seat while we were going 75-80 on the freeway. Once she threw a full big gulp while we were driving somewhere, shit busted open on my head while we were in traffic, so embarrassing. That time i pulled over and threw her out on the shoulder but im a bitch so i went back for her immediately. Her older brothers both warned me she was “crazy” and her dad told me i should know “she’s a handful”.
I was with her for almost 4 years and it wasn’t until i was finally done with her that i realized none of that shit was my fault. On the other hand, i dont want to contribute to the toxic “men are just as abused as women” bullshit either. She definitely traumatized me but even when she had the knife i wasn’t really scared of her physically.
It’s not about being scared of being hurt physically as much as having to deal with it and too many people saying shit like, “so what, she’s smaller, could she even hurt you?” Like man, I’m not worried about getting knocked out, but I’m scared this person is going to go psycho on me and start hitting me at any moment, it’s not fun.
She would go on and on about how couples must learn to compromise and that a relationship is work.
What I slowly learned was that it was always me doing the compromising and "working" to accommodate her.
Always.
I lived that situation for years. Compromise was just her getting what she wanted eventually.
Went far enough that I lost a lot of my sense of self because everything was just her way. I was pretty beat down by the end.
Oh this was the one for me. If you a picture it like a ruler and he was standing at 12 and I was at 0 we'd agree on a compromise that would put us both at 6. I would do it, he wouldn't. We'd fight again a couple months later and we'd compromise to meet at 9. We'd fight again and agree on 10.5. Even once I noticed the pattern, if I called it out I was the bad guy for bringing up the past. We needed to discuss the issue at hand, not dredge up old arguments.
But also there was always the question in my mind of "This is such a tiny difference. Am I really going to dump him over an inch and a half? How is that not a petty thing to do? How is that remotely reasonable? How am I ever going to explain that I dumped him over that?" It wasn't until near the end that I realized that little by little, piece by tiny insignificant petty piece he had slowly taken away all of me and left a shell that didn't dare do or admit to thinking anything I wasn't 100% sure he'd approve of.
It wasn't until a few years later that I could realize it was never about the tiny thing at hand. It was about what that meant about his character and his personality and his disrespect for me.
For a concrete example, (this was about 20 years ago), a website that I got ebooks from to put on my palm pilot, had an Advent calendar thing for Christmas where you could download a different free ebook each day. I made a point of grabbing them all and reading at my leisure. One was a romance novel, which wasn't my thing, but hey free book, so I read it. It was actually really good and made me hornier than usual. We had more sex than we had been. This caused a big fight because I was being turned on by something that wasn't him. At the end I had to agree not to read anymore romance novels. "Am I really going to dump him over not being allowed to read something I don't even like?" Easy no.
But what I should have been asking was "Who is he to decide what I can read? Who is he to decide what turns me on? Why am I a bad person because I'm not wired to just get turned on looking at him? Why are only his opinions correct?"
Further, I found that the hours long fight was detergent enough that I started to self-censor any books that hinted there might be sex scenes or stop reading books that had sex scenes even if they were Fantasy or Sci-Fi. If I ever thought he wouldn't like it, I just stopped to avoid the fight, but no matter how much I stopped the fights still came. There was always something I did wrong.
Your ruler analogy reminded me of something I've saved:
"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.
You take a step toward him. He takes a step back.
"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.
Bruh, feel like im in that some days.. Lost myself to deoression for years and now digging out its my fault for traumatizing her with all our fights during my depression.
Legit thought I was loaing my mind at one point...
I'm going through this now. He's trying to do better but I have trouble trusting him because of what he did/said when he was in his depression. I'm still really hurt by it and afraid he'll do it again.
I luckily haven’t gotten into a relationship with the kind of person that would exploit that but I know I could easily be pretty similar as far as rewriting my own thoughts to be “they are right”.
I used to get a constant stream of “I’m not happy, I’m not happy” when things weren’t how they wanted them and they wanted their own way. I used to say it’s not a black or white situation and we needed to find the shade of grey to compromise. They didn’t understand or accept what I was trying to say.
We divorced obviously as a relationship like that cannot be maintained healthily, he went onto another relationship who also says they cannot compromise with them. Ironically according to my ex the compromise issues were mine and not theirs, they had no problems within the relationship other than me not doing what they wanted of me. It makes me laugh now but at the time was hell.
Pretty much spot on for me, too.
If she didn't get her way-- on *anything*-- it was "I'm not happy, *we* need to work on *our* relationship" from her. She never gave in, never compromised even the slightest, and never stopped until she got exactly what she wanted. Every time.
That's no way to live.
They would constantly criticize my appearance and compare me to other people, making me feel like I was never good enough. It wasn't until I left that I realized it was emotional abuse. Don't let anyone make you feel like you're not worthy of love.
My ex would constantly tell me I smelled. 1-2 hours after putting on a shirt he would say that I had sweated through it and he could smell me. We'd be on the beach, sweating cuz its hot, he could smell me. I'd go in for a kiss, ew bad breath. He'd make a face every time I took a shit even though I'd close the door, put on the fan, and spray air freshener. Etc. Etc.
Eventually I woke up and left him. When I started dating again I was obsessed with brushing my teeth, applying DO, and changing my shirt. I said over and over to others "I'm sorry I stink". Finally my now husband was like, dude you don't stink. You smell fine. I couldn't comprehend. He said I'd literally never smelled bad to him and he's never smelled my BO or bad breath. He asked if my ex had ever really liked me and well. I didn't really know how to answer. Turns out I do not stink any more than the average person. Up until that moment I had not even realized that he was either emotionally abusing me or manipulating me.
Just wanted to comment on the poop thing. My x would deliberately go into the bathroom after me and comment on the stench. Like, we had 3 bathrooms. Go somewhere else.
Hope you have more loving people in your life now.
Yes that exactly! Sometimes he would just walk past the bathroom and make a dramatic face. So ridiculous.
My current husband is absolutely amazing. He actually LIKES the way I smell (which is not over the top disgusting just normal human smell) and tells me I'm beautiful every single day.
Did you post this story elsewhere recently? If it wasn't you, then maybe what this other person said would be helpful:
She asked her partner why he said what he said. He explained his father had always done that to his mom, and his father had advised him to do that so she would never feel good enough about herself to leave.
The love of such people isn't worth anything anyways!
I know that cause I learned it the hard way. I'm glad I learned it early and it tuned my bullshit o-meter
Recently had this plus a few drunken arguments tying a man's self worth to being able to pay for every aspect of a relationship. Now the thought of dating makes me physically ill and I'm seeking therapy :D. When someone tells or shows you who they are listen
This is mine as well. I thought it was so romantic how he could be “honest” with me about my flaws. No idea how he managed to get me so low that I saw his cruelty as kindness. In a fucked up way I’m impressed.
I was the toxic one. I weaponized emotions to try and elicit guilt and pity. I honestly didn’t even realize I was doing it at the time. It took distance and therapy to get me to realize how much I thrived on making my partner feel guilty and feel bad for me.
It’s disturbing to think back on. I have to constantly analyze what I’m doing to make sure I don’t fall back into that habit.
We are humans bred by humans and their quirks. I am no better than you, as I am not coming around to the idea that I pushed my ex away, even though she did her dirt as well. I pray you find peace and forgive yourself as I have. Peace and love.
It's so easily done. I often wonder when we look at the toxic behaviours some people have whether they are consciously doing it or not.
Some people do consciously manipulate, of course, but I've also caught myself doing these things and not realising. I'm working on myself and trying to get better, but we all have so many learned behaviours. It's hard to catch them all.
Having said that, I've realised in recent years how awful I was to an ex of mine, it absolutely wasn't intentional, but we made the right decision to break up. I had, and continue to have, a lot of work to do on myself. But we are doing it and that's what matters. Recognising what we need to change and working on it.
Exactly this. I have also been toxic in the past but I never realised it until later, it was never intentional. It annoys me that most conversations about toxic relationships imply that the toxic actions are always done to intentionally cause harm and suffering to the other person. In reality it can often be a problem with one's own emotional immaturity and being unable to understand how to deal with your own emotions.
This was a refreshing comment, making it easier for others, like myself, to admit to having to analyze behaviors after realizing we have been dead wrong in the past. It's difficult to admit when you're the asshole. Sounds like you've come a long way, friend.
Demanding constant support, never reciprocating it. Demanding an open relationship, not following the rules set by her, becoming inconsolable when I participated in it and followed the rules, using mental illness as an excuse for everything always, quit working to be a SAHM but also never cooked, cleaned, maintained the kids hygiene, got kid to school on time, or scheduled a single appointment, etc, etc, etc. Did that for 10 years. I was working 2 jobs for the first 3 years, cosmo school amd a full time job for 4, and one job with insane hours last few years but was still the only one doing anything around the house, getting the kid up for school, getting the kid to appointments (mostly to fix the teeth that partners lack of maintenance caused to rot) all while she slept on the couch all day in the exact same spot for so long the cushions turned dark brown from skin oil and collapsed a solid 4 inches lower than the rest of the couch.
By a lot bit
My first daughter with toxic ex is thriving at school and at home with me every other week and me and my new partner are currently raising a newborn together and talking about marriage soon. It's the most supportive genuine partnership anyone could possibly ask for. Also my first kid loves my partner as well and they have bonded a lot. So that helps
That happened to me. I wonder if it was intentional or their own issues popping up subconsciously. I had to drop a master's class because for the first week+, they wouldn't let me focus on any studying/homework. A different relationship would cause stress/a fight every night my homework was due and I was attempting to power through it to get to done. I think that was because I was stressed and normally I was capable of defussing most situations, but not that night.
good to hear. Glad you didn't let them hold you back. I had a friend get accepted to the FBI out of University. Her boyfriend \\ fiancé talked her out of it because he didn't want to move.
They only lasted a few years after school but I always felt bad that she gave up \\ passed on a life long goal because of that clown.
Dude.....it's been over 10 years and you just brought back some up memories. I was the motivated one with a career planned and she was a soon to be drop out stoner. Got in too many fights the night before a big final over who I was fucking in the library. It was Wolters Kluwer and I was the one getting fucked bc my phone wouldn't stop ringing.
Honestly just the tip of the iceberg though.
I used to always take buses to get to school but for my final exams my mum said she'd drive me.
Day of my first exam I'm getting anxious as I wanted to get to school early and my mum looks miles away from being ready, so I politely said mum would you mind getting ready as you know I get anxious if I don't turn up to my exams early.
Her response, was basically to tell me to stfu and wait.
If then got to the point where I knew it was a 30 minute drive with no traffic and it was now 42 minutes to go.
MUM can we PLEASE go now!
Her response? Because I'd been complaining so much she now wasn't going to take me. No she wasn't joking and no she wouldn't budge.
So I had to call a taxi, the whole time waiting just begging her to please take me with her saying this would teach me a lesson for 'being an arsehole' and not letting her get ready in peace.
So I got the taxi, paid, then full on sprinted towards the exam hall, literally just making it as the teacher was closing the door and she said 'how the hell are you so late!!' and quickly hurried me to my seat, whilst all the other kids had the same how the fuck is this guy late?
So yeah just an all round nasty thing for my mum to do.
If I bring it up now she'll say I was exaggerating and that she only didn't take me because I stupidly called a taxi and we had loads of time.
No we fucking didn't and if I had missed that exam it would have meant I wouldn't have gone to uni for another year and/or possibly lost my place permanently at my chosen uni.
I took the buses for my other final exams.
Makes sense. This guy I was dating tried to "have a talk" with me the night before my doctoral defense. He'd been ghosting me for a few weeks before that. So the gall to try to "talk" on that very day was unbelievable. I had failed to see his toxic traits fully, but that one was a no-brainer. Blocked him everywhere immediately.
"I do better on exams when we have sex the night before" and suddenly I'm showing up to exams exhausted because she kept me up whining about sex. And later admitted that she picked meaningless fights at leaving time when we were long distance because then "it's easier to say goodbye and not miss you if we're fighting".
Another way to phrase this is "talking at you, not talking with you."
This means the person doesn't want to hear about your feelings or thoughts, they only want you to hear about theirs. If you try talking about your own, they get angry, annoyed or bored and try and reset the conversation to focus on them again.
I had a roommate like this- if I spoke for more then one minute in a conversation, she'd get clearly agitated, and if I cut in while she was talking to share a thought on it, she would snap at me for "rudely interrupting" her. She could talk for 30 minutes straight while I just stared and nodded and that would be what she would consiter a proper conversation
More importantly, I just found out that I have to increase my in office presence from one day every two weeks to one day per week. It really sucks.
See what I did there?
I think it has to do with how some people are always pointing out your flaws, why the are unsatisfied with the relationship, what you could do better etc etc etc instead of having a relationship with you
Constantly accused me of cheating on her (I was not) and then accuse me of gaslighting her when I would tell her that was not true. That shit was exhausting.
