abuse and MLC

Avatar for shloimele
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-28-2005
abuse and MLC
3
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 7:16am

Hi,

I posted here before and I am still struggeling with my husbands emotional abuse but much wiser and stronger.
Lately my husbands abuse switched to more jokes and threats about getting a girlfriend and sleeping with somebody else and such.
I started wondering if maybe he suffers from Midle life crises as well as being abusive, can MLC make the abuse worse? did anyone in this board have to deal with MLC.
Abusers are people that want to stick to you because they get from you what they need to keep being abusive so does it mean that the threats are not real? is MLC for an abuser just a wannabe thing?

what do you think about this situation?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
In reply to: shloimele
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 9:16am

It sounds like he's just being cruel.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: shloimele
Wed, 11-09-2005 - 11:05am
Threats to get involved with another woman are very common abusive tactics. You've caught on to some of his other tactics such as his threats to leave you and abandon the kids, accusations that the kids aren't his, and so on, and have started to stand up to it and ignore his comments, so those tactics aren't working as well for him as they used to to keep you feeling low about yourself, insecure, and scared. So he is taking it on to the next level. Believe me when I say that these are common tactics. I've seen them used against women hundreds of times on this board in the past few years and I work for a shelter so I see them used offline too. Sometimes I think these abusers all go to the same abuser school. For you, this is the same goal, different tactic. Whether he would actually cheat or not, I don't know. Many abusers do cheat, others just threaten to. It's up to his individual character, which is pretty low, so who knows? At any rate, part of why he does what he does is to keep your attention on him and his feelings all the time trying to figure him out and catering to him trying to keep him happy. He wants you to keep on trying to please him and focusing on him and ignoring your own wants and needs. You said in a past post that you believe he's doing this out of his own fear. In most abuse cases, and yours included, abusers are not doing this out of fear. They are doing it to be one up, hold the power in the relationship and get special treatment - they believe their wants and needs are more important than yours. Your husband wants to be the priority, he believes he's entitled to be the priority, and he makes continual efforts to make sure that he is and that you aren't. You can tell that your husband is doing this for the power because he has put you in the position where you have to have permission to do certain things. That is a person who wants to be the boss of you, in a position of power over you, and his tactics are one way to achieve this. Continue to focus on yourself and your wants and needs. Do what you have to do to survive this, but make yourself the priority.
Avatar for shloimele
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-28-2005
In reply to: shloimele
Thu, 11-10-2005 - 1:18am
Thank you very much for your advice. He is realy very cruel sometimes.other times he is nice but since I recognized the problem I dont take his good mood for granted anymore. I know that the bad temper will come back. I feel like in a rollercoaster, I have migranes very often and I cry more. I realy tried using all the tactics in the books i read and in the board it worked for a while and then he found new issues to be angry and threat me. you are right he thinks only of him self and wants to get all the attention. It is so hard to be strong and detached all the time, it is good to know that my case is not unique. when I think with reason I know that he won't cheat unless a woman actually makes him do it because he is kind of shy and scared of new things and hardly talks to anyone, he hates everybody and thinks he is smarter than anyone, he has only one good firend. he is stingy and will never pay for an hotel. his threats are always empty and just make me feel lousy.
I wish i could leave him but I can't for now for many reasons, what I am going to do is get some counseling for myself, at least I will have a person to talk to which I do not have right now, I know it helps to talk and cry it all out.
I will like to learn more about detachement, do you know any good books or links about it?