Emotional abuse, Financial abuse and Reproductive Coercion, they are there, but you can’t see them

Sticks and Stones…….

Sticks and Stones…….

Dec 19, 2022 | Emotional Abuse

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’ According to the website phrases.org.uk the origins of this saying go back to 1862 if not earlier. It implies that someone may be able to physically hurt you; they won’t be able to hurt you with words. Whilst this is often true in many circumstances, it certainly isn’t true in an abusive relationship.

My abuser, my husband never hit me, he was too clever for that. If he had done so, I would have somehow found the strength to leave him. But instead he used words sometimes alongside actions. Take for example when he phoned me when he was away on business and I said something that upset him, he would hang-up, leaving me panicking about what I had done to make him do so. What had I said? I would then phone his mobile, he ignored me. There were times when he was visiting a customer in the UK and I had the number of the hotel, I’d phone the hotel and ask to be put through to his room. I eventually learned this wasn’t a good idea. He would answer the phone, but was irritated that I had phoned him and made his displeasure known.

He had a way of undermining my confidence. I thought I was a good cook, but he found fault with everything from the way I peeled potatoes to how I baked a cake. There is nothing more soul destroying than hearing the words

“My mum didn’t do it like that”

That phrase could be applied to most things domestic around the house. Over the years I was criticised for the way I did the ironing, how I made a cup of tea, cleaned the bathroom, loaded the washing machine and made the bed. The list is endless.

Then there was the way I dressed or had my hair. When we first met I spent most of my time in business clothing, my hair was longish, I wore quite a lot of make-up and was in high heeled shoes. After work and at weekends I was a lot more casual, but still wore make-up. When I had the children and stopped paid work, my style relaxed. Not having my own money I couldn’t just go out and buy a new dress or a pair of shoes. As I soon learned, I had to check with my husband first. The only time I could do this was when I received some birthday or Christmas money from my in-laws, but given on many occasions the perilous state of our finances I always checked to see if the money was needed for bills or items for the boys before I spent any of it on myself.

I missed wearing smart clothing, high heeled shoes and make-up. My two weaknesses are earrings and nail polish. Somehow I managed to avoid his criticism over them both. Everything else was fair game. My hair was a particular target. One moment he liked me having it long, the next, short. My natural colour is a dark mucky blonde, which I didn’t like, so I used to dye it various shades of blonde. I never got that right either and he always found something nasty to say about both the style and the colour. Even when he encouraged me to go to a hairdresser he never had a good word to say about what I’d had done. In the end I stopped even bothering to go to a hairdresser, let my hair grow and leave it as its natural colour. That was wrong as well.

At the beginning of our relationship he didn’t have a problem with me wearing high heels. However over the years he made comments about how they made me the same height as him. I seriously believe he had height issues as he didn’t like it when both the boys overtook him in height. My days of wearing high heels came to an abrupt end the day I badly dislocated my kneecap. No more the towering 4 – 5 inch heels, just flats, I mourned, he cheered.

He criticised my choice of music, I like softer romantic music whether it be vocal or orchestral. He didn’t, when he was at home we only listened to his music. It wasn’t just my music choices that he commented on; it was also the music the boys liked and listened to that he disapproved of by making sarcastic remarks when they were playing it.

When it came to movies and TV programs, once again it was his choice. For example, I am not a fan of science fiction in any form. In his eyes this was a failure on my part as he loved all things sci-fi. Over the years I did watch sci-fi, often having to close my eyes at certain scenes. That led to me being endlessly mocked.

My views about everything were silenced. I went from someone who had her own political views to someone who kept her mouth shut and nodded in agreement with his. This was also the case with everything from countries that I liked, which of the four seasons was the best right through to bedding. No opinion or like or dislike of mine was safe from his sarcasm, his scorn.

Sticks and stones do break bones and words do hurt. You just can’t see the damage that words do to a person. They destroyed me. I went from someone who travelled around the world, made friends easily to someone who is afraid of her own shadow. I don’t trust anyone, including myself; I avoid confrontation at all cost and spend my time wondering when the next disaster is going to happen. Forget the glass half full, or half empty, in my mind my glass is empty. This is how destructive the power of words can be.

Using pets as form of control

Using pets as form of control

Apr 8, 2022 | Emotional Abuse

Before I start to talk about how my husband used our cats as a form of control, I will be honest with you; I found this article incredibly hard to write. Many tears have been shed in the process. How he treated the boys and the cats I find harder to deal with than the way he treated me. They were defenceless, I wasn’t so much.

This is Tinker and Smudge. Smudge is the one in front.

Whilst my husband never physically hurt the boys or myself he threatened our two cats with harm, not that he actually followed through with it. Cats that he wanted and claimed he cared about. When our original cat, Tinker, who came with us from England to the USA, had to be put to sleep, he cried. They were crocodile tears. He also appeared to be upset when three weeks later our California cat, Smudge, went the same way as Tinker. His tears were as fake as when Tinker died.