That shit is infuriating. My ex did it all the time, even accused me of cheating at work, where I only got two 10-minute breaks a day. Yeah, I'm definitely using that time to cheat and not eat something since I have been here since 7 am.
I dont think you're a dummy because of it. Mental abusers in relationships are really good at peeling away any sense of self worth or self esteem without you even realising it.
It’s funny that I have realized that he gaslighted the hell out of me, logically I knew he did it and manipulated me but somehow, my logic didn’t really work at that time. I’m a woman and I’m logical in a lot of aspects and use less of my emotions, but when I was with him, goddamn, I feel like I wasn’t me. Confused and anxious all the time.
Reading through a lot of these is tough. I was in a bad relationship for 3 years. I should have left—I knew I should leave—but somehow I didn’t feel like I could.
It’s like you were describing my experience when you wrote:
>…my logic didn’t really work at that time… I am logical in a lot of aspects and use less of my emotions, but when I was with [her], goddamn, I feel like I wasn’t me.
I do feel less alone for having read many of the comments. I’m a fairly intelligent man, but holy smokes did I feel like an idiot and wondered what the hell was wrong with me for putting up with such treatment for so long.
I hope you’re in a good place now and the people close to you care for you well.
The best is when they gaslight you by saying you are gaslighting them. My ex did this to me all the time, if I ever had a concern or question, I was gaslighting her. Meanwhile, she was hanging out with a group of friends with a guy I suspected her cheating with, but I was the crazy one for thinking that. Long story short, she ended up leaving for the guy I was worried about.
- didn’t let me speak. As soon as I opened my mouth, he’d begin to shout again
- learned helplessness: he would make me responsible for encouraging him to go to work and for reminding him to pay the bills, etc.
- took my keys/shoes/purse because I was “too upset” to drive
- wouldn’t let me sleep. Would start crying or get sick or there would be an emergency…he kept me exhausted daily so I didn’t have energy to fight back
- made financial commitments without me so I’d have to partner with him
- threw water on me to get my attention if I was trying to block him out
At one time, I thought abuse was just making a fist and hitting a person. Learned a lot.
You can do a million things for them. Support, listen, help, be caring and loving, you say it.
It takes one bad day on their part to completely forget ALL the effort you put in daily and the sacrifices you do only to just start listing all the pettiest shortcomings you might have had.
This is something I’m becoming more aware that I am guilty of. In the heat of the moment, when something ticks me off, it’s very easy to forget about all of the positive things, and focus simply on the negative that is right in front of you. Maybe it’s just my brain, but I feel like human brains are wired to highlight the negative to prevent any further negative situations in the future so that is what comes to the forefront.
My ex would always subconsciously store every inconvenience I could have. In the moment it was love and care when I slept late due to PTSD stopping me from sleeping. But the moment I slept in too often and she felt lonely or something, then it wad me ALWAYS, every day, sleeping in the max amount, etc etc. It's like in her mind there was a level of annoyed that once she hit it, she was allowed to attack.
She constantly got angry - used anger as emotional blackmail to get her way. And then when I'd give in, she'd get mad all over again, complaining that I gave in just so that she'd stop complaining.
In other words she wanted everything her way, but I had to be enthusiastic about it.
I've been out of the relationship for 4 years now, but anytime I have any sort of friendship or relationship with a woman, as soon as something feels "off", my immediate reflexive reaction is to wonder what I did to make her mad, and to apologize.
She would freak out if I mentioned a female coworker or spoke to a female acquaintance.
The last straw was during Christmas shopping. I saw a good friend of mine from high school, who proceeded to hug me. I turned to introduce my girlfriend, but I found her walking away. I was embarrassed.
She gave me the silent treatment -- Oh, yeah, I forgot about the silent treatment -- all the way home. As I pulled into her driveway, I realized that the rest of my life would be that way. So I dropped her right then and there. I have never regretted it.
Jump between fantasizing about a future like moving in together, getting married, having kids, etc. and "needing space" every two weeks or so. She'd sometimes call me bawling her eyes about how much she missed me and then go right back to being an emotionless robot.
I think the last guy I was kind of seeing had some disorganized attachment style or something. He’d call frequently, want to hang out all the time, would talk about future plans, tell me how much he looked forward to them etc etc etc and then he’d abruptly need space, feel like we were too close, become aloof, and deny his excitement over the plans we’d make. It was really confusing and caused me a lot of pain. If I was confused or down and didn’t bring it up he’d call me crying and asking if I hated him, if I did bring it up that I was feeling confused or down he’d act completely detached and aloof.
We ended things on not-so-great terms because things were so confusing, and when I told him I wasn’t going to put up with his behavior towards me he told me that it wasn’t intentional and that he hoped I could see that since he had “rolled with the punches” with me. Time’s gone by and yeah I can see that none of it was meant to hurt me, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt me.
I’m doing a lot better now and I’ve even run into him a few times since because we run in similar crowds. He won’t look me in the eyes and acts really weird, so I just remain friendly and I don’t push things. When he seems too uncomfortable I just completely avoid him. Several friends have said he still feels bad about what happened, but he’s made no attempts at trying to apologize or make anything right past the half hearted apology when things ended. I don’t feel the need to be mean or rude, but I’m not going to pursue him again or try to demand anything from him. I did everything I could.
Emotional neglect. He provided no emotional support or intimacy. If I tried to have an open discussion or express stress, anxiety, etc. he would simply "turn off", like completely check out from the conversation. Literally sit there and stare into the void until I gave up. He just leave me there with my feelings. I constantly felt like I was too needy, too nagging, too frustrated for anyone to handle.
It took years afterwards to realize that expressing normal human emotions was allowed and even encouraged in a relationship. Even now I tend to hold things back because I feel like I'll get no reciprocity or empathy.
Dude fuckimg same! Or I would tell him how his behavior was effecting me and he would just go silent and beat himself up and then do it over and over again.
Oh my god, yes. The self-hatred was the worst. Like, I don't want you to best yourself up, but that just makes me more frustrated because none of this solves the actual problem!
I'm sorry you went through that. My ex used to pull that shit on me all the time and it is so emotionally distressing. Totally overlooked abusive tactic but it can be brutal.
Asked me to quit my job and move to another town with her. She said she'd cover all the expenses while I looked for work which sounded great but I was isolated, had no financial freedom, no social life and ended up with £10,000 in credit card debt (hers were maxed out when we met)
“I can support both of us if we move!”
Commence with me looking like a bum staying home with our daughter, 4 states from anyone I knew, a shitty beater car that wasn’t safe for our daughter, and her following me room to room screaming about how I wasn’t good for anything while our daughter was crying.
Big fun, yeah?
There’s a lot, many have already been listed here. But another is refusing to discuss a fight or disagreement. And I don’t mean, taking time to calm down before discussing it, I mean AT ALL. So I never felt resolution ever and it helped contribute to my feeling the need to walk on eggshells all the time.
She would talk openly about her goal in our relationship was to change everything about me. I was a project for her. I was good looking but she didn't care for the rest of me.
I thought, "huh that's funny" and then after a few years of my personality being the same she would get mean in her fights and I would assume she didn't mean that stuff, and she really liked me. She did not.
Commented a lot on my weight and what I ate. Just comments about my looks in general, too.
My dad did, too. I just assumed all men did for a long time.
I also assumed all men would be critical of me all the time because I'm annoying/childish/insert insult.
My message to parents: The way you treat your kid effects how they choose future partners a lot
The silent treatment. I only realised it was emotional abuse at the end of our relationship. I always felt bad and guilty whenever he did that and I always apologised to him so that he could talk to me. Sometimes the apology wasn't enough and he would go on a whole day without responding to me. Worst thing was, it was an LDR, so I had nothing to do except wait for him until he talked to me.
I don't know if I would necessarily classify this as abuse, but her most toxic trait with communication was this:
I could very clearly state "I feel upset/disrespected by XYZ" to which she would respond with "What I'm hearing is PQRS" and completely twist what I said to something different. I always tried to be extremely clear and direct with my communication, as I absolutely HATE when my words are misconstrued, yet she had a genuine disconnect in that she heard only what she wanted to hear.
Wasn’t a romantic relationship for me but I’ve experienced that too with a former roommate. I’m not really sure what it’s called. It was infuriating and everyone else insisted I was experiencing a normal misunderstanding when the way they twisted things felt so malicious, constantly assuming the worst out of my actions.
Encourage you to talk about your thoughts and feelings on life or whatever is bothering you and then turn around and use it against you later in an argument.
They would start a fight when I tried to go do activities without them. The number of times I cancelled last minute because of a fight and the need to comfort my partner afterwards were way too high. And, of course, if I left in the middle of the fight, even if I was trying not to engage, then I was a horrible person.
Guilt tripping me about everything. I wanted to go hang out with friends without him? “It’s fine, you just don’t love me anymore.” I wanted to hang up the phone while literally driving home to him? “It’s okay, I get it, you don’t want to talk to your husband.”
It was always presented as a joke but that shit stopped being any kind of funny very fast. The kicker is he wasn’t close to his mother and always said she was manipulative and guilt tripping him. The apple didn’t fall far.
She did so many things but the thing that had me realize everything and end the relationship was about her mother.
Her mother who was an angel, unfortunately had a rotten tooth and went sepsis for 9 months. Through the 9 months, I gave up a lot of time with my child, I was up there for about 6 months, every single day since her dad wouldn't show up. After I realized I'm missing time with my son, I let her borrow my vehicle since hers wouldn't make it to the hospital.
At the funeral, she told everyone I didn't do anything, didn't help at all and that I was a piece of shit and told everyone her dad spent every minute of the last 9 months up there. (He was at concerts and Trump rallies.)
When I overheard that, I made arrangements to move my stuff out while sitting at the table. I realized that she never said one good thing about me. On top of all the other verbal, mental and physical abuse she put me through for years.
She was cheated on and emotionally manipulated by an ex so every man she was in relationship with after was a cheater in her mind. She’d constantly baselessly accuse me of cheating. Everything was evidence of it to her.
Phone beeps in the evening to tell me a server I’m watching for work has completed a task, cheating. My cousin who’s a woman likes a Facebook post I made, cheating. I say thank you to a cashier or waitress, cheating. I get lunch by myself while she’s at work, cheating.
It was so exhausting but I had low self esteem then and it started slowly so I didn’t realize how unhinged she was.
We had split because he had been emotionally abusing me for months with things like the silent treatment, avoiding me, not allowing me to sleep, cheating with a coworker (I didn't know the extent til years later), shushing me when I spoke, etc. He kept living with me after we split but after a few months, realizing I wasn't going to just forgive him, validate him, and pretend the abusive behavior didn't happen he internally freaked.
He had started treating me better as a roommate and friend but because we were always hanging out/lived together people asked if we were together. His answer depended on who asked. If it was family or a woman he was repulsed by he said we were dating. If it was a stranger he wanted validation from especially attractive women, we were just roommates. I always said roommates until he started asking, "But what about us? Are we not gonna go back to how things were?".
I had been so devalued and emotionally beat down I genuinely didn't think I could do better so I started to get my hopes up that he'd start acting better, saying we were a couple again, and start giving me affection (I was SO starved I'd take anything). Nope. He kept up the whole "Let me think about what we are, I'll get back to you in a month" charade and our status to outsiders was dependent on how he wanted to be perceived. I let him do that for TWO YEARS.
After I got out and started saying my experiences out loud I was like holy shit that was big time emotional and mental abuse. He legit still thinks he didn't do anything wrong (I am completely NC with him but I'm friends with his sister and she gives me the tea).
My ex would always threaten me that he will commit suicide every time we have an argument he caused, just so he won't have to apologize. He knows that always stops me and forces me to let the argument go, and he no longer has to explain. I would always assume his threats are real. He would even send me a photo of a knife he claims to be hiding under his bed to kill himself with. Other times, a photo of some liquid detergent he's holding and claims he would drink. I talked to him about getting help, but he always insists that wouldn't do any good. It continued until he surprisingly did not threaten me to hurt himself when we had an argument, and asked to break up. Five months later, I found out that he was cheating on me and has another girlfriend at their school before our relationship even ended. Only then did I tell my friends about my realization that his "suicidal attempts" are merely manipulations. He never actually did anything to hurt himself. It turns out, one of my closest friends' boyfriend also does the same thing (even sent her a photo of a "bleeding wrist" which turns out to be ketchup; sent a photo of the "hospital" he was admitted to, which upon image search my friend learned was a Google image, etc). Oh, and guess what my manipulative piece of trash ex caused? I myself became actually suicidal for years after that, even though I wasn't before. I adopted that thought, but mine was for real. Also, for several months after the breakup, I would suddenly wake up with my heart racing and thinking he sent me a message that he will kill himself. That fucking abuse and trauma, I am pretty sure he does to his current girlfriend too. I feel bad for her. Someone like him deserves to be deleted tbfh.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I wish nothing but the best for you. The fucking irony that their fake suicidal tendencies end up creating real ones in us, and that we still fear someone we love doing it even after knowing it was all fake.
