Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: Acorn on March 04, 2020, 04:47:10 AM
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Physical abuse hardly needs to be spelled out.
Emotional abuse, on the other hand, is often insidious, and the perpetrator may employ devious methods. One of these methods is gaslighting. The abuser, by various means, highlights what’s wrong with the abused, and can eventually convince the gaslightee and peripheral people, such as friends and relatives, that she is indeed nuts.
Gaslighting is one of the master techniques narcissistic people employ in controlling the gaslightees. In other words, narcissism, controlling behaviours and gaslighting may be tightly linked in many abuse situations.
Some victims of abuse are not aware that it is taking place, sometimes because it has been a way of life for many years or even decades; they see the way they are treated as quite normal. Some abusers are not aware the fact that they are actually abusive because they have convinced themselves that they are being kind and that it is for the good of the abused. That is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to spot and address emotional abuse.
It may be beneficial for LBSs to carefully examine what emotional abuse is and find ways to address it in order to protect herself/himself and her/his children.
Useful information about emotional abuse:
https://www.verywellmind.com/identify-and-cope-with-emotional-abuse-4156673
There are any number of online resources you may find useful.
Please consider the following.
People become trapped in abusive relationships for many reasons, some of which are:
- financial dependence on the abuser
- wanting to have a complete family unit for their children’s sake
- being afraid to leave
- disbelief or denial that the partner is actually abusive
- severe depression or low self-esteem that makes them think the abuse is their fault
- believing that if the abuser loves them, it’s okay, and they can change the behaviour
Some of them sound familiar to you? We occasionally read about them on HS.
It might also be useful to consider that abuse in relationship often occurs when the abuser believes that abuse is an entitlement, acceptable, or justified, all of which can be described as toxic narcissist attitudes.
Emotional abuse is no less harmful than physical abuse. In fact, it may be more sinister.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
If you were at the receiving end of abuse, what did you do about it?
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Thank you for starting another great topic. I think emotional abuse can be a hallmark of MLCers, or even LBSes or self proclaimed LBSes as their spouses may be desperately trying to escape the grips of years or decades of emotional abuse. Emotional abusers tend to be very controlling, not just in financial but in all aspects of life. And a lot of time they will also act like they are the sole source of truth and knowledge. They will present themselves as authorities in area they are not. Another hallmark is rejection of all other viewpoints, complete lack of ability to take anything that conflicts with their control narrative, and even when challenged they will try to control the environment to negate anything that contradicts their narrative. This is both internal (finding ways to discount contradictory information) and external (by removing people or information that disrupts their narrative).
Not that it matters but people who are emotional abusers are trying to gain a feeling of being ok, so they will try to exert that control on others as a way to feel, well in control, able and safe. But the truth is they tend to be highly insecure, emotionally immature and developmentally operating from a much younger age. And finally sometimes the abusers will even present themselves as the victim to others, which is part of the gaslighting theme you pointed out. And go as far as “I have no choice to do this” or “I have to take care of myself this way.”
It is interesting that emotional abuse and narcissism tend to highly correlated.
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Amen! To that end, it can be hard in life as fixers to separate the unhealthy habits because we see someone hurting. We want to see the good. Our brains start to feel like mush and our gut no longer warns us. This is the by-product of co-dependency problems on our part. We accept their pain as an act of love, no matter what healthy boundaries must be enacted. They need to search as well why were they attracted to us? Was it love? Was it for all those horrible traits a narcissist needs to have a subservient victim? What were we lacking that this became ok? Love doesn't hurt in these scenarios. It should lift one another up and edify.
The world has us believing good is evil and evil is good. I believe we all have these traits to some degree. It's with the crisis that everything becomes so amplified that it can be down right scary. Once the work is done by both parties a whole new level of boundaries, love, respect and forgiveness can start to take place. It certainly takes two to make it and two to break it depending on what we put back into it if both parties are wanting serious change and to stay the course.
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Great Thread Acorn and very interesting topic.
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Imho fwiw....and I so agree with Marvin....most LBS and most LBS kids experience some level of emotional abuse. Being able to accept that as part of this experience is necessary to establish decent boundaries around what is acceptable to you as a human being and to avoid owning things that don't belong to you.
A simple thing like lying. Which most of our ex/spouses do. Lying about something which is germane to your ability to make informed choices about your own life is a form of emotional abuse imho. Bc it removes your power and allows someone else to exercise control in a given situation.
I don't believe that our ex/spouses in crisis always do this with the primary intention in their head of abusing us tbh. Sometimes they do, but not always. Sometimes it is simply that their desire to shape a narrative or avoid dealing with the reality of their behaviour is superordinate. But it is still emotional abuse and it is still about control.
