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I think back to the beginning of my relationship with the first husband, and everything was a red flag. It's just that at that age, nothing seemed...serious. Like I had all the time of forever to correct any mistakes I might be making, I could handle anything, and I had little care for the consequences. Those aspects that older me would instantly see as a problem, at the time I was like "maybe with me in his life, he won't be like that." Also, he did a lot of blaming of his first and second wives for all of his own problem behavior and he was really convincing that he was only like that because they were the way they were. That if only the women in his life hadn't been so crazy and bad, the crazy bad incidents and situations would not have happened, HE, after all, has a "heart of gold" and is a "good guy."
He even had me saying it.
Was substance abuse an issue here as well?
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Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
And I think he tested me in some ways. Like he would tell a story, repeatedly (I heard it a number of times while we were together, he'd say it with this distant expression)... Where he walked in on his second wife having sex with another man, and he blacked out with rage, and he doesn't remember doing it but others saw him punch her twice, and then he threw the guy off a balcony. Telling that story, over and over...what purpose does that serve other than to say, "you had better never betray me or I will not be responsible for the violent things I do."...? Or to see if I would accept the idea that a man pushed too far has a right to violence? He was always talking about all of his military training and how deadly and dangerous he was.
I honestly didn't realize "oh god, this is horrible, what have I gotten myself into" until I was very pregnant with our first child...and I'd decided to keep the baby because from the moment I knew of the conception I was just crazy full of love for the concept of "BABY" in my mind and heart... Well one day I had an ultrasound appointment and I wanted him to go with me, and we were at a bus stop and he had been arguing that he wanted to go home and get high and didn't think he needed to be there. And finally he yelled at me about how hard he works and how tired he was and he just took off and left me there. And in that moment I felt like I was on my own. I was 19 and pregnant out to there, and I think from that moment I felt I no longer had a partner in building a family, I had a man to manage and use to get a job done of parenting a child and surviving as best we could. But I was going to have to be strong on my own even though he was there. He wasn't in this with me. He was in it for himself.
He had moments...maybe two or three over the span of 18 years...where physical discipline of the kids went just a little too far. But they were so rare and not injurious enough to require medical care...I filed them away but they did not trigger me to leave, the fear of trying to survive and parent them as a single parent on what money I could make...the fear of poverty, which I HAD experienced...was greater than a perceived need to get away from him then. Things did not get truly violent and overtly unacceptable and abusive until he got out of the military in 2013...and it just steadily went downhill from that point.
Alcohol was a big factor, too. He was less awful in the years when he did not drink. There were many of those. But after he returned from Iraq, he started drinking and just got worse and worse.
But there was stuff he hid from me from the very beginning. He'd had a fight with 2nd wife where he fired a full clip of bullets from a handgun into the wall about a foot away from her head. He'd gone behind my back and physically beat up and intimidated every male friend I had that he knew of when we barely knew one another and were just starting to date, to get anyone he saw as "competition" to stay away from me. I sometimes wonder if I'd have stopped myself getting involved with him if I'd known those things.
Was there a personality change from PTSD after he served in Iraq?
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Originally Posted by The Dissenter
Im going to state up front that this is through not my own eyes but as an observer to a very close friend’s abusive relationship, so clearly the only details I have are what she has told me and what I have witnessed.
I came into knowledge of the state of abuse in the relationship on a night out with her, her bf, and another mutual friend. We get to a club after a pregame. He starts to act a little boisterous which I charged to the pregame drinking. Then my friend and her bf get into an argument and all of us step outside the club and the argument just gets uglier. He starts to get more aggressive and I physically step in between him and my friend to keep the peace. We ended up leaving a short time later in two Ubers, the mutual friend and myself in one, my friend and her bf in another. In retrospect that was not a good pairing at the time because we saw them right around the corner from my friends building and he was tearing into her and it looked bad. The mutual friend actually tells me that this was not an isolated episode and other ugly scenes she witnessed.
A few weeks passed and the relationship ends, and only then she told me about times he hit her, usually accompanied by liquor of some sort. She felt very ashamed to have to say that and I know she’d never share this publicly outside very selective friends.
When guys step in like this, does that actually help or does the abuse victim get punished later for embarrassing her abuser?
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Originally Posted by The Dissenter
The dude was very charming and a nice man with status and pull in the DC area. But please believe the minute his lips touched liquor, he was a different person. He was an expert groomer and gaslighter. My friend was also a very statused person in the public eye and a furiously independent woman. I’d think her type would be the least vulnerable to an abusive situation like this but I was sadly mistaken.