Why do I say his tears were fake? Actions as they say speak louder than words. There were times when he could be openly cruel to them. Take for instance when he bought ‘his’ new sofa in 2005 when we were living in the USA. The money came from an inheritance he received from his grandfather. He took the money and bought a huge sofa, the picture of it is below. It was ‘his’ sofa, he went so far as to ask the assistant at the furniture store where it was purchased, if the material was ‘cat proof’. He was told it was, but as it turned out, after initially being reluctant to go on it, both cats decided if it was good enough for us humans then it was certainly good enough for them. I had no problem with them going on it as it was part of having the cats. I placed throws on the two areas of the sofa that they liked to go on and encouraged them to use them, they did. The main thing in my opinion was they didn’t attempt to scratch the sofa, which neither of them did. Unfortunately my husband had a different view. I guess what made him not make an issue of the cats sleeping on the sofa was that when he told his parents, they laughed and didn’t see a problem. However that didn’t stop him from taking his anger towards them being on the sofa out in other ways.

The new sofa

The sofa came with two recliners and a pull out bed. One evening he had reclined the part he was sitting on. Somehow Tinker managed to crawl up into the back of the sofa between the material and the mechanism. When he realised what she had done, rather than entice her out, he threatened to put the recliner into the upright position thereby trapping and potentially killing her. He was that angry. I was begging him not to do it. Hearing the noise my elder son came out to see what was going on and with some gentle persuasion removed Tinker from the back of the sofa and took her to his room. Looking back at that incident I believe if the mechanism had killed Tinker had my husband put the recliner back into the upright position, he would have blamed her. After all it was his modus operandi to blame everyone or thing but himself.

The sofa showing the recliners

When I was going through the pictures of the cats for this article, I was reminded about the fur on Tinker’s tummy. The picture of her lying on the path was taken at our house in England in 1994; she was about a year old. The second picture of her on the carpet was taken in 2007 at our house in Oregon, she was fourteen. What is noticeable about the picture of her on the carpet is the lack of fur on her tummy. From a young age she started licking her tummy to the point where she had licked the fur off. Even the vet had no idea what was causing her to do it after ruling out parasites and medical conditions. What he didn’t take into consideration was stress or did he? It was my husband, who took the cats to the vet, was it something else he failed to tell me about? Did the vet say she was suffering from stress and licking her tummy was a sign of it? If so my husband ignored it and over the years Tinker’s tummy licking became worse.

Tinker with fur on her tummy

Tinker with a lack of fur on her tummy

Another thing Tinker did was go through periods of meowing very loudly. This drove my husband mad and so added to the stress in the house. His attitude didn’t help either of them. Over the years the slightest little thing that they innocently did would set him off and he was forever threatening to “chuck them outside and leave them to the wildlife”. The wildlife included mountain lions, bobcats and rattlesnakes, just to name three. The boys and I didn’t want them outside and did our best to make sure they didn’t upset my husband.

Smudge as he got older became reluctant to use the litter tray. He would pee in it, but not poop. We always kept it clean and started to scoop it if Tinker had done her business in it. This didn’t work either; even changing the type of cat litter that was used didn’t work either. He, too, was stressed.

When thinking back about how my husband treated Smudge, one particular incident does stand out. One evening Smudge was sound asleep on the sofa. My husband went up to him and tickled him. Smudge was startled out of his sleep and scratched my husband’s hand. Immediately he realised what he’d done and I could see the panic in him. My husband predictably reacted with fury, saying amongst other things if his hand was injured he couldn’t work and it would be the cat’s fault. It wasn’t, he received a minor scratch, but the tension in the house had risen again.

The cat’s food was another issue that caused the stress levels to rise. From when we first had her Tinker didn’t like tinned cat food, she much preferred the dry variety. Smudge was the same, although in all fairness he was less fussy than she was. Tinker liked her food fresh, even the dry variety. It amused the boys and myself when there was a little of their food left in their food bowl and Tinker would be looking at us to put some fresh in it. We would say to her go and get Smudge to finish it and then we’ll put some fresh out for you. She’d go and find him and he’d come and eat the remaining food in their bowl. As promised the bowl would be cleaned and fresh food put out for them. Cats are smart.

Periodically my husband would get it into his head that the cats should eat the tinned cat food. No more dried food, they must only eat the tinned food. Tins were bought and they didn’t eat it. My husband ranted but in the end more dried food was purchased and so the cycle began again. To this day I’ve no idea why he went through these phases because his own parent’s cats for the most part ate dried cat food and lived to a good age.

In those rare moments of realising my marriage wasn’t normal and I fleetingly considered leaving him, I knew not only would I take the boys but would take the cats as well. There was no family to turn to and I hadn’t a clue where I would find a place that would take one adult, two children and two cats. I suspect he knew it and it would have given him a great deal of satisfaction. I ended up staying, defeated by the logistics of figuring out how to leave with two boys and the two cats.

Out of all the ways he used to control us it is what he did to the boys and the cats and how he used the cats to control us that I find the most upsetting. I also believe that he acted in the way he did to the cats was because he was jealous of the attention we gave them and the attention they gave us. A narcissist, which is what he was, wants to be the centre of attention and when my husband wasn’t he turned nasty. That is another aspect of the abuse that I am coming to understand.

It has been thirteen years since Tinker and Smudge departed this earth and I miss them dearly. They were funny, loveable, and had strong personalities. At night I had a glass of water on my bedside cabinet; Tinker decided it was her glass and would come and sit on my pillow and head and lean over to take a drink. In the end I put a cup of water out for her at night which she drank out of. Bizarrely she also liked drinking out of the toilet. Smudge liked drinking from a running tap which seemed quite normal compared to Tinker’s drinking habits!

