Am I Being Emotionally Abused? Warning Signs of an Abusive Relationship & Abuse Diary
For years, I have suspected that emotional abuse was occurring in the relationship with my boyfriend. If you have ever read articles about such abuse, you know that the abuser often makes the victim feel like they are crazy, and that their feelings are unjustified. I’ve been in this relationship for 13 years, and have now decided to start documenting events that I see as emotional abuse, immaturity & unacceptable laziness. I figure if I can get unbiased, outside opinions on these events, I may be able to see what is going on more clearly.
Emotional Abusers try to make you feel guilty,
even when you haven't done anything wrong.
Background:
If you just want to skip to the emotional abuse issues/examples, scroll down a bit.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 13 years since we were 23 years old. He is a recovered speed addict. When I met him, he was wanting to quit, and I helped him through the process. After about 6 months, he was clean. He lost his job 3 weeks into our relationship (in a case where everyone at his job was let go due to new management). Since he was getting clean off drugs, I let him stay for free at my apartment. That was no problem & I was happy he was getting off the speed. After the 6 months, I expected he would get a job and start contributing. No such luck.
Bills were backing up and I finally had to quit college to work full time. During the next year, I worked full time at the mall, while he only had a few sporadic temp jobs that lasted a few days each. He decided to take some culinary classes, but then quit because his Grandpa passed away. Then, he didn’t want to go back to school in that field because kitchen bosses were too “bossy” and he hated the environment.
We barely made ends meet for 3 years. Our power was shut off due to non payment. He then forged a check in my mom’s name to pay our power bill, and told me he won the money gambling. I should have booted him out when I discovered it, but he convinced me he was only doing it to help us. I feel like a real idiot for staying with him after that.
A few months later, my mom gave me her credit card so we could buy some groceries. I told him that I wanted to keep it under $100 because it was generous of her to buy us any food at all. We got into a fight about him never having a job. He proceeded to tell me that without him, I would be a miserable lonely cat woman who lived a pathetic life. My self esteem was never great, but this really hurt me and made it even lower.
Things have continued down this path the entire time we’ve been together. If it wasn’t for the house I recently got as an inheritance, we would still be counting pennies. I still work full time in an office job, and have also created a profitable online business of my own. During the 13 years we have been with eachother, he has been employed for about 4 total years. He helps a bit with packing orders for my online business at least, and he does the dishes & usually cooks dinner. If you break it down, I work an average of 10 hours per day. He “works” about 2-3 hours per day, and sits around playing on Facebook & watching TV the rest of the time, rather than doing something productive. At night, he drinks several times a week. I don’t think he is an alcoholic – he doesn’t drink all day, or every day – just has 5 or 6 at night. The problem is, this REALLY contributes to the emotional abuse. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, and he always promises to cut down on drinking. But then, after a few weeks it goes back to the same thing. The situations need to escalate to a horrible point before he agrees it’s a problem. If I attempt to bring the subject back up on a regular day, he gets very angry and says I am trying to control him. He constantly says “nobody tells me what to do” – its almost his catch phrase.
Signs of Immaturity & Emotional Abuse:
One of the most irritating things about him is that all of his problems are blamed on someone else. It’s his boss’s fault, my fault, his mom’s fault, society’s fault…you name it. He cannot seem to take responsibility for anything. He even jokes around with me and laugh, saying “I thought EVERYTHING was your fault” – which makes me believe that he knows he is acting ridiculous by not taking responsibility…yet he doesn’t change his actions! Blaming others is a red flag of emotional abuse. This gets increasingly worse when he is drunk and I am not (he drinks about 4 nights out of the week). I like to party randomly, but he likes to drink much more often than I do, and it makes the incidents occur more frequently.
I will list a few recent events have occurred. There have been many other events besides these – I could write a book. So are these examples of emotional abuse, or am I just crazy?
