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I (47F) have been married to my husband (55M) for over a decade. I work full-time (55+ hours a week) managing a medical clinic, and over the past several years, I survived aggressive cancer treatment and got sober. He runs his own small business and is a huge extrovert. He loves going out to sing at a local bar every week. I don't mind him going out to sing one bit; in fact, I actively encourage it so he gets the social outlet and connection he genuinely needs.

Over the last few years, our relationship has settled into an exhausting, one-sided pattern. I carry the steady financial baseline of our household and manage the logistics, while his contributions remain inconsistent. We’ve had our share of serious communication issues—in the past, when I’ve brought up boundaries, he has resorted to the silent treatment for weeks at a time.

Lately, though, the daily friction isn't the silent treatment or explosive fights. It’s that almost every casual observation I make is met with an immediate contradiction, a debate, a redirect to his own ego, or a transparent bid for praise.

He has this constant need for applause and praise from me. Even when it is completely fake, hollow, and visibly fished for, he expects me to shower him with awe. When every conversation becomes an audition for me to validate him while my own input is dismissed, it wears me down to nothing.

I’m struggling to understand if I am just overly irritable, or if this pattern is as dismissive and depleting as it feels. Here are three specific examples from just a 20-minute span this evening:

What Happened Tonight:

He came home from work, showered, and sat down on the couch next to me with a drink to pregame before heading out for his singing night.

* The Casual Contradiction:

It started raining outside, and a few minutes later, I heard emergency sirens. I made an ordinary, throwaway comment: "It's like clockwork—minutes after it starts raining, you hear sirens."

* Instead of normal agreement or light conversation, his immediate reflex was to contradict me and argue. He insisted that in places where he used to live and ride, it rained constantly and people never had sirens or wrecks right after rain.

* I replied reasonably: "Well, here it doesn't rain often, so the oil and grease build up on the roads, making them slick when it first drizzles."

* He doubled down, arguing that oil buildup exists everywhere and that my explanation wasn't valid.

* Rather than enter a pointless courtroom debate over rainfall, I just gave up and said, "Okay, you're right."

* Fishing for Fake Praise:

Immediately after shutting down my thought, he turned the focus entirely to himself and an old hobby: "Isn't it crazy I used to ride in all conditions everywhere?"

* He repeated this several times: "Isn't it crazy? Isn't it crazy?"

* He wasn't having a two-way discussion; he was openly fishing for awe and admiration over a story I have heard him tell literally hundreds of times. He wanted me to act amazed, but it felt so forced and performative that I couldn't bring myself to feed the loop.

* One-Upmanship on Physical Pain:

Right after that, our kitten walked up between his legs and stretched its claws on the couch near him. He said, "Yikes, those sharp claws so close to my balls."

* I validated him normally: "Yeah, kitten claws are sharp and they hurt."

* His immediate response: "Yeah, but you don't have balls. Can you imagine how painful that would be?"

* Even a simple acknowledgment of physical pain had to be turned into a contest where my experience was minimized and his potential pain was superior.

I internally rolled my eyes, said "Sure," and walked out of the room. He finished getting ready and left for the evening.

The Pattern & The Dilemma:

This isn't an isolated incident. If I mention feeling unwell or having a low-grade fever, he’ll touch my forehead and declare I'm cold. If I share a thought, he has to take the opposite stance. If he does something ordinary, he expects a gold star.

He doesn't yell or use an aggressive tone during these exchanges, which makes it even harder to address without seeming crazy. If I were to tell him to stop arguing, he’d genuinely act confused, ask why I'm being defensive, and claim he was "just sharing facts" or "making conversation."

I don't want to blow up my marriage, our family, or our lives over conversational friction. But being in a dynamic where your partner demands endless validation, needs constant praise, and yet reflexively contradicts or minimizes almost everything you say makes you feel completely invisible in your own home.

* Has anyone else dealt with a partner who has this compulsive contrarian habit paired with constant fishing for praise?

* Is this conversational narcissism, deep insecurity, or just an ingrained communication flaw?

* How do you shut down the contradiction and validation-seeking without turning every evening into an argument?

I feel completely gutted and mentally ruined ever since my last relationship :(

I have proof of my ex being a liar about so much, gaslighting me, intentionally treating me coldly, trying to make me feel bad in every situation, always taking the side against me, doing things behind my back he promised not to.

Yet - all of our friends took his side. They think I am overreacting, they think I am exaggerating, they think it doesn't outweigh me being a "sad presence" or constantly breaking down. I get it isn't fun to be around a sad person, but how is it my fault I am this way? :(( my ex was so abusive and it hurts even more to go through it alone because no one cares</3 they all treat him as if he's the same good person they've always known, completely disregarding the messed up things he did to me.

You always ask me, “What changed?”

This. This is what changed.

The utter living hell I endured throughout your relapse over these past two years damaged me in ways I don’t think you will ever fully comprehend. It was so profoundly painful, so emotionally devastating, that it ultimately shattered the unhealthy codependency I had developed toward you.

And the thing about being shattered is that, if you survive it, you eventually have to rebuild yourself.

But you don’t necessarily rebuild yourself into the person you were before.

Sometimes, the very experience that destroys you also destroys the beliefs, illusions, dependencies, and fears that kept you trapped in the first place.

And that is precisely what happened to me.