When looking for the pictures for this article I found it hard to look through all the pictures of the cats. Memories came flooding back, some good, some not so good. Should I have refused when my parents offered to get us a cat, maybe, but I had no idea how my husband was going to treat Tinker and later on Smudge. He had always been good around his parent’s cats and I based the decision to have a cat based on his reactions. Also I liked the idea of the boys growing up with a pet and I am a softy when it comes to animals. When I heard that Smudge, who together with his sisters was found by a neighbour’s fence, needed a home, I had no hesitation offering him one.

Those little fuzzies brought a lot of joy into the boys and my life and for that we will forever be eternally grateful. They will continue to be a part of our lives. Tinker and Smudge we love you and always will.

 

Christmas Past

Christmas Past

Dec 17, 2021 | Emotional Abuse

For many years I have had a love/hate relationship with Christmas. As a child I looked forward to it, what would Father Christmas bring me in my stocking? Being an only child I loved spending time with my cousins. Christmas during my teenage years had both the highs and the lows, but I don’t have bad memories. For two of the Christmases in my twenties I was in Canada which was fun. Then came my late twenties and onwards.

The first Christmas my future husband and I were together, he went to his family and I went to mine. On Christmas Day I was in bed, feeling very sorry for myself and suffering from laryngitis. I was supposed to phone my then boyfriend, but it was left to my dad to phone to say I wouldn’t be able to talk to him. This was surprising given the animosity that had already started to arise between my dad and husband to be, stemming from the first time they had met. A year later our first Christmas as an engaged couple we spent with my parents, best behaviour all round.

It was from our first Christmas as a married couple, complete with new born son that Christmas became a time of year that started to become very stressful. Two incidents from that first holiday season as a mum stand out. The first being, my son who was only a few weeks old decided he was hungry around the time Christmas lunch was served. We had gone to my in-laws for the day, it was noisy but the atmosphere was quite good. As everyone moved to the dining room to eat, I slipped away to feed him. To this day I don’t understand how anyone didn’t notice I wasn’t eating with them. There was hardly any food left when I appeared, and to be honest I can hardly remember what I ate. What I do remember is feeling totally detached from it all. It was though I wasn’t part of the family.

New Year was spent with my parents in what became in my mind the battle of the heating. For reasons only known to my father he decided to turn the heat up. The room we were in got incredibly warm and my son was very fussy. My husband went and turned down the heat only for my father to turn it up again. It wasn’t a good visit.

From that Christmas on I developed a love/hate relationship with the season. I love putting up the decorations, loath all the commercialism that goes with it. I do enjoy Christmas music much to the annoyance of my sons. Apart from that I find it very stressful. Before we moved to the USA we had the usual which parents did we spend Christmas with debate. My own parents did spend one Christmas with us; less said the better about that one. Going to my in-laws I found it noisy, but there again it was Christmas.

The first Christmas in the USA was notable in that my parents decided to invite themselves over for a visit. My father got sick and ended up in hospital, finally coming out just before New Year. It was also to be the last time I saw my parents due to an incident that occurred that my husband used to split me away from them. As I now see it, my UK support network was taken away from me.

Christmas time from then on fell into a regular pattern. In the run up I would ask my husband about buying presents for the boys, making sure I didn’t spend too much. The two areas I could spend money on were food and his presents. As time had gone on buying presents for him had gone from being a secret to telling him what I was getting him.

Food no matter what time of year was a huge expenditure, Christmas time more so. I mentally budgeted for what to buy over the Christmas period, only for my husband to come up with items that destroyed it. Near where we lived in Oregon there was an award winning creamery that produced specialised cheeses. I will admit they were good, but oh they were expensive. That didn’t stop my husband going there in early December to spend a $100 or so on cheese. That even now is a lot of money and back when he was self-employed and for a few years towards the end of our time over there, going to the bank of mum and dad to keep a roof over our heads, a $100 was a huge amount. This was on top of our weekly shop which averaged $150 to $200 per week. Then there were the visits to the liquor store. In Oregon we could buy beer and wine at the grocery store, but drinks like brandy, liqueurs and whisky we had to go to the liquor store. Even now the thought of how much we spent makes me shudder.

When looking back over the past few years, I do have some good memories of our last Christmas in the USA. I do consider it to be our last reasonably good Christmas. By that stage we had sold or donated a lot of items that we weren’t planning or were unable to bring back to the UK. This included majority of our Christmas decorations. I am what I consider to be messily creative, by that I mean I am creative but make a mess when I do so. As we didn’t have a Christmas tree, I decided to trim some twigs off one of the many trees that we had and decorate them with homemade decorations.

Christmas Twigs 2019

Food expenditure was high, and money was spent on the boy’s presents. I can’t remember what I got for my husband or what I was allowed to buy for myself. None of that matters, what is important when looking at the picture is that to have a happy holiday season is that you don’t need a lot. No Christmas wrapping paper, the paper used was sheets of coloured paper that we weren’t sure if we were going to bring back. They were brilliant substitute for wrapping paper, but only if you have small presents.

The first Christmas back in the UK deserves its own article, but for the moment I will briefly touch on the events of those days. We were living with my in-laws and I was counting down the days until we moved out, which would take place early in the New Year when my husband started his new job. All of his family appeared, those that lived away stayed and those that were local arrived on Christmas Day. It hit me hard that I didn’t have my own family apart from the boys and my husband. In his usual fashion he ignored my discomfort, which is if he even noticed it. The boys did and it was they who managed to pull me through a difficult time.

