Since separating, when arguments have arisen about financial, domestic or childcare issues, he's taken great joy in reminding me: "well it was YOUR decision to separate!!"
Psychologically abusive men use this line to escape all accountability for the demise of the relationship. They genuinely believe that we are unreasonable for ending our relationships and marriages with them. They pushed us to the brink, over our tolerances, made us feel worthless, devalued and unimportant. Yet we separate from them and divorce them for no reason in their minds.
They are delusionists.
In the early days of separating, this comment would really drag me down. It is difficult to hear that we are purely to blame for wrenching our family apart whilst he disregards all the many parts he played to make it fail. He knows it hurts me. So he plays on it. Here is a reminder of why you left him or made him leave:
1) He had a better sexual relationship with himself and with pornography than he ever had with you.
Men like Peter like to have sex with themselves whilst fantasising about airbrushed porn stars and probably women they work with. Having real sex with a real beautiful woman who they share a life with is just too honest and too real. They stick to their sexual fantasy world instead. Even if they never skulk off and have affairs (and I'm told that many do), they're always having emotional affairs, they just can't commit to you.
2) You were emotionally alone for many years.
I often come across the meme which says that there is nothing lonlier than feeling alone when you have people physically beside you. It's very true. You were blamed for causing him unnecessary problems and challenges for daring to share your feelings with him when they did not comply with his desired easy life. You were punished with silent treatment, belittled and constantly invalidated. The person who was supposed to be the most emotionally safe in your life turned out to be emotionally dangerous. For this reason, your nervous system was tormented and you were probably developing physical ailments s a result. This sort of emotional abuse wreaks havoc on your digestive system, your joints, your skin, hormones, hair, weight. To stay would be detrimental to your health.
3) He was disloyal.
And in so many ways.
I remember when Peter found out that I'd been confiding in my friends about how unhappy I was, he told me angrily that I was betraying him. And when he found out I'd anonymously reached out for support and advice on an online support forum, he was livid and lectured me about disloyalty. I see it as him deflecting now.
There is nothing more disloyal than showing more respect, more understanding, more empathy and more patience to others than he ever showed to me. He may never have complained about me outwardly to others but he behaved as if I was insignificant and beneath him. There is nothing more disloyal than allowing his mother to disrespect me all the years we were together and then blame me when I confronted it. There is nothing more disloyal than allowing his sister to troll me online and post negative comments and tell me that it's normal to be so curious (stalkerish in my opinion!).
Everyone was doing a better job at everything than I was too. He put down my efforts and compared me to other women who were "managing to work full-time AND raise the children." I was never enough. Yet he admired everyone else.
Peter went to the lengths of belittling me infront of our friends regularly. He enjoyed making me the butt of his jokes, flagging up my anecdotes as incorrect and putting me down infront of them. I used to wonder why others weren't picking up on his attitude towards me. Maybe they did. But he was so gushingly nice and agreeable towards them, that I think he genuinely made me look incompetent and a bit pathetic to everyone else. They enjoyed being around someone so complimentary of them, just like I did when I met him.
4) There was no room for you in his life.
I said this to Peter towards the end and I could see that it made him evaluate my reasoning. When his life is filled with special interests, hobbies, pornography, a tendency to drop everything to help a sibling or a work colleague, the strong necessity they feel for alone time, a job which depletes them and when also raising young children, they have nothing left to offer you. Peter had no time or energy for dating, for relationshipping or loving me. He used all of his energy to pursue his hobbies and to achieve at work (they care much more for how others perceive them at work than how they are at home) so I was left with only the leftovers, the remnants of his energy. There was no room for me and he didn't see why he ought to make room either.
5) He didn't like you and you knew it.
I'm not sure they're really capable of loving us either, but they do see us as possessions. Our men are so helpful and kind in the outside world that they barely get criticised, whilst growing up they sought so much solitude that they were always described as "easy" by their parents.
We come along with our expectations of intimacy, connection and love, which they always fail to deliver on eventually, and we are villainised. This is the narcissistic side of their personalities. They can not take any form of criticism. They have never had to. The contempt they feel towards us as the relationship draws on over the years intensifies. They couldn't have a loving relationship with us even if they decided to try because we are so vehemently disliked for shining light on their flaws. They also learn to dislike us for being better than them at some things. Peter always hated that I was the better cook and couldn't bring himself to compliment my efforts without me highlighting the fact.
6) He was demand avoidant.