Incident # 1
Summer 2012:
On a Thursday night, he’d had about 6 drinks, and was listening to loud music. I was tired & in the bathroom getting ready for bed. We have a small sink area without counter top space, so I used the closed toilet lid to place my facewash/hairbrush/face product on. He came in to use the bathroom & started going into a rage because I had some items on the toilet top. It was too much of an inconvenience to wait 5 seconds while I removed the items. I asked why he couldn’t just use out other bathroom – and the fit of rage worsened. “What this isn’t my bathroom too? I can’t use the bathroom now? I’m not allowed to pee? Get your f’n stuff off the top of the toilet!” I just shook my head, mumbled a few things, and left the bathroom. When he came back out, I let him know that his actions were BS, and made no sense – especially since we have another bathroom a few feet away!
We had a short yelling match, and then he absolutely flew off the handle…slammed his fists into the walls, started throwing things…then took his phone into the bedroom and called his dad. He told his dad that I was hitting him, and that he was afraid to stay in the house. I did not hit him – I had barely even raised my voice. He was doing most of the screaming at me. Then to respond to him, I did have to yell a few times, just to be heard over his ranting. That night, he decided to move to his dad’s house in another state, because he was sick of “this”.
He left town for a glorious month, in which I had the most fun I’ve had in years. The house got clean, I bought new furniture, and finally got to spend time with my friends. (He is rather controlling of who I spend my time with, and how long. Although he won’t get mad about it at the time, he will find ways to mentally punish me for weeks after I do anything on my own.)
During his time away, we communicated a lot by email. He admitted things he had to change & said if I would have him back, things would be different and he would drink less. I begged him to tell his family that I didn’t do anything to him – but am not sure if he did. He complained that his family didn’t care about him, and didn’t pay enough attention to him while he was visiting. Now, these people do have quite a bit of drama, but still – he was the one that ran to them with 1 day’s notice. I have a feeling they were more than tired of him by the time he left.
Incident # 2
A Few Months Ago:
Again, this involved drinking at night. I was sitting on the couch trying to relax & read an e-book, while he drank and had loud music playing on his laptop. He kept looking to me to have reactions to the music he was playing. He changed the songs until it was something so annoying I couldn’t help but have a reaction. I looked up, and he wanted me to move my arms to the music, or my feet…and kept saying “wiggle your feet…how do you dance to this…move your feet to the music”. It’s kind of tough to describe, but he always wants me to have a bunch of antics when we listen to music, because that’s what he does. It gets exhausting! I told him that after a long day of work, I didn’t feel like moving around a lot and dancing like a monkey. He went into a fit, and accused me of never doing anything he wants me to do. I was the bad guy, because I couldn’t spare two minutes to make weird dances up to the music he was listening to. He proceeded to tell me that I am selfish, and never do anything for him.
Of course it turned into a yelling match, because I felt the need to defend myself. I asked him how he could say something like that when all I do is work my butt of so we can have a good life and do fun things on weekends! He just kept saying “Nevermind. You don’t even get it. Just shut up.” I ended up just leaving the room and silently crying.
Incident # 3
Last Month:
Right before bed, I was getting my lunch & clothes ready for the next day. We have a pet rabbit, which he was petting. Again, he was drunk. He started harassing me because I don’t pet the rabbit enough. I told him that I was trying to finish up some things I needed to do, so I can get to bed. Then he keept nagging me about the bunny… “Well it only takes two minutes. What’s wrong with you? You don’t have two minutes?” Sooo…to shut him up, I go pet the bunny for a minute, then continued what I was doing before. Then he goes back into harassing… “that’s it? You need to spend more time with her. I take time to pet her every day. Its about time management. You can make time.” I wanted to slap him. Time management? He sits on the couch all day long, and has no responsibility – then has the nerve to start an argument with me about time management? I think he was trying to bait me into another late night fight. I just don’t understand how he can’t see the insanity of such silly arguments. Then, of course, when I defended myself, he said “I don’t want to fight. Just shut up. I’m sick of fighting”. What????