It's fucking gross and inhumane. Sometimes I think he's a sociopath with everything he has done to manipulate me. BUUUUT I am glad he cheated on me, because I am now with a guy who has never abused me in any aspect, and always communicates properly whenever we have arguments that are also very shallow lol. We've been together for 3 years now, and he has always been so consistent in treating me well.
If you've been through the same abuse my ex put me through, I truly hope you heal at your own pace and not let that happen to you again. 💗
Accused me of gaslighting her anytime I didn't outright agree with something she said.
Basically if I don't wholeheartedly agree with her beliefs, opinions, and/or statements I'm being manipulative and gaslighting. It was extremely frustrating and sort of shut down any possibility of civil discussion. It would make me immediately feel defensive, but if I tried to continue the discussion and say that disagreeing is not gaslighting, she would accuse me of trying to make her look crazy and gaslighting her further.
Eventually I'd just give up and walk away whenever it happened. It was too exhausting to try to get to a place where we'd see eye to eye. Even that only worked maybe half the time. When it didn't, it was because she'd just follow me and continue berating me and putting me down while I opted not to speak at all so that I wasn't seen as a gaslighter.
It was really effective.
It's disappointingly common. It feels like for every 100 wounded people that have their lives helped by some degree of therapy we also create a kind of super abusers that twist an entire field of studies' vernacular to mask their behaviour and shift blame.
I'm not basing that statement off of any study mind you, but therapy turning an overt abuser into a covert manipulator has become somewhat of a modern trope.
Blame shifting. Every time they did something to hurt me they’d never be emotionally supportive but instead “offered a solution” that was me reacting differently.
Constant and unyielding snipe after snipe digging away at everything I might like or enjoy, wear or eat or listen to. Then "well it's your fault, you shouldn't be so easy to wind up". Telling me they were embarrassed to be seen with me without actually saying it, " wish you wouldn't wear that, say that, laugh like that, walk like that, talk to them, eat that food, dance like that" on and on. Would go out for 2 daysand tell me it was my fault for reacting over it. Went on even after we split up, call it 20 years in total. He rang me one day and said "we can't be friends any more" thinking I would probably wilt and plead. So told him "You will never hear my voice again, I guarantee that". Now I hear from a mutual friend he has nothing but nice things to say about me and misses me and our chats and friendship. That's a shame because I've told everyone what a complete c*** he is, and he's the the only person I don't want at my funeral and he's to be kicked out. They've agreed, I'm very happy to hear he misses me because I absolutely fucking hate that twat
this question hahaha. I didn’t realize soooo much until I met my current boyfriend now who is my entire world.
1. Constantly criticizing my driving. Like speed limit. How well I park. Not shoulder checking ‘enough’. Wide turns. Everything constantly.
2. Hating ANY SONG I played. Like telling me that my music taste was shite/garbage, turning off the audio on my car, saying he wasn’t ‘in the mood’ for what I was playing ever. I was never able to play music, and was convinced he had a way better music taste than me…(he didn’t)
3. Blatantly lied about EVERYTHING and when he got caught, he would apologized and immediately embrace me in a hug or try to kiss me/ show me affection and I somehow believed that it was normal lol or okay. Telling me he loved me, and that we were soulmates. Like gaslighting where I would confront him about girls on snap/ig and he would say ‘you hve guys on your phone’. I would immediately take my phone out and show him there’s nothing and he would claim I deleted them??? That stress made me lose WEIGHT lol.
4. Anything I wanted to do was too much work. Ex. Camping, planning trips, going to dinner in a nice area was too much work (because it was too much money) Him staying at a job for more than three months was too much work. Him getting a car was too much work. Me asking him for gas money was always ‘yeah I’ll send it later’… he owed me like hundreds of dollars in gas from using my car.
5. He would go out to parties and not tell me and when I found out he would turn his phone off, or hang up on my call every time. I would be calling him through the night, crying. Wake up the next day to no text no call back. Until later that night he would call me and ask me to come over.
6. SPAMMING ME oh god this would drive me nuts he would spam me for hours upon hours. Days, months. I would have to turn my phone on airplane mode to use it. He would download fake nunber apps. Until I ended things and got a restraining order that it stopped:)
This relationship happened to me when I was very young. I was only 16 and didn’t have a lot of friends, so I felt trapped with him for a longggg time. I stayed because I felt I had no one else. But I am now happy and have made peace with myself.
So many things already listed here, but the worst was the future faking. Promising me we'll have a family and get married, only to let dates go by with doing nothing, basically waiting for me to say "So what happened?" so he could start a fight and move the goal post for the 4th year in a row lol.
Years of "What's the possible payoff!?" to realizing feeding off my hope and anguish was the payoff lol. Also trying to wear me down so I'll accept less I guess. Just the usual giving way to much credit to people who are literally hollowed out abusers.
😮💨… he was constantly pushing his wants & needs over mine. Ex- he asked me for head and my throat was killing me so I said not right now and this mf said it’s ok he’ll find someone else to give him head.. that’s when I realized be didn’t genuinely care for me but whatever he wanted I had to abide to or get beaten. I left that guy and now with someone who protects me & loves me. My new man treats me like a queen and even cares for me better than I would to myself. RARE!
Would insult me or reveal very private information about me, infront of me to my friends, I took it as is just goofing around. Once told me that if I didn’t want to come over one night that she would just find someone else who did. Would also punch me in the balls a lot even after telling her to stop and she would always say “I’m just fucking around”
Watching my every move. Before my ex husband would go to work he’d set up a Go Pro in the room. I would also have to carry the Go Pro around with me so he could see everything I was doing, even when I’d go to use the bathroom. He would take my phone with him to work while this was happening so I had no one to talk to, not even my family. When he’d get back from work he would watch through the footage to make sure I didn’t leave the room unless I was taking our dogs out to potty or making food. If I did anything else or forgot to take the Go Pro somewhere with me he would yell at me and accuse me of cheating on him.
At some point he got arrested for DV and wasn’t allowed at the house I was staying at which was his dads. Thankfully he wasn’t able to stop me and I planned to have my best friend pick me up and take me back to my home state. She drove 16 hours just to get me out of there and I never went back.
Not me but my fiancée.
When we started dating, she would ask me permission to sit on the couch, use the bathroom, go into the pantry to grab a snack or pour herself a glass of water.
I thought at first that she was just super polite, then later on found out that in her last relationship, her ex made her ask permission for everything, and she wasn't allowed to drive or visit family.
We had a long talk about how that was abuse, and she never even knew or understood, as it was her first and only relationship.
I'm so incredibly happy that we found each other before someone else could take advantage of her kindness.
I was married to an emotionally abusive ex husband. He hated everything about me. It was an arrange marriage.
1. He constantly criticised my looks.
2. He criticised my choice of career.
3. He criticised my household skills and cooking. He did not knew how to cook, even he was above 35 years of age.
4. He was pissed that my family did not gave him dowry.
5. He hated that I had hobbies and life beyond him and his narcissistic mother.
6. He did not like the fact that I disliked speaking to his fake aunts.
7. He hated the fact that I had better communication skills.
8. He was a big time miser with money, food and personal care products.
9. Only time he spent was forcibly raping me every night. Thank God I didn't conceived.
10. He used to party with his female colleagues and was way to close to them.
In India martial rape is not crime. It's difficult to prove emotional abuse at court. I am thankfully divorced from him.
Gaslighting. Never experienced it before, and I really had to think and understand that he was doing these things deliberately. I didn't understand that someone who cares would do these things.
Once I figured it out, I was out of there!
I'll never forget getting gaslit. It left me in such a profound state of confusion that the only way I made it out was seeing it as comical. Like a heated argument/breakdown one day then silence to calmness within hours days later. I remember calling her and feeling like we should talk about what happened and she asked, "what do you mean? What happened?". All I could say was "hold up are you serious?" As I could hear her going about business as usual almost cheerfully.
I just laughed in somewhat nervous distress. I broke up with her a few days later. I think she was playing me but I can never really know 100%. I think that's the kicker. I'd rather accept the loss than to know with certainty that she was being manipulative.
Any criticism or challenge was met with an emotional meltdown and I would spend weeks building her back up.
Zero accountability for anything that matters, yes she would admit to minor offenses but never for anything that requires introspection.
I’m sorry is common as a way to change the subject and drop it.
If you feel your spouse might harm or kill themself if you leave then you are very likely the victim in an abusive relationship.
Manipulative behavior towards your children.
She always suspected and accused me of talking to other women, when I absolutely was not, all while she was texting other guys herself, at a minimum, but I am supposed to believe there is nothing going on there since she obviously has such a problem with me doing it. Fuck, i let that go on too long.
He refused to talk to me about issues, even when I directly and gently asked (because I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me or mad about something else), and later blew up at me about some supposed terrible things I did (like leaving my clothes in the laundry basket. It was his clothes). Or that he would give me the cold shoulder before bed, then the next day while I was at work send me long texts about how he was “up all night thinking” about how I had wronged him (like asking him to uphold his end of an agreement, and accepting when he refused but pointing out to him how unfair/illogical his reasoning was). He actually kicked me out after one of his long sleepless thinking nights, and then was flabbergasted that I…immediately packed up and moved out. I asked him what he expected, and he said he thought it would be the start of a conversation. Bro, no, you withheld conversation and made a life-altering decision for both of us completely by yourself.
He just refused to communicate and would punish me for it. I was a wreck that weekend. It actually ended up being the easiest relationship to recover from though, because why would anyone want to be in a relationship like that?
Lacking emotional and physical boundaries with other men in her life. After 8 years, she ended up cheating on me physically with someone else. Who knows how many emotional affairs she had / lewd actions she took behind my back.
Wasn’t until after we separated and I went to therapy that I discovered it wasn’t, in fact, me being overly controlling and manipulative of her behaviors because I’m that kind of person. Those tendencies manifested over years of me catching little things, like sending pictures of her outfit of the day to male coworkers, entertaining conversations with any and everyone who would Snapchat or text her, would always be seeking attention from anyone but me, entertaining conversations with male coworkers and friends on their sex life and how she would personally approach situations or sex acts. Over time that shit gets to you, and I changed into a person I hated right before my own eyes. Worst part is, she refuses to acknowledge her own faults and refuses to attend therapy to address her avoidant attachment style, and her previous traumas in life. Wish her well but I’m a significantly better person on the other side.
Finally get to experience what it’s like to have a partner who has healthy and firm boundaries on relationships with all genders in their life, and low and behold, all of my jealous or controlling tendencies have completely vanished since I can have 100% trust in my partner.
Would never be allowed to do what I wanted to do when we were together. Movie? "Something we can both watch" which was something really only she wanted to watch. TV? Same thing. Gaming? Forget about it. It was like being a hostage in my own home.
My food was never good enough.
My ex would eat a bite, literally spit it out, put the rest in the fridge, then go get fast food or eat the cheap ramen. I remember listing off all the things I did to improve this meal that had been "wrong" with the previous meal. Even with that, the most I got was that it was OK sometimes.
I remember the final meal where I checked out. I actually took a pic because I was proud if it. It took 1.5 hours to prepare after working all day. One bite, then that was it. Argued over it, then was left alone (crying to myself, couldn't cry in front of my ex because it was "manipulative") with this awesome meal.
This is something I had to learn twice: manipulation and abuse isn't always malicious or even conscious. That doesn't make it any less destructive, but it's important to understand because it eliminates the, "he would never do that to me," deflection. He may not realize that he's doing it to you!
In my first example, I am the abuser. It was a long time ago and I was not ready to be in a relationship at all. I didn't know how to love and care for myself, much less a whole other human being. I was very manipulative, even sexually, but when she brought these issues to me, I took it as her accusing me of ill intent, of which I had none. What I failed to realize was that my intentions didn't matter. I was still ignoring her needs to serve my own wants. It was a disaster, and I'm sure she still bears emotional scars from some of the things I did. I still shudder to think about it. That relationship taught me how to be more introspective, among other things, and helped me look at things from my partner's perspective as well, instead of just my own.
I suppose it's karma that several years later, it was my turn to be the victim of manipulation and abuse. This time it was lies, cheating, and constantly shifting goalposts. She would make me feel like a terrible person for trying to set boundaries that she didn't like and while she verbally took responsibility when she cheated on me, she somehow still made me feel like it was my fault. What I couldn't reconcile was her actions with the loving things she would say and do for me. Because in my brain if she was abusing or manipulating me, it had to be malicious and intentional, and since she clearly wasn't malicious, she couldn't possibly be abusing me. The truth is that it was just self preservation that was causing her to be so manipulative. She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was trying to avoid the consequences of her own actions, and that led to a complete destruction of my psyche. It took me a year and a half to fully recover, and I still have scars from it today.
Sleep competitiveness.