Looking back - and I experienced a number of different kinds of abuse, some active and some passive - I think the most emotionally abusive thing my xh did was to present the story that our situation was entirely about his diagnosis of depression. For several months. That was true....but it was far from the whole truth. And I made choices based on believing that which damaged my life and wellbeing.
Closer to the factual reality was that he was a severely depressed man under psychiatric care trying to keep his options open while spending money like water, investing energy in another relationship and discussing me/our m with other people, thereby giving them a voice about my life while ignoring mine. Had I known that, I would have made different choices most probably. I am still responsible for the choices I made. I could have made others. But he used my ignorance, my trust and my understandable concern for him as weapons against me. And that is emotional abuse imho.
Seeing abuse for what it is tbh is part of reclaiming ones own agency and sense of normality.
What do you see as the worst example of emotional abuse in your situation?
And how intentional do you think it was by your spouse?
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Gaslighting is by far the worst, imo. I remember driving to visit people and XH would pick a fight in the car. Then he walk into the party like Mr. Charming, and I was left to put myself back together, totally confused as to why that even happened. I finally started driving in a separate car, but didn't realize why I had started doing it. This was during the pre-BD ramp up.
The main thing that happened as the verbal abuse ramped up was that I backed away. It was like he needed to fight over nothing. There were plenty of places we could justly disagree, but he never settled on one of those, just stupid stuff, and always making something he could easily have done, too, my fault for it not being done. My result was that I did less, withdrew more, and did my own thing since he was not available. Addressing the situation was no help because he lied and denied.
So I have to say in my case, I tried to find out what was wrong, I could see and feel it. I was gaslighted and told I was imagining things. So my only choice to protect my sanity was to back away.
After BD, overt monster got told that he had no cause or right to speak to me that way, that I GET to have my own opinion, and that he treated complete strangers better than he did me. I learned really quick not to argue, just state my truth and repeat same, no matter what else he said. He didn't monster very long as it's hard to be the only one in the argument, but you need a very strong sense of self. At one point, pre -BD, I wasn't sure I had any sense of self left, I was so confused at what was happening, but after BD it made some weird kind of sense, and my sense of self came back to the surface.
Gaslighting can make you doubt your own reality, it's why it's a favorite of abusers. It's why the LBS sometimes becomes a researcher and even a stalker, trying to find what is real and what is lies.
What I learned is whether XH ever comes around, or if I find anyone else, or even in my friendships, if I feel like my reality is being manipulated, they get one chance when I directly address it to them. If it happens again, I'm out of that relationship. Heck, I do not tolerate it at work. I'm still surprised I was never fired, but my boss seems to respect me for (quietly) calling him on his BS in a factual way.
I'll take recognizing gaslighting as a gift from MLC. I had never experienced it before, to my knowledge, but I sure see it when it happens now.
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I was thinking about the emotional abuse aspect recently. I’m a strong woman and to have the realisation that my daughter and I were abused is frightening. I never thought I would/could be. In addition there was an element of physical (for want of a different word) abuse towards my daughter as on a few occasions he would leave her watching tv and sitting in her own urine/faeces while he was in his bedroom. The babysitter would come home and find my poor daughter covered. He couldn’t be bothered taking care of her.
Treasur - I remember telling ex if he had told me about the OW I would have made the decision for him and told him to bugger off. Like your husband he made me believe he was going through a depression and needed to be in familiar environment so wanted to move back to our home country. For a year I supported a husband through “depression” encouraging him to meet his “friends”. What a sucker I was. He was very conscious of his lies and he knew what he was doing. He fed all our mutual friends the lie that he was severely depressed and there was no one else. He lied to friends and family constantly. My ex had planned the story and was manipulating all the characters - I think he thought he was machiavelli. Unfortunately for him, he lost control of the story and everyone found out about the affair. Tbh I think his current depression is caused by shame and not because he lied but because he got caught lying. He knew he was lying the whole time. He even told me he lies about small things and he doesn’t know why. He still lies that’s why I’ve blocked him as I don’t need to speak to an empty man. The lies are just a form of emotional abuse and I have to protect myself and my daughter.
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What a sucker I was. He was very conscious of his lies and he knew what he was doing.
Limboland,
This was one of the most difficult abuses that I had to overcome during our reconnection.
The layers of betrayal involved in his lie-telling was infinite. There were times I "helped" him to have his affair: he was so stressed & overworked I would do things like change my entire schedule so he could stay at work late.
When he returned to our marriage I had to rely on myself & an unwavering sense of who I was with my own strengths & resourcefulness to move beyond it.