For years, you weren’t simply my husband or my life partner. You were the person I considered my very best friend in the entire world. The person I believed knew me better than anyone. The person I trusted with the most vulnerable parts of myself.

And because of my deeply unhealthy codependency, I had convinced myself that having you in my life was almost as essential to my survival as the oxygen I needed to breathe.

I genuinely believed I couldn’t live without you.

And that belief came at an enormous cost to me.

I swallowed my feelings. I silenced my voice. I overlooked disrespect, avoided confronting painful truths, and repeatedly abandoned my own emotional needs to preserve what I believed was our relationship.

I learned to keep the peace at the expense of my own peace.

I learned that speaking up about something that hurt me could lead to an argument, anger, blame, or emotional abandonment. And because abandonment was the very thing I feared most, I became willing to tolerate things I should never have accepted.

I confused keeping you happy with keeping myself safe.

And I confused keeping you from leaving with being loved.

Then came your relapse.

And suddenly, the very person I had convinced myself I couldn’t survive without became emotionally unreachable. You disappeared into the drugs, the chaos, and a reality I could no longer reach you in.

It was like being pushed off a boat into the middle of the ocean by the one person I trusted to keep me safe, knowing full well I didn’t know how to swim.

There I was, in the middle of an endless ocean, choking on water, gasping for air, terrified, exhausted, and desperately trying to stay afloat.

And the person I had always depended on to save me was the very person whose actions had put me there.

I had two choices.

I could stop fighting, surrender to the water, and allow myself to drown—which, during some of my darkest moments, was genuinely what I believed I wanted.

Or I could kick, flail, struggle, and fight with every ounce of strength I had left to somehow teach myself how to swim.

My despair wanted to surrender.

But something deeper inside me refused to die.

And so I fought.

I fought through the agony, the fear, the loneliness, the abandonment, and the unbearable realization that nobody was coming to rescue me.

And somehow, eventually, I learned how to swim.

I made it to shore.

But here’s the part you don’t seem to understand, Joe.

When I finally reached that shore, I didn’t suddenly forget who had pushed me into the ocean.

I didn’t forget who left me struggling to breathe.

I didn’t forget how desperately I had needed you, or how completely alone I felt when I needed you most.

And while I was fighting for my emotional survival, something else was happening.

I was discovering truths about you, about our relationship, and about the life I thought we had built together that were almost too painful to comprehend.

I discovered betrayals and infidelities that forced me to question everything I believed about our ten years together.

I came to believe that some of the conflicts between us had been deliberately created or escalated so that you could justify abandoning me and pursuing sexual relationships with paid sugar babies.

And the realization that this wasn’t simply one isolated betrayal, but part of a pattern extending across our relationship, was devastating.

Because while I had spent those years believing I was loved with the same depth, loyalty, devotion, and sincerity with which I loved you, I was being confronted with evidence that our experiences of this relationship were profoundly different.

I had been faithful to you.

I had treasured you.

I had believed in you.

I had protected our relationship, sometimes even at the expense of protecting myself.

And I was forced to confront the possibility that the man I believed I had devoted my life to was not the man standing in front of me.

That realization broke my heart in a way I cannot adequately describe.

And all the while, I was still out there in that ocean, desperately trying not to drown.

Part of me continued to search the horizon, hoping the man I believed you were would finally appear.

That he would see how badly I was hurting.

That he would recognize my distress, realize what was happening to me, and care enough to come save me.

But another part of me—the part that was finally beginning to awaken—understood something that my heart desperately did not want to accept.

The man I was waiting for might never have existed in the way I believed he did.

And that man wasn’t coming.

So I had to save myself.

And in learning how to save myself, I discovered something that fundamentally changed me.

I could survive without you.

Not only could I survive without you, but the very dependency that had made me so terrified of losing you had also made me willing to lose myself.

And I was no longer willing to do that.

There’s a saying that once you’ve awakened, you cannot go back to sleep.

I understand that now in a way I never could have before.

Because initially, I desperately wanted to go back to sleep.

I wanted my old life back. I wanted the comfort of believing I had a husband who adored me, a best friend who would never betray me, and a relationship built on the same loyalty and devotion I had given so freely.

I wanted to believe in the future I had imagined for us.

I wanted the innocence of not knowing what I now know.

But I couldn’t unknow it.

I couldn’t erase the betrayals, the abandonment, the emotional neglect, or the years of experiences I had finally begun to see differently.

And I could no longer betray myself just to preserve my belief in you.

So I changed.

I began speaking up when something hurt me.

I began questioning the explanations I once would have accepted without argument.

I began confronting the betrayals, the dishonesty, the manipulation, and the ways I felt my reality had been dismissed or rewritten.

I stopped automatically accepting responsibility for your behavior simply because you became angry when I challenged it.

I stopped treating your anger as proof that I had done something wrong.

And I stopped believing that maintaining peace between us was more important than maintaining peace within myself.

That doesn’t mean I’ve handled everything perfectly.

I know I can be harsh with you now. I know there are times when my words are cutting, when I sound angry, bitter, or even cruel.

I’m not proud of every word I’ve said, and I’m not suggesting that my pain excuses deliberately hurting you.

But I need you to understand where that anger comes from.

It comes from years of accumulated hurt that I spent far too long swallowing.