This should be a cautionary tale that anyone can get got by the manipulation of a knowledgeable abuser. Abuse is not a poor peoples or undereducated persons problem.
Thanks for sharing.
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Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry
My abusive ex- was a funny, happy-go-lucky guy when we dated, and remained that way until our wedding night. I never had a clue, until he punched me in the face as I was coming out of our ensuite of our honeymoon suite. (I had begged him to leave the reception at 1:30 AM, exhausted from the festivities, and he did with only the mildest show of disappointment.) As I was sprawled on the floor of the bathroom he leaned over me with a red face and told me in a steely voice to "never tell him what to do again, especially when he was having a good time. Shocked, I acquiesced.
So he waits until the wedding night to show his true colors. I was thinking that there would be tells earlier in the process.
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Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry
After moving into our home, I dedicated myself to being a "good wife." I cooked homemade meals, right down to rolling out and hand-cutting pasta, simmering tomatoes into marinara sauce, cooking fresh veggies, etc. One special Sunday dinner, I worked all morning to put out an elaborate three course meal. I called him to the table from watching some sporting event on TV. He sat down, took a sip of milk I'd just poured directly from the frig. He looked at the meal, glanced at me and told me the milk was too warm to drink and walked back to watch his game.
I spoke to my mom. She told me "You made your bed," and changed the subject.
One day weeks I got out of the shower, dried off and left the bathroom to dress. He went in behind me, and told me to "Get in here!" I returned to the bathroom to find him standing in front of the shower with my shampoo in his hand, red faced. "What is this?" he screamed at me. By that time I was getting a bit numb toward these episodes and answered with a smirk "My shampoo." (It was a bit funny to see such a ridiculous show of rage over my shampoo.) The next thing I knew he threw down the shampoo, grabbed me by my upper arms, and slammed the back of my head against the wall with each word. "Don't waste my money on your shampoo, use MINE."
That was in the first six months. I learned avoidance. In public, he was the same guy I fell in love with. Fortunately, he liked to entertain, so we were not often alone together at home. It helped that he worked 3rd shift most week nights, and weekends he partied so much that he often passed out. When we were with others, he was like the man I'd fallen for before our wedding.
About 18 months after our wedding, I woke from a nightmare one night in which I had taken an axe to his head, in bed. I woke with a start and sat up. It was so real, I was afraid to look at him. Carefully, I reached over and touched the back of his neck. He was breathing, sleeping. No blood.
I laid back and stared at the ceiling until sunlight started coming through the crack between the bedroom curtains. I got up, and got ready for work. I worked on main street in our small farming community in SW Michigan. Across the street from my job, I saw a "For Rent" sign in the window of the furniture store window. I enquired during my lunch hour. That night, when a friend of ours was over to have a beer and enjoy our back yard looking over the river, while my ex went in to use the bathroom, I told him my plans and asked if he would help me move. He was a concrete worker, and though about my ex's height, he had about four times his muscles. He agreed. I couldn't take my dog, so he took him for me, so nothing could happen to her.
I escaped him, but for a couple of months after I had his sisters and mother come to where I worked and taunt me for being a ***** and using him. I worked in a public place, but my boss and coworkers were protective of me. The guy that helped me still went to visit with my ex, and advised him to put a stop to that or he would have to "get involved."
There was a few weeks when my ex tried to get me to come back, but I shied away from him, and soon after he moved another, younger woman in with him. I was free.
Other than our friend Jack, I told no one other than my mom. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I was such an awful wife that he had to do these things to keep me in line. I married him at 19, I finally left him and the state about four months before my 21st birthday. It wasn't until I took a community college class in Psychology that I learned that I was not to be blamed, and my ex was a very, very sick man.
That was when I started my journey to learn about the things women do to accomodate toxic people, and how to see life differently so I didn't enable another over my own interests. I learned boundaries.
So there was that same high degree of control aspect. It appears that booze wasn't a factor here.
If he were a feral animal, then sure his violent reaction would be understandable.
Did you miss the part whefe she said she pinched gently ? Did yiu miss the part where he bent her fingers backward to the point of pain?
As a grown man especially, he can use words to comunicate that he does not like that .