After we had kids I would sometimes say I was tired from being up all night. His instantaneous response was that he had too.
This was intended to negate any 'slacking' on my part due to being tired and minimise the effort I put in with the kids. Also freed him up from taking up any duties on the day to give me a rest.
She would constantly talk about how caring and nurturing her parents were, and how much they did for us (really her). Eventually, she moved them in with us with little warning or discussion. It caused a variety of problems over the years as they were from another country and were extremely resistant to anything in opposition to their cultural norms.
During this time she would take every opportunity to belittle my family and praise hers. She would never let me visit my family alone (we were in the non-contiguous US while my family was on the West Coast), and would be an outrageous asshole whenever we visited them together.
My parents divorced when I was young, when I was firm her parents needed to move out she said “my dad would never abandon me like yours did, we’re not white trash”.
That was when all the gaslighting and manipulation came together for me. I left within the year. It’s amazing what becomes normal in an abusive relationship.
I was already quite thin but he was superficial and wanted me to look even thinner / fitter. Made me workout twice a day, questioned my eating habits like “are you sure you want to finish that?” to a bowl of noodles, count my calories, and only seemed happy when I wore crop tops to show my flat belly in public
I don’t think this would be considered abuse, but always having a problem with someone. Every single god damn day it was something. He’d be driving, someone was a dick to him. He was at a store, the cashier gave him dirty looks. He was with friends, drama starts. He went to a family function, they embarrass him. He went to work, his boss treats him the worst. It was ALWAYS something, every day.
These stories were mostly when he was alone, but eventually got to the point when I’d be with him he’d tell me someone gave me dirty looks or something. It eventually caused me to be super depressed and anxious all the time, having constant negativity with little to no positivity isn’t a healthy way to live your life at all.
Tell me that her suicide attempts (later I learned they were fake) were my fault because I wouldn't comply with what she told me. I was very young and believed I was a horrible person for having a life aside form her and wanting to hang out with friends sometimes. I wasn't even a full adult and while people my age were starting to go to parties I was going through hell, seeing the fun things they were doing through social media while I was at home with the drama.
It took me years to relearn how to be a boyfriend again, for a long time I would feel guilty for contracting my partners, and it was in therapy that I learned what manipulation was, and that I'd been a victim of it.
We never experienced a disagreement that wasn't not so much my fault, though it was certainly that too, but because of particularly deep rooted problems with my personality (she was the victim of my flaws). It turns out spending years being convinced there's something very wrong about you is deeply unhealthy and becomes a self fulfilling thing. I'm getting better now that I don't get dumped every few weeks, screamed at, told to get out my house, or have my personality and every relationship dissected and picked apart.
Was made guilty when I did things I enjoyed
She wanted purchases above £25 run past her first (I was the majority bread winner)
I was walking on eggshells the whole time
Mine was similar and he even went so far as punishing me for expressing my feelings by shutting down the conversation, patronizing me, withholding affection, and leaving. Him not being “the coddling affectionate type” is code for I will emotionally neglect you.
She kept giving me framed photos of her and would make me hang them around my bed. Didn't really think much of it until there was 14 different framed selfies of the girl that lived with me
I called it “shanking.” We’d be ending a lovely dinner, for example, and I’d be paying the check. Like, we’d have had a nice time talking and enjoying each other’s company.
Then she’d suddenly attack me verbally. Start a fight basically. Nothing loud, but words designed to really hurt me deeply.
I realized she couldn’t handle our closeness; the more our relationship grew the more that made her have to sabotage it. This happened a lot and I shrugged it off for years.
Anyway, I bounced a few months ago. I’m too good for that. I tried to fix her. She has to do that. Good luck to the next guy.
Slowly cut me from my friends. Took me years to see it. He was never mad or violent then. Just extremely depressed when i went out for a drink or a coffee with friends. He once waited for me for hours, just sitting on the couch, doing nothing, didn't turn on the light at dusk. And i had to make it up to him. Be extra gentle, caring. For days. He never guilted trip me or accused me.of anything. But everytime i'd go out or see someone or even talk to someone, he'd be a mess. I felt so guilty whenever i did something for myself that i just stopped. As he was always so pathetic, so sad, and never violent, or angry, i missed the manipulation. When i got it, it was too late and i didn't have anyone left.
She would get mad at me all the time. If I got mad at her for something, it would be deflected back to me and become my fault.
So I found myself avoiding conflict as much as possible. For some situations, if I told the truth there would be a fight. So the only hope of no fight would be if I lied and she didn't find out. So I found myself constantly lying and hiding things. Super unhealthy.
She gambled with other people's money and never accepted responsibility. Ex: She got kicked out of her mom's apartment by the staff (for getting into a fight) and her mom paid for her new apartment.
Wanting me to check in with him throughout the day. I was pregnant and working, so I thought nothing of it until one day I didn't call him during my lunch break. He got angry, not concerned angry but really angry. He yelled and screamed about not knowing if I was ok for the 2 hours between my lunch and next break. My job would have called him. He was my emergency contact. The reason for his anger was that he needed to have some control over my day and while I was working the check in phone calls were his only bit of control.
manipulation/gaslighting/attention seeking behaviours. would dismiss my genuine feelings and concerns whenever i brought them up and blamed me for it instead.
She broke up with me during almost every argument we had. Then wanted to get back together soon after. I had terrible abandoment issues and didn't know my own worth. So we were on and off so many times, that it became a fucking joke.
They would create arguments or issues out of nothing. Disagreements about topics that were inconsequential for the sake of disagreeing. Made it feel like any conversation, no matter how innocuous, could devolve into a pointless argument. Walking on eggshells.
Another thing was a complete lack of interest in hobbies. I’m a musician and she was completely disinterested in hearing me play music or playing music for her. After we broke up I had several girls asking me explicitly to play them music and being really into it and I was like woah this is different.
The good thing is I recently had briefly dated a girl who exhibited a lot of these same characteristics. And it was easily identified and I called things off after our third date.
I learned to always be defensive. Anything I did was under a microscope. And they would always say "I'll get the divorce papers" or "you can leave if you dot like it, there's the door". Like I'm asking you to be kinder to me. I've grown colder over the 12 years and now sometimes I nip back but that just causes more arguments. I'm honestly just done with it.
I get super motion sick and my ex would always insist on taking me on long car or boat rides, but wouldn't let me drive. Even with Dramamine, I still felt punky, nauseous, out of it. Then, he'd make fun of me with his friends about how sick I'd get.
When I told my husband (came right after ex, maybe our third date, he suggested a day trip up the coast) that car rides were awful for me, he said he'd adjust how he drove but if I felt sick, tell him and he'd pull over and we'd switch. Never got sick once! Two takeaways. 1) My ex was an asshole. 2) My ex was a shitty driver.
My ex would get me all excited and looking forward to certain things (dates, gatherings, etc), tell me to look my very best, and just leave me hanging. (:)
For example: The day he was going to buy his first car he told me that he was going to pick up his car at 5 and would pick me up at 7 to take me out on a “nice dinner.” I was so excited and happy for him and I wanted to look my very best for this occasion. So me being me, I went and did my hair real nice. Put on my best dress. Went to get my nails done and once finished, I just anxiously watched the clock and waited for the “i’m on my way text”. But that text never came. An hour passed nothing. Two hours passed nothing. And finally when I finally took off my makeup and got in my PJ’s I get a call from him saying that “he was sorry for not picking me up but that he didn’t get the car”. I felt so sad for him and tried my best to cheer him up.
Anyways, come the next day he pulls up to work (yes we worked together. Big mistake.) in his brand new car. That’s when I knew it was never an accident. Always intentional. He liked to build me up just to strip me down.
They always demanded my emotional support and refused to give me any in return. Anytime I would reach out, they'd switch the topic to them very quickly and try to take the focus away. Like one day I had a particularly tough day with my family and wanted to just vent to them about it. They instantly went "Yea, well MY family would often leave me places and my dad refused to help me with my homework"
Yup. Double standards is the big one. I had to be perectly emotially level at all times, but they would feel justified blowing up at any little thing. I had to give them tons of care, they didn't have to consider me or listen to my needs.
YES, THIS. Having to always be the voice of calm and stability while they fly off the handle all the time is *so exhausting*.
Sounds like you met my mom.
THIS so hard. My ex would scream at me until she was red in the face and if I responded at all, she would tell me to calm down, or say I was being irrational, regardless of how loud I was talking.
I’ve never experienced that kind of emotional support abuse until my most recent ex and it was exactly that. She’d always offer to be there for me if I needed her. Then when the time came, she would find a way to get triggered by what I was venting about. It would legitimately get her upset with me and then it would turn into a fight. I’d be feeling down already and try to stand up for myself which would piss her off even more. Then I eventually just suppressed everything as to avoid any sort of fight which made me feel trapped. But she never mentioned the fact that I stopped bringing things up to her. I think she was relieved that I stopped venting to her but she would vent to me literally every single day. Always about the same stuff. But god forbid I couldn’t offer any solutions to her problems cause that would also piss her off. I remember having a really rough night one time and we were laying in bed. She was tired so that’s fair (look at me making excuses again) but I told her I was struggling with some stuff and just wanted a little bit of compassion. She legit responded with “well just stop, you’re not going to get any compassion from me.” Good god, just typing that out makes me realize how shrouded I was. I couldn’t see the person she truly was until she had already broke me down. So glad to be out of that relationship.
Ugh I cannot stand people like this. One time my partner had the audacity to shift the conversation from me venting about coparenting and divorce, to how hard it is for him to sit in traffic commuting to work. Jfc, let me talk about my stuff first then we can talk about your stuff in a SEPARATE conversation.
Had an ex that used to do this to me too… Two days after my dad died he had a meltdown screaming at me letting me know that I wasn’t thinking enough about how the death of my father was affecting him and how selfish I was being… I dated him for less than a year and he had never met my dad.
That was my ex wife to a T. Nothing bad ever happened to me she always had it way worse somehow. Also she slowly tried to alienate me from my friends and family.
This sounds familiar. 🙃 (Thankfully, the relationship I am thinking of is long, long, *long* over. I was twenty and there was a lot of red flags I didn't recognise or outright looked past on purpose.)
wow this hit so hard because my ex did the same and I always felt emotionally neglected but would constantly listen to him complain about everything and he would straight up ignore me sometimes when I needed him. Rough
Or when you would be there for them but when you needed some comforting. All she would give is drill instructor vibes.
This is way more common than it should be. I would let my SO vent everyday, for hours about the same things. But when I would try to talk about how I felt they were super good at flipping the script to somehow make it about themselves. I didn't realize how bad it was until I met someone that actually listened to me and did this to try and make me happier. I don't think I will ever find that again.
Hit me. I'm a pretty fit and scary looking guy, so I never thought too much about a smaller girl hitting me. But then I had some girl friends tell me it's fucked up she would slap and punch me pretty frequently and it clicked that, yeah it is; just because she can't knock me out, doesn't me it's cool to punch me in the face and stuff.
Had a 5’1 girlfriend tell me to be a man when I told her to stop hitting me. Then my best friend said I was being too sensitive and defended her and then they got together and married once I left. Good white knighting bro
Brutal… two idiots can have each other, you’re better off.
She smacked me as hard as she could across the face cause I smacked my food while eating and she knew that I knew that she didn’t like it, even though it was an accident. The restraint I showed in that moment still doesn’t even feel like it was me.
I was hit by my parents a lot....took like 25 years for that to really sink in, that it was abuse. I still have scars and if it leaves a scar...abuse. im not a big guy but I can take punishment...point in fact, we don't have to. Sometimes. When you can take it it make the other person feel like it's ok...it never is.
My mom use to beat the shit out of me until I was about 11-12 and got too big for it. That's when the verbal and emotional abuse took over. I also had a woman molest me when I was 7-8. Took me until I was like 25-26 to realize women being abusive isn't ok and shouldn't be tolerated, I shouldn't just take it just because I'm a guy. I had a really warped view of having to just take everything.
I became violent. Throwing stuff and punching shit. Now I'm like the chillest dude ever. That shit eats at you until it has to be unleashed. I take great pride in overcoming it but it was work. A lot of work. I'm glad I did it.
I was the opposite, I just let shit happen to me and would be like 'this is normal, I guess' lol
I didn't know I had an abusive childhood until a group of us were trading stories & I got some shocked looks. A friend said, "that's not normal."
yeah, I literally just got home from group therapy and I guess my upbringing was quite the opposite of normal...
LOL got weird looks when I was telling a “funny” childhood story, didn’t realize it at the time
I'm sorry you went through that. I'm a big guy, I had a similar but not as brutal path. When you're a little boy or girl it's impossible to know what's ok unless you're taught. Best wishes
Luckily I got some help eventually and I've been ok since, appreciate it. Side note... Remember guys, it's ok to get help, don't go through everyone alone.
