10 Signs Your Girlfriend or Wife is an Emotional Bully
Does your girlfriend or wife yell, scream, and swear at you? Do you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about your relationship because they just wouldn’t understand? Is your relationship making you feel like you’re slowly going crazy?
If so, you’re probably involved with a woman who is an emotionally abusive bully. Most men don’t want to admit that they’re in an abusive relationship. They describe the relationship and their girlfriend/wife using other terms like crazy, emotional, controlling, bossy, domineering, constant conflict, or volatile. If you use words like this to describe your relationship, odds are you’re being emotionally abused.
Do you recognize any of the following behaviors?
1) Bullying. If she doesn’t get her way, there’s hell to pay. She wants to control you and resorts to emotional intimidation to do it. She uses verbal assaults and threats in order to get you to do what she wants. It makes her feel powerful to make you feel bad. People with a Narcissistic personality are often bullies.
Result: You lose your self-respect and feel outnumbered, sad, and alone. You develop a case of Stockholm Syndrome, in which you identify with the aggressor and actually defend her behavior to others.
2) Unreasonable expectations. No matter how hard you try and how much you give, it’s never enough. She expects you to drop whatever you’re doing and attend to her needs. No matter the inconvenience, she comes first. She has an endless list of demands that no one mere mortal could ever fulfill.
Common complaints include: You’re not romantic enough, you don’t spend enough time with me, you’re not sensitive enough, you’re not smart enough to figure out my needs, you’re not making enough money, you’re not FILL IN THE BLANK enough. Basically, you’re not enough, because there’s no pleasing this woman. No one will ever be enough for her, so don’t take it to heart.
Result: You’re constantly criticized because you’re not able to meet her needs and experience a sense of learned helplessness. You feel powerless and defeated because she puts you in no-win situations.
3) Verbal attacks.This is self-explanatory. She employs schoolyard name calling, pathologizing (e.g., armed with a superficial knowledge of psychology she uses diagnostic terms like labile, paranoid, narcissistic, etc. for a 50-cent version of name calling), criticizing, threatening, screaming, yelling, swearing, sarcasm, humiliation, exaggerating your flaws, and making fun of you in front of others, including your children and other people she’s not intimidated by. Verbal assault is another form of bullying, and bullies only act like this in front of those whom they don’t fear or people who let them get away with their bad behavior.
Result: Your self-confidence and sense of self-worth all but disappear. You may even begin to believe the horrible things she says to you.
4) Gaslighting. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t say that. I don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t that bad. You’re imagining things. Stop making things up.” If the woman you’re involved with is prone to Borderline or Narcissistic rage episodes, in which she spirals into outer orbit, she may very well not remember things she’s said and done. However, don’t doubt your perception and memory of events. They happened and they are that bad.
Result: Her gaslighting behavior may cause you to doubt your own sanity. It’s crazy-making behavior that leaves you feeling confused, bewildered, and helpless.
5) Unpredictable responses. Round and round and round she goes. Where she’ll stop, nobody knows. She reacts differently to you on different days or at different times. For example, on Monday, it’s ok for you to Blackberry work email in front of her. On Wednesday, the same behavior is “disrespectful, insensitive, you don’t love me, you’re a self-important jerk, you’re a workaholic.” By Friday, it could be okay for you to Blackberry again.
Telling you one day that something’s alright and the next day that it’s not is emotionally abusive behavior. It’s like walking through a landmine in which the mines shift location.
Result: You’re constantly on edge, walking on eggshells, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is a trauma response. You’re being traumatized by her behavior. Because you can’t predict her responses, you become hypervigilant to any change in her mood or potential outburst, which leaves you in a perpetual state of anxiety and possibly fear. It’s a healthy sign to be afraid of this behavior. It’s scary. Don’t feel ashamed to admit it.
6) Constant Chaos. She’s addicted to conflict. She gets a charge from the adrenaline and drama. She may deliberately start arguments and conflict as a way to avoid intimacy, to avoid being called on her bullshit, to avoid feeling inferior or, bewilderingly, as an attempt to avoid being abandoned. She may also pick fights to keep you engaged or as a way to get you to react to her with hostility, so that she can accuse you of being abusive and she can play the victim. This maneuver is a defense mechanism called projective identification.