It comes from betrayal, disillusionment, resentment, and grief that never had the opportunity to heal.

It comes from finally recognizing how much of myself I sacrificed trying to preserve something I believed was mutual.

And sometimes, what you interpret as hatred is the unbearable grief of loving someone so deeply, only to discover that the relationship you thought you had was not the relationship you were actually living.

I’m grieving you, Joe.

Not simply the person standing in front of me today.

I’m grieving the man I believed you were.

I’m grieving the best friend I thought I had.

I’m grieving the husband I believed would protect my heart with the same devotion with which I protected his.

I’m grieving the life I thought we shared.

I’m grieving the future I spent years imagining.

And perhaps most painfully of all, I’m grieving the woman I used to be.

The woman who trusted you so completely.

The woman who believed that if she just loved you enough, understood you enough, forgave you enough, and sacrificed enough of herself, everything would eventually be okay.

The woman who was willing to accept emotional starvation because she was so terrified of being abandoned altogether.

That woman is gone.

And I don’t mean that I’ve lost my capacity to love, to care, or to be gentle.

I mean that I’ve lost my willingness to confuse suffering with devotion.

I’ve lost my willingness to mistake sexual attention for emotional intimacy.

I’ve lost my willingness to accept superficial affection as a substitute for genuine love, honesty, loyalty, accountability, and emotional presence.

I’ve lost my willingness to be manipulated into silence.

And I’ve lost my willingness to abandon myself to prevent someone else from abandoning me.

You sometimes seem to believe that the difference in me is simply that I’ve become meaner, colder, or less loving.

But what you’re witnessing is much more complicated than that.

You’re witnessing someone who has been profoundly wounded by the person she trusted most, who has spent years struggling to make sense of that pain, and who no longer possesses the innocence that once allowed her to overlook so much.

And yes, sometimes that pain comes out as anger.

Sometimes it comes out as resentment.

Sometimes it comes out as a kind of emotional detachment that even I find difficult to recognize in myself.

But underneath all of it is an enormous amount of grief.

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide I wanted to stop loving you the way I once did.

I didn’t choose to have my trust destroyed.

I didn’t choose to discover things that would forever change how I saw you.

And I certainly didn’t choose the circumstances that forced me to learn how to survive without the person I once believed I couldn’t live without.

But once those things happened, I had to choose what to do with what remained of me.

And I chose to rebuild.

The tragedy is that by the time I finally learned how to stand on my own, I could no longer see you through the same eyes.

I could no longer trust you with the same unquestioning innocence.

I could no longer pretend the past hadn’t happened.

And I could no longer make myself small enough to fit back into the relationship as it had existed before.

Sometimes I wonder why things had to go so far.

Why the damage had to become so profound.

Why there couldn’t have been a moment when you recognized what was happening to me and decided that enough was enough.

Why I had to reach a point of such complete emotional devastation before something inside me finally broke free.

I don’t know whether you will ever fully understand what those years did to me.

But I need you to understand this:

The woman who once believed she would die without you was forced to learn how to live without you.

And in the process, she discovered that she had been surrendering far too much of herself just to keep you.

You cannot expect her to forget that.

You cannot expect her to return to the same unquestioning trust, the same desperate dependency, or the same willingness to tolerate behavior that was destroying her.

And you cannot expect her to respond to you as though nothing happened.

I survived something that fundamentally changed the way I understand love, trust, loyalty, and my own worth.

I am still healing. I am still grieving. I am still trying to make sense of everything I lost.

But I am no longer the woman who will silence herself to keep you comfortable.

You always ask me what changed.

What changed is that I finally learned how to swim.

And after everything it took to reach the shore, I will never willingly return to a place where loving you requires me to drown.

I can’t go back to sleep, Joe.

And I will never again be the woman who believed she had to lose herself in order to keep you.

I was my ex and his friend D, and D’s gf, F. D’s gf said something catty to D. D then says to my ex boyfriend “and you think you have it bad.” My ex gestured to D like “Why would you say that in front of us?” It got awkward for a moment. I think they all thought I didn’t hear and the conversation immediately moved on.

I confronted him about it after. I said to my ex, “I can’t read minds. If I am a bad girlfriend or I’m doing something wrong you have to tell me.” He said “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t talk about you to anyone.” (Which was a lie, he told me earlier he DID talk about me to his friends and family.)

He then asked “Are you hearing voices?” I have schizophrenia. And said “I don’t know what you heard or saw but it’s not what you think”

I felt like this was weaponizing my mental illness so he could get out of an inconvenient/awkward conversation.

I’m 46F, and my husband is 48M. We’ve been married for 10 years and together for 16.

We’ve had relationship issues for years, partly due to our different attachment styles. He tends to be anxious, while I tend to be avoidant. This has led to a lot of conflict, including repeated accusations of cheating, which I have never done.

Over the past four months, things have gotten significantly worse. During arguments, he has called me degrading names, destroyed my belongings, thrown food and drinks at or near me, and, more recently, kicked and spit on me. I’ve left the house multiple times because of these incidents. I haven’t been home in over a week following our most recent argument, when he called me a “pass around” and threw my belongings down the stairs.

I want to be fair and acknowledge my own role in our relationship problems. I tend to avoid difficult conversations and have struggled to be emotionally available when he needs me. I know these are things I need to work on, and I’ve been in individual therapy for almost a year.

