emotional abuse?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2004
emotional abuse?
Thu, 08-26-2004 - 1:44pm
Hello everyone,

I am new to this board and just let me say that from the posts I have read thus far, you all are wonderful women and very supportive, kind and caring, and I feel like I am in the right place! The reason I decided to post (other than the opportunity to get to know you all) is because I suspect that my husband is emotionally abusive and I want to leave him or ask him to leave, but I am having some difficulty with this and I guess I am doubting my suspicions that he is abusive. I could use some insight from those who have BTDT!!!!

I will try to make a long story short but I can't promise anything! I have all of this inside of me and could probably go on about it for days, but I will try to just give the necessary facts. Basically I have been married for eight years to this guy and we have one son who is four years old (and is wonderful). We knew each other since high school and dated briefly then but were always friends. I always thought he was a great guy, sweet, caring and sensitive. He was sometimes picked on by other guys for being sensitive and he didn't always "fit in" but this just made him more appealing to me. Anyway, for one reason or another we did not get together until after he did a five-year stint in the army and I was just coming off a bad relationship with a guy who got another girl pregnant while engaged to me. Great taste in men I have, I know!! Anyway, when Ron, my now husband, and I first got together I had some trust issues because of what my previous fiance had done, and I admit that at first I made Ron's life very difficult. But he said he had always had a crush on me and would make up to me for what the other bonehead had done, and so he worked to gain my trust. There were a few little issues along the way, such as him being accused of sexual harassment at a job shortly after we got together, but I took his word for what really happened and stood by him. Then his dad took off on his mom after 27 years of marriage - turns out he had been cheating on her with another woman for 9 months and no one even suspected! He went with the other woman to Kansas and made Ron be the one to tell the family. After that, Ron clammed up on me - he would not talk to me about his feelings about his dad or anything. We began to get emotionally more distant, and we fought all the time. The fights were just yelling at first, then they escalated to him having violent outbursts where he would break furniture, slam things, throw things, punch holes in the wall, shake me, and one time he even picked up our bed mattress while I was laying on it and dumped me off of it (I slammed into the wall before falling on the floor beside the bed). Even though these events scared me half to death, I did not think it was abuse - I believed his theory that whatever I had done had made him mad enough to do those things, and it wasn't really his fault. Things got progressively worse to the point where I was afraid to talk to him about ANYTHING, pretty much - if it was something relating to me like a problem at work or with my family, he would either tune me out or start lecturing me about how I was handling it all wrong. He would say he was going to call my boss or my sister or whoever was giving me a problem and tell them how they were treating me wrong or whatever, and I would have to beg him not to, when all I wanted him to do was listen to my problems! He also was very manipulative in that he would blame all of our fights and all of our problems on me, or make me feel that I was to blame. I did eventually come to trust him that he wasn't going to cheat on me or whatever, by the way, so those fights had ended after about the first year we were together. Now the fights were about money, sex, him not helping with housework, him not being there emotionally, his family, my family, etc etc. He constantly said I was a nag just because I would ask him to help out around the house or to keep track of the money he spent. He also would sometimes say things to embarrass me in front of friends or family and to make me out to look like a bitch. He also made major decisions without really considering my opinions, such as changing jobs, and sometimes he would force me into things I really didn't want to do, such as staying home full-time with our son when he was born (I wanted to work part-time and he wanted me to stay home - basically he bugged me and made me feel guilty until I just quit my job). When I got pregnant, he was totally unsupportive even when I had problems and one night I had some bleeding when I was about five months pregnant. I called the doctor who said to come in immediately. Ron was furious with me - I asked him to take me and he and a buddy had just sat down to watch the AHL All-Star game, so that meant he was going to miss it. He screamed and yelled at me in front of his friend, saying I worried too much and everything was fine and I really didn't need to go the doctor. Eventually he did take me because his friend had the common sense to get up and leave, saying it was more important for us to get me to the doctor. I would have just gone myself but I was so scared and knew I was in no condition to drive. Anyway it turned out I had a severe bladder infection which if left untreated could have caused premature labor!! The doctor said it was a really good thing I had come in that night. After our son was born, he did very little to help me out. I was exhausted to the point of passing out from fatigue. The doctor ORDERED me to get more sleep - Ron refused to do anything to make it possible for me to get sleep. In the last two years he changed jobs again, going into real estate much against my wishes. He is now rarely home and spends very little time with our son, which actually may be a good thing in the long run - our son is scared of him. He is very very critical of our son and expects him to behave like a little adult. He won't allow him to do