Result: You become emotionally punch drunk. You’re left feeling dazed and confused, not knowing which end is up. This is highly stressful because it also requires you to be hypervigilant and in a constant state of defense for incoming attacks.
7) Emotional Blackmail. She threatens to abandon you, to end the relationship, or give you the cold shoulder if you don’t play by her rules. She plays on your fears, vulnerabilities, weaknesses, shame, values, sympathy, compassion, and other “buttons” to control you and get what she wants.
Result: You feel manipulated, used, and controlled.
8 Rejection. She ignores you, won’t look at you when you’re in the same room, gives you the cold shoulder, withholds affection, withholds sex, declines or puts down your ideas, invitations, suggestions, and pushes you away when you try to be close. After she pushes you as hard and as far away as she can, she’ll try to be affectionate with you. You’re still hurting from her previous rebuff or attack and don’t respond. Then she accuses you of being cold and rejecting, which she’ll use as an excuse to push you away again in the future.
Result: You feel undesirable, unwanted, and unlovable. You believe no one else would want you and cling to this abusive woman, grateful for whatever scraps of infrequent affection she shows you.
9) Withholding affection and sex. This is another form of rejection and emotional blackmail. It’s not just about sex, it’s about withholding physical, psychological, and emotional nurturing. It includes a lack of interest in what’s important to you–your job, family, friends, hobbies, activities–and being uninvolved, emotionally detached or shut down with you.
Result: You have a transactional relationship in which you have to perform tasks, buy her things, “be nice to her,” or give into her demands in order to receive love and affection from her. You don’t feel loved and appreciated for who you are, but for what you do for her or buy her.
10) Isolating. She demands or acts in ways that cause you to distance yourself from your family, friends, or anyone that would be concerned for your well-being or a source of support. This typically involves verbally trashing your friends and family, being overtly hostile to your family and friends, or acting out and starting arguments in front of others to make it as unpleasant as possible for them to be around the two of you.
Result: This makes you completely dependent upon her. She takes away your outside sources of support and/or controls the amount of interaction you have with them. You’re left feeling trapped and alone, afraid to tell anyone what really goes on in your relationship because you don’t think they’ll believe you.
You don’t have to accept emotional abuse in your relationship. You can get help or you can end it. Most emotionally abusive women don’t want help. They don’t think they need it. They are the professional victims, bullies, narcissists, and borderlines. They’re abusive personality types and don’t know any other way to act in relationships.
Life is too short to spend one more second in this kind of relationship. If your partner won’t admit she has a problem and agree to get help, real help, then it’s in your best interest to get support, get out, and stay out.
READ MORE ARTICLES ON WWW.SHRINK4MEN.COM
Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals work through their relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. She specializes in helping men and women trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for professional inquiries.
Want to Say Goodbye to Crazy? Buy it HERE.
Donations
If you find the information I provide free of charge helpful and valuable here on Shrink4Men, please consider making a donation via PayPal.
Photo credits: Mood swings on ccmbuzz.
Leave a comment
Stumble It!
Shrink4Men
- Sex with a Borderline: Confusing Intensity and Pathology for Intimacy and Passion, Part 1 [Video]
- Video: Love Bombing, Brainwashing, Trauma Bonds, Narcissists and Borderlines, Part 1
- How to Love a Woman Who’s Been to Hell and Back [Video]
- Are You Suffering from Emotional Labor? Or Unrealistic Relationship Expectations? [Video]
- Adult Toddlers, Part 1: Traits of Emotionally Immature Narcissists and Borderlines [Video]
- Causes of Unhealthy Relationship Patterns for Codependents with Narcissists and Borderlines, Part 1 [Video]
- Blame and Rage: What Narcissists and Borderlines Call Problem-Solving
- The Final Child Support Payment to a Borderline or Narcissistic Ex: Brace Yourself, Francis! [Video]
- Narcissist Fight Club Rule #5: The More You Explain Yourself the More Vulnerable You Are [Video]
- Healthy Boundaries, Part 2: The Joy of No! [Video]
Shrink4Men 
Dr Tara
All I can say is that you are brilliant. I finally started to research what I’ve been going through for over 17 years. Yes, it’s crazy that it took this long.
