[InOne]

Originally Posted by angus58

You're spot on there - I was in an abusive marriage for 10 years and yet had always considered myself a very strong, independent and intelligent woman. The abuse was insiduous at first, isolating me from my friends and family bit by bit, moving us away from familiar surroundings where I had a support network, then the verbal abuse, putting me down, insinuating that I was stupid or had no valid opinions, then the emotional and psychological abuse, undermining my self worth and self respect, telling me I was a rubbish mother, wife, daughter, sister etc, keeping me short of housekeeping since I was financially dependent on him having two small children both under 5 years old and no viable means of income, and culminating in physical abuse where I was punched, kicked and finally (the defining moment for me) having a knife held to my throat and telling me he was going to kill me. Many times I forgave him because I knew he had had a dreadful upbringing, having been abandoned by his own mother when he was five, and I made all sorts of excuses for why he was bullying me. But I finally accepted that he could not and would not ever change, and I started to fear for my children rather than myself. The knife incident made me realise just how poisonous our relationship was, and what danger me and my kids were in.

So finally I gathered the last remnants of my dignity and out of sheer self preservation I removed myself and my children from that situation and we went to a shelter from where I gathered the strength to divorce him and move on with my life.

Unless you have been a victim of such a manipulative and psychopathic bully, you cannot believe how difficult it is to get away - he threatened to kill me and the children if we ever left him, and to harm my brothers and their families if I went to them for sanctuary. I spent five years with no contact at all with the rest of my family because I was afraid of what he might do to them. I was also so ashamed that I had brought this monster into all of our lives. I spent years looking over my shoulder and we moved quite frequently so he wouldn't find us. It's only now my sons are grown that I no longer fear him, and I am now happy with someone else.

They do say that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and I would definitely agree. Just don't judge all women in abusive relationships as being weak or stupid, because I am neither, and I'm here to say it could happen to anyone from any cultural, financial, or educational background. There as many upper class battered women as there are working class ones, so don't be too quick to blame the victim.

Awwww damn, sounds like you hard a rough time . It's good you managed to get out in the end though. Yours seems like an almost textbook case. Start off as Mr Charming and then all these little things build up until it eventually grinds you down. That is the thing with whole whole 'bad upbringing' thing, people use that as an excuse, but in reality, plenty of people have bad childhoods and still turn out to be nice people.

I read an interesting book called 'Without Conscience' about Psychopaths and the way they work, I can only imagine it must've been terrible to live with such a destructive person in your life. I mean, from the outside, people can easily say, "Oh well I would've got out there a lot earlier". But like you said, unless they've been in that situation they will never understand the power someone like that can have over you. I mean I guess it's better late than never in your case, as in it happened all so subtly, that you didn't realise it until it was nearly too late. Most people don't think these type of people exist, they think they're a myth or something, and they're like "Oh well it wouldn't happen to me" But it's all very real.