Two sides to a story sweet cheeks. I could say I gave a girlfriend a “gentle love tap” and she called the cops on me and wtf is with THAT overreaction? Ok the bloody nose and bruised eye happened but I swear it was a loving tap.
Sarcasm aside I wonder what his version of events includes… maybe he thinks “yeah I was an abusive idiot” or maybe it’s “she freekin gouged my skin with her nails and laughed about it”.
During his earlier marriages, I think that alcohol was a big contributor to a lot of the worst incidents. But when we got together, I'd had such negative situations with alcohol I told him that I did not want him in my home or my life if he was drinking. I would not kiss him if he smelled of alcohol. That he could smoke weed instead (which I was more friendly towards from my teen years...recall that in those early days and setting those parameters I was 18 and didn't yet have kids.) So for a time he didn't drink at all, and he smoked weed...at first just sometimes...then once our lives got more challenging due to poverty and my pregnancy and involvement of other problematic family members and such, he smoked more and more until he insisted that he had to have it every day. There was a time during the summer after our first kid was born, where him having weed was more important than me eating or the rent getting paid or literally any other thing. He said that he couldn't be responsible for how he would treat me if he didn't have it.
But eventually when he decided to go back into the military, he got totally clean. He stayed that way from 2007 to 2010.
So it kinda came and went, on and off, as a problem over the years.
But there was controlling, suspicious, manipulative, jealous and difficult behavior even when he was sober.
What was wild is that there were a lot of times in the early years where he talked about wanting so badly to be a father and longing to take the boys to camp and hunt and fish... But then when it came to it, he didn't want to even be around them and when he was, he was a miserable grouch, constantly starting crap with everyone and ruining every family activity. Until eventually I started just trying to exclude him...which of course he also complained about later.
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Was there a personality change from PTSD after he served in Iraq?
Maybe. I don't know. He would say yes. I know that some of the stories he tells are true, but I also strongly suspect that some are not, and that there were things that happened "over there" that he doesn't talk about. He has a tendency to rewrite his own story. But to me...I don't know, he's always been like this. He threatened his Dad with a shotgun when he was a teenager. And this wasn't his first time in the military either. He was in Korea when he was 18-23 or so. Got tossed out for conflicts with leadership, didn't quite finish his hitch.
Fast forward to today, literally, this morning. He was supposed to be helping our younger son get some errands done. Son was not feeling well and forgot one piece of documentation that was needed to get one thing done. This thing was a 5 minute walk from the house, so son said it was no big deal, he'd walk down later and get it done.
Things were already tense because son had asked him, if he meets certain goals would dad take him to a bar on his 21st birthday just to have a couple of beers and shoot pool. Just try to find an inexpensive way to celebrate his birthday as a reward for months of hard work. This angered his dad to a point that they were in the drugstore and he was loudly yelling at him in front of people in public "So all you care about is getting wasted on your birthday, I guess you want hookers, too, right?" Any bid on the part of son, for bonding or care of any kind, is met with rage. After the forgotten document incident, he gunned the truck through a parking lot at scary speeds, and then went in to a store to get something and left son in the truck. Son called me and told me what had been happening. Then son went into the store (after his dad came out) to get a few food items, and the cashier told son that he should call police or someone, was asking how old he is and stuff...because apparently his father had been in there explaining to the cashier what an ungrateful pos son is and how next time he'll just "clock him in the mouth." (Son told me this in a later phone call.)
Like the man has no empathy, no filter, and without me around, the two of them just escalate until things blow up, because I was the only one who could ever de-escalate either of them. I got tired of it being my job, and I wish so much that my kid had better options than to deal with his father. But right this moment it's either that or homelessness.
But it's like...there are periods of time where he seems pretty reasonable. Calm. Easier to talk to. And once in a while, during those times, I feel bad for hurting him emotionally as I did when I left. I feel bad for breaking up the family I tried for so long to keep together. And then he acts like this and I'm like, "Nope, he's still that guy..." That's the hard thing about dealing with these kinds of people, really. They aren't bad all the time. If you think of them as mentally ill, sometimes it feels like maybe they are getting better. And just when you feel like it's OK and you can relax...boom! There it is again.
Trying to step back from the sticky details of my personal situation... If I could give advice to people who are dating-
Take your time. Not just delaying sex. But do not let yourself be in a situation where you need out of whatever your life is like in the moment to a point where you will take a bad alternative. Don't start out negotiating from a deep disadvantage with life and its options. Don't settle for bad because being on your own is too perilous. If you are in that situation, you're lining yourself up for choices made under duress and bad outcomes. There should be no reason to rush into commitment, cohabitation, marriage, reproduction, or mingling finances.
