A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Please help. Apologies for the length of this but I want to give some detail so you can give better advice. The problem is that my new relationship is going rapidly downhill and I don’t know why. I’m starting to wonder if my new partner might be abusive and may have not told me the whole truth about his past. I’ve been with my boyfriend for a few months. Both of us have histories of depression and abusive relationships. I am in a good place now though and I thought he was. He told me that his ex fiancé was abusive towards him – and I know (from the scars) that past girlfriends have been violent towards him too. We generally have had a very healthy, loving and fun relationship – but it has been fast. He told me after a month that he loved me, wanted to marry me and have children with me. We have had a few fights, some bigger than others, but have managed to talk them through, although he has a tendency to disappear for small periods of time before we can talk. It always seems to be me who makes the move to make peace. This Thursday he started to talk to me in a way I was unhappy with. He told me I was irritating him while he was trying to work – and later in the day he started talking down to me in front of my gym. I felt bullied and cornered so I put my hand up and walked into my class and text to tell him I’d meet him afterwards. I couldn’t concentrate in my class and just wanted to make peace, so I left early and walked to the bar where he was and gave him a hug and apologised for walking away. He shrugged me off and told me we were driving to his to pick up my things (I was staying with him at the time) and that he was taking me home. In the car he said he didn’t want any more of my bullshit and I could find someone else if this was the way I was going to be. I tried to make peace and console him and say let’s make friends, but he said I should go home and think about my behaviour, that it was 100% my fault and that I was not to touch him. I asked him if he was ending the relationship and he said no. He said he was sick of conflict and didn’t want any more. When he dropped me home I asked when we could talk and he said he couldn’t tell me tonight. That was Thursday, it is now Saturday and I have heard nothing. My usual instinct would be to reach out, but I have already tried this and it was thrown back at me. I’m starting to consider some of the things he told me about his past and wonder if maybe he has stretched the truth. For example, he said that in therapy his ex said she was always afraid he was going to hit her, which he ridiculed. He always paints himself out to be a victim - who has been ostracised by colleagues and family. I want to make it right, but I don’t want to be a doormat. I feel like he is taking advantage of my vulnerability. I always, always am the peacemaker – but I feel like he has crossed some invisible boundary somehow. Does it sound like he is abusive? Should I contact him and try to make things right? Is he likely to contact me?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (18 April 2015): I was also going to recommend the book Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft. You can get an online copy from Amazon quite cheaply.
The behaviour you describe is definitely covered in this book.
Without doubt, he is an abuser and is already abusing you psychologically and emotionally. I am 100% certain he has been physically violent in the past and he is mentally preparing you to accept violence from him in future.
Read the book. Never speak to him or see him again.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (18 April 2015): Hi. I think HE was the abuser in his past relationships. You've seen the signs. I know it might be hard, but I would make my exit now if I were you. It is very likely to get much much worse and regular. He sounds like a nasty controlling guy. Leave now before you get any more involved. It will be alot harder i to go if you leave it too long. He has no right treating you, or speaking to you like that. Pick yourself up quickly and leave. You will be glad you did. Good luck .xx
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (18 April 2015): Hi there
He is, I'm afraid, most definitely abusive. Abusive men sweep you off your feet. It's how they work. It's called 'love bombing' and they work very fast. I had my abusive ex's house keys not long after 'hello'. They make you feel fantastic and desired, all the things we want to feel.
But I'm so sorry, it isn't real. I would suggest that he does want a relationship with you, but it has to be the relationship that HE wants. On his terms. Which means that you are now, with all this horrible behaviour, being trained to act as he wants i.e. not questioning him about anything because you will soon be too afraid to, for whatever reason e.g. he will leave again, blaming everything on you or as time goes on, perhaps afraid of physical violence.
With abusive men, they escalate their behaviour, the more you take of it, the more abuse they give, as it gets them more of what they want. They want to be in control in the relationship, in everything. Your opinions and wishes will soon count for nothing.