We’ve tried couples counseling twice, but both times he stopped after two sessions because he felt I wasn’t being honest or that the therapist was taking my side.

We both say we want to save our marriage, but I’ve told him that I need to feel safe before I can consider returning home. I’ve asked him to seek individual therapy to work on managing his emotions and addressing his behavior. He initially agreed a few days ago, but now he seems to be backing out, saying that we need to work on the relationship together and that I need to stop running away from conflict.

I understand where he’s coming from to an extent. I have avoided difficult conversations in the past, and I don’t want to use that as an excuse to avoid working on our marriage. However, I feel that what’s happening now goes beyond normal relationship conflict. When I tell him that his behavior is abusive, he denies it or says that I’m emotionally abusive toward him.

I’m struggling to figure out how to move forward. I love him, and I genuinely want to know if our relationship can be saved. I also recognize that I have my own issues to work through, and I’m willing to do that.

Am I being unreasonable by asking him to commit to individual therapy and show that he’s making an effort to change before we attempt to work on the marriage together? Or am I avoiding accountability by making this a condition rather than trying to work through things as a couple?

I would appreciate honest feedback, including perspectives from people who have been in similar situations. I’m trying to understand what is reasonable to expect from both of us and whether this relationship can realistically be repaired.

I'm broken. Absolutely destroyed. I have no idea how to move forward. I feel so stupid. All the years I've spent begging him to treat me better, believing he'll change if I can just get him to understand how much it hurts me. But he never really cared, did he? He's not stupid. He knows it hurts me. He just doesn't care.

It's been three months since my abuser did this https://www.reddit.com/r/abusiverelationships/comments/1wsq9sp/sorry_for_the_repeitive_post_but_was_i_abused/

and frankly, I'm only making incrimental improvements. I have OCD in addition to this trauma. I guess my question is... how do I know what is driven by my OCD and what is the result of PTSD from the abuser?

I still get frequent flashbacks. less than the summer, but it's still destroying my life. I'm seeing a new therapist tomorrow. so fingers crossed.

After all the time and stressful events I went through with him to get custody of his boys and then maintain the relationship with their mother who lives 16 hours away (one way) and basically support them as an equal partner with him during this entire time he decides that he is done. Hates me for existing now and he doesn’t give a F about what it even means to break up like that in this situation. Full on silent treatment for two weeks but he still treated me like shit the entire time and I was waiting for him to be ready to talk and that never happened. I told him I’m a person and he is treating me like I don’t also own the house or that I don’t raise the boys or love all of them with my entire soul the entire time. They literally call me mom at this point and they don’t have a point in time where they remember I wasn’t there for them. It was not easy to be this person but I was completely devoted and unconditionally loving both he and the boys for the entire time and one day he just says yeah I don’t know about us.

I had gone through some difficult life shit during the past year that basically brought me to my knees and every time I would get back up I was dealt another blow and was back to square one. First the death of my cat, then a horrible attack on my credibility at my career job that forced me to resign to save my reputation and sanity. I got another job three months later and broke my foot two weeks into the job and still tried my best to keep going and not let it hold me down and when I was around my 90 day mark they literally fired me out of the blue and sent me packing. No reasons were provided but they told me to resign to be eligible to come back and be eligible for reemployment. During this time he had to go fight with the mother of his boys about them returning to school at a proper time because she wanted to keep them until the very end of summer break, so he was in her state for an entire week for the court hearing and to pick them up at the end of the week. I was there for him and took care of the 15 year old dog he has and make sure he got medications was well cared for. He got back and I found my position available again and applied after making sure I was eligible to work again and HR said that I was. The day after the position closed I was sent an automated rejection email and I felt so much anger for how unfair the entire situation was and he basically had enough of my problems and did not even try to pretend to give a shit. I dropped it and had already scheduled two interviews very quickly after that and felt ready to be my best self and he pulls this out of nowhere.

Now that I have had so much devastating loss happen this year I’m a bit of a basket case. He has forbidden me from talking to the boys even though it is cruel to all of us and doesn’t seem to care about that at all. He won’t talk about whatever is on his mind and has no interest in trying to understand why he feels this way because it has not always felt like this during our relationship and I don’t want to believe he is this selfish and stupid because it was not like this before. Yes he had normal couple stress issues but not like this one now because I feel like he is a different person. I’m in so much emotional distress and pain from it I can’t eat or sleep or find anything that brings me joy. We are stuck in the house we own and it’s the worst environment ever for me to be in because he has lost his fuckin mind and I’ve tried to talk to him a few times but get nothing out of it. I told him I am suing him to put the house up for sale and he said he wants to buyout but I know for a fact that is not gonna happen because we have too much equity and it would make it completely unaffordable and I don’t believe he would be approved for a mortgage. I told him he would benefit from seeing a counselor and that his beliefs about what I think of him are all completely untrue and being self generated by him. It’s been 6 weeks and I’m so emotionally drained and it is very hurtful to keep enduring this situation and I just don’t know what to do anymore… I told him I think he is going through a midlife crisis and that was why he felt so much discontent with his feelings and I feel like I was the easy person to blame for everything. I am so broken and still looking for work and applying for jobs all day every day and he just avoids my existence because he is not ready to be accountable for shit. I’m in therapy and going through a fuckin horrible year long perpetual loss cycle that makes me just want to die and I’m trying to save what we have because it was not always like this. It has always been challenging but we figured it out. I don’t know how to feel ok anymore and it’s really breaking me down and I don’t know how long before I crack. Help!