Another Issue:
Aside from all this, he is completely disinterested in any sex – unless of course, he is incredibly, over the top drunk. For about the last 7 years, that part of our relationship has been almost completely dead. I wouldn’t consider myself hideous or fat – I’m a pretty cute girl, which many of my male friends have told me. I’m not some conceited b**** who walks around thinking I’m the most amazing person in the world, but I wear stylish clothes, makeup & hair…and always make sure to keep up my appearances. Yet he shows absolutely no interest in me, and it is very hurtful. I hear him talking to friends about how he would **** so-and-so, and find things on his computer with pictures of impossibly hot women that no regular girl would ever look like. It’s like he isn’t willing to put any effort in, but acts like he is the king of the world or something! In the mean time, he wears almost the same “uniform” every day. The same pair of shorts or jeans and a t-shirt, and the same dirty old baseball cap. If it wasn’t for me doing laundry, he would probably wash his uniform once a month. But aside from his appearance, he really hurts me about mine. Thank god for my other friends who assure me that I’m not the problem – or my self esteem would be at 0. I know this is probably not a form of emotional abuse, but it is still something that is bad for our relationship.
Why Haven’t I Left Him Yet?
I love this man & always will. We have been together so long and are best friends. I am just no longer IN love with him. And I also don’t believe I deserve to be treated this way – whether he is aware of the abuse or not.
The reason I’m still in this relationship is that I can’t just kick him to the curb. I care too much about him to do that. He has nothing to his name, not even his own car. If I were to kick him out he would be living on the street, or back in his dad’s spare room in a tiny town where there are no jobs and where he is convinced his family hates him. I would gladly help him with money if he were to move out, but he is so stubborn. Rather than accept help from me, he would live on the street if he had to. If he would let me help him, I would have already broken things off and we would be living separate (and probably much more stable) lives.
Is This Emotional Abuse?
I’m not only seeking to know whether or not this is emotional abuse– but if so, how to fix it. Identifying the problem is only half the battle. Would love to hear advice from anyone about how emotional abusers can be treated. Is there a remedy? Is there a special way to deal with them?
And please don’t just suggest professional help. For one thing, we cannot afford it. But even if we could, managing to get him to understand that a problem exists would be nearly impossible. I would estimate a 2% chance of him agreeing to get professional help, or even admitting there is a problem.
Final Thoughts:
I hate to even admit that I could be the victim of something. Victims are typically thought of as being weak, unintelligent, and abnormal. I see myself as a rational & goal-oriented person, but cannot seem to end this relationship. Something in me always sees the good – and it keeps me going. Aside from all this insanity, we have had some really fun times together, and I do love him. But we are much more suited to being friends than to continue the relationship. In any case, since I do love him, I want to help him – and also have him understand why I am not happy living like this.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments? Similar Experiences? Please share!
Emotional Abusers try to make you feel guilty,
even when you haven't done anything wrong.
Background:
If you just want to skip to the emotional abuse issues/examples, scroll down a bit.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 13 years since we were 23 years old. He is a recovered speed addict. When I met him, he was wanting to quit, and I helped him through the process. After about 6 months, he was clean. He lost his job 3 weeks into our relationship (in a case where everyone at his job was let go due to new management). Since he was getting clean off drugs, I let him stay for free at my apartment. That was no problem & I was happy he was getting off the speed. After the 6 months, I expected he would get a job and start contributing. No such luck.
Bills were backing up and I finally had to quit college to work full time. During the next year, I worked full time at the mall, while he only had a few sporadic temp jobs that lasted a few days each. He decided to take some culinary classes, but then quit because his Grandpa passed away. Then, he didn’t want to go back to school in that field because kitchen bosses were too “bossy” and he hated the environment.
We barely made ends meet for 3 years. Our power was shut off due to non payment. He then forged a check in my mom’s name to pay our power bill, and told me he won the money gambling. I should have booted him out when I discovered it, but he convinced me he was only doing it to help us. I feel like a real idiot for staying with him after that.
A few months later, my mom gave me her credit card so we could buy some groceries. I told him that I wanted to keep it under $100 because it was generous of her to buy us any food at all. We got into a fight about him never having a job. He proceeded to tell me that without him, I would be a miserable lonely cat woman who lived a pathetic life. My self esteem was never great, but this really hurt me and made it even lower.