any normal "kid" things like saying goofy things and dancing around, etc. He screams at him on a regular basis and threatens him by saying things like, "If you don't stop that, I'm going to smack your ass" or "You're going to have a big problem, and it's going to be me" or "I'll give you something to cry about". He yells at him for crying or for wanting to be held or being scared of things. Our son will say something and Ron's response will be "So what?" but then if Devin (our son) says that to him, he threatens to hit him. As far as I know he's only ever hit him a couple of times, and not hard, but I don't think Devin should have to live in fear like that. Recently he has kind of stopped the angry outbursts to a certain extent - he hasn't broken anything for a while or done anything to me. I guess that is part of what makes me feel it isn't abuse. Here is the really embarrassing part - because of the emotional distance between us, the complete lack of being loved that I felt, the complete lack of appreciation, and the feeling of being taken for granted, and the fact that Ron was never home because of his new job, last year I got involved emotionally with someone else. It was a guy I'd been friends with for some time and Ron had become friends with him as well. I used to work with him and we got along great. He realized that we were having problems and that the "spark" had gone from me. He knew I was miserable and extended a supportive hand. He said he had always thought Ron was a manipulative jerk, but he stayed friends with him because it meant he could still be friends with me. We got closer and we did end up kissing a little bit, but I never actually went all the way. I know that does not excuse what I did, and I know I shouldn't have turned elsewhere for what I wasn't getting from my marriage, but in a way it was a good thing because it gave me the strength to seek counseling and to try to get out of the relationship. I really was miserable and I felt hopeless, lost, even suicidal, and were it not for my son I might have committed suicide. Ron eventually found out that this friend and I had gotten closer than we should have and that I was planning on leaving. He promised to go to counseling with me (I had begged him a million times in the past but he said he "didn't believe in counseling") and begged me to stay. I cut ties with the other guy and gave the marriage one more shot. The counselor we saw (a different one than the one I had been going to individually) basically did not even address Ron's anger management issues and when I brought it up saying I was scared of Ron, the counselor (a man, by the way) asked Ron if he would ever hit me and Ron said no. The counselor said how do you know? And Ron said because I know I would never do something like that. I can stop myself before I get that angry. The counselor said he knew therefore that Ron was in control of his anger, and though he should work on better ways of expressing it, he did not feel there was abuse involved and I had no reason to be scared. So, after that I REALLY doubted that he was abusive! I felt like I was losing my mind. About a month ago, Ron told me one day that he thought things weren't going to work out and he was thinking of looking for an apartment. This was completely out of the blue and right in the middle of me dealing with an abnormal PAP smear and a biopsy for a suspicious-looking mole. Ron was completely not there for me emotionally during any of that medical stuff. Anyway, I asked where this had come from because we were still in counseling and I thought things were going better, although I had been a little edgy lately because of my medical concerns. I asked him if there was someone else, because he had started going out drinking a lot with people from work, and was out till 3, 4:00 in the morning on numerous occasions. He said no. Then a few days later he came home at 2:00 a.m., woke me up and admitted that he had been interested in someone else from work, but he had gotten drunk that night and made a move on her and she rejected him. So he thought about it and realized that he "really wants to be with me" and begged me to "start over" with both of us having a clean slate, and rebuild our relationship. I did not really commit one way or the other, saying I needed time to think. I couldn't help it, I broke down and called my friend I had been emotionally involved with last summer, and told him I needed help. He said he was still interested in me and would be there for me if I need him. Ron told me things were over between him and this other girl. Since then, we've gotten our cell phone bill and there are nine pages of text messages to her and numerous calls to her at all hours of the day, night and early morning, all after the date when he said it was over with her!! I don't think he realized I would be smart enough to go on his company's website and figure out her cell phone number! DUH! I confronted him and told him I want him to leave, and he refused. Now I don't know how to get out - I know I definitely want out, whether he is abusive or not, because I do not love him anymore and I hate the way he treats our son. I have this other wonderful guy waiting for me but I cannot seem to make the break with my husband. I don't know what to do. I am so scared of what he will do if I leave! I know he will make my life a living hell. He previously threatened to try to take our son from me if I ever left, saying he would tell the court I was unstable because I've been through counseling several times in my life. HELP!!! I know this was much longer than I'd planned but it is hard to squeeze eight years of marriage into a short summary and not leave out anything important. Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated! I know my story is not nearly as bad as what some of you have been through but I am really beginning to feel trapped and desperate! I do not know how I ever felt Ron was "sensitive and caring" - he is not the same guy I knew in high school at all! Thanks all!