The Christmases of 2011, 2012, 2013, were spent partly at home and partly with the in-laws. In the run-up to the Christmas of 2011 my husband declared he wanted a chocolate cheese cake for Christmas. I went and added the ingredients to my shopping list. Just before Christmas I made the cake, or rather attempted to make it. Initially it went spectacularly wrong. My elder son came to the rescue and somehow the mess was rescued. There was so much mixture that not only did we have one chocolate cheese cake but lots of mini ones as well. My husband had a small piece and didn’t eat anymore. It was left to the boys and me to eat them all. Up to the writing of this article I haven’t eaten another piece of chocolate cheesecake.

And so to the final Christmas. By Christmas time rolled around in 2014 I was at the end of my tether. One half of me wanted out of my marriage but didn’t know how to go about it. The other half wanted to stay and fight for it. Our 25th wedding anniversary was in January.

By then we had given up with presents, the boys had some but we had stopped buying each other gifts. Nor did we bother with Christmas cards. My husband claimed he didn’t have time to go out and buy me a card or a present. Needing new underwear, I did ask him I could buy myself some. I’m not sure if he actually heard me as he was reading something on the Internet but he agreed, and I went ahead and bought myself some, nothing fancy, just basic plain underwear.

My elder son was living with my in-laws as he was going to college near where they lived and he had decided to stay with them over the Christmas period rather than come home. We were going to spend Christmas Day with them and other members of my husband’s family.

The morning of the 25th dawned and my husband decided he wanted to be at his parent’s house by 9 am. The journey took us around three-quarters of an hour. I didn’t see the need to go so early. My stress levels were through the roof. But then my rebellious streak kicked in and I went on a go slow. I took my time over breakfast. I then went upstairs to the bathroom. He came up to use it, so I let him. When he had finished I went back in and proceeded to take my time while putting my make-up on. He went out to the car. My younger son knew what I was doing and gave me his silent approval. Eventually I joined them both and we set off for his parents. The journey was completed in absolute silence. Upon arrival I put my smiley face on and somehow managed to muddle my way through the day. It was good to see my elder son, although he had a bad cold and was feeling pretty miserable.

I don’t remember much of the day apart from one incident. I was sitting next to my husband on the sofa in his parent’s living room. I turned to him and asked him “if we were alright”. He said yes. Even though I felt comforted by his answer, deep down I knew things were not alright, but even then I was hoping that our upcoming 25th wedding anniversary would be yet another reset.

Little did any of us know that when we left his parents that night, it would be the last time any of them would see my husband alive again. No matter my feelings towards his family, he was their son, brother, brother-in-law and in any circumstances losing a loved one is devastating. It was so unexpected. One minute you are celebrating Christmas, and then the next you are being told the next time the family will all be gathering is for a funeral. There were only twelve days between the time his family last saw him and the day he died. It wasn’t long.

For me however those twelve days seemed like a lifetime. We didn’t do much; he was on holiday over the Christmas period. For him this meant, actually I don’t know what it meant for him. Did he enjoy the time away from work or not, that is a question I can’t answer. There were two notable events that took place. The first a visit he and my younger son took to see if they could see my father. They arrived, found he was out and then came back home. The mood in the house wasn’t great to begin with, but after that it deteriorated even more.

The second was New Year’s Eve; my younger son had started a cold and spent most of the day in his room. My husband and I went for a walk in the morning, but barely spoke to each other. In the afternoon I went and did some gardening. Midnight approached and my son joined us in the living room. The New Year dawned year, at that point my husband decided he was going to watch some TV. I went to bed. Before doing so I went to kiss him and wish him happy New Year but he brushed me away. I went to bed feeling both angry and upset and wondering if this was the end of my marriage. Little did I know what was going to happen just a few days later.

I can’t say Christmas time has improved since 2014. I don’t remember much about Christmas 2015, by 2016 my son and I had moved. There was an invite to the in-laws, but I politely turned it down. I wanted to celebrate Christmas in the first house that I had ever rented on my own. Also there was the small issue of getting to visit them, given there is no public transport on Christmas Day and I preferred not to have to rely on someone coming to collect us and then bring us back home. I was also reluctant to be reminded of the last time my son and I had been at my in-laws which was Christmas Day 2014. Then there was the matter of seeing pictures of my husband and hearing how much he was missed. I didn’t want to see any pictures of him and by then I was remembering things long buried that was making me realise my marriage wasn’t what I had tricked myself into believing. So it was just the boys and I, so setting the pattern for the following years.

2017 through to 2019, followed the same pattern. I put up the decorations and my eldest would come over Christmas Day for dinner. That was Christmas. 2020 was for everyone a rough time. My eldest was living close and came over to visit, but chose not come inside. Instead we talked to him outside, keeping our distance, then after a couple of hours he went home. It was very surreal.

I doubt if the majority of people would have thought at the beginning of 2020 the year would be dominated by the pandemic or if someone had told them this was how the year was going to be, believed them. Now another Christmas is upon us. The house is decorated, earlier than I normally put up the Christmas decorations, but this year I wanted to do something different. They will remain up until February, a new tradition I am starting. On Christmas Eve my elder son is paying us a visit and this time coming inside. Fingers crossed given the Covid-19 rates are going up, that more restrictions won’t be needed. That is my greatest hope for this holiday season.

Once Christmas is over, my focus turns to the New Year. January is a horrible month, one that I would happily skip over if only I could. For me it is harder than December, given my husband died in January and it was the month that we got married in. Memories do come flooding back and overwhelm me at times. Somehow I get through the month and look forward to February and the rest of year, that is all the way up until December!