Things have continued down this path the entire time we’ve been together. If it wasn’t for the house I recently got as an inheritance, we would still be counting pennies. I still work full time in an office job, and have also created a profitable online business of my own. During the 13 years we have been with eachother, he has been employed for about 4 total years. He helps a bit with packing orders for my online business at least, and he does the dishes & usually cooks dinner. If you break it down, I work an average of 10 hours per day. He “works” about 2-3 hours per day, and sits around playing on Facebook & watching TV the rest of the time, rather than doing something productive. At night, he drinks several times a week. I don’t think he is an alcoholic – he doesn’t drink all day, or every day – just has 5 or 6 at night. The problem is, this REALLY contributes to the emotional abuse. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, and he always promises to cut down on drinking. But then, after a few weeks it goes back to the same thing. The situations need to escalate to a horrible point before he agrees it’s a problem. If I attempt to bring the subject back up on a regular day, he gets very angry and says I am trying to control him. He constantly says “nobody tells me what to do” – its almost his catch phrase.
Finger-Pointing is a sign of immaturity
and emotional abuse
Signs of Immaturity & Emotional Abuse:
One of the most irritating things about him is that all of his problems are blamed on someone else. It’s his boss’s fault, my fault, his mom’s fault, society’s fault…you name it. He cannot seem to take responsibility for anything. He even jokes around with me and laugh, saying “I thought EVERYTHING was your fault” – which makes me believe that he knows he is acting ridiculous by not taking responsibility…yet he doesn’t change his actions! Blaming others is a red flag of emotional abuse. This gets increasingly worse when he is drunk and I am not (he drinks about 4 nights out of the week). I like to party randomly, but he likes to drink much more often than I do, and it makes the incidents occur more frequently.
I will list a few recent events have occurred. There have been many other events besides these – I could write a book. So are these examples of emotional abuse, or am I just crazy?
Incident # 1
Summer 2012:
On a Thursday night, he’d had about 6 drinks, and was listening to loud music. I was tired & in the bathroom getting ready for bed. We have a small sink area without counter top space, so I used the closed toilet lid to place my facewash/hairbrush/face product on. He came in to use the bathroom & started going into a rage because I had some items on the toilet top. It was too much of an inconvenience to wait 5 seconds while I removed the items. I asked why he couldn’t just use out other bathroom – and the fit of rage worsened. “What this isn’t my bathroom too? I can’t use the bathroom now? I’m not allowed to pee? Get your f’n stuff off the top of the toilet!” I just shook my head, mumbled a few things, and left the bathroom. When he came back out, I let him know that his actions were BS, and made no sense – especially since we have another bathroom a few feet away!
We had a short yelling match, and then he absolutely flew off the handle…slammed his fists into the walls, started throwing things…then took his phone into the bedroom and called his dad. He told his dad that I was hitting him, and that he was afraid to stay in the house. I did not hit him – I had barely even raised my voice. He was doing most of the screaming at me. Then to respond to him, I did have to yell a few times, just to be heard over his ranting. That night, he decided to move to his dad’s house in another state, because he was sick of “this”.
He left town for a glorious month, in which I had the most fun I’ve had in years. The house got clean, I bought new furniture, and finally got to spend time with my friends. (He is rather controlling of who I spend my time with, and how long. Although he won’t get mad about it at the time, he will find ways to mentally punish me for weeks after I do anything on my own.)
During his time away, we communicated a lot by email. He admitted things he had to change & said if I would have him back, things would be different and he would drink less. I begged him to tell his family that I didn’t do anything to him – but am not sure if he did. He complained that his family didn’t care about him, and didn’t pay enough attention to him while he was visiting. Now, these people do have quite a bit of drama, but still – he was the one that ran to them with 1 day’s notice. I have a feeling they were more than tired of him by the time he left.
Incident # 2
A Few Months Ago:
Again, this involved drinking at night. I was sitting on the couch trying to relax & read an e-book, while he drank and had loud music playing on his laptop. He kept looking to me to have reactions to the music he was playing. He changed the songs until it was something so annoying I couldn’t help but have a reaction. I looked up, and he wanted me to move my arms to the music, or my feet…and kept saying “wiggle your feet…how do you dance to this…move your feet to the music”. It’s kind of tough to describe, but he always wants me to have a bunch of antics when we listen to music, because that’s what he does. It gets exhausting! I told him that after a long day of work, I didn’t feel like moving around a lot and dancing like a monkey. He went into a fit, and accused me of never doing anything he wants me to do. I was the bad guy, because I couldn’t spare two minutes to make weird dances up to the music he was listening to. He proceeded to tell me that I am selfish, and never do anything for him.