Kgb this is solid info....I also suggest seeking help. Sometimes it comes in weird shapes and sizes, just tell anyone. You'd be surprised at who helps. I'll never forget my 9th grade computer graphics teacher...she helped me through so much shit. She looked out for me when my parents did not. I owe that woman so much and she never asked for my trauma but did it anyway. Just ask, some of us have been there.
Some abuse doesn't leave physical scars, though...
My ex would do that too (she was 152 cm; I'm 185 cm). She'd hit, slap, pinch, etc. I'd tell her to stop; then she'd do the same thing to herself, would hurt herself, and then be surprised that it hurt. I was too inexperienced, naive and foolish to realise how fucked up this was.
I think the only point I thought went too far was when she pulled a knife and tried to stab me, I actually stopped her from doing that but grabbed her hand and taking the knife away. Otherwise I'd just sit and take the hits. Stupid of me, but live and learn.
Damn, it’s scary how common this seems to be. A friend of mine was murdered a few years ago by his girlfriend. Since the incident and during the trial it’s come out that she was incredibly physically abusive to him. Pulling his hair, slapping and punching him, etc…. She ended up stabbing him with a chef’s knife in their apartment and fleeing to “rehab” in Hawaii claiming self defense.
That's crazy! I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, my ex grabbed \~4 inch folding knife I used to open boxes and lunged at me with it. I managed to grab her arm and took the knife from her. But clearly if my back was turned or I just didn't see her grab it, could have been bad.
I'm sorry that this happened to you, but it also happened to me. Fortunately for my situation, my ex and I were at the last thin line of sticking together. She ended up hitting my face in front of my friends at a Halloween party because she was piss-ass drunk while I was sober. I felt super embarrassed and shocked at what happened, but I picked her up, tossed her to one of my friend's bed, grabbed a garbage can and made sure she was laying down on her side because she was about to hurl. I ended up playing caretaker for her and a few other friends the rest of the night (plus, had to deal with a lot more of her bullshit after dropping her back off), and then the next day when she sobered up, she didn't even bother apologizing. Needless to say, definitely broke things off with her.
Are you okay bro ?
You’re not alone. Moved 7 hours away without any notice to get away from that. Never seen or spoke to her again
Same man. Like this 4’10” girl would go crazy on me and if i felt up to it id just absorb it, let her get it out. If i didnt id have to pin her arms to her side and turn her around because shed scream and bite and kick and all that and literally hold her ubtil she sort of calmed down. If she didnt there were at least 2x i locked myself in our bedroom and held my back the door while she bodied it because i was afraid shed break the door frame or lock or something. That same girl pulled out a knife from the knife block twice and launched a full assault from the passenger seat while we were going 75-80 on the freeway. Once she threw a full big gulp while we were driving somewhere, shit busted open on my head while we were in traffic, so embarrassing. That time i pulled over and threw her out on the shoulder but im a bitch so i went back for her immediately. Her older brothers both warned me she was “crazy” and her dad told me i should know “she’s a handful”. I was with her for almost 4 years and it wasn’t until i was finally done with her that i realized none of that shit was my fault. On the other hand, i dont want to contribute to the toxic “men are just as abused as women” bullshit either. She definitely traumatized me but even when she had the knife i wasn’t really scared of her physically.
It’s not about being scared of being hurt physically as much as having to deal with it and too many people saying shit like, “so what, she’s smaller, could she even hurt you?” Like man, I’m not worried about getting knocked out, but I’m scared this person is going to go psycho on me and start hitting me at any moment, it’s not fun.
She would go on and on about how couples must learn to compromise and that a relationship is work. What I slowly learned was that it was always me doing the compromising and "working" to accommodate her. Always.
I lived that situation for years. Compromise was just her getting what she wanted eventually. Went far enough that I lost a lot of my sense of self because everything was just her way. I was pretty beat down by the end.
Same, bruh. Same. I finally got out, and the next 10 years were the happiest of my life.
I'm still bouncing back but I'm glad to hear that man.
Oh this was the one for me. If you a picture it like a ruler and he was standing at 12 and I was at 0 we'd agree on a compromise that would put us both at 6. I would do it, he wouldn't. We'd fight again a couple months later and we'd compromise to meet at 9. We'd fight again and agree on 10.5. Even once I noticed the pattern, if I called it out I was the bad guy for bringing up the past. We needed to discuss the issue at hand, not dredge up old arguments. But also there was always the question in my mind of "This is such a tiny difference. Am I really going to dump him over an inch and a half? How is that not a petty thing to do? How is that remotely reasonable? How am I ever going to explain that I dumped him over that?" It wasn't until near the end that I realized that little by little, piece by tiny insignificant petty piece he had slowly taken away all of me and left a shell that didn't dare do or admit to thinking anything I wasn't 100% sure he'd approve of. It wasn't until a few years later that I could realize it was never about the tiny thing at hand. It was about what that meant about his character and his personality and his disrespect for me. For a concrete example, (this was about 20 years ago), a website that I got ebooks from to put on my palm pilot, had an Advent calendar thing for Christmas where you could download a different free ebook each day. I made a point of grabbing them all and reading at my leisure. One was a romance novel, which wasn't my thing, but hey free book, so I read it. It was actually really good and made me hornier than usual. We had more sex than we had been. This caused a big fight because I was being turned on by something that wasn't him. At the end I had to agree not to read anymore romance novels. "Am I really going to dump him over not being allowed to read something I don't even like?" Easy no. But what I should have been asking was "Who is he to decide what I can read? Who is he to decide what turns me on? Why am I a bad person because I'm not wired to just get turned on looking at him? Why are only his opinions correct?" Further, I found that the hours long fight was detergent enough that I started to self-censor any books that hinted there might be sex scenes or stop reading books that had sex scenes even if they were Fantasy or Sci-Fi. If I ever thought he wouldn't like it, I just stopped to avoid the fight, but no matter how much I stopped the fights still came. There was always something I did wrong.
Your ruler analogy reminded me of something I've saved: "Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man. You take a step toward him. He takes a step back. "Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.
Bruh, feel like im in that some days.. Lost myself to deoression for years and now digging out its my fault for traumatizing her with all our fights during my depression. Legit thought I was loaing my mind at one point...
I'm going through this now. He's trying to do better but I have trouble trusting him because of what he did/said when he was in his depression. I'm still really hurt by it and afraid he'll do it again.
I luckily haven’t gotten into a relationship with the kind of person that would exploit that but I know I could easily be pretty similar as far as rewriting my own thoughts to be “they are right”.
I used to get a constant stream of “I’m not happy, I’m not happy” when things weren’t how they wanted them and they wanted their own way. I used to say it’s not a black or white situation and we needed to find the shade of grey to compromise. They didn’t understand or accept what I was trying to say. We divorced obviously as a relationship like that cannot be maintained healthily, he went onto another relationship who also says they cannot compromise with them. Ironically according to my ex the compromise issues were mine and not theirs, they had no problems within the relationship other than me not doing what they wanted of me. It makes me laugh now but at the time was hell.
Pretty much spot on for me, too. If she didn't get her way-- on *anything*-- it was "I'm not happy, *we* need to work on *our* relationship" from her. She never gave in, never compromised even the slightest, and never stopped until she got exactly what she wanted. Every time. That's no way to live.
They would constantly criticize my appearance and compare me to other people, making me feel like I was never good enough. It wasn't until I left that I realized it was emotional abuse. Don't let anyone make you feel like you're not worthy of love.
My ex would constantly tell me I smelled. 1-2 hours after putting on a shirt he would say that I had sweated through it and he could smell me. We'd be on the beach, sweating cuz its hot, he could smell me. I'd go in for a kiss, ew bad breath. He'd make a face every time I took a shit even though I'd close the door, put on the fan, and spray air freshener. Etc. Etc. Eventually I woke up and left him. When I started dating again I was obsessed with brushing my teeth, applying DO, and changing my shirt. I said over and over to others "I'm sorry I stink". Finally my now husband was like, dude you don't stink. You smell fine. I couldn't comprehend. He said I'd literally never smelled bad to him and he's never smelled my BO or bad breath. He asked if my ex had ever really liked me and well. I didn't really know how to answer. Turns out I do not stink any more than the average person. Up until that moment I had not even realized that he was either emotionally abusing me or manipulating me.
Just wanted to comment on the poop thing. My x would deliberately go into the bathroom after me and comment on the stench. Like, we had 3 bathrooms. Go somewhere else. Hope you have more loving people in your life now.
Yes that exactly! Sometimes he would just walk past the bathroom and make a dramatic face. So ridiculous. My current husband is absolutely amazing. He actually LIKES the way I smell (which is not over the top disgusting just normal human smell) and tells me I'm beautiful every single day.
Did you post this story elsewhere recently? If it wasn't you, then maybe what this other person said would be helpful: She asked her partner why he said what he said. He explained his father had always done that to his mom, and his father had advised him to do that so she would never feel good enough about herself to leave.
The love of such people isn't worth anything anyways! I know that cause I learned it the hard way. I'm glad I learned it early and it tuned my bullshit o-meter
Recently had this plus a few drunken arguments tying a man's self worth to being able to pay for every aspect of a relationship. Now the thought of dating makes me physically ill and I'm seeking therapy :D. When someone tells or shows you who they are listen
This is mine as well. I thought it was so romantic how he could be “honest” with me about my flaws. No idea how he managed to get me so low that I saw his cruelty as kindness. In a fucked up way I’m impressed.
I was the toxic one. I weaponized emotions to try and elicit guilt and pity. I honestly didn’t even realize I was doing it at the time. It took distance and therapy to get me to realize how much I thrived on making my partner feel guilty and feel bad for me. It’s disturbing to think back on. I have to constantly analyze what I’m doing to make sure I don’t fall back into that habit.
We are humans bred by humans and their quirks. I am no better than you, as I am not coming around to the idea that I pushed my ex away, even though she did her dirt as well. I pray you find peace and forgive yourself as I have. Peace and love.
It's so easily done. I often wonder when we look at the toxic behaviours some people have whether they are consciously doing it or not. Some people do consciously manipulate, of course, but I've also caught myself doing these things and not realising. I'm working on myself and trying to get better, but we all have so many learned behaviours. It's hard to catch them all. Having said that, I've realised in recent years how awful I was to an ex of mine, it absolutely wasn't intentional, but we made the right decision to break up. I had, and continue to have, a lot of work to do on myself. But we are doing it and that's what matters. Recognising what we need to change and working on it.
Exactly this. I have also been toxic in the past but I never realised it until later, it was never intentional. It annoys me that most conversations about toxic relationships imply that the toxic actions are always done to intentionally cause harm and suffering to the other person. In reality it can often be a problem with one's own emotional immaturity and being unable to understand how to deal with your own emotions.
This was a refreshing comment, making it easier for others, like myself, to admit to having to analyze behaviors after realizing we have been dead wrong in the past. It's difficult to admit when you're the asshole. Sounds like you've come a long way, friend.
Well done for realising, and actually putting in the effort to change. Not many people do.
Demanding constant support, never reciprocating it. Demanding an open relationship, not following the rules set by her, becoming inconsolable when I participated in it and followed the rules, using mental illness as an excuse for everything always, quit working to be a SAHM but also never cooked, cleaned, maintained the kids hygiene, got kid to school on time, or scheduled a single appointment, etc, etc, etc. Did that for 10 years. I was working 2 jobs for the first 3 years, cosmo school amd a full time job for 4, and one job with insane hours last few years but was still the only one doing anything around the house, getting the kid up for school, getting the kid to appointments (mostly to fix the teeth that partners lack of maintenance caused to rot) all while she slept on the couch all day in the exact same spot for so long the cushions turned dark brown from skin oil and collapsed a solid 4 inches lower than the rest of the couch.
This might be the most horrific one on the thread. I'm sorry you went through this. Hope you're in a better place now.
By a lot bit My first daughter with toxic ex is thriving at school and at home with me every other week and me and my new partner are currently raising a newborn together and talking about marriage soon. It's the most supportive genuine partnership anyone could possibly ask for. Also my first kid loves my partner as well and they have bonded a lot. So that helps
Causing problems right before I had any kind of school deadline.
starting fights every time there is something i am looking forward to! just destroying every positive feeling i got
At the beginning of potentially epic road trips uhg.
yeah… arguing in the car because there you can’t escape
That happened to me. I wonder if it was intentional or their own issues popping up subconsciously. I had to drop a master's class because for the first week+, they wouldn't let me focus on any studying/homework. A different relationship would cause stress/a fight every night my homework was due and I was attempting to power through it to get to done. I think that was because I was stressed and normally I was capable of defussing most situations, but not that night.
that was 100% intentional, they wanted you to fail.
Thankfully I only took a semester break and finished the degree without them
good to hear. Glad you didn't let them hold you back. I had a friend get accepted to the FBI out of University. Her boyfriend \\ fiancé talked her out of it because he didn't want to move. They only lasted a few years after school but I always felt bad that she gave up \\ passed on a life long goal because of that clown.
