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Posted by ThedaVamp on Thu 10 Dec 09, 8:49 PM to ThedaVamp's blog.
My father never raised a hand to my mother, but for years he treated her like crap.
When I got married, for some reason, my ex believed that I would put up with the same sort of crap my mother did. I walked out.
I walked out and never looked back.
I honestly thought I couldn't cope with the pain. I stopped eating for four days, existed on vodka and bawled whenever anyone offered me comfort or the smallest of nice gestures - "would you like a up of tea?" would send me into paroxysms of tears. I spent 2 months on friends and relative's too small sofas in a haze of misery.
Normally, if anything hurt me this much, I would have my husband to love and take care of me. It hurt even more knowing that my only comfort was the source of my pain.
I could have stayed. I could have been complicit in my own future misery. But the promises of never to do it again, there being no intention of hurting me in the first place meant nothing. I could never bring myself to trust a person who hurt me so deeply ever again.
Breaking up hurt. But staying together would have hurt more and for longer, because I would have been allowing the hurt to happen consciously.
I learned from my parent's example and I would never let anyone treat me the way my mother was treated.
My father was charming, funny, generous and a brilliant friend to everyone in his life, bar his own family. No one on the outside ever knew how miserable he made our lives.
To this day, I observe people in emotionally abusive relationships. On the surface all is happy and lovey. There are no cracked ribs, no bruises, no refuges. There are smiles and socially acceptable faux pas which others laugh off as coupley banter. But it isn't.
They are attacks. Small tiny digs away at self esteem, self image, pride, intelligence, with the sharpest of tools - one person's love for another and more often than not, the victim of these sly invisible attacks pretend they aren't happening, until one day they realise there's nothing left - everything has been picked at and dug away.
My heart aches for these people. I see from the outside what I have witnessed so many times in the past. I want to grab them by their shoulders and say 'how many times can you lie to yourself about how hurt you are?' 'how long are you going to allow someone to treat you this way, before you wake up?'.
More often than not, they don't wake up. They don't have the horror of a physical attack that went too far. The little spark of themselves that might have given them the motivation to escape got chipped away by a throwaway comment.
| 10 Dec 09, 9:10 PM Visualize UK(CV), 5 yrs  |
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The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, the present is a gift. Edited 20 Apr 10, 11:51 AM by Visualize |
| 10 Dec 09, 9:16 PM Missdirection UK(LL), 3 yrs  |
For the first time, I have read something that has made me cry, not for you, as you have had the courage to do something about it, but for me.
a smile across my ass with a slap across my face |
| 10 Dec 09, 9:19 PM Jezzebelle UK, 10 yrs |
Some of us have the strength to stand up and walk away others don't... A friend of mine was in a realtionship which on the surface appeared to be wonderful, she had a serious breakdown, we noticed he wasn't the most supportive of partners, little things, digs at her, comments about her abilities... This woman he proffessed to love tried to take her own life, two or three weeks later he announced he didn't love her and was moving out. He did so the same day, and moved in with another woman. She was gutted, we were scared she wouldn't cope, that she would do something silly... Three months on? Biggest favour he did for her was to leave, she is a strong happy woman who has put her life back together. The hurt is still there and will be for some time but the strength in her now is something I had never seen in her before. She also now knows she has many more friends than she thought she had! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezzebelle/ |
| 11 Dec 09, 12:02 AM fussyone 9 yrs |
If you have lived it in childhood, you can smell it a mile off. I can tell if a person is abusive by some small interactions of observation of their relationship. Like you say its the things they say, even at the begining as a 'joke'. Unfortunately, my friends have not thought the same when I have mentioned it and lived to pay later. Strangely enough, I don't sense it too well in my own relationships! Although, these days i'm a great deal more careful where I tread. In other's though, I feel it straight away, it is so intense for me. I am also, always 100 percent correct. I guess relationships are a strange phenomina anyway, I mean its apparently about negotiation. It's about 'bending' i'm not willing to bend. To bend would be treading on my personality to some degree. Even in a 'normal', 'healthy' relationship, how much does a person have to bend in order for it to work? How many couples do you know who are happy? Really happy? I don't actully know any, maybe one or two who tick by and are ok. Most, just tolorate. What I suppose i'm saying really is that even in normal relationships long term, it seems rather dull. Full of negotiation and putting up with another person for the 10 percent you like to spend time with. Edited 11 Dec 09, 12:12 AM by fussyone |
| 11 Dec 09, 9:54 AM Elven_Eyes UK, 5 yrs |
my dad was emotionally abusive to my mom, but he never raised a hand. He saved that for the kids. He is also an addict, and an adulterer. I am trying hard to get over my father, but I struggle with forgiveness. I also struggle to forgive my mother who put up with it for 23 years, teaching me that keeping the man happy was the utmost point of any relationship. 'Dont make him mad' was the unspoken mantra in our house. I let that mantra wash over me till I was the most popular girlfriend in high school, known to do anything to please. Not healthy, not at all. For the first time, I have a partner that I don't mind infuriating, because I know he won't hit, won't hurt, won't even shout. Of course we have our own problems... "The chaperon is there to make sure no one else has any fun, but nobody chaperons the chaperon. That's why I'm so right for this job." -Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" |
| 11 Dec 09, 1:38 PM wonderer UK, 5 yrs |
A terrible situation. Glad you found your way out. Sadly some seem to become locked into self-perpetuating patterns of emtional abuse of this sort - both parties. The abused person can become accustomed, dependent, even addicted to the pain of it, in a "Games People Play" sort of way, finding in it some kind of payback, and then seem to solicit it. It takes strength to break free. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/posts/226772/ |