I can't watch The Shining. It's not the ghosts and I never even get to the violent stuff. My ex never physically abused me. It's that scene where she interrupts him when he's writing, and he yells at her and curses at her, and she just nods. That was our dynamic. I've recently been learning more about the fawn response, and that's pretty much what I did for our entire relationship.

On the other side of it, I could get through Kevin Can Fuck Himself, and really liked it. Maybe because I experienced a different kind of abuse. Ex wasn't narcissistic. If anything, kind of the opposite. I think ex's self-loathing was part of the problem- if you don't love yourself, can you really love another person in a healthy way?

But I relate to Alison. She's deeply flawed, and maybe that's why I can relate to her. Yeah, she makes bad decisions. But she's also spiraling because she's realizing that her marriage is abusive, and she doesn't know how to deal with that. When I was spiraling because I realized I was being abused, I did so much weed so regularly for so long that I got Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome. People say weed isn't addictive, but anything can be addictive when you're self-medicating.

Anyway, is there any media that you can relate to?

im 17, from india. im the youngest in my siblings, and everyone is jaded in some way. i can't escape, i don't know if I want or intend to. my parents are divorced, both mentally and physically abusive, and those traits are being passed down on to us to the point that it's affecting my siblings' and my own relationships. when my dad cheated on my mom, that was the downfall of our family. my sister has violent anger issues, my brother is emotionally absent, and my other brother isolates himself from everyone. it feels as if it all comes down to me to pillar up the family. my mom loves me unconditionally, and I love her, but often times it feels like the weight she puts on me is too much. i used to be top of the class, i used to be considered talented for my age, and I was praised the most for that. but growing up, I've lost those qualities and lost my academic achievements and validation. she's turned ruthless on me. she uses the cruelest language on me, and goes to other adults to talk bad about me. she's constantly comparing me with other kids to the point that it makes me want to commit suicide. i can't escape, just want ways to cope and deal with it for as long as I'm living with my family. I've been depressed for as long as I can remember and now I don't know what to do

I was forced to use my left hand when I was right handed has any other homeschooler experienced this or understand why.

I am 21f and was forced to use my left hand even though I naturally gravitated to my right hand like most of the population for most of my life. This started at about ten years old when my mother attended a teach them diligently homeschooling convention and listened to a speaker there. According to her this individual claimed that mixed dominance cause disorganization of the brain and can lead to traits associated with autism ADHD learning disorders and mood disorders in children. They believed that missing a milestone like skipping stages of crawling was what caused this. I was sent to a lady in Texas I was still young and don’t remember her name but she evaluated me and said I was left eye and ear dominant but only used my right hand which supposedly caused my symptoms (ADHD my mother did not believe in and emotional issues from trauma). So she gave my mother instructions on how to develop my brain. I was forced to relearn everything with my left hand start crawling on the floor, memorize sequences of numbers and do my homework with an eye patch and ear plug on my right side. This cause a lot of emotional breakdowns which she would blame on the fact that I was using my right hand for certain tasks which was causing me not to think logically because of my mixed dominance. I had to relearn how to brush my teeth and hair use my phone and laptop and writing. If anything it made my mental heath worse. I did physical therapy exercises on my hand to try to make my left hand stronger. If I used my right hand to much in her mind I undid a week of neurodevelopment work. It was complete bs and traumatic for me. I continued to believe it into my teens and felt guilty for using my right hand in certain instances. I still compulsively switch from right to left while eating or drawing. She essentially made me ambidextrous which according to this cult like ideology doesn’t really exist. Has anyone else experienced this or am it the only one.

i feel like im losing my mind, i dont know whats going on anymore. - mind you 18F (19 in like a month) but wtv this is, all escalated so much in the past 2/3 months (just quoting the recent things that were said in the period between july-oct)

threatening to sell my phone (bought by my dad so maybe he can say that, idk.)
cancelling my data and my SIM (data and wifi)
threatening to 'surrender me to the cops'
threatening to call the cops if i leave the house
threatening to cut me out of their life
'if i dont do well in my exams watch them fuck up the rest of my life'
'i will make sure you regret everything for the rest of your life'
hits/ slaps/ verbal abuse - you''re filth, you're worthless, 'she's worth nothing'
you're not allowed to leave the house to meet friends, go out
no ordering anything ever, you're lucky we feed you and you're getting cold food
you don't deserve privacy, im going to take the locks off the doors if not the door itself
banging and yelling at the door if i don't open it but say 'im in the bathroom' or sum
cutting me off from the UPI circle (atm i have no funds cos im not of legal age to work)
'im going to pull you out of school, forget your pending exams - you dont deserve it'
threatening to stop the process of my college applications
'ill surrender the lease on the house, live on the streets'
'you're 2/3 yrs behind everyone because of your ADHD'
'you're not mature, just phone addicted always, youre a slave to the phone'
'this is why men can do anything to you' - ive been sexually assaulted by at least 3 guys, my parents only know about one, and it's all my mother ever brings up (i was 14. he was my bf. i said no)
'you just learn with slaps, thats all you deserve'
'gutter filth'
'bipolar bitch' - i have severe bpd
' you don't deserve any privileges you get, you ungrateful brat'
'you always gaslight us' - im emotionally detached and lost sm of my memory in bits
'you just get used by guys' , 'no wonder what happened to you happened'

is this abuse or do i genuinely deserve it. my parents get very extreme and say hurtful things so sometimes i as a result i do lash out and get physical and i swear so so much but i also disassociate. i feel so emotionally numb, and suicidal. they're trying to manipulate stuff with my therapist too, telling my psychiatrist im unstable and need to be on meds or in a psych ward.