This may all sound a little drastic and I'm sorry for bringing this horrid news, but I have now been involved with three abusive men. The first two I didn't understand what was happening or why. While I was with the third man I was lucky enough to stumble across a book that helped me understand why he was treating me so horribly, when all I wanted was for us to get along with each other and be happy. I became so fascinated to read all of the behaviour being 'practised' on me, all there in black and white, that I have kept on reading. I have read practically everything out there on this subject and the best book I can recommend to you is 'Why Does He Do That' by Professor Lundy Bancroft. He is a man who has worked with abusive men for fifteen years and he himself has learned from them about their tactics while with a woman and their attitudes to them.
Your boyfriend's behaviour is in the above book.
It is also something I experienced, almost identical. My ex would start a fight, manufacture something I had done. Always untrue and always baffling. Hard to believe someone who is supposed to love you would do all this on purpose, right? Wrong, sadly. Exactly what they do. He would tell me, as he was packing my things, that he never wanted to see my face again and that I could spit in his face if he ever wanted to see me again. He would always behave in a scary fashion, so I wouldn't dare question him at the time. He always found some reason to get in touch and win me round.
This is where the 'love bombing' has come in useful for him. You want to believe that this nastiness is down to some misunderstanding or other and as soon as it can be sorted everything will be fine. You just want to get back to being loved by them, because they do it so very well. They have become like a drug to you. And they know exactly what they are doing.
Like your boyfriend now, my ex told me his past wives were violent or very jealous. He was talking about himself. As time wore on, he showed his real behaviour, which was exactly those he attributed to his exes. Please believe nothing he says on this matter (or anything else). Just leave. Easier said than done, I know, but you will in the end anyway.
You may think understandably, that you are dealing with a logical and rational person, but you're not, which is why you're on a hiding to nothing. They don't want to sort anything out, the behaviour never stops, it will, if you stay, escalate. Please read the book I have mentioned and then you can decide for yourself.
Best of luck. Please do nothing to attach yourself to this man.
By the way, the invisible boundary you're talking about? That's your inner voice telling you 'NO!'
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A
female
reader, janniepeg  +, writes (18 April 2015):
 That's the classic idealization and devaluation cycle. When he wanted to marry you after one month that's idealizing you and now he criticizes you whenever he could. This is what people with borderline personality does. They keep you hooked on the good times and you desperately try to hang on to them, at the expense of your emotional well being. He has trauma in the past and he is not able to separate people and experiences in the past from who he is with at the present. I was with someone like that for 3 months. As a result of being with him I suffered from sleepless nights with fast heart rate. I don't think people with mental illness are totally aware of what they are doing but the damage had been done. After 3 days of no communication I was certainly done. One good thing is that I swore to myself I would never let myself continue in an on and off relationship. That made me stick to my decision, however cruel that could be for that borderline person. If you can't save him at least you have to save yourself.