For me, the betrayal of lies & gaslighting was much more damaging & toxic than the betrayal of him having sex with his ow.
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there is such a thing as reactive abuse - when the trauma and frustration caused by emotional abuse causes a victim to respond in kind. I know it might be said we are responsible for our own reactions and that we can’t be ‘caused’ to feel so strongly that we might be abusive back, but I don’t really buy it. At least not at first during the crisis. It is definitely possible to ‘make’ someone feel bad feelings.
I suppose I’m thinking that rather than a lot of abusive people in this forum, we have people behaving immaturely because they are traumatised as well as because most of us have some issues of our own to handle. Apart from this aspect, I see more people bending themselves all ways to appease their mlc spouse; getting confused about boundaries and getting far too excited about basic civil communication from spouses or thinking manipulative behaviour is a positive sign.
There’s nothing abnormal about any of this, but imo, there are remarkably few abusive spouses outside of emotional outbursts, which are usually the result of some appalling behaviours on the part of errant partners and Im reluctant to see people who are taking steps to protect themselves or fight their corner admonished for not doing it ‘right’.
I Mean, an ongoing affair with all it entails, or neglect of finances or children is causing trauma at the very least on a micro level which gathers and builds and becomes something more significant and is fundamentally abusive. Isn’t it?
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What a sucker I was. He was very conscious of his lies and he knew what he was doing.
Limboland,
This was one of the most difficult abuses that I had to overcome during our reconnection.
The layers of betrayal involved in his lie-telling was infinite. There were times I "helped" him to have his affair: he was so stressed & overworked I would do things like change my entire schedule so he could stay at work late.
When he returned to our marriage I had to rely on myself & an unwavering sense of who I was with my own strengths & resourcefulness to move beyond it.
For me, the betrayal of lies & gaslighting was much more damaging & toxic than the betrayal of him having sex with his ow.
Sada thank you for your response. I think you are an amazing woman to find that strength to move on from the lies and betrayal. As you were reconnecting did you ever feel that by allowing him back into your life you would be damaging your spirit? My mlcer’s father cheated and His mum allowed him to come back and they’ve been together for over 50 years. But I think she sacrificed her voice and her desires to keep her husband happy. She was too scared that he would leave again so everything focused on keeping him happy. I think my mlcers mum was living in a constant state of self sabotage. A few years ago her father passed away and she was left some money. It was the first time she spoke up against him.....she had the power back and she was voicing it,
As you mentioned the sex with another woman is a form of abuse but the barrage of lies takes it to a new level. It’s been over two years of lies and although I see peeks of the old husband he continues to lie and his words don’t match the actions. Once again this is another form of emotional Abuse. Maybe one day his words will match his actions but until then I have to protect myself and my daughter.
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I can only speak for myself, but I know there was a point when I knew that the answer for me was No.
That whatever happened I could not retrieve what I had valued so much and that I could never be myself safely again now I knew that he was capable of doing some of the things he did. Or seeing me as he did to be able to justify doing them. As Sada said, actually the affair was surprisingly the least of it.....it was some of the other WTF bits of abuse and betrayal.
I just couldn't live like me with it. Which made me feel a bit sad tbh, but it was my truth.
It had nothing to do with love. It had nothing to do with forgiveness. It had nothing to do even with why he did it.
I just knew I couldn't be who I am with him again. I couldn't live happily in that kind of world. Not around me anyway. I liked who I was before and I liked the kind of relationship we'd had before. And I liked who I am too much to sacrifice it.
So, maybe in my situation, his choice to marry ow was a good one for him after all that had happened. Bc my h never much liked being alone and obviously liked being married enough to want to do it again lol. Whereas I would rather be alone than live with the fallout. Just my truth, sample of one.
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Worth a read and reflect for those of you either still trying to protect yourself from abuse or those considering reconnection https://www.yourstoryissafehere.com/blog/2019/3/23/how-men-called-sex-addicts-abuse-their-wives-and-partners
Not easy to read. Not easy to look at. Not easy to build boundaries against. But it might help you consider your current reality.....
And with the caveat that the author is writing particularly about situations when women are dealing with/doing MC with unfaithful spouses who have been labelled 'sex addicts'. But imho some of the abustive behaviour is much thevsame, even if the context is not given an MLC label. My xh ticked 37 of the 108 items when we were still in contact fwiw.....now of course (other than perhaps badmouthing me to others, who knows?) with NC, 0.....any of those behaviours still happening will be happening someplace else lol.
And some of the impact of living in an emotionally abusive situation, the costs for you https://www.yourstoryissafehere.com/blog/2019/3/30/intimate-partner-abuse-how-does-it-impact-you
I scored 50 from 107......