I’ve read three of your articles and you are dead on for all three.
I am blown away by the accuracy.
My issue is how to get out, because she will never change. Broken promises, destructive activities, anger, blame and all this time I’ve questioned my own sanity. Wow, where to go from here…
I finally stood up to her when she said she wanted a divorce and I said ok, let me know when I will be served. She backtracked after a week because she saw I was relieved and appeared happy. Now, she wants to work to resolve the relationship, but I know that it will never work. She has made efforts to change in the past but it never lasts more than a few weeks and then it’s back to the same. I think of it like a stretched rubberband. you can pull it in another direction, but ultimately, it will go back to the original position.
I will be in contact with you soon.
Thanks for your insight.
In a weird way, it’s comforting to hear stories so similar to my relationship with my ex, like it wasn’t just “my failures” but their personality type.
With me, it was the first time I’d dated a single mother, so some of the red flags I saw, I justified away as part of being with a woman with kids who was just being a bit overly cautious. Others, I later would overlook because her father had died when she was 11, and “maybe she just had abandonment issues that I could overcome”.
There was no real “honeymoon period”, she started nitpicking me on the most minor offenses from the start. She tied it into trying to make sure there was a suitable potential home for her kids someday, so I wrote it off as “maybe this is just how single mothers act”.
She started getting upset with me for contrary things. On a Wednesday last summer, she “wanted another air conditioner for downstairs”, then on that Friday, I was a jerk for having air conditioning at all/killing the planet/wasting electricity.
If I parked in a spot close to wherever we were going, I was “lazy”. She had this thing where I was just supposed to park as far away as possible and walk half a mile.
When I met her kids, she began speaking of the issues with her ex. They’d never been married, and she got pregnant by accident after she had already made the decision to break up with him. He had to be paid to watch his own kids, he was not paying the full child support, he threatened to hit her in front of them. Once she had in my mind the guy was a complete creep, she then turned it around and started defending him, including comparing him favorably against me.
She “had no romantic feelings for him”, but would seem to go out of her way to do nice things for him no matter what he did. This put another strain on our relationship, as his feelings always had to come first. When planning our life together, she would say stuff like “we should bring him and his new girlfriend on vacations with us so the girls can have both their parents there to make it special for them”. She told me she had this whole future planned out where she and he lived in the same town and that way the kids could have both their parents there.
If I tried to respect his relationship with the girls, I wasnt trying hard enough to accept her kids as part of the relationship. If I tried to step up and be the stepfather figure, suddenly I was trying to take the girls away from their father.
From that point on (even more so), nothing I could do was right. Everything seemed about her constantly trying to show she was better than me (morally/intellectually/socially). She’d argue just seemingly to argue, and in some cases a short time later argue contrary to what she had previously believed so deeply. Even to the point where if she said something and I’d agree, suddenly she’d change her mind.
She’d pick apart everything about me, but then if I pointed it out to her, I was just “being too sensitive”. Nothing I did “counted”. She’d say “you’re not doing what I need”, and then if I did exactly what she said she needed, there was always something “wrong” with it.
We got into a makeup breakup period where when she had me, she couldnt be bothered. She’d fall asleep when visiting with me, only to stay up all night when I went to bed. She was always “distracted” by some drama, so if I wanted any of her attention, I was being selfish. She did the threatening to leave thing so often that it lost it’s effect and she stopped with that threat.
When we broke up, she initially acted indifferent like I didnt matter at all, but then would always find a reason to contact me a few days after to talk. If I didnt run back to her quick enough, suddenly she developed feelings and “loved me and needed me”. She’d bring her kids, and they’d run up to me all excited to see me, making me more emotionally vulnerable, and eventually I would cave wanting to believe what she said.
Each time it just got worse. She’d be meaner than the last, more demanding, and more critical. She would put less and less effort in, and no matter what I did just “didnt count” (or was done because I was just being a martyr). She’d complain she felt “obligated” to do for me, and that made her not want to.
Our last fight was once again involving the girls father. While she wanted him to have the life he always wanted, and to not have to pay child support after the girls turned 5 so he could spend his money on his new family, I “would never be their father” but would have to raise/love/support them for 15 years to let the deadbeat “walk them down the aisle”.