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A
male
reader, mfj78  +, writes (18 April 2015):
Firstly, at his age (assuming is similar to yours), to tell you after a MONTH that he wants to marry you and have you children is a big red flag. After several relationship which clearly ended badly and, with respect, having seemingly got involved with bad choices and so forth before, the mature thing would have been to wait and see how things developed before even approaching the notion of marriage or children.For me that either shows immaturity/naivety on his part, or that he has some dependency issues. Im sure he was not being 100% serious when he said that of course, and it hardly constitutes a proposal, but im sure you get what I mean. Love - proper, serious, mature adult love takes many months to develop. Declaring love, wanting to marry and have kids a few weeks in is immature and possibly a control thing with him.The fact he disappears after an argument is another red flag. Where does he go? With whom? What is he doing and why feel the need to either sulk or remove himself from the situation? Perhaps, and I emphasize perhaps, its because he has issues with self control which, at the early stages, he doesn't want to show. Hence he disappears.His behaviour is at very best childish, stroppy and arrogant. At worst the basis for it building into something more worrying. "he said I should go home and think about my behaviour, that it was 100% my fault and that I was not to touch him"To be honest men (or indeed women) with that type of attitude are always difficult to handle - they are always right, you are always wrong. Often those kinds of people will either sulk, lash out or in some way put down others who dare to argue otherwise. Unfortuantly it does sound from what you have written like this is a man who is good at playing the victim. His tales of ex relationship always centre around him being perfect and his partners being the bad guy. Now he is doing the same with you - treating you like dirt then making out he is 100% innocent and you are in the wrong. "I felt bullied and cornered...so I left early and walked to the bar where he was and gave him a hug and apologised" If a relationship makes you feel that way LEAVE. Simple as. He is a passive aggressive and sounds vile in the way he treats you and talks at you. Yet you are then going out of your way to confirm in his mind he is right and the victim by apoligising and hugging him. Don't reach out to this man. Stay well away as it will only go the way of your other relationships - abusive and nasty. You please need to stop feeling the need to make peace, appologize and hug him when he treats you like shit. You are a natural peace maker, but with the greatest of respect, its one of the reasosn you have been abused before. You need to think of yourself and leave this guy and his horrid ways. One minute he wants to marry you and have your kids, the next he is making you feel threatened! Bottom line he is that if his friends, family and ex partners all ended up against him is that him being a victim or him bringing it upon himself??!! If he contacts you I think you need to end it with him. Put your pity and need to make peace with him to one side else you will be back to square one! You are the kind of person who hates having enemies and that's great but it also makes you easy prey for men like him who can make you feel sorry for them as the "victim" and feel bad for his bad behaviour. men like him want you to go running back for more full of hugs and apologies to allow him to feed his belief that he is the victim. As a former victim of abusive relationships the only way to break that cycle is find a man who is as removed form abuse as possible. Men who are the victims of past abuse or potential abusers will only drag you back into the horrid world. Mark
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A
female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (18 April 2015):
 Either he is taking ALL his anger and resentment from PAST relationship OUT on you (which is unfair) - or he WASN'T the "victim" in past relationship BUT the abuser. Or he had been through BOTH.
My guess? The latter.
Is a new woman going to WANT to be with someone who has been abusive in the past? OR... someone who claims to be have been abused? What do you think?
You write :
"He told me after a month that he loved me, wanted to marry me and have children with me."
Total red flag.
He offers marriage after a month? Because he KNOWS that is what YOU want and what better way to "wheel" someone in than to DANGLE an emotional carrot in front of them?
He has the tendency to "disappear" after a fight so it can't be resolved for a while - or at least not till HE wants a resolution. THAT is also a red flag. One thing is NOT wanting to fight and walking away to let both parties cool down, but the whole silent treatment? NOT OK.
But here is the thing I GET from you story. YOU somehow crossed a line or boundary while he was working. I have no idea how - as you didn't write what really happened there. But when you try and apologize he find ways to punish you - like "sending you home" and refusing to talk to you.
HE KNOWS how you react, he KNOWS he has the "upper hand" and he ALSO knows that you seem unable to RECOGNIZE the signs of an abusive person. He may not HIT you, but he is emotionally and verbally abusive.
STOP trying to appease him, END it, find a good counselor and work out your PAST . STOP being the victim and work on being the survivor.
Being the Peacemaker CONSTANTLY means that you two DO NOT have much peace - a NEW relationship SHOULDN'T be this hard.
I think you two are oil and water, not a good match at all.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (18 April 2015): Yea it's going nowhere fast. When he said he didn't want to put up with your bs anymore it was a indication from him that he no longer wanted a relationship with u. You can dress ot up in your head all day but the truth remains he has said no. Even as he has attempted to give mixed signals it is to new in the honeymoon stage of your relationship to have fights. N moving in was rushing it u never really got to make friends with him n know him well. It takes longer getting to know a person the right way but u learn a lot more n u r able to see them for who they really are when u know them. Ditch this guy. He will keep u waiting if u let him.
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