but ill be so honest- i cant tell if this is okay because other people are also going through shit. i have tried talking to my parents and they just say that this is them looking out for me and caring but it feels so off. i know something is wrong but every time i bring it up, im always shut down or gaslit. i literally had to start documenting hours of abuse, videos of being hit and shit, and screenshots of their chats about me - which they deny despite evidence. yes i do lash out when im constantly being told i deserve absolute shit- but its not my fault i got assaulted, its not my fault so much happened, and i don't think im okay but i can't leave physically.

did i genuinely do something wrong. i don't know i don't feel okay.

I’m m separated from my husband because the verbal and emotional abusive during our 3 year marriage. I been 9 months gone. I left when we start calling each other b* names. Feel free to read previous post to get a whole store. Also the final straw is when he start pulling my shirt driving while raising fist. That was it for me. We have one 3 year old son and I moved back to my home state and didn’t go back. My life has been so peaceful and I’m just rebuilding with new job and trying to move. He said he finally went to counsel after finally not going when I asked him, finally reading all of the marriage books that I got him, and trying to get support. He said he changed in these past 8 months and blamed everything on being immature and not being able to handle of these changes maturely. He is trying so hard to win his family back. Have anybody ever went back or tried to reconcile and it actually got better? Because I haven’t seen it before or can believe it.

I'm ( F 33 ) coming out of an abusive relationship of 3 years, I'm in therapy, on medication, doing all the things, blah blah but I am so bitter. Abuser has a GF and everyone says, "she's gonna go through what you did" but honestly, I don't even care about her. What I care about is HE is getting what he wants while I'm suffering from touch starvation. He gets to hold someone at night and be happy, even if its delusional, while I'm alone. I don't want to date. I don't trust. I'm naive. I ask to much. I have completely accepted that some people just do not get what they want in life. They don't. I will not get what I want out this life, the best thing I will do is raise my 3 children but what am I raising them in? Single Mom. Beat up single wide. No government assistance. Paycheck to paycheck. When I was with abuser, yeah obviously abuse but we didn't struggle. I could buy groceries, get my daughter a squishy. Take them to a movie. I can't do any of that and its just like WHY did I even leave? So I could suffer more but suffer alone? So I could completely lose my faith in people and love? I'm such a lover girl, I'm suck a hopeless romantic, I am absolutely delusional for real. I'm bitter. I want my life back. I want who I was back. I'm sick of being a charger in people's life. Come in when they need charged, here comes bubbly, fun, exciting me, they get charged up, I get drained and off they go. I'm mentally ill and have been my whole life. I dont throw pity parties, I get sad, go to bed, get up, go to work, I do it every day but I'm tired and life isn't fair.

How does he go from talking about wanting to have babies with me to telling me he regrets ever marrying me and calling me horrible names? He belittles me, screams at me, threatens me, and has even poured water on me once in an argument. And the arguments always start over something so small. Idk what to do anymore and we have only been married since June. I feel like a shell of myself and he twists everything around to make it seem like I did something wrong. He makes me feel like maybe it is me. Even though I never go as low as he does. I really start to believe him sometimes because he makes me question my reality. I’ve even started recording him lately because it’s gotten so emotionally and mentally abusive. He knows he has power over me because of his job and our finances. I feel so stuck and broken. He is telling me he’s done and wants a divorce and yet I still find myself begging because I don’t want to lose him and start over with anyone else.

My wife and I have been together 12 years. The first few years of our relationship were pretty great. She had some fairly serious anxiety and a few other issues, but all manageable.

After we had our first kid things started to change. Hormonal swings and lack of sleep definitely played a part in this. She began going into rages over seemingly small things. She would scream in my face, and generally act possessed. Eventually she got physical. She grabbed me by the shirt and shook me, hit me in the chest. Also (and this has over the long term been the worst) she began to blame me for just about everything, relentlessly hyper focusing on my shortcomings.

Eventually after a big fight she got on medication and started therapy again. We made a decision to try to start over.

Due to the medication, she stopped going into her wild rages but her constant nitpicking and blaming me for everything got worse and worse. It became non stop at times, and often felt like she was trying to push me over the edge. Sometimes I'd snap. Punch a door, throw a water bottle, say mean things and tell her she's crazy.

About a year ago she started calling me emotionally abusive. I picked up her phone one day and happened to see that her Facebook feed was full of what I'd call "abuse influencers".

I believe that she has CPTSD and maybe other things that contribute to her behavior and cause her to project a lot onto me. But it's all really confusing.

I'm willing to accept that some of the things I've done and said have been abusive. But I feel like I'm not an abusive person in general. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Please note all names are made up for sake of privacy.