Everything she spoke was about what was “fair” to her, what was “fair” to everyone else, but she could never grasp “fair” to me. Her not feeling the need to do for me was because I “wasnt doing enough for her”, but there never was an “enough”.
Sorry, also forgot to mention:
During the relationship, she said “If I get pregnant, I want to to sign papers saying you wont fight for custody if we break up”.
“Everyone I dated before you was romantic, you’re not” (no matter what I did)
She at first loved to have sex when we saw eachother, I was the “best ever”, but then started withholding it saying she doesnt want to, but was only doing it for me. That she didnt enjoy it. “Why cant sex just be about me sometimes?”. When I tried to perform on her, she’d stop me each time, then would later bring up that I “never did that for her”. She wouldnt even shave her legs towards the end.
In one breath, she said “If I could go back in time and not know my kids, I wouldnt have had them”, but in the next her kids are “the most important thing to her”.
She does NO real parenting. She does just whatever’s easiest at the time for herself. Every tantrum is rewarded, there is no set bedtime, she teaches her kids NOT to share because stuff is “theirs”, and just on and on. The kids are now almost 4 and are still not potty trained.
She believes she’s entitled to pass off her kids for a week or two at a time and go (alone) on trips to other countries. She stated that if we’re together, I should watch her kids for her while she gets to go out with her friends, even a hypothetical “trip to the movies with her and a guy friend while I stay home and watch the girls”. When I said that wasnt appropriate, she turned it into “You just dont want me to have any male friends”, missing the point.
She’d go out of her way to try to do things that made me wonder if something was going on, only to complain that I didnt trust her. She’d make it a point to check her email right in front of me, then look over at me, and quickly close it down. Then when I’d ask why she did that, would show me there was nothing there and I was just being paranoid.
Joe, I hope you, as well as everyone else in this forum who has experienced these relationships is on the road toward healing. I for one will tread carefully into any new relationship, watching for addressing any problems appropriately and swiftly. I will never get into another relationship with an unhealthy woman again.
Hi,
I met my wife in 2008 at work. She was, back then, in a relationship with some other guy but broke off with him a few months after we met (NOT because of me). We started to hang out and after a while started to have some kind of romantic relationship.
After a while we moved in together. We had great chemistry and she told me that she never felt like having a baby – but since she met me that had changed. I loved her very much and I felt that I would love to have a child with her.
We did not plan it really, but just didn’t use any child prevention. 4 months later she was pregnant with our baby girl.
NOW it get’s interesting.
3 days before giving birth she told me that her ex-boyfriend was coming from Europe in order to start working here in the USA and that she actually was still in a relationship with him. Has been the whole time since she got here, even while she was dating this other guy that I mentioned in the beginning.
She did not want me to meet that guy, she meant that he would not understand and so on…
I asked her if it was now over between them and she said yes.
From that point onwards our relationship got really ugly. Nothing I did was good enough. If I made her a tea it was the wrong one, if I brought her some food it was not good enough. She was always distant, grumpy and blew even the slightest instant out of proportion.
Our Baby was born and thinks calmed a bit for a couple of months, but still not great. Then she told me during a walk that she was still in love with that ex-boyfriend.
When I told her that I would not live in a love triangle situation and that she would have to make a choice she went crazy and said that she would always decide for him not me.
But she still stayed with me.
No from then on it went even worse, nothing was right, everything I did was wrong or not good enough. She would call me selfish when I asked her to contribute to our bills even though I was paying for most of them.
She said that I was not good enough for her, that she could never imagine to spend the rest of her life with me since she was way smarter than me (according to her she has an IQ higher than 98% of mankind – I am quoting here), and that her mind was as big as a 747 and my mind compared to that was the since of a shoe box.
She said that she only needs two brain cells in order to communicate with me and that she needed daily discourse about various subjects as philosophy, law, art, science, etc. and that I could never give her that.
She said that I make her angry, that she cannot sleep next to me due to the fact that I make her nervous.
She accuses me of having affairs all the time and makes up wild stories about me that she then presents as facts when we argue.
She and I agree that we don’t want to argue in front of our child but she alwys tries to pick fights when our baby is in the room.
She takes tries to take the baby away from me any time the baby starts to cry just a little bit and blames me for doing it absolutely wrong.