 

Thoughts of Suicide

Thoughts of Suicide

Oct 27, 2021 | Emotional Abuse

WARNING: Reading about how people can have thoughts of suicide can be triggering. If you are feeling vulnerable it may be advisable for you not to read any further.

I never thought of myself as one who would want to take my own life, until one day, it all became too much and I wanted to end it all. My life was going nowhere; I had written my book “Do You Mind If I Buy Myself Some New Underwear?” self-published it on Amazon and thought I could move on with my life.

The reality was vastly different. What they don’t explain that clearly about self-publishing is, apart from taking your document and converting it to an eBook format, which can be quite costly; you also need to market it. I should have realised from my nanny agency days that marketing costs money. In many ways, I thought once the book was published my pain would be ended. I imagined a brighter future. I was mistaken. For one thing, as much as I wanted to forget about the book, I periodically earned a couple of pounds from Amazon and was sent a notification when the money was due to be paid.

Looking back, I now can see that there were a series of events that led up to the point where I wanted to end it all. When I received the news about my husband being taken ill and then the eventual trip to the hospital, I was on autopilot. The only thoughts I had was what would happen when he was released from hospital. He was a dreadful when he had a cold, so what would he be like if what had caused him to collapse was more serious? It never came to that. I went to the hospital a married woman and came home a widow. All thoughts that I had about yet another attempt to reset my marriage had disappeared. I had a funeral to sort out and needed to check the finances.

I took comfort in the cloak of widowhood, but there were clouds on the horizon. I started to go through my husband’s documents on the computer and the reality of what he was truly like started to sink in. At the same time, I was dealing with life events. One of which was my then landlord, who had been very supportive, telling me he needed to sell the house we were living in. It was, in all fairness too large for my son and me, but I felt secure there. We had good neighbours; it was a safe bubble that we were living in.

Reality started to bite when my landlord gave me a four month extension on the lease at a vastly increased rate. Then the viewings started, my stress levels rose and the pressure increased to find somewhere to live. I had never rented anywhere by myself. The job I had when I met my husband came with accommodation, previous to that I had lived at home or worked as a live-in nanny. So here I was at the age of fifty-five looking to rent a place to live in my own name for the first time in my life. I didn’t have a “regular” job, I was, by then self-employed, and that did cause problems. Some places required a guarantor, which I didn’t have.

If all of that wasn’t hard enough, where we were going to live was also a problem. My younger son was living at home and wasn’t in a position to find a place on his own. I had no idea how fortuitous that was to be. Eventually, going against my better judgment I settled on Nottingham. My elder son was about to start university there and it was where my in-laws lived. At that point, I was still seeing them as family as I hadn’t got to the point in my journey of facing the absolute truth about my husband.

I approached my in-laws to see if my son and I could go and stay with them for a night so that we could see some homes in the area. My request was turned down flat. By some miracle, a house was found that my elder son went and viewed and my soon to be landlord accepted my application. I had rented a house all by myself.

It was hard to move, we didn’t know anybody, apart my eldest son and he was busy at university. My in-laws didn’t want to know us. On top of everything else, we had power problems shortly after we moved in. It wasn’t a great start. By the beginning of the year, my son and I started looking at moving. We spent several weeks, eventually deciding that we were better off where we were.

On and off since my husband had died, I had been putting my thoughts down in writing. At the cremation service for my husband, I had mentally re-written the tribute the boys and I had written. Strange memories entered my head at night, so strange I thought I was going mad. I told my son, and he told me I wasn’t going mad. Those strange memories were the reality. Memories that I had blocked out for years, not wanting the face the truth that I was in an abusive relationship and not just a bad marriage.

New words entered my vocabulary: Coercive control, emotional abuse, financial abuse, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic personality disorder and more recently, reproductive coercion. It pushed me to the edge, but I didn’t seek help because I still didn’t believe I was a victim of abuse. My book took many a turn and as I wrote, the truth seeped out. Rather than write as Leigh, I wrote through the eyes of Abby and it was Abby who finally made me confront the truth. I had been in an abusive relationship from almost the moment I had met my husband. More importantly, even when I had seen the signs, I put them all down to a dreadful marriage, one that I was determined to fix. Even when I confronted the truth, there was a part of me that denied it.

Outwardly I appeared to be fine. Inwardly I was a mess. I had started to tell those few people that I knew that my late husband was an emotional abuser. There were some words of comfort, but there were many nasty words. The implication was I had made it up, or at the very least I should put the past behind me and get on with my life. Let me tell you here and now you don’t just get on with your life after being abused. Yes, you can move forward, but those memories of the abuse last a lifetime. Even to this day I am still remembering his actions and realising what a truly despicable man he was. It wasn’t just his actions towards me, but to the boys and to the cats.

Feelings of guilt kicked in. Why didn’t I see him for what he was? Why didn’t I leave him during those brief moments when I saw that I was in, what I believe to be a bad marriage? How was all this affecting the boys? Would they have had a better life if I had taken them and the cats and left my husband? The what ifs and the guilt took over my life.

While I had the book to complete and find a way of publishing it, I had a purpose in life. It was easy to write about my life through Abby’s eyes, but when the writing stopped I had to face the truth. I could no longer hide behind Abby. That is when my thoughts of suicide started to creep in. Slowly at first, not every day or even every week, just random thoughts about how I should go about taking my own life.