And before you do any of that, you need to see this person under pressure. You need to witness not just how they act when everything is good, but how they cope when things go wrong. If their reaction to stress causes you discomfort, like be aware, if your body is tensing, if you're feeling it in your gut...that is red flag territory.
Like I could sit here and talk about red flags I justified and rationalized and didn't heed in my situation, but so many of those are what any person would think of these days as OBVIOUS. And sure, they were. But a man with none of those obvious ones could still be an abusive person, and with a lot of them you don't know until just the right combo of buttons get pushed in the person and they go off.
My much, much healthier second husband...how did he handle stress? He would vent, to me, about situations at work or whatever...sometimes with some sarcasm or frustration, but never with threats, not even comments about violent fantasies against those who upset him. He never started driving like a maniac in an angry state. He never punched a wall, or threw something. One time he actually told me that he was feeling furious about something, but he was still able to sit and say this in a calm voice. It is normal to have feelings. Healthy people can cope with their feelings without explosive tantrums.
Now, personally I see a pretty common thing among men to be a red flag now... If he talks in such a way that you can tell he has fantasies of being a savior or protector (with force) of others. He wants to be the kind of hero who can break the rules and exact vigilante justice... Like the problem with that, is those guys tend to look for vulnerable women, and in some cases, they get to play hero for a time, but ultimately if you somehow get on their wrong side? If you upset them, or even do something wrong or make a mistake or hurt their feelings? Rather than talking through it, there's a chance you become an "enemy." And this person has already told you that they consider violence to be a bright, shining way to solve problems. Prerogative of the "hero"...yeah, well they are all heroes in their own telling of the story. Such a person can justify anything.
Unless you're prepared to play at being their sidekick, giving them outlet for this need in their identity, and structure your life around never angering them... But to me, those dynamics are not equal. No man is an authority figure who gets to dictate good and evil, right and wrong, to me. That stuff is part of the "hero" mindset.
The most abusive men I've ever met in my life, including the one I was involved with but plenty of others as well, were very attached to the idea that they were actually the Good Guy. They went out of their way in conversations with all sorts of people, to establish their hero/savior/protector persona, even when it was a weird thing for them to be talking about. At the very least I'd be wary of any man who does this. I also give some side eye to men who claim to be any kind of a "wolf"...whether it's a "lone wolf" or an "alpha wolf" or any such.
They have control issues. Someone mentioned the need to control finances. Bingo.
Family physical alterations. I was told of stories of physical alterations between person and her family. And also given a long list of all those that did them wrong.
Stress or alcohol increase the risk.
Short fuse. Road Rage. Negative and critical.
Physical contact escalated. First time was caught off guard almost shocked.
For people who have been in abusive relationships, how long into the relationship did it take you to figure out something was wrong with the person you were dating and what were the things you should have been on the look out for. What made you realize, I might have a problem here? Second how predictable was the abuse, ie did it occur just when he or she was drunk or mental health episodes or was there no rhyme or reason to it? Lastly was this person initially charming or what initially drew you into a relationship that made you initially decide this was a good person to date? Was their any type of grooming involved?
Lastly did anything anyone else said or did, was it actually helpful to you when you felt trapped in the relationship?
In my life, I dated ONE guy who physically hurt me, and he did it in front of my sons. I broke it off about a week later. But the plan was in motion in that instant.
In my life, I dated ONE guy who physically hurt me, and he did it in front of my sons. I broke it off about a week later. But the plan was in motion in that instant.
I was not trapped in the relationship.
Yep, amazing how quickly a certain-ly that decision becomes.
The ones I saw the woman became financially dependent on the man which was planned by the man so she couldn’t leave. He also forbid her to see friends and most family members so with those two things happening she would have nowhere to go even when he abused her
Whenever she tried to get another job he’d find a way to sabotage it.
She did end up leaving a few times a year after each episode of abuse to her mothers house but eventually after a few days or week would go back at times being the one to initiate the return because she missed him
From what I understand the abuse wasn’t constant maybe a few times a year and in between the abuse to get her back or make her stay there would be a lot of love bombing and apologizing to her.
From the outside looking in we kept thinking how does she keep falling for his empty apologies and love bombing and keep coming back to him
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