She chewed me out one day cause I fed our baby only milk one morning and no apple sauce, made a huge issue out of it. The same day she refused to put our baby in the car seat cause that would make our baby cry and she doesn’t like that. When I refused to start driving unless she used the car seat and buckled our baby up she had a major fit.
The list goes on.
does this qualify for a bully? I am at a loss, nothing I try works. If I argue she blames me for not knowing how to lead a normal discussion. When I try to discuss an issue she makes up an excuse why she cannot talk right now. When she puts me over the edge and I cry she accuses me of self pity.
I need help. Who can I contact in order to sort this out. I believe divorce is the only option. But I am worried about our baby, I don’t want the baby to live with her mom if I can help it.
Can you give me some tips?
Thank you very much in advance,
Mio
Mio,
There are two issues you must deal with. The first is your emotional health. For years I banged my head against the wall trying to figure out what I could do to solve the problems. It drove me crazy. I had sleep issues, issues with overeating and other. I finally started to see the light a few years ago and started to change how I allowed her to treat me. As I changed, she worsened until I decided it was time to end it. In some ways I wish I ended it years ago with the hope that I would have retained some of my emotional health, but I wasn’t willing to leave the house while my children were very young. I got to the point where I could no longer stand all the head games, moved to our guest bedroom, got us into a different counselor, and through the counseling process as well as my own intuition I realized that I wasn’t totally to blame. As I worked through this process I could see with clarity her issues and it was therapeutic to be able to do this. I wasn’t trying to escape responsibility for my contribution to the dysfunction, but I wasn’t taking on all the blame she heaped upon me. The result was that I know what my own issues are and how to deal with those, and I have peace that my relationship skills aren’t as bad as I was led to believe. I now know some of the things I need to work on so I don’t take these behavioral patterns into any future relationships.
The second issue is a custody issue. You will want to speak to a family law attorney in your state to understand what your rights are.
You’re not crazy – good for you for recognizing you’re in a dysfunctional relationship. Don’t let this drag on – take action now for your sake and for the sake of your baby.
Wow, I just came across this site today. I’m amazed at how accurately it describes my own experience. After wondering why my head has been spinning for so many years I think I can finally admit I’ve been in an emotionally abusive relationship. This article, along with many others on this site bring a lot of clarity to many issues I’ve had…frustration over why the relationship is a roller coaster, confusion over how to fix these problems, fear over the judgment of others if I chose to divorce, how she can say things about me that other people believe no matter how untrue. I told her last month that I am going to file for divorce, after 23 years of marriage. Over the past 3 years I’ve slowly realized that things aren’t “normal” and the more I spoke up the worse the conflict became. This site helped me piece together many episodes over the past 23 years and I now see them as part of a pattern rather than disparate events. Thank you for this site. I know I will need to decompress and detox after the divorce is final and I’m starting to do so now.
You know, I spent some time here yesterday, and this post https://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/are-the-diagnoses-of-borderline-narcissistic-histrionic-or-antisocial-personality-disorder-helpful-or-harmful-for-nons/ was not password protected. It was very interesting. The difference between projection, discernment, responsibility, blame, accountability…all of it is there…yet now that post is password protected.
Fear is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are in danger. However, I sometimes find myself more agitated and more “scared” when I visit this site. It’s just that the 10 signs your wife or girlfriend is an emotional bully…well…point blank describe my wife’s behavior. It’s all there. With the addition of the wikipedia articles on verbal and psychological abuse, you have a complete, short, concise description of my situation.
Add to that the sincere effort Dr. T. made at defining abuse (somewhere), which wasn’t exactly a “popular” topic, well…I’m pretty settled on what’s appropriate, what’s not, and what’s going on in my life.
I’m not 100% sure about “who’s responsible,” because, well, I described on the forum here that I did an experiment where I took 100% responsibility for everything in my “reality,” including how others treat me. Every single thing that I see, hear, smell, touch…everything I think and encounter. That experiment yielded incredibly powerful results. The abuse stopped, money came flowing in, and I felt like I was walking into a cartoon. My wife even repeated entire strings of sentences that I had only meditated upon. In short: IT WORKED. That left me confused and I also felt like I was “psychically controlling” my wife.