Recently my Mother (48F) got out of a 25 year relationship with my step-father to pursue a relationship with her new boyfriend Frank (53M) whom she met at the gym. To be clear, my Mother's relationship with my step-father was abusive and toxic so I don't judge her for resorting to cheating to find a way out. However, the relationship that has followed is much the same as the last.

Growing up, myself (31M) and my brother Will (22M) saw a lot of physical, mental and emotional abuse between our parents. Things raising from bricks being tossed at our Mother, physical violence (sometimes with us, most times not), detailed threats of suicide all throughout our life from both parents and experienced a lot of parentification as we tried to keep our lives moving. In short, our lives were decided not in our best interest and we were forced into a lot of drama and hostility despite playing no part in any of it. We've all had mental health side effects that have carried well into adulthood, from depression and anxiety to OCD and PTSD.

In present day, my Mother now has a new boyfriend, Frank. They've been together on and off for 9 months. At first he seemed like a decent enough guy through our limited interactions and I took my Mother at her word that he was a good man. However, two weeks ago my Mother told my brother Will that he had struck her and that this wasn't the first time. I was very upset and took my Mother into my home for the week to support her and keep her away from him as she admitted to having a toxic attachment that kept driving her back to him despite not wanting to.

Now I'm not a psychologist, nor do I have the right to diagnose anyone, but I got the impression from the things she told me that this man has a narcissistic personality disorder. Something I'm familiar with due to some other people in my life.

When she's with him she's not allowed to speak her mind, he gets confrontational or threatening when she challenges him on anything, he has pushed and slammed her head against the wall when she speaks up and constantly accuses her of her cheating or being disloyal whenever they're apart for mere minutes or interacting with another male. He calls her stupid and slow all the time, accuses of her lying and constantly changes stories to avoid taking any accountability, and has three grown adult kids who live with him that also aren't allowed to have their own lives or partners out of fear he loses his grip from them.

I've also been told both of his last two partners (wife and then girlfriend) accused him of strangulation and assault, which he told my Mother to express how women lie. He also has been known to physically attack people who get on his bad side.

After all this, she's resumed contact with him and believes he wants to change and try again with her, but my brother and I won't accept him. She has completely re-written the story she originally told us and now says it was her PTSD that made her believe he hit her when he didn't. She said she assumed everything and that none of it actually happened as she vividly described. She says it's her fault for pushing him to the edge and that she should just leave when gets like that. However, I don't believe she made it up as I've not known my Mum to lie like this or mistake things for happening that didn't.

I believe her boyfriend has manipulated her into thinking she was wrong so she can justify being with him and he can avoid taking any blame. She's also doing damage control to make my brother and I accept him so she can move on and play happy family. I worked so hard to keep her away and help her see reason but she's addicted to this man and nothing I or any mental professionals have told her is enough for her to move on. I'm at the point where I don't think I can help her and I don't want to sit around and be a spectator or involved in another abusive relationship because of my Mother's bad decisions.

I have refused to play along with her. While I believe Mum can make her own decisions, I should also be allowed to make mine. And right now, that decision is to avoid being in any room with her boyfriend.

For the last week my Mother has sent me a flurry of messages either knowingly or unknowingly trying to manipulate me into accepting this man. She has a big history of being emotionally abusive herself, and while I thought she had done a lot of growing these last 2-3 years after changing psychologists, she's gone backwards and has started to act like her old self. She can't accept that we have agency too and wants us to act like we were as kids, unable to choose for ourselves and it's making me resent her quite a lot. There's a lot more detail about our relationship, but I don't know it's relevant to this post. I'll say in short that she's had a history of taking her anxiety and trauma out on us and while she's lightly taking some accountability, she's not made enough change for us to believe she actually cares or understand the damage she causes.

Last night she was consideringsuicideso I started messaging her again, but she is telling me I'm ruining her life because Frank won't want to be with her if it comes between us. He is pretending to be valiant but I believe it has more to do with not having control of us like he does his kids and my Mum. In most cases I'd give in, but playing along with these sorts of charades is the cause of all my mental health issues today and I eventually need to push back and say no.

TLDR; Mother (48F) has replaced abusive step-father with new physically abusive partner and wants my brother (22M) and myself (31M) to forgive him for attacking our Mother because she has despite him taking no accountability. It is coming between us and I'm considering no contact due to a lengthy history of this sort of thing with her.

So my questions are this:

1. What experience do you have with narcissists in these sorts of situations?

2. How do I keep standing my ground when my Mother is likely not to relent?

3. Is it okay to consider no contact if these issues persist?

4. Has anyone had any similar experiences they can relate to the above?

5. Is it even possible to convince her or is there no point even trying? What are your experiences with this.

Thanks everyone!

I have never posted in this subreddit, but I made a post in r/badroomates months ago asking for advice on my roommate situation. We lived together for two years (I’m 22 now). She was my best friend but what others pointed out in my previous post was that she showed signs of BPD. She threatened me a few times, saying she often imagined me sad and hoped I was miserable. There was a time where I felt so scared that I changed the lock on my bedroom door. Ever since I finally went no contact and blocked her on everything, I have been having nightmares about her. They often feature her moving in next door and refusing to leave my new apartment or trying to contact me. The one I had recently was the most frightening. She was hiding in my room and made a scrapbook of letters about how much she hated me next to pictures of us happy. I used to have nightmares where I was being chased (just my common nightmare trope my whole life), but now I keep dreaming of being in cages or feeling trapped. I’m curious has anyone else dealt with this? I’m going to talk to my therapist about it, but I thought I would ask.