None of this requires denying MLC.....but whatever the cause or context, I'd suggest the behaviours and impact are just as real.
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Posted by: Limboland2018
March 05, 2020, 07:41:00 AM
As you were reconnecting did you ever feel that by allowing him back into your life you would be damaging your spirit?
I had to sit back & ponder your interesting question Limboland.
I was probably like your mom early in his return.
After the ‘honeymoon’ period of being back together wore off, my h (very early return; still in the tunnel) went back to his lying & monstering & cheating.
And I was again crying & yelling & screaming at him for hurting me.
So the answer to your question is yes, it was damaging to my spirit.
But
I had learned & researched so much about mlc by then, mostly from this forum & RCR’s articles. I understood what was happening . . . my h was fairly textbook.
Therefore, possessing that knowledge & my faith in God & my relationship with Him enabled me to see beyond that present situation, take nothing personal, realizing it was all about him. And because of my own choice to stay in my marriage, all I could change was how I reacted to his abuse. I always knew that I deserved better & would & could do better if I didn’t see a change in him. It was not for me to stand for years & years because I believe God did not intend for me to be alone like that, because that is not what I wanted.
My faith is a huge part of who I am. I did/do believe that this is what God wanted for the both of us. I believe that I was meant to be my h’s lighthouse so I was willing to try hard, for a while.
I continued those things (Gal) that I loved doing while he was gone: walking, pampering myself with spa days, gardening, etc.
The affair was abrupt. The monstering took longer to subside, but it did.
I accept that he can never make up for what he did, it’s not possible.
He’s told me he thinks about what he did to me every day. I believe him.
That is his punishment. Because unless you’re a sociopath, or npd, you’re going to feel terrible guilt for the harm you’ve caused others, especially your wife.
I’m smiling right now because as I write this I can end with: He treats me like the queen I am, each & every day.
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I remember my husbands shocked face, I mean totally shocked when I told him that my daughter and I had no intention of staying in an an abusive situation. That he was in fact abusive..like his father. He was an abuser as a man, that my daughter and I will need therapy as we lived in an abusive situation . That I was afraid that I would see him as someone capable of being abusive and that "knowing" would never fade. Everything changes when you see someone differently than how you saw him for decades. Now I "have" to know , he is capable of greatest form of deceit. And it appeared easy for him. He never said a word in defence of his treatment of me , but , he most certainly never saw it as abuse. And it was/is absolutely abuse.
I also "helped" my husband have his affair, as ridiculous as that is . I do recall him leaving the house to "go hit some golf balls " . I was super excited as he had never done anything for "himself". EVER. So to me this was a great and fabulous thing. And I told him that . One night I even said "yes, go hit some golf ball, great!. I will make some cinnamon buns for a treat when you come back". Of course, he went to see the OW for a couple of hours...had sex, came home with big golf stories and thru his clothes in the laundry... and ate a lovely cinnamon bun. More than once ...more than 10 times … he told me one thing and did another. Is that not how affairs go?? To this day, I do the laundry and it enters my mind. I close my eyes when I throw his underwear in the laundry. HOW DARE HIM TAKE AWAY ALL MY CHOICES? That is the abusive way of cowards . I would have chosen a different way for myself. He took away my choices in life and for me ...close to unforgivable. Then he would come to my bed.... have sex with me. And that my friends has been one of the hardest things to "know". Had I known that he was having sex with this OW , he never EVER would have gotten in the house . Period. He told the therapist that it never accured to him . That his sex life with OW and then with me ...were completely utterly and totally separate. Never did the two meet in his thoughts. You are capable of that??? What would I want with a man that can mount anything , like a hamster and be able to love him. Nothing worthy of pure love in that action. Its abuse ...should be criminal.
To speak to my daughter ( or grandchildren) aggressively using the F-word? . Abusive .. and escalating . May not seem much to some ..but I will not be spoken to like that and most certainly none of my daughters will. To be "dismissed " by someone and refusing to answer is abusive behaviour. Especially to be made feel that YOU are nuts ( gaslighting) ...all abusive. Affairs and all that go with them is abuse in every way.
Was it damaging to my spirit ? Oh indeed it was and still is in some ways . It is difficult to live and "love" your "trigger" ( because that is what he has become) . It is excruciating to try to separate who he was , who he became and now back to who he " might" become. Especially when PTSD can keep you ruminating and stuck with what he did ….and hypervigilant, can he do that again??. And we certainly do not want to be the "stupid...how did I miss that " person again. To be honest ..gut wrenching face the pain honest ...I believe my spirit was broken the day he touched another women. Can you rebuild your spirit? I do not know. Can you fix what is no less than a soul injury ? I do not know . But I try. Can you recover from abuse and love your abuser again with all your heart and feel safe ...ever. I do not know . But I think it would be unwise to ever be the vulnerable again. I hurts to a degree others cannot fathom ..to be betrayed .