I talked with a faith-based psychotherapist who runs a domestic violence safety program in the USA. She asked me how I felt about doing that experiment, and I felt like I would rather live in a world where others are responsible for themselves, and not in one in which I am simply responsible for every single thing in my life: BUT, if that’s just how this “game of life” actually, really and factually works, then that’s just the way it is.
Also, both world views are actually concurrently possible, and I know I’m not explaining all the background, but basically it’s possible for one person to be 100% responsible for every single thing in their life (if that’s what they choose) and it’s possible for that person to be sitting next to someone who chooses to acknowledge the free will of others.
This psychotherapist ventured the idea that during my experiment, my wife didn’t actually change, because when I stopped, the abuse returned and actually got significantly worse leading to an incident in which my wife attacked me.
We also went through that it actually is legitimate to ask a person to change their behavior, especially if that behavior is abusive. This DV (domestic violence) therapist even said that it is fair to say “my continued presence in this relationship depends on you stopping your abusive behavior.”
Anyway, I went home. I stayed online until shortly before 2AM and was about to turn the computer off and go to sleep, and my wife came out. It was just plain odd. I was watching comedy and giggling. She wanted to call her mom on skype. I wanted to go to bed. She was like “it’s strange that now that I come out, you want to go to bed.” I was like “I watched comedy longer than I really should have and was about to turn the computer off, and I really want to go to bed.” She said, “what time did you come home,” and I told her the truth. It was somewhere around 10PM, and my wife and daughter were asleep in the bedroom. That was relaxing for me, because well, I so very often come home and “rescue” the sleeping situation…and I guess “blaming” me for having some kind of “rescuing complex” is well…not really fair…but that’s a tangent. Anyway, my wife said “I don’t believe you that that’s when you came home.”
That’s when I came home. I said I really just want to go to bed. Because we are sleeping in separate rooms and the couch is less comfortable than the big bed, there is often a discussion about “who gets to sleep in the big bed.” If my wife was going to be on the computer, then I needed to go to sleep on the big bed. That pissed her off, and she’s come into the bedroom to “get” her blanket (pulling it out from under me) before. So, I had to get her blanket for her because I did not want her pulling it out from under me (or pulling it off of me).
I kept repeating: “I really just want to go to bed.” And within a few minutes, that’s what I did. Yes, with “dirty” blankets…and she had her blanket and the computer. OK.
This morning, I tried to coordinate caretaking. Whenever I spoke, my wife either started to read the paper or looked at my iPhone.
Setting any kind of boundaries, asking to be heard, figuring out what time we will care take, household tasks, budgeting, mutual support of career goals…etc. etc. etc. None of these things have proven possible.
My wife “lands” every once in a while, and that is one of the scariest parts of this whole situation. I brought home raw chocolate with reishi mushroom, cacao butter, and sea salt. It was a 100% raw product (homemade actually). My wife at it and Whhhoooooof: she landed.
We had a decent conversation for about one hour. She thought it was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.
So, right now, I really need a good heap of money. NOW. This is how I see my solution:
1) A minimum 3 month separation with care taking split 50/50.
2) Additional care taker to handle my wife’s chaos (if my wife does not pick up our daughter from kindergarten on time, or is “suddenly unable to take her to KG” this person will…so that I can have a normal business/career life). This care taker would also be a play partner for our daughter and a bit of a tutor while I take care of household tasks (or the other way around). Side note: I really like involving our daughter in cleaning, because she seems to have so much fun with it…and I make it fun!
3) An apartment within half a mile or so of our daughter’s kindergarten (where my wife does not know the address, but the caretaker does). I won’t tell ANYONE that address. Not even my family.
4) Weekly mediation/psychotherapeutic support/guidance meetings with my wife in which we either work out reconciliation or divorce.
The cost of that plan is an immediate $10,000.
I’ve called a bunch of social services type places. One positive thing is that my wife has agreed to do a psychological evaluation (as have I). I just need to figure out where to go for that kind of evaluation…and well…it’s important to find a non-gender biased solution for both evaluation and support.
Given the success you mentioned having with your experiment, I’m curious as to why you chose to discontinue this.
You raise some important points re: understanding that we are responsible for our own choices/decisions and the consequences of these.
