I changed my name from Broken Man to something less depressing. Please let us know what happens at the weekend. One thing to think about from my experience. If you do leave for an extended period that will send an incredibly strong message that talking and leaving for a short while does not. It shows you are very serious in a way that words and small actions can’t. In my case I went back to a changed person. The abuse has mostly stopped. I see hints of it coming occasionally but she keeps it under control, which just goes to show her abuse from the past was a deliberate choice. To be brutally honest, the change seems very false and rather creepy but at least the rages have mostly stopped having only happened once in the last 6 months. I am waiting for it to restart on a more regular basis in the way all the experts say it will as abusers supposedly never change. The only thing that is certain is that if you leave, things will be different even if you return and you sound very much like me who has left several times but returns. Apparently, it is very common for victims of domestic abuse to return to their abusers several times before finally escaping. There is a traumatic bond that develops into something that is very difficult to break on both sides. As I think you are finding, leaving such a relationship is extremely difficult for people like us who become trapped in a prison without bars.

Dear jlo5:

I re-read your posts on this thread. I will be typing my feedback as-I-think-it:

Improving the marriage- hopeless. The chance of improvement is negligible, is my evaluation. It could get worse, continuing the ongoing downward deterioration- with good stretched of time as it deteriorates.

His mental health: same or worse over time while being married with you and living with you. Quite hopeless as well, as I see it.

Your mental health: staying married with him- deteriorating. If you separate and divorce- distress while separating, great improvement long term. Same for the kids.

You repeated again and again that you are a caring woman, that you love him and care for his well being deeply. Fact is he is unhappy and has been unhappy his whole life, and deteriorating. So … he cries when considering separation but he is unhappy when not separated. Any sacrifice you make for his well being is not effective.

He told you that being emotional is weakness. His behavior with you is now about strength as he perceives strength: controlling you. He disregards your emotions and your well being as well as the children’s. His way to take care of himself is to regularly empty his distress (which keeps collecting in him) unto you. He keeps removing his distress by dumping it on you. And on the kids.

You questioned his claims of love. I don’t: your well being and your children’s well being is not a high priority for him. His well being is his priority. Sure he is failing at achieving well being for himself. He is failing because he doesn’t want to experience the additional distress involved in looking inside himself, considering his own motivations, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But he is aiming at his well being- at the expense of yours and the kids- the only way he knows: dumping his distress and forgetting-about it.

If you keep the marriage going, you are choosing to be dumped on again and again forever more. You are choosing getting hurt more; you are choosing your children getting hurt more, and you are choosing all this hurt is for nothing because his misery will continue, if not get worse.

anita

jlo5 – I think we are in a similar situation as much of what you write is very similar to my experience. The rages being quickly forgotten about, almost as if they never happened is very familiar to me and the denial that any lasting damage can result is as if we are supposed to sit back and take it on the chin because that is the pattern of behaviour that has evolved over the years. Now you are challenging this behaviour and hopefully he is modifying his behaviour. That is the case with my wife but I can sense how she is really wanting to react. Just this morning she was trying on the coercion over nothing so I refused to play her game and she immediately started to raise her voice declaring that she didn’t want to start an argument. With such a declaration it’s obvious that is exactly what she wanted to do as that is her natural inclination over many decades of trying to bend me to her will. The point is that all the experts say that abusers who seek control never change, but sometimes they change tactics for a while. It shouldn’t have to be like that in what is supposed to be a loving relationship for mutual benefit. Ultimately, I’m guessing that what you are trying to achieve is a life without abuse which is not too much to ask and the only way that can happen is if he changes or you leave. In my case the damage has been done to such an extent that I can never have a loving relationship with my wife so my only option for peace is to leave but I am very bad at leaving having tried several times already. If my experience is anything to go by, leaving will be very difficult. Perhaps harder than you can possibly imagine but we are not the same person so maybe you will be more successful if that is the way things go. Best of luck with whatever path you take.

jlo5 – I would recommend that you read a “why don’t they just leave” by Brian Fox on the hidden hurt website. If you Google “why don’t they just leave” it is the first Google hit as a pdf file and I found it very informative. It talks a lot about getting trapped in abusive relationships and how the victims find it impossible to get out of the “prison without bars” situation. Hopefully, this link will work or you can do the Google search as suggested. http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/support-files/why_dont_they_just_leave.pdf
Presumably, you are also educating yourself about the long-term effects of emotional abuse and how controlling it can be such that the victim modifies their behaviour in order to prevent the abuse. It sounds like we are both doing that to try to keep the peace and have been doing so for a long time. I would also suggest you learn about complex PTSD as that definitely explains a lot about the high anxiety and the effects of living with long-term stress resulting from abusive situations that can occur in intimate relationships and how damaging it can be for those of us who experience it. For me it has been like being on the end of something truly evil. Almost in a supernatural kind of way. No doubt a psychologist would label it as brainwashing. My therapist seemed to think that the anxiety in me was caused by my thoughts and could not understand that I could feel the anxiety without any link to any particular thought processes. It has become like a reflex action in that my anxiety can escalate seemingly all on its own without any particular inputs of any particular thoughts. Whatever the cause, it is truly devastating for mental health and I suspect the only answer is to remove oneself from the situation and go “no contact”, which is very much easier said than done. Personally, I don’t seem to have the strength of character to overcome what it is that controls me. I know it is a weakness in me but that is in my nature when it comes to dealings with my wife, but only her. With normal people, my behaviour is normal. Do you feel the same in that you can be yourself with others but not with your partner? I’m guessing the answer is a big YES since what you describe is very familiar to me.

Dear jlo5:

You are welcome. In your note to me you wrote: ” I am in such denial that he could be doing any of this on purpose”- I want to make the following point: whether he is doing what he is doing “on purpose” or not does not change the fact that he is doing what he is doing. A simple example: if you get stabbed by a sharp object, you bleed the same way whether the person doing the stabbing did it on purpose or by accident. The self doubt you didn’t have before but now you do, the shrinking (mentioned in your very last post) is such bleeding.

A person who behaves against their self interest on the long run, as your husband does, are not operating from adequate awareness. If they were- they wouldn’t be hurting themselves and suffering. So indeed, his awareness is limited, but the damage of his behavior is the same regardless.

anita