We don’t live far from the River Trent and there is a weir close by. Having seen the weir and how easy it was to get to, my first thoughts of taking my own life was to go to the weir. Drowning seemed a sensible way out. I have a fear of heights, so wouldn’t want to jump off anything high as first I would have to climb up. Cutting my wrists I ruled out as I wince at anything sharp. Getting hit by a train or a tram didn’t appeal either. I would have had to have travelled some distance to get to a train and the trams in this area, while I could have been hit by one, the chances of surviving it were good as they don’t go at any great speed during this part of their journey.

It was a slow build up to the point where I just exploded one night. I had reached my limit; I wanted to end it all. My finances were in a mess. Some money from a couple of pensions that I had discovered when going through my husband’s documents had all but disappeared. My book, well that was languishing on Amazon and I had been turned down for many jobs that is if I even had a reply. This didn’t surprise me as my CV had more holes in it than a sieve!

I broke down late one night. I took my rings off and told my son he could have them. I openly told him I didn’t want to live any more. He was calm and let me rage and cry and slowly he brought me down from my personal hell. I didn’t even attempt taking my life that night. What I did later on was to count all the painkillers I had, wondering if I took them I could end my life that way. It seemed the best way to go. I put my son through the living agony of not knowing if his mother was still going to be alive in the morning. His brother, who had been told about me wanting to take my own life, suggested that he remove all the tablets from my room. For whatever reason, he refrained from doing so.

Since that dark late night, I have had many thoughts of taking my own life. As I have discovered, once that particular genie is out of the bottle, you can’t put it back again. Thoughts of how I can end it all are constantly with me, particularly in stressful situations. But even living with and thinking about suicide hasn’t persuaded me to seek counselling. Somehow I get through each day, I live with anxiety; some days it is worse than others. Now I can predict what kind of day I am going to have and to be honest there are times when I don’t want to get out of bed.

I worry about the slightest things and the smallest worry can escalate into a major issue in my mind. It is times like this I want my life to end, for the pain to stop. I don’t want to constantly keep looking back on my life and see just how he manipulated me, had total control of my life. There are days when I spend the entire day playing the blame game. I blame me for everything that went wrong. This then transfers to the what ifs. What if I had done this or that or seen through him? It is exhausting.

When I look back over the past few years it amazes me that I am still here. Now this is going to sound a little strange, but when the original lockdown began, I didn’t fear it: I embraced it. Isolation is part of control, in the case of the pandemic, it was done to save lives. In an abusive relationship, it is used by the abuser to exert control over their victim. For once, I was able to put all those years of isolation to good use. I didn’t feel threatened by it; I had an excuse not to move forward with my life. For a brief time, any thought of taking my life disappeared.

As we have come out of lockdown and our lives are returning to something like normal, those thoughts of ending it all have started to reappear. I feel threatened by the outside world. I need to move forward with my life, but I don’t know how. If I stay as I am, how will that affect the boys, if I take my own life how will they cope? Will they feel the same guilt that I do when I think back about my life and how I should have got them away from their father? Somehow I have to find a path forward so that I can start living my life without being a burden to the boys. Yet at the same time, I have to learn to live with the thoughts of ending my life without them dominating every moment of my day.

Recently, I did one of those questionnaires that estimate how long you have to live. According to it I have just over 23 years. I would like 27 or more, that way it will have counter balanced the years I was with my husband. Only these years, rather than at the end I look back upon with regret, I look back and say, yes I finally lived my life to its fullest when I turned sixty, now that would be an achievement.

If you do have suicidal thoughts please contact:
Samaritans on 116 123 – They are available 24/7
www.samaritans.org

If you are in immediate danger due to harming yourself phone 999 for an ambulance or go straight to A&E. If you are unable to do this yourself ask someone to phone 999 for you or take you to A&E.

Coercive Control, Emotional Abuse or Psychological abuse

Coercive Control, Emotional Abuse or Psychological abuse

Sep 2, 2021 | Emotional Abuse

At the beginning of my journey into discovering I had been in an abusive relationship, I had not heard of the terms coercive control, emotional abuse or psychological abuse. To me, abuse was physical; therefore, because my husband had never physically hurt me, he hadn’t abused me. The truth was very different.

Coercive control became a criminal offence in England and Wales on 29th December 2015. In Scotland, it became an offence on 1st April 2019 and in Northern Ireland in March 2021. Each countries version is slightly different, but coercive control is now an offence in all parts of the United Kingdom. As I was facing the truth about my husband’s treatment of me, I had to come to terms with the fact that even if I had have realised what he was doing was abusive, there appeared to be very little I could do about it at the time. I am glad to see that now anyone who is being abused in this way can take action against the abuser.

To the layman, like me, the definitions of both coercive control and emotional abuse do seem very similar, as does psychological abuse. At times it is very confusing. However, whether it is coercive control, emotional abuse or psychological abuse, they are all abuse and are all invisible. Nobody should be subjected to them.

The definition of coercive control:

Coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviour by someone you are personally connected to. The perpetrator erodes the person’s autonomy and self-esteem to gain control. To do this they can use humiliation, intimidation and threats. They can also deprive the person of their means for independence and controlling their everyday behaviour. It can lead to physical abuse, but even when it does not, coercive control is a type of emotional abuse that can cause psychological trauma.