Reactive abuse ? Who would want to admit we are guilty of that . I will admit it. I absolutely was abusive to my husband , I tried to shame him, to hurt him as he hurt me. I raged, I called him names...demeaning to his man-stuff , hated him and told him. Was I abusive . Yes. Recovery all around after an affair.
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This thread caught my eye today, because this weekend I sort of self identified a sort of emotional wound from this.
I think I have written before that there was emotional abuse, though I never really saw it as abuse because 'abuse is physical' and my childhood so firetrucked up that...well emotional abuse didn't seem ''that bad''.
I remember after BD being told I should call a domestic hotline for abuse. That what I was experiencing was emotional abuse. I remember thinking that was absurd. I wasn't going to go crying to some hotline because my husband said mean things. The man had never laid a hand on me after all. That wasn't abuse..he was just going crazy and needed my help.
It is easier to see when you get distance. When you finally get surrounded by normal sane healthy people, and realise just how abnormal your normal became. Or maybe still is to some extent.
When you become detached enough to see that the words hurling by your face...the blame shifting...all of it...tactics. You can see them and label them as they come. That stage becomes so much easier.
But there are still those wounds. Years of training and preparation. Preparing how to solve how someone else is going to react. Trying to plan ways to solve problems that are unsolvable, even though any solution you come up with will be wrong. Predictable explosions, with a variety of possible outcomes that are all equally so horrible and have happened before ...so are therefore plausible...that when it goes like a relatively normal interaction you are ecstatic with joy.
Joy that you didn't get the reaction you had before.
Joy that you didn't receive the emotional abuse you are so used to.
And that is the firetrucked up part of all this.
We are so used to emotional abuse, excusing it, preparing for it..planning around it and trying to fix it.
That it is our normal, and we have to learn to make it not our normal.
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I’ve been offline a while and am just catching up, but maybe this thread could use a bump.
One of the reasons people do not exit abusive relationships is that the human brain chemistry and function is altered by abuse or trauma. It has nothing to do with how a person feels or thinks or knows or “should” be capable of.
It has only to do with the science and structure of the human brain. Nobody has control over what that is: it’s Gods design.
If a person has not left, or will not or cannot leave, or doesn’t seem to want to leave an abusive partner, it may be that their brain function is literally impaired by the abuse.
Not your job to rescue or make decisions for them, unless it is one of your kids. Even then, tread lightly. Report incidents to law enforcement. Document everything. Action may help keep trauma from getting “stuck”. If it got stuck anyway, EMDR can be a help in dislodging trauma memory and allowing the brain to complete processing of the event.
A little light reading on trauma and the brain, written so that even those new to the info can understand it:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-science-behind-ptsd-symptoms-how-trauma-changes-the-brain/
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Great article terra, thanks for sharing
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Came across this post just now. Before I came (unfortunately) to this site; I had never heard of “gaslighting “ or some other ways of mental abuse. After I read many many posts on here; I realize my H is a huge mental abuser and I was blind to a lot of it. Some of it I can’t even begin to explain. H has always been a huge liar. He will lie, about lying😡. He is a big control freak due to his job (law enforcement) and always felt
Entitled as well. He would make jokes about everything and everyone and even cursed a lot. He would say things to me and not fully finish the word; but enough that I knew exactly what he was saying; but would always make it seem like he was joking when he did that. He would say mostly stuff like “is it because your fa*” or “ is it because your hea**”. He would always leave off 1-2 letters. Looking back there was mental abuse with my girls too; they just joked and laughed with him. Everything is always a joke to him. I found out last year that his co workers would want him to go places and h didn’t want to go and he blamed me to his friends for not “being able” to go😡. He did the same Chet with me, with his family. But after i kicked him out; I told his family the WHOLE truth about him👍🏻. Back before BD; h kept telling me he was so stressed out/depressed about work, that he even would be rubbing his arm n chest (like signs of a heart attack). That went on for several months and h had me feeling really sorry and concerned for him. Shoot; he was feeling like that because he was already cheating with OW and it life itself was catching up to him and it was affecting him. H has done so much more back a long time ago when we first met when he was doing steroids too. But; I’m still new to MLC stuff and taking baby steps with him. Thanks to everyone for posting very good info for us newbies❤️