Of course it turned into a yelling match, because I felt the need to defend myself. I asked him how he could say something like that when all I do is work my butt of so we can have a good life and do fun things on weekends! He just kept saying “Nevermind. You don’t even get it. Just shut up.” I ended up just leaving the room and silently crying.
Incident # 3
Last Month:
Right before bed, I was getting my lunch & clothes ready for the next day. We have a pet rabbit, which he was petting. Again, he was drunk. He started harassing me because I don’t pet the rabbit enough. I told him that I was trying to finish up some things I needed to do, so I can get to bed. Then he keept nagging me about the bunny… “Well it only takes two minutes. What’s wrong with you? You don’t have two minutes?” Sooo…to shut him up, I go pet the bunny for a minute, then continued what I was doing before. Then he goes back into harassing… “that’s it? You need to spend more time with her. I take time to pet her every day. Its about time management. You can make time.” I wanted to slap him. Time management? He sits on the couch all day long, and has no responsibility – then has the nerve to start an argument with me about time management? I think he was trying to bait me into another late night fight. I just don’t understand how he can’t see the insanity of such silly arguments. Then, of course, when I defended myself, he said “I don’t want to fight. Just shut up. I’m sick of fighting”. What????
Another Issue:
Aside from all this, he is completely disinterested in any sex – unless of course, he is incredibly, over the top drunk. For about the last 7 years, that part of our relationship has been almost completely dead. I wouldn’t consider myself hideous or fat – I’m a pretty cute girl, which many of my male friends have told me. I’m not some conceited b**** who walks around thinking I’m the most amazing person in the world, but I wear stylish clothes, makeup & hair…and always make sure to keep up my appearances. Yet he shows absolutely no interest in me, and it is very hurtful. I hear him talking to friends about how he would **** so-and-so, and find things on his computer with pictures of impossibly hot women that no regular girl would ever look like. It’s like he isn’t willing to put any effort in, but acts like he is the king of the world or something! In the mean time, he wears almost the same “uniform” every day. The same pair of shorts or jeans and a t-shirt, and the same dirty old ba
Why Haven’t I Left Him Yet?
I love this man & always will. We have been together so long and are best friends. I am just no longer IN love with him. And I also don’t believe I deserve to be treated this way – whether he is aware of the abuse or not.
The reason I’m still in this relationship is that I can’t just kick him to the curb. I care too much about him to do that. He has nothing to his name, not even his own car. If I were to kick him out he would be living on the street, or back in his dad’s spare room in a tiny town where there are no jobs and where he is convinced his family hates him. I would gladly help him with money if he were to move out, but he is so stubborn. Rather than accept help from me, he would live on the street if he had to. If he would let me help him, I would have already broken things off and we would be living separate (and probably much more stable) lives.
Is This Emotional Abuse?
I’m not only seeking to know whether or not this is emotional abuse– but if so, how to fix it. Identifying the problem is only half the battle. Would love to hear advice from anyone about how emotional abusers can be treated. Is there a remedy? Is there a special way to deal with them?
And please don’t just suggest professional help. For one thing, we cannot afford it. But even if we could, managing to get him to understand that a problem exists would be nearly impossible. I would estimate a 2% chance of him agreeing to get professional help, or even admitting there is a problem.
Final Thoughts:
I hate to even admit that I could be the victim of something. Victims are typically thought of as being weak, unintelligent, and abnormal. I see myself as a rational & goal-oriented person, but cannot seem to end this relationship. Something in me always sees the good – and it keeps me going. Aside from all this insanity, we have had some really fun times together, and I do love him. But we are much more suited to being friends than to continue the relationship. In any case, since I do love him, I want to help him – and also have him understand why I am not happy living like this.
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