A lot has happened between me and my ex, but the final straw was Sunday. We went to haunted houses, and he was high and not mentally there. Later, I found things on his phone that he had lied about, and when I confronted him, he got extremely defensive because I woke him up at 2 AM.

He insisted on driving me home even though I wanted an Uber. While driving, he hit me in the head, pulled my hair, threw water at me, and repeatedly insulted me while I stayed mostly quiet. Afterwards, he continued sending hurtful texts without acknowledging what he did. I don’t care about getting back together. I just wanted him to own up to him actually putting hands on me.

He still finds a way to contact me even though I blocked him.

I was in what I now recognise was an emotionally abusive relationship for three decades - since I was 20.

I was cheated on more times than I care to remember. I was lied to. I was left to work out our family finances for years, left to deal with 90% of childcare and housework (I worked as well), attempts were made to turn me against my family, I was left alone every weekend for years while he went away to destress and then - after being prevented from building my career up - I was berated for not earning more money. This was a repeated theme.

I stayed because I was financially dependent on this man - and he ensured that was the case. I stayed because he told me if I kicked him out he would move country & not contribute to the children - and I didn’t want to take my children’s father away. Even though he is an emotionally negligent father.
I stayed because I wanted it to work. I stayed because I felt useless.

In the end, he left. He met someone else and his departure was cruel, calculated and devastating. It was a discard of epic proportions and since lie after lie after lie has come to light.

And I feel so ashamed that I stayed.
I see so many posts about getting away from abusive men but I didn’t make that decision. And I hate myself for it.

How does a person move on from feeling so stupid, naive & like a complete doormat?

3 days ago I decided to leave my boyfriend of 1 year because it felt like no matter how much I tried to communicate my feelings with him he always would shut me down or say I'm too sensitive etc, and he was pretty possessive and would freak out if I even mentioned going on a walk in my neighborhood

Since then we've been trying to stay civil because there's stuff of mine that he has that I need to get back and vice versa, we organized to do that this Sunday

But in between trying to stay civil he keeps passing comments about how I'm just trying to go to the next guy and that it hurts him that I'd eventually move on and another person would get that side of me, this hurts, I don't know what I've done to make him think that I'm just trying to get into the next relationship

In the past he's also said very rude things similar to this to me, such as

"go have you walks and go waste your life and money away partying, you act just like the others" (his response to me wanting to go on more walks)

"the way you've carried on tonight proves to me that you're not better than any other woman on this planet"

"you don't have to dress like a hoe to have my attention, I want my woman to dress like a decent woman"

There's much more but these stood out to me

I don't feel emotionally safe around him and that's why I left but he keeps making it like it's my fault and has said stuff like, why should I show you sympathy if you're wrong

That was when I asked him to show me more kindness when I'm upset

Anyway sorry this is a bit long as I'm venting a bit but he's basically placing all the blame on me in regards to the relationship ending and has said that I was verbally and emotionally abusive but I genuinely, genuinely can't see that, I've even looked at texts over the past year to find something and I've only sworn at or insulted him twice of what I could find, he's mentioned getting back together once we've worked on ourselves but I don't know if a person like him can ever change, I do love him but he'd have me crying almost every day for months and would hardly ever comfort me, even when my dog, cat, and uncle died in the same month I had to beg him to be there for me, his excuse for not being there was, his mom had a stroke, which yes I understand but he was still getting on video games with his friends while I was sobbing about the deaths, I just wanted him to spend some time with me so I could feel better

Reddit, am I overreacting or was this emotionally abusive

My partner loves me very much and offers and does nice things like run errands for me all the time. He provides well and takes amazing care of my two children from a previous 20 yr marriage.

We have long established that my need for physical touch has absolutely no limit. I have worked on my entitlement regarding touch and kissing and especially sex. I default to becoming self deprecating out loud and it can devolve into extreme emotional dysregulation after a few days (used to be 2, then 3, now 5). I had a pattern of wanting to be rescued by my partner with sex, then I reduced it to hugs and kisses. All of that and my verbal requests for contact led to many many horrible arguments and him feeling like I dont see his love or believe his love for me if I don't "get what I want." I have agreed to accept this as the reality and adjust accordingly.

Now we have an issue with me saying "oh, love, I just wanted to be with you." (Or snuggle or cuddle with you) -at the end of a day when we totally missed each other (in my perspective) or in the morning before he leaves for work when we had missed the contact for a few days. He now sees this as a direct complaint that he didn't "do what I wanted." And makes many many comments to that fact that if I respond to them, he says I'm devaluing him and his love, etc etc. it goes on and on and I feel awful about myself like I'm hurting him so badly by saying these things and every time I think I find a way I can be that isn't bad for him and that will make him want to touch me more, if I say any hint of it or behave in any way that looks "off" to him, it becomes a screaming issue where I'm told I'm so abusive, negative, never happy, affecting everyone around me, selfish, etc.

Now, also, I am informed that me "bringing work stress home" is affecting everyone around me negatively and I should quit my job.

Am I abusing my partner by being whiny about wanting affection. I never say "you don't....." Or anything even close.