The definition of emotional abuse:

Emotional abuse is to intentionally inflict acts that include confinement, humiliation, intimidation, isolation, verbal assault and any other act that may weaken the sense of dignity, identity and self-worth of the person they are abusing. It is also known as psychological abuse

The definition of psychological abuse:

Psychological abuse is the intentional and regular use of words and non-physical acts with the sole purpose of blaming, hurting, frightening and manipulating an individual both emotionally and mentally. They can also ‘gas-light’ the person.

My personal experience of being emotionally abused Part 2

My personal experience of being emotionally abused Part 2

Aug 18, 2021 | Emotional Abuse

Do they use your past against you and even weaponise it?

In those early days of getting to know one another, I told him a couple of things about my past. Little did I know that as time went on he would use those incidents against me.

Do they see you as an extension of themselves as opposed to seeing you as a person in your own right?

It wasn’t only me I now know he saw as an extension of himself, but the boys as well. I encouraged the boys to develop their own interests and views. He expected them to be like him. This included us all liking the same food, music, movies, clothing and TV programs. Dissent about any of them wasn’t tolerated.

Do they show a “Jekyll and Hyde temperament, one moment having fun, the next moment shouting at you for no reason?

He wasn’t one for shouting, but his temperament could change depending upon the circumstances. If there were people around, including his family, then he was the devoted husband. Behind closed doors, he was the opposite. This again came out more and more in those last years and did contribute to me slowly starting to see his true personality. However I explained it all away.

Do they make jokes at your expense?

Unfortunately my entire marriage was a joke at his expense. He even used to make jokes about how he didn’t want to live into his sixties and then pretend he was joking.

Do they monitor you internet usage including what websites you are looking at?

When we first met, internet usage wasn’t wide spread so wasn’t an issue. It was only when we moved to the USA that we went on the internet. I was naive; I had no idea how to clear my browsing history so he could see what I was looking at. It was only in the last few years when we were back in the UK that I learned how to clear my browsing history. This wasn’t because I thought he was monitoring my history, it was because of his snide comments about anything I looked at that he didn’t approve of.

Do they want access to your email and mobile and check to see who you are in contact with?

He told me if anything happened to me, he would need access to my email and mobile. It sounded as with all his requests, very reasonable. You don’t expect it could be used to check up on you.

Do they prevent you from seeing your friends, or making new friends?

Moving a lot is one way to make it difficult for friendships to be kept. Then there is quilt tripping. His version was to be upset that I wanted to spend time with other people rather than him. After all, his job did take him away so much. Living under the constant threat of moving makes it hard to make new friends, what is the point when you will be moving again!!!

Do they threaten to leave you and take your children?

He never implicitly said anything about leaving me and taking the boys. Even though I hadn’t realised he was abusing me when they were little, I knew I would have a fight on my hands if I had left with them. The threat doesn’t need to be said, but you know it is there.

Do they threaten your pets?

When we lived in the UK, our cat was an indoor-outdoor cat; in at night, out in the day. He would threaten to leave her out at night if she didn’t come in. Where we were living was relatively safe for cats to roam, but I didn’t like the idea of her being left out at night so made a point of keeping her in when she came in the house in the afternoon.

It was during our time in Oregon that his nastiness towards animals did come out. By then, we had both cats and kept them inside. If they displeased him, he would threaten to kick them both out and let the cougars that roamed around the area eat them.

Do they walk out if they are not getting their way in a discussion or argument and make you believe they are not coming back?

Many a time he would walk out, usually late at night, often going for a bike ride. I never did know if he would come back or if something would happen to him. This was before the days of mobile phones and pagers. I did mention this a couple of times, but this was dismissed as him wanting some time to himself. He had me worried each time he did this which was his goal.

During our time in the USA, there were many occasions when I did wonder if on one of his trips away on business, he would simply book a flight back to the UK. Likewise, when he had gone training courses back to the UK, it did concern me if he would return. When I mentioned this to the boys, as I was facing the truth about what he was like, both were in agreement that should their father have returned to the UK or refused to return to the US, his parents would have made him return. In the boys’ view, it was his parents that prevented him from returning to UK.

Do they threaten to commit suicide if you leave them?

One night, he had come back from a week away on business. He couldn’t sleep and went downstairs. After a while I went down to see if he was OK. I was told to go and wake the boys, put them in the car because he was going to find a cliff and drive us all off it. I ignored him and we never mentioned it again. With him, it was all or nothing.

Do they have friends of the opposite sex, but don’t like it if you do?

When we met, he had a woman friend. It didn’t bother me at all as I had male friends. Over the years he did have woman friends. He didn’t like them nor did he like the men I worked with.

Do they gaslight you? That is they deny something you know is true and you end up questioning your own memory and sanity.

It wasn’t so much he gaslighted me, but more of me gaslighting myself into believing I had a good marriage. That isn’t to say he didn’t subtly assist me along the way.

Do you believe it is your responsibility to keep them happy otherwise they will harm you?

It was part of my “duties” to keep him happy, just like the cooking and cleaning. It never dawned on me that he was using this to keep me in his control. If he wasn’t happy, then all we would hear about was how he hated his job, how he was going to quit. How he wanted to move, he wanted a new car, he wanted lots of things. Rather than happy, the word ought to be distracted. If I kept him distracted then he would think of ways to blame me or the boys for his perceived unhappiness.