I've come to realise that there is another layer to Peter's condition. Not only does he not have the wiring for intimacy and love but even if he did, he wouldn't be able to give me anything I needed. Men like ours have a tendency to always do the opposite of what we need. They decide to go and mow the lawn at the most inconvenient of times, when children are needy and dinner needs making and accuse you of being ungrateful. They'll rebel against the family calendar, opting to do their own thing, even when they can clearly see that there are other commitments. You'll go to relationship counselling and agree to have a conversation once a week about your feelings and he'll come down with a migraine most weeks or suddenly need an early night when your evening comes around. He'll obsess over doing something you really don't want him to do. For Peter, it was loading the washing machine.
Mindlessly and constantly washing clothes and leaving me with the drying and putting away despite requests for him not to keep doing this. It even got to a point where he was putting the machine on in the early hours of the morning when I'd stop him during the day time. They will always do the opposite. For this reason, an intimate relationship just isn't possible with men like ours because intimate relationships demand effort and connection. I often wonder if they were paired with someone as avoidant as they are, whether they would suddenly become more attached. But, I imagine they're more attracted to empathetic Cassandras and most of us Cassandras aren't avoidants. In supportive, loving relationships, we become securely attached too.
7) You rarely felt enough.
Peter was a bit of a perfectionist and it was obvious to me that I was a disappointment to him. He seemed to have an idea in his mind about how I should feel and I didn't comply. I often felt like I wasn't allowed to be human. You're not supposed to dislike his overbearing, disrespectful mother; you're not supposed to have fears or anxieties which get in the way of what he wants to do; you're not supposed to have your own commitments when they interfere with his; you weren't supposed to need help with child rearing and maintaining a clean home; you weren't supposed to have dreams that he didn't have or desires he didn't desire; you weren't supposed to get ill or hurt; you weren't supposed to have tough pregnancies and you certainly weren't supposed to disagree. The fact is, that nobody will ever measure up unless they prioritise his wants and needs at all times. You are unfortunately, an inconvenience.
8) He had the emotional intelligence of a toddler.
Peter often made pathetic, passive aggressive comments about how I "probably" thought this of him and probably thought that. "You probably don't even think I did a good job do you..." comments along these lines very regularly. He was very Eeyore-like. You've wounded him by seeing his flaws, a symptom of narcissism. You'd feel guilty for sharing your sadness or upsets with him as he'd take on a victim mentality. He'd gaslight you, invalidate you, put you down, but your reaction would always be the problem. You were his favourite scapegoat.
Suggestions from our relationship counsellor for him to work on certain behaviours would result in mini protests at home where he'd declare "but I like me. I don't want to change me!" You easily feel like you have another child to care for.
9) He bored the life out of you.
I remember looking forward to Peter and I spending quality time together when the children were very young and then when it materialised, I'd find the conversation monotonous. A counsellor once told me that you realise when your marriage is worth saving when it's in the trenches of raising young children and you still love each others company when you're alone together. I discovered that whilst I loved dressing up, the freedom of being out of the house without the children and eating a meal I didn't have to cook, I wasn't enjoying being with Peter. There was no joy. Just endless informative monologues about people I didn't know and his special interests. He was a gossip. And a bore.
He learned early on that he wasn't very interesting to others and so he learned to gossip to engage people in conversation, but that's as deep as it gets. Some probably don't even do that!
He also used to ask lots of mundane questions that would feel like an interrogation and usually about the timings of my days and weeks. He was obsessed with times. By the end of our relationship, whenever we were due to spend time together as a couple, my IBS would always kick in. I think my body started to tell me in many physical ways that it didn't enjoy being around Peter. It's important that we listen and pay attention to those signs.
10) Contempt breeds contempt- you learned to dislike him too.
You eventually dislike him as much as he dislikes you because whilst love breeds love, contempt breeds contempt. You'll develop the "ick" and perhaps notice his stims and quirks more and more. The odd noises he makes along with the persistent foot tapping, loud yawning, habitual ball scratching, lack of hygiene,the way he neglects his appearance, his clothes. His funny walk. You'll crave intimacy and yet even in the throes of sexual frustration discover that you can't bring yourself to have sex with him which is always the same predictable experience anyway!
These are reminders of why you left or made him leave. He didn't have the tools to be the man he made out he was in the beginning, the man he'd like to be. But not the man he'd like to be for you, not anymore. I think we probably get to know them too well and as they don't really like themselves at the core of it all, they assume we can never love or like them either and so they push us further and further away. We were never supposed to leave though. We were supposed to embrace our maid-like presence in their lives and comply and pretend to the outside world that we are in a loving, fulfilling relationship. They are fraudsters and we are victims of emotional fraud and most of us, victims of emotional abuse. Let's keep moving forward and if we ever look back for a second, let's remember why we left in the first place.