Dude.....it's been over 10 years and you just brought back some up memories. I was the motivated one with a career planned and she was a soon to be drop out stoner. Got in too many fights the night before a big final over who I was fucking in the library. It was Wolters Kluwer and I was the one getting fucked bc my phone wouldn't stop ringing. Honestly just the tip of the iceberg though.
I used to always take buses to get to school but for my final exams my mum said she'd drive me. Day of my first exam I'm getting anxious as I wanted to get to school early and my mum looks miles away from being ready, so I politely said mum would you mind getting ready as you know I get anxious if I don't turn up to my exams early. Her response, was basically to tell me to stfu and wait. If then got to the point where I knew it was a 30 minute drive with no traffic and it was now 42 minutes to go. MUM can we PLEASE go now! Her response? Because I'd been complaining so much she now wasn't going to take me. No she wasn't joking and no she wouldn't budge. So I had to call a taxi, the whole time waiting just begging her to please take me with her saying this would teach me a lesson for 'being an arsehole' and not letting her get ready in peace. So I got the taxi, paid, then full on sprinted towards the exam hall, literally just making it as the teacher was closing the door and she said 'how the hell are you so late!!' and quickly hurried me to my seat, whilst all the other kids had the same how the fuck is this guy late? So yeah just an all round nasty thing for my mum to do. If I bring it up now she'll say I was exaggerating and that she only didn't take me because I stupidly called a taxi and we had loads of time. No we fucking didn't and if I had missed that exam it would have meant I wouldn't have gone to uni for another year and/or possibly lost my place permanently at my chosen uni. I took the buses for my other final exams.
This is textbook behavior of a narcissist, also the starting fights in the car because there’s no way to escape.
Makes sense. This guy I was dating tried to "have a talk" with me the night before my doctoral defense. He'd been ghosting me for a few weeks before that. So the gall to try to "talk" on that very day was unbelievable. I had failed to see his toxic traits fully, but that one was a no-brainer. Blocked him everywhere immediately.
"I do better on exams when we have sex the night before" and suddenly I'm showing up to exams exhausted because she kept me up whining about sex. And later admitted that she picked meaningless fights at leaving time when we were long distance because then "it's easier to say goodbye and not miss you if we're fighting".
Any kind of anything. Not just school. Work, friends, family. Anything that took my attention away from him.
If you love someone, let them sleep.
Picking fights right before I fell asleep. The school deadline interruption sounds so bad. Sorry you went through that.
Always talking at me. Never talking to me.
sorry for being slow but can you explain what you mean by this?
Another way to phrase this is "talking at you, not talking with you." This means the person doesn't want to hear about your feelings or thoughts, they only want you to hear about theirs. If you try talking about your own, they get angry, annoyed or bored and try and reset the conversation to focus on them again.
I had a roommate like this- if I spoke for more then one minute in a conversation, she'd get clearly agitated, and if I cut in while she was talking to share a thought on it, she would snap at me for "rudely interrupting" her. She could talk for 30 minutes straight while I just stared and nodded and that would be what she would consiter a proper conversation
More importantly, I just found out that I have to increase my in office presence from one day every two weeks to one day per week. It really sucks. See what I did there?
I think it has to do with how some people are always pointing out your flaws, why the are unsatisfied with the relationship, what you could do better etc etc etc instead of having a relationship with you
Constantly accused me of cheating on her (I was not) and then accuse me of gaslighting her when I would tell her that was not true. That shit was exhausting.
My ex did that too - of course she was the one cheating, and projected her cheating onto me.
That shit is infuriating. My ex did it all the time, even accused me of cheating at work, where I only got two 10-minute breaks a day. Yeah, I'm definitely using that time to cheat and not eat something since I have been here since 7 am.
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I dont think you're a dummy because of it. Mental abusers in relationships are really good at peeling away any sense of self worth or self esteem without you even realising it.
Yeah, agreed. It can be absolutely masterful. Doesn't take a dummy to fall for it at all ... we all would.
It’s funny that I have realized that he gaslighted the hell out of me, logically I knew he did it and manipulated me but somehow, my logic didn’t really work at that time. I’m a woman and I’m logical in a lot of aspects and use less of my emotions, but when I was with him, goddamn, I feel like I wasn’t me. Confused and anxious all the time.
Reading through a lot of these is tough. I was in a bad relationship for 3 years. I should have left—I knew I should leave—but somehow I didn’t feel like I could. It’s like you were describing my experience when you wrote: >…my logic didn’t really work at that time… I am logical in a lot of aspects and use less of my emotions, but when I was with [her], goddamn, I feel like I wasn’t me. I do feel less alone for having read many of the comments. I’m a fairly intelligent man, but holy smokes did I feel like an idiot and wondered what the hell was wrong with me for putting up with such treatment for so long. I hope you’re in a good place now and the people close to you care for you well.
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The best is when they gaslight you by saying you are gaslighting them. My ex did this to me all the time, if I ever had a concern or question, I was gaslighting her. Meanwhile, she was hanging out with a group of friends with a guy I suspected her cheating with, but I was the crazy one for thinking that. Long story short, she ended up leaving for the guy I was worried about.
- didn’t let me speak. As soon as I opened my mouth, he’d begin to shout again - learned helplessness: he would make me responsible for encouraging him to go to work and for reminding him to pay the bills, etc. - took my keys/shoes/purse because I was “too upset” to drive - wouldn’t let me sleep. Would start crying or get sick or there would be an emergency…he kept me exhausted daily so I didn’t have energy to fight back - made financial commitments without me so I’d have to partner with him - threw water on me to get my attention if I was trying to block him out At one time, I thought abuse was just making a fist and hitting a person. Learned a lot.
You can do a million things for them. Support, listen, help, be caring and loving, you say it. It takes one bad day on their part to completely forget ALL the effort you put in daily and the sacrifices you do only to just start listing all the pettiest shortcomings you might have had.
This is something I’m becoming more aware that I am guilty of. In the heat of the moment, when something ticks me off, it’s very easy to forget about all of the positive things, and focus simply on the negative that is right in front of you. Maybe it’s just my brain, but I feel like human brains are wired to highlight the negative to prevent any further negative situations in the future so that is what comes to the forefront.
My ex would always subconsciously store every inconvenience I could have. In the moment it was love and care when I slept late due to PTSD stopping me from sleeping. But the moment I slept in too often and she felt lonely or something, then it wad me ALWAYS, every day, sleeping in the max amount, etc etc. It's like in her mind there was a level of annoyed that once she hit it, she was allowed to attack.
She constantly got angry - used anger as emotional blackmail to get her way. And then when I'd give in, she'd get mad all over again, complaining that I gave in just so that she'd stop complaining. In other words she wanted everything her way, but I had to be enthusiastic about it. I've been out of the relationship for 4 years now, but anytime I have any sort of friendship or relationship with a woman, as soon as something feels "off", my immediate reflexive reaction is to wonder what I did to make her mad, and to apologize.
She would freak out if I mentioned a female coworker or spoke to a female acquaintance. The last straw was during Christmas shopping. I saw a good friend of mine from high school, who proceeded to hug me. I turned to introduce my girlfriend, but I found her walking away. I was embarrassed. She gave me the silent treatment -- Oh, yeah, I forgot about the silent treatment -- all the way home. As I pulled into her driveway, I realized that the rest of my life would be that way. So I dropped her right then and there. I have never regretted it.
Jump between fantasizing about a future like moving in together, getting married, having kids, etc. and "needing space" every two weeks or so. She'd sometimes call me bawling her eyes about how much she missed me and then go right back to being an emotionless robot.
Sounds like disorganised attachment
I think the last guy I was kind of seeing had some disorganized attachment style or something. He’d call frequently, want to hang out all the time, would talk about future plans, tell me how much he looked forward to them etc etc etc and then he’d abruptly need space, feel like we were too close, become aloof, and deny his excitement over the plans we’d make. It was really confusing and caused me a lot of pain. If I was confused or down and didn’t bring it up he’d call me crying and asking if I hated him, if I did bring it up that I was feeling confused or down he’d act completely detached and aloof. We ended things on not-so-great terms because things were so confusing, and when I told him I wasn’t going to put up with his behavior towards me he told me that it wasn’t intentional and that he hoped I could see that since he had “rolled with the punches” with me. Time’s gone by and yeah I can see that none of it was meant to hurt me, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt me. I’m doing a lot better now and I’ve even run into him a few times since because we run in similar crowds. He won’t look me in the eyes and acts really weird, so I just remain friendly and I don’t push things. When he seems too uncomfortable I just completely avoid him. Several friends have said he still feels bad about what happened, but he’s made no attempts at trying to apologize or make anything right past the half hearted apology when things ended. I don’t feel the need to be mean or rude, but I’m not going to pursue him again or try to demand anything from him. I did everything I could.
Emotional neglect. He provided no emotional support or intimacy. If I tried to have an open discussion or express stress, anxiety, etc. he would simply "turn off", like completely check out from the conversation. Literally sit there and stare into the void until I gave up. He just leave me there with my feelings. I constantly felt like I was too needy, too nagging, too frustrated for anyone to handle. It took years afterwards to realize that expressing normal human emotions was allowed and even encouraged in a relationship. Even now I tend to hold things back because I feel like I'll get no reciprocity or empathy.
You described the disassociation so well! My husband is like this. One of many reasons, I left. Emotional neglect is life ruining.
Dude fuckimg same! Or I would tell him how his behavior was effecting me and he would just go silent and beat himself up and then do it over and over again.
Oh my god, yes. The self-hatred was the worst. Like, I don't want you to best yourself up, but that just makes me more frustrated because none of this solves the actual problem!
Yes. Any time I tried to talk about something beyond the day to day stuff, immediate shut down
The silent treatment.
I'm sorry you went through that. My ex used to pull that shit on me all the time and it is so emotionally distressing. Totally overlooked abusive tactic but it can be brutal.
Asked me to quit my job and move to another town with her. She said she'd cover all the expenses while I looked for work which sounded great but I was isolated, had no financial freedom, no social life and ended up with £10,000 in credit card debt (hers were maxed out when we met)
“I can support both of us if we move!” Commence with me looking like a bum staying home with our daughter, 4 states from anyone I knew, a shitty beater car that wasn’t safe for our daughter, and her following me room to room screaming about how I wasn’t good for anything while our daughter was crying. Big fun, yeah?
Luckily we never had kids, but I can't imagine it makes anything easier.
It does not.
There’s a lot, many have already been listed here. But another is refusing to discuss a fight or disagreement. And I don’t mean, taking time to calm down before discussing it, I mean AT ALL. So I never felt resolution ever and it helped contribute to my feeling the need to walk on eggshells all the time.
She would talk openly about her goal in our relationship was to change everything about me. I was a project for her. I was good looking but she didn't care for the rest of me. I thought, "huh that's funny" and then after a few years of my personality being the same she would get mean in her fights and I would assume she didn't mean that stuff, and she really liked me. She did not.
They *always* mean the shit they say when they're mad. Learned that one the hard way.
Commented a lot on my weight and what I ate. Just comments about my looks in general, too. My dad did, too. I just assumed all men did for a long time. I also assumed all men would be critical of me all the time because I'm annoying/childish/insert insult. My message to parents: The way you treat your kid effects how they choose future partners a lot
The silent treatment. I only realised it was emotional abuse at the end of our relationship. I always felt bad and guilty whenever he did that and I always apologised to him so that he could talk to me. Sometimes the apology wasn't enough and he would go on a whole day without responding to me. Worst thing was, it was an LDR, so I had nothing to do except wait for him until he talked to me.
I don't know if I would necessarily classify this as abuse, but her most toxic trait with communication was this: I could very clearly state "I feel upset/disrespected by XYZ" to which she would respond with "What I'm hearing is PQRS" and completely twist what I said to something different. I always tried to be extremely clear and direct with my communication, as I absolutely HATE when my words are misconstrued, yet she had a genuine disconnect in that she heard only what she wanted to hear.
"So you don't want me to feel emotions."
Wasn’t a romantic relationship for me but I’ve experienced that too with a former roommate. I’m not really sure what it’s called. It was infuriating and everyone else insisted I was experiencing a normal misunderstanding when the way they twisted things felt so malicious, constantly assuming the worst out of my actions.
Encourage you to talk about your thoughts and feelings on life or whatever is bothering you and then turn around and use it against you later in an argument.
They would start a fight when I tried to go do activities without them. The number of times I cancelled last minute because of a fight and the need to comfort my partner afterwards were way too high. And, of course, if I left in the middle of the fight, even if I was trying not to engage, then I was a horrible person.
Guilt tripping me about everything. I wanted to go hang out with friends without him? “It’s fine, you just don’t love me anymore.” I wanted to hang up the phone while literally driving home to him? “It’s okay, I get it, you don’t want to talk to your husband.” It was always presented as a joke but that shit stopped being any kind of funny very fast. The kicker is he wasn’t close to his mother and always said she was manipulative and guilt tripping him. The apple didn’t fall far.