Keeping him “happy” was a full time occupation. What made him happy one day would make him angry the next. One time he was talking about homemade cheesecake and how it would be good to have some. I checked the food budget and bought the ingredients for a cheesecake. When it was served he wanted to know why I had made it. By the time it was eaten the boys and I never wanted to see or taste a piece of cheesecake for a very long time.

Do you take the blame for things that you haven’t done before they blame you?

It is only looking back that I now see how much I took the blame for things that I hadn’t done. “It is my fault” was one of those stock phrases I said. “If I hadn’t have done…… then this wouldn’t have happened” In those last years, I was even taking the blame for software errors on the computer, which I had absolutely no control over.

Have they isolated you?

There were ways he did isolate me, one being how deliberately embarrassing he could be to people that I knew (see 48). However, it is the long term effects of being isolated that I am still dealing with. For someone who travelled to both Canada and New Zealand and was able to make friends in both countries; this is apart from when I was working in this country, since I have been widowed and dealing with the abuse inflicted upon me by my husband, I have found it difficult to start to make new friends in person.

Have they forced you into doing something that makes you uncomfortable or is illegal?

I am ashamed to say yes he forced me into many things that made feel uncomfortable. One example of this was pretending that we still owned our house in Oregon long after it had been sold. The boys were also dragged into this lie and they too were uncomfortable pretending their parents still owned the house.

Have they turned others against you?

His family have changed towards me since he died. This has been more obvious since my younger son and I  moved to the same area where they are living. My elder son was already living in the area, as he had moved to live with his grandparents so he could go to college. He then decided to go to one of the local universities. Around this time my landlord planned to sell the house we were living in so I had to find somewhere else to live. I made the decision to move back to the area that I swore I would never return to, the reason being that my son lived there and, as at the time I hadn’t yet confronted the whole truth about my husband, I thought it would be good to be in an area where I actually knew some people. Not once since we moved have I actually seen any member of my husband’s family. Maybe it is a good thing because I am not sure if I still had been in contact with them I would have fully faced how much abuse my husband had subjected me to.

Have they shared personal information about you with others?

This is one I can’t prove, but I do know he did talk to his father a lot (I had no problem with him spending time or talking to his father). What I do suspect is that he could spin the truth to fit his audience. His father helped him out financially and although I can’t prove it, I suspect I was the villain when he went and asked his father for money. The truth was he believed it was owed him.

Have they made you feel sorry for them by telling you stories of their past relationships or how they have been treated by their parents?

He told me the story of his past and I felt so sorry for him I would have done anything in the world to have made it better. This included how he had been treated by both his mother and his former girlfriend. The truth, as I discovered far too late, was the opposite.

If you are unwell whether physically or mentally do they expect you to carry on as normal?

There was one obvious rule in the house, there was only one person allowed to be unwell and that was him. Foolishly, I ignored the warning signs that were there before we were married when I had food poisoning (see 3). There was the time in the USA when I dislocated my kneecap and was on crutches. He was due to go back to the UK on a training course and insisted on going. I had to be off crutches by the time he came back a month later.

Regarding mental health issues, they didn’t exist in his eyes. Over a period of time, I developed panic attacks. The boys saw them and for a lot of the time, I kept them hidden from my husband. The way I dealt with them was to go to a quiet place, usually the bedroom and slowly I would regain control. When my husband was around I had to ignore the panic attack and keep going. I remember one time he and I had gone out for a walk before dinner. Something triggered an attack and I needed to control it, deep breaths and walking slowly would have helped. He knew what was happening and deliberately upped his pace forcing me to almost run to keep up with him. For the rest of the walk, he made remarks about how slow I was. By the time we arrived back at the house, I was sweating, my heart had been racing for at least twenty minutes and I could hardly breathe. Despite all of this, he wanted his dinner and I had to finish preparing and serve it!

No matter what you do are you always in the wrong?

It was probably always like that, but in the last years it was obvious. He didn’t hide his view that whatever I did was always going to be wrong. This could be the way I did the ironing, the way I cooked food to what views I had. He was blaming me for supporting him during a rough period at work.

When out in public do they deliberately embarrass you?

Imagine this scenario you have met one of your neighbours and often see her when you are out walking. You stop and chat and over time you get to know her quite well. Back at home you share with your partner that you have met one of the neighbours and talk quite innocently about what you have talked about. This includes the information that the neighbour goes to church. One day you are out with your partner and you meet your neighbour. You introduce your partner to her. During the conversation your partner manages to slip into the conversation a snide comment about religion. From that moment on, if they have the opportunity to say something derogatory about religion to the neighbour, they do.

This is what happened to me. Each time I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. I was so embarrassed. What is so surprising is that this neighbour was so supportive of me when my husband died. I am thankful she could look beyond what he had said to her.

When they apologise does it sound more like a non-apology?

I am not sure he knew how to apologise because he never once apologised to me.

When you are on your own do feel happier than when they are there?

In those last few years before he died, yes I did feel happier than when he was at home. I didn’t understand why. My life did revolve around his calls, but there were times during the day when I had moments of peace and quiet. The best time was having the bed to myself, I was able to get some sleep without his snoring. I did have regrets that I should have made more of an issue about his snoring as it was, a major sign that his heart was failing. All I saw or rather heard was a very loud annoyance designed to prevent me from sleeping.

As I look back I see even more clearly just how abusive he was. It was, I admit mentally tough writing the examples, but has been a worthwhile exercise. A cleansing if you like and if I am honest, I could write many more.