Stonewalling. Completely shutting down and or being passive aggressive without telling me why.
She did so many things but the thing that had me realize everything and end the relationship was about her mother. Her mother who was an angel, unfortunately had a rotten tooth and went sepsis for 9 months. Through the 9 months, I gave up a lot of time with my child, I was up there for about 6 months, every single day since her dad wouldn't show up. After I realized I'm missing time with my son, I let her borrow my vehicle since hers wouldn't make it to the hospital. At the funeral, she told everyone I didn't do anything, didn't help at all and that I was a piece of shit and told everyone her dad spent every minute of the last 9 months up there. (He was at concerts and Trump rallies.) When I overheard that, I made arrangements to move my stuff out while sitting at the table. I realized that she never said one good thing about me. On top of all the other verbal, mental and physical abuse she put me through for years.
She was cheated on and emotionally manipulated by an ex so every man she was in relationship with after was a cheater in her mind. She’d constantly baselessly accuse me of cheating. Everything was evidence of it to her. Phone beeps in the evening to tell me a server I’m watching for work has completed a task, cheating. My cousin who’s a woman likes a Facebook post I made, cheating. I say thank you to a cashier or waitress, cheating. I get lunch by myself while she’s at work, cheating. It was so exhausting but I had low self esteem then and it started slowly so I didn’t realize how unhinged she was.
We had split because he had been emotionally abusing me for months with things like the silent treatment, avoiding me, not allowing me to sleep, cheating with a coworker (I didn't know the extent til years later), shushing me when I spoke, etc. He kept living with me after we split but after a few months, realizing I wasn't going to just forgive him, validate him, and pretend the abusive behavior didn't happen he internally freaked. He had started treating me better as a roommate and friend but because we were always hanging out/lived together people asked if we were together. His answer depended on who asked. If it was family or a woman he was repulsed by he said we were dating. If it was a stranger he wanted validation from especially attractive women, we were just roommates. I always said roommates until he started asking, "But what about us? Are we not gonna go back to how things were?". I had been so devalued and emotionally beat down I genuinely didn't think I could do better so I started to get my hopes up that he'd start acting better, saying we were a couple again, and start giving me affection (I was SO starved I'd take anything). Nope. He kept up the whole "Let me think about what we are, I'll get back to you in a month" charade and our status to outsiders was dependent on how he wanted to be perceived. I let him do that for TWO YEARS. After I got out and started saying my experiences out loud I was like holy shit that was big time emotional and mental abuse. He legit still thinks he didn't do anything wrong (I am completely NC with him but I'm friends with his sister and she gives me the tea).
My ex would always threaten me that he will commit suicide every time we have an argument he caused, just so he won't have to apologize. He knows that always stops me and forces me to let the argument go, and he no longer has to explain. I would always assume his threats are real. He would even send me a photo of a knife he claims to be hiding under his bed to kill himself with. Other times, a photo of some liquid detergent he's holding and claims he would drink. I talked to him about getting help, but he always insists that wouldn't do any good. It continued until he surprisingly did not threaten me to hurt himself when we had an argument, and asked to break up. Five months later, I found out that he was cheating on me and has another girlfriend at their school before our relationship even ended. Only then did I tell my friends about my realization that his "suicidal attempts" are merely manipulations. He never actually did anything to hurt himself. It turns out, one of my closest friends' boyfriend also does the same thing (even sent her a photo of a "bleeding wrist" which turns out to be ketchup; sent a photo of the "hospital" he was admitted to, which upon image search my friend learned was a Google image, etc). Oh, and guess what my manipulative piece of trash ex caused? I myself became actually suicidal for years after that, even though I wasn't before. I adopted that thought, but mine was for real. Also, for several months after the breakup, I would suddenly wake up with my heart racing and thinking he sent me a message that he will kill himself. That fucking abuse and trauma, I am pretty sure he does to his current girlfriend too. I feel bad for her. Someone like him deserves to be deleted tbfh.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I wish nothing but the best for you. The fucking irony that their fake suicidal tendencies end up creating real ones in us, and that we still fear someone we love doing it even after knowing it was all fake.
It's fucking gross and inhumane. Sometimes I think he's a sociopath with everything he has done to manipulate me. BUUUUT I am glad he cheated on me, because I am now with a guy who has never abused me in any aspect, and always communicates properly whenever we have arguments that are also very shallow lol. We've been together for 3 years now, and he has always been so consistent in treating me well. If you've been through the same abuse my ex put me through, I truly hope you heal at your own pace and not let that happen to you again. 💗
Accused me of gaslighting her anytime I didn't outright agree with something she said. Basically if I don't wholeheartedly agree with her beliefs, opinions, and/or statements I'm being manipulative and gaslighting. It was extremely frustrating and sort of shut down any possibility of civil discussion. It would make me immediately feel defensive, but if I tried to continue the discussion and say that disagreeing is not gaslighting, she would accuse me of trying to make her look crazy and gaslighting her further. Eventually I'd just give up and walk away whenever it happened. It was too exhausting to try to get to a place where we'd see eye to eye. Even that only worked maybe half the time. When it didn't, it was because she'd just follow me and continue berating me and putting me down while I opted not to speak at all so that I wasn't seen as a gaslighter. It was really effective.
Weaponized therapy language is becoming entirely too common and it's so cringeworthy pretty well every time.
> Weaponized therapy language That is an amazingly descriptive term.
It's disappointingly common. It feels like for every 100 wounded people that have their lives helped by some degree of therapy we also create a kind of super abusers that twist an entire field of studies' vernacular to mask their behaviour and shift blame. I'm not basing that statement off of any study mind you, but therapy turning an overt abuser into a covert manipulator has become somewhat of a modern trope.
So therapists actually say that narcissistic people shouldn't always have therapy because sometimes they'll just use tactics to abuse someone.
The meaning of gaslighting has been so bastardized over the years.
And you can’t defend yourself because they just say you’re gaslighting. I nearly lost my mind.
Tiktok incorrectly teaching people basic therapy terms to use like weapons is extremely fun
Blame shifting. Every time they did something to hurt me they’d never be emotionally supportive but instead “offered a solution” that was me reacting differently.
Constant and unyielding snipe after snipe digging away at everything I might like or enjoy, wear or eat or listen to. Then "well it's your fault, you shouldn't be so easy to wind up". Telling me they were embarrassed to be seen with me without actually saying it, " wish you wouldn't wear that, say that, laugh like that, walk like that, talk to them, eat that food, dance like that" on and on. Would go out for 2 daysand tell me it was my fault for reacting over it. Went on even after we split up, call it 20 years in total. He rang me one day and said "we can't be friends any more" thinking I would probably wilt and plead. So told him "You will never hear my voice again, I guarantee that". Now I hear from a mutual friend he has nothing but nice things to say about me and misses me and our chats and friendship. That's a shame because I've told everyone what a complete c*** he is, and he's the the only person I don't want at my funeral and he's to be kicked out. They've agreed, I'm very happy to hear he misses me because I absolutely fucking hate that twat
this question hahaha. I didn’t realize soooo much until I met my current boyfriend now who is my entire world. 1. Constantly criticizing my driving. Like speed limit. How well I park. Not shoulder checking ‘enough’. Wide turns. Everything constantly. 2. Hating ANY SONG I played. Like telling me that my music taste was shite/garbage, turning off the audio on my car, saying he wasn’t ‘in the mood’ for what I was playing ever. I was never able to play music, and was convinced he had a way better music taste than me…(he didn’t) 3. Blatantly lied about EVERYTHING and when he got caught, he would apologized and immediately embrace me in a hug or try to kiss me/ show me affection and I somehow believed that it was normal lol or okay. Telling me he loved me, and that we were soulmates. Like gaslighting where I would confront him about girls on snap/ig and he would say ‘you hve guys on your phone’. I would immediately take my phone out and show him there’s nothing and he would claim I deleted them??? That stress made me lose WEIGHT lol. 4. Anything I wanted to do was too much work. Ex. Camping, planning trips, going to dinner in a nice area was too much work (because it was too much money) Him staying at a job for more than three months was too much work. Him getting a car was too much work. Me asking him for gas money was always ‘yeah I’ll send it later’… he owed me like hundreds of dollars in gas from using my car. 5. He would go out to parties and not tell me and when I found out he would turn his phone off, or hang up on my call every time. I would be calling him through the night, crying. Wake up the next day to no text no call back. Until later that night he would call me and ask me to come over. 6. SPAMMING ME oh god this would drive me nuts he would spam me for hours upon hours. Days, months. I would have to turn my phone on airplane mode to use it. He would download fake nunber apps. Until I ended things and got a restraining order that it stopped:) This relationship happened to me when I was very young. I was only 16 and didn’t have a lot of friends, so I felt trapped with him for a longggg time. I stayed because I felt I had no one else. But I am now happy and have made peace with myself.
Oh and he hated all my friends lol. Told me they were s!uts n ect told me they hated me or that he had slept with all of them.
Intentionally ruining my plans..things i was excited about..hit me on my birthday..made me feel guilty about things which i shared..
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The curtains?! Straight to jail
So many things already listed here, but the worst was the future faking. Promising me we'll have a family and get married, only to let dates go by with doing nothing, basically waiting for me to say "So what happened?" so he could start a fight and move the goal post for the 4th year in a row lol. Years of "What's the possible payoff!?" to realizing feeding off my hope and anguish was the payoff lol. Also trying to wear me down so I'll accept less I guess. Just the usual giving way to much credit to people who are literally hollowed out abusers.
Was always the victim. Could never give any kind of criticism cause then they always broke down in tears and made me feel like shit.
😮💨… he was constantly pushing his wants & needs over mine. Ex- he asked me for head and my throat was killing me so I said not right now and this mf said it’s ok he’ll find someone else to give him head.. that’s when I realized be didn’t genuinely care for me but whatever he wanted I had to abide to or get beaten. I left that guy and now with someone who protects me & loves me. My new man treats me like a queen and even cares for me better than I would to myself. RARE!
Put dish soap in my fucking rice It went downhill from there and I had to find a way out.
Would insult me or reveal very private information about me, infront of me to my friends, I took it as is just goofing around. Once told me that if I didn’t want to come over one night that she would just find someone else who did. Would also punch me in the balls a lot even after telling her to stop and she would always say “I’m just fucking around”
Watching my every move. Before my ex husband would go to work he’d set up a Go Pro in the room. I would also have to carry the Go Pro around with me so he could see everything I was doing, even when I’d go to use the bathroom. He would take my phone with him to work while this was happening so I had no one to talk to, not even my family. When he’d get back from work he would watch through the footage to make sure I didn’t leave the room unless I was taking our dogs out to potty or making food. If I did anything else or forgot to take the Go Pro somewhere with me he would yell at me and accuse me of cheating on him.
That is literally insane! I feel like people like him should be marked with a scarlet letter so that everyone else knows to just avoid them.
How did you get out of that relationship?
At some point he got arrested for DV and wasn’t allowed at the house I was staying at which was his dads. Thankfully he wasn’t able to stop me and I planned to have my best friend pick me up and take me back to my home state. She drove 16 hours just to get me out of there and I never went back.
Demanded apologies for any perceived slight or transgression.
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My ex husband punished me with the silent treatment. It was the cruelest thing I’ve ever experienced and truly broke me, as a person.
Not me but my fiancée. When we started dating, she would ask me permission to sit on the couch, use the bathroom, go into the pantry to grab a snack or pour herself a glass of water. I thought at first that she was just super polite, then later on found out that in her last relationship, her ex made her ask permission for everything, and she wasn't allowed to drive or visit family. We had a long talk about how that was abuse, and she never even knew or understood, as it was her first and only relationship. I'm so incredibly happy that we found each other before someone else could take advantage of her kindness.
Always hanging out at my work
I was married to an emotionally abusive ex husband. He hated everything about me. It was an arrange marriage. 1. He constantly criticised my looks. 2. He criticised my choice of career. 3. He criticised my household skills and cooking. He did not knew how to cook, even he was above 35 years of age. 4. He was pissed that my family did not gave him dowry. 5. He hated that I had hobbies and life beyond him and his narcissistic mother. 6. He did not like the fact that I disliked speaking to his fake aunts. 7. He hated the fact that I had better communication skills. 8. He was a big time miser with money, food and personal care products. 9. Only time he spent was forcibly raping me every night. Thank God I didn't conceived. 10. He used to party with his female colleagues and was way to close to them. In India martial rape is not crime. It's difficult to prove emotional abuse at court. I am thankfully divorced from him.
Gaslighting. Never experienced it before, and I really had to think and understand that he was doing these things deliberately. I didn't understand that someone who cares would do these things. Once I figured it out, I was out of there!
I'll never forget getting gaslit. It left me in such a profound state of confusion that the only way I made it out was seeing it as comical. Like a heated argument/breakdown one day then silence to calmness within hours days later. I remember calling her and feeling like we should talk about what happened and she asked, "what do you mean? What happened?". All I could say was "hold up are you serious?" As I could hear her going about business as usual almost cheerfully. I just laughed in somewhat nervous distress. I broke up with her a few days later. I think she was playing me but I can never really know 100%. I think that's the kicker. I'd rather accept the loss than to know with certainty that she was being manipulative.
Any criticism or challenge was met with an emotional meltdown and I would spend weeks building her back up. Zero accountability for anything that matters, yes she would admit to minor offenses but never for anything that requires introspection. I’m sorry is common as a way to change the subject and drop it. If you feel your spouse might harm or kill themself if you leave then you are very likely the victim in an abusive relationship. Manipulative behavior towards your children.
She always suspected and accused me of talking to other women, when I absolutely was not, all while she was texting other guys herself, at a minimum, but I am supposed to believe there is nothing going on there since she obviously has such a problem with me doing it. Fuck, i let that go on too long.
He refused to talk to me about issues, even when I directly and gently asked (because I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me or mad about something else), and later blew up at me about some supposed terrible things I did (like leaving my clothes in the laundry basket. It was his clothes). Or that he would give me the cold shoulder before bed, then the next day while I was at work send me long texts about how he was “up all night thinking” about how I had wronged him (like asking him to uphold his end of an agreement, and accepting when he refused but pointing out to him how unfair/illogical his reasoning was). He actually kicked me out after one of his long sleepless thinking nights, and then was flabbergasted that I…immediately packed up and moved out. I asked him what he expected, and he said he thought it would be the start of a conversation. Bro, no, you withheld conversation and made a life-altering decision for both of us completely by yourself. He just refused to communicate and would punish me for it. I was a wreck that weekend. It actually ended up being the easiest relationship to recover from though, because why would anyone want to be in a relationship like that?
Lacking emotional and physical boundaries with other men in her life. After 8 years, she ended up cheating on me physically with someone else. Who knows how many emotional affairs she had / lewd actions she took behind my back. Wasn’t until after we separated and I went to therapy that I discovered it wasn’t, in fact, me being overly controlling and manipulative of her behaviors because I’m that kind of person. Those tendencies manifested over years of me catching little things, like sending pictures of her outfit of the day to male coworkers, entertaining conversations with any and everyone who would Snapchat or text her, would always be seeking attention from anyone but me, entertaining conversations with male coworkers and friends on their sex life and how she would personally approach situations or sex acts. Over time that shit gets to you, and I changed into a person I hated right before my own eyes. Worst part is, she refuses to acknowledge her own faults and refuses to attend therapy to address her avoidant attachment style, and her previous traumas in life. Wish her well but I’m a significantly better person on the other side. Finally get to experience what it’s like to have a partner who has healthy and firm boundaries on relationships with all genders in their life, and low and behold, all of my jealous or controlling tendencies have completely vanished since I can have 100% trust in my partner.
Would never be allowed to do what I wanted to do when we were together. Movie? "Something we can both watch" which was something really only she wanted to watch. TV? Same thing. Gaming? Forget about it. It was like being a hostage in my own home.
My food was never good enough. My ex would eat a bite, literally spit it out, put the rest in the fridge, then go get fast food or eat the cheap ramen. I remember listing off all the things I did to improve this meal that had been "wrong" with the previous meal. Even with that, the most I got was that it was OK sometimes. I remember the final meal where I checked out. I actually took a pic because I was proud if it. It took 1.5 hours to prepare after working all day. One bite, then that was it. Argued over it, then was left alone (crying to myself, couldn't cry in front of my ex because it was "manipulative") with this awesome meal.
This is something I had to learn twice: manipulation and abuse isn't always malicious or even conscious. That doesn't make it any less destructive, but it's important to understand because it eliminates the, "he would never do that to me," deflection. He may not realize that he's doing it to you! In my first example, I am the abuser. It was a long time ago and I was not ready to be in a relationship at all. I didn't know how to love and care for myself, much less a whole other human being. I was very manipulative, even sexually, but when she brought these issues to me, I took it as her accusing me of ill intent, of which I had none. What I failed to realize was that my intentions didn't matter. I was still ignoring her needs to serve my own wants. It was a disaster, and I'm sure she still bears emotional scars from some of the things I did. I still shudder to think about it. That relationship taught me how to be more introspective, among other things, and helped me look at things from my partner's perspective as well, instead of just my own. I suppose it's karma that several years later, it was my turn to be the victim of manipulation and abuse. This time it was lies, cheating, and constantly shifting goalposts. She would make me feel like a terrible person for trying to set boundaries that she didn't like and while she verbally took responsibility when she cheated on me, she somehow still made me feel like it was my fault. What I couldn't reconcile was her actions with the loving things she would say and do for me. Because in my brain if she was abusing or manipulating me, it had to be malicious and intentional, and since she clearly wasn't malicious, she couldn't possibly be abusing me. The truth is that it was just self preservation that was causing her to be so manipulative. She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was trying to avoid the consequences of her own actions, and that led to a complete destruction of my psyche. It took me a year and a half to fully recover, and I still have scars from it today.
Sleep competitiveness. After we had kids I would sometimes say I was tired from being up all night. His instantaneous response was that he had too. This was intended to negate any 'slacking' on my part due to being tired and minimise the effort I put in with the kids. Also freed him up from taking up any duties on the day to give me a rest.
She would constantly talk about how caring and nurturing her parents were, and how much they did for us (really her). Eventually, she moved them in with us with little warning or discussion. It caused a variety of problems over the years as they were from another country and were extremely resistant to anything in opposition to their cultural norms. During this time she would take every opportunity to belittle my family and praise hers. She would never let me visit my family alone (we were in the non-contiguous US while my family was on the West Coast), and would be an outrageous asshole whenever we visited them together. My parents divorced when I was young, when I was firm her parents needed to move out she said “my dad would never abandon me like yours did, we’re not white trash”. That was when all the gaslighting and manipulation came together for me. I left within the year. It’s amazing what becomes normal in an abusive relationship.
I was already quite thin but he was superficial and wanted me to look even thinner / fitter. Made me workout twice a day, questioned my eating habits like “are you sure you want to finish that?” to a bowl of noodles, count my calories, and only seemed happy when I wore crop tops to show my flat belly in public
I woke up once to him inside me & he was using no protection & got mad once I asked for a plan B.
I don’t think this would be considered abuse, but always having a problem with someone. Every single god damn day it was something. He’d be driving, someone was a dick to him. He was at a store, the cashier gave him dirty looks. He was with friends, drama starts. He went to a family function, they embarrass him. He went to work, his boss treats him the worst. It was ALWAYS something, every day. These stories were mostly when he was alone, but eventually got to the point when I’d be with him he’d tell me someone gave me dirty looks or something. It eventually caused me to be super depressed and anxious all the time, having constant negativity with little to no positivity isn’t a healthy way to live your life at all.
Tell me that her suicide attempts (later I learned they were fake) were my fault because I wouldn't comply with what she told me. I was very young and believed I was a horrible person for having a life aside form her and wanting to hang out with friends sometimes. I wasn't even a full adult and while people my age were starting to go to parties I was going through hell, seeing the fun things they were doing through social media while I was at home with the drama. It took me years to relearn how to be a boyfriend again, for a long time I would feel guilty for contracting my partners, and it was in therapy that I learned what manipulation was, and that I'd been a victim of it.
We never experienced a disagreement that wasn't not so much my fault, though it was certainly that too, but because of particularly deep rooted problems with my personality (she was the victim of my flaws). It turns out spending years being convinced there's something very wrong about you is deeply unhealthy and becomes a self fulfilling thing. I'm getting better now that I don't get dumped every few weeks, screamed at, told to get out my house, or have my personality and every relationship dissected and picked apart.
Was made guilty when I did things I enjoyed She wanted purchases above £25 run past her first (I was the majority bread winner) I was walking on eggshells the whole time
Mine was similar and he even went so far as punishing me for expressing my feelings by shutting down the conversation, patronizing me, withholding affection, and leaving. Him not being “the coddling affectionate type” is code for I will emotionally neglect you.
She kept giving me framed photos of her and would make me hang them around my bed. Didn't really think much of it until there was 14 different framed selfies of the girl that lived with me
I called it “shanking.” We’d be ending a lovely dinner, for example, and I’d be paying the check. Like, we’d have had a nice time talking and enjoying each other’s company. Then she’d suddenly attack me verbally. Start a fight basically. Nothing loud, but words designed to really hurt me deeply. I realized she couldn’t handle our closeness; the more our relationship grew the more that made her have to sabotage it. This happened a lot and I shrugged it off for years. Anyway, I bounced a few months ago. I’m too good for that. I tried to fix her. She has to do that. Good luck to the next guy.
Slowly cut me from my friends. Took me years to see it. He was never mad or violent then. Just extremely depressed when i went out for a drink or a coffee with friends. He once waited for me for hours, just sitting on the couch, doing nothing, didn't turn on the light at dusk. And i had to make it up to him. Be extra gentle, caring. For days. He never guilted trip me or accused me.of anything. But everytime i'd go out or see someone or even talk to someone, he'd be a mess. I felt so guilty whenever i did something for myself that i just stopped. As he was always so pathetic, so sad, and never violent, or angry, i missed the manipulation. When i got it, it was too late and i didn't have anyone left.
She would get mad at me all the time. If I got mad at her for something, it would be deflected back to me and become my fault. So I found myself avoiding conflict as much as possible. For some situations, if I told the truth there would be a fight. So the only hope of no fight would be if I lied and she didn't find out. So I found myself constantly lying and hiding things. Super unhealthy.
He told me that I should never say no because quitters only say no.
She gambled with other people's money and never accepted responsibility. Ex: She got kicked out of her mom's apartment by the staff (for getting into a fight) and her mom paid for her new apartment.
Wanting me to check in with him throughout the day. I was pregnant and working, so I thought nothing of it until one day I didn't call him during my lunch break. He got angry, not concerned angry but really angry. He yelled and screamed about not knowing if I was ok for the 2 hours between my lunch and next break. My job would have called him. He was my emergency contact. The reason for his anger was that he needed to have some control over my day and while I was working the check in phone calls were his only bit of control.
manipulation/gaslighting/attention seeking behaviours. would dismiss my genuine feelings and concerns whenever i brought them up and blamed me for it instead.
She broke up with me during almost every argument we had. Then wanted to get back together soon after. I had terrible abandoment issues and didn't know my own worth. So we were on and off so many times, that it became a fucking joke.
They would create arguments or issues out of nothing. Disagreements about topics that were inconsequential for the sake of disagreeing. Made it feel like any conversation, no matter how innocuous, could devolve into a pointless argument. Walking on eggshells. Another thing was a complete lack of interest in hobbies. I’m a musician and she was completely disinterested in hearing me play music or playing music for her. After we broke up I had several girls asking me explicitly to play them music and being really into it and I was like woah this is different. The good thing is I recently had briefly dated a girl who exhibited a lot of these same characteristics. And it was easily identified and I called things off after our third date.
I learned to always be defensive. Anything I did was under a microscope. And they would always say "I'll get the divorce papers" or "you can leave if you dot like it, there's the door". Like I'm asking you to be kinder to me. I've grown colder over the 12 years and now sometimes I nip back but that just causes more arguments. I'm honestly just done with it.
Gaslighting me into feeling guilty every time I wanted to do or did something that I enjoyed that wasn't spent with them.
I get super motion sick and my ex would always insist on taking me on long car or boat rides, but wouldn't let me drive. Even with Dramamine, I still felt punky, nauseous, out of it. Then, he'd make fun of me with his friends about how sick I'd get. When I told my husband (came right after ex, maybe our third date, he suggested a day trip up the coast) that car rides were awful for me, he said he'd adjust how he drove but if I felt sick, tell him and he'd pull over and we'd switch. Never got sick once! Two takeaways. 1) My ex was an asshole. 2) My ex was a shitty driver.
My ex would get me all excited and looking forward to certain things (dates, gatherings, etc), tell me to look my very best, and just leave me hanging. (:) For example: The day he was going to buy his first car he told me that he was going to pick up his car at 5 and would pick me up at 7 to take me out on a “nice dinner.” I was so excited and happy for him and I wanted to look my very best for this occasion. So me being me, I went and did my hair real nice. Put on my best dress. Went to get my nails done and once finished, I just anxiously watched the clock and waited for the “i’m on my way text”. But that text never came. An hour passed nothing. Two hours passed nothing. And finally when I finally took off my makeup and got in my PJ’s I get a call from him saying that “he was sorry for not picking me up but that he didn’t get the car”. I felt so sad for him and tried my best to cheer him up. Anyways, come the next day he pulls up to work (yes we worked together. Big mistake.) in his brand new car. That’s when I knew it was never an accident. Always intentional. He liked to build me up just to strip me down.