I started thinking about this a number of years back after attending a “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” course my employer provided.
It was one of those “why didn’t I always realize this” moments for me as in retrospect it is obvious.
I’ve really tried throughout my adult life to accept responsibility for the decisions I’ve made however, I’d never really thought much about “choices” in the terms these were discussed in during the course. I can’t really clearly explain the shift in my thinking that this new (to me) perspective caused, so won’t try.
Anyway, after that time I found it much easier to handle certain aspects of our marriage and her behaviour.
On my part, I had often found myself rather bitter or feeling betrayed in respect of what I perceived my wife as having done to me.
Accepting that I was in fact, by choosing to stay with her, doing it to myself was an oddly liberating experience.
Through the years, I’d often accepted responsibility for my wife’s often stated “unhappiness” with one thing or another, e.g., our home, city we lived in, etc.
After realizing that in fact she was the one choosing to be unhappy … and would continue to do so regardless of whatever changes there might be in our circumstances.
When it came down to it the root cause of her “unhappiness” was of course, as we all know, “me”. So her viewpoint was that I should leave and of course continue to support her and our kids in the manner to which she felt entitled.
My viewpoint … which I expressed to her … was that I wasn’t unhappy about anything in our circumstances other than her incidents of bizarre behaviour. So, I changed my response to her “unhappiness”. Rather than my previous practice of generally commiserating with or trying to understand her viewpoint in her various grievances about whatever, I just suggesting that if she was so unhappy with her situation … which of course I didn’t want her to be … she should find a situation that might provide her with greater satisfaction … or more succinctly, “if you don’t like it, leave”.
I grew up with the same set of values I’m sure most of us did, e.g., “being the better person”, “doing the decent thing”, and during a time when males were being told they should be more “sensitive” towards the needs and feelings of females … which overall I believe was a good thing as opposed to the old paternalistic “Father knows best”.
However, while these values work well in respect of most people, I’ve come to believe these don’t work when dealing with a PD and are in fact counter-productive.
SO where my response some years back to “it’s strange that now that I come out, you want to go to bed.” might have been an attempted reasonable explanation such as “I watched comedy longer than I really should have and was about to turn the computer off, and I really want to go to bed.”, my response now would be “so what” and then head off to bed.
Of course this could result in the expected “disagreement” however, at least it would be on my terms and not hers … which of course is based on receiving the usual attempts at a reasonable explanation you’d give to an “adult” controlling how the “discussion” goes.
Anyway, as the years went on, my wife’s incidence of raving tantrums decreased considerable and while things were never what most would see as “smooth” in our marriage, I for the most part found it more tolerable.
That’s only my experience with my particular choices, life experience, personality and wife.
Anon.father: Wish I could provide someplace for you to go. You’ve done such a great job, IMO of offering strength and wisdom to so many others here. Remember, that even as a man, it’s okay to feel weak and stop trying to be strong once in a while, giving in to your tears. A REAL woman would never castigate you for expressing your full range of God-given emotions.
I hope you are safe tonight. Do you have any friends at all who can provide you with a place for a night or two? Anyone she doesn’t know, or at least she wouldn’t know where to find? Anyone? Please be safe. Trust your gut; if things don’t feel right, they are not right.
This scares me, too. It’s like on the movies, when the crazy person stops ranting and raving, and suddenly becomes calm…because they have a ‘plan.’ Be very careful. Watch her eyes and her movements. If she seems suddenly calm and serene, take your daughter, play whatever game you need to to cajole her, and get the hell out of there. You could be in danger. Better to be a little ‘paranoid’ and safe than in a missing person report.
God Bless,
i am honestly running scared and am having a hard time breathing. i don’t have any place to go. when i go home, i have to “fake it,” and my wife seems to be “trying,” but in general, what i say just goes off into some fog and my wife doesn’t really respond to me as if i were a person.
she is not handling taking care of our daughter responsibly, but the whole thing seems to be “almost” within normal boundaries…so the display to the outside world is pretty much normal.
i am really freaking out right now…she really honestly does not respond to what i’m really saying. it’s like i’m not even there…at first i went through all kinds of communication strategies…but now it’s just freaky.
and i swear i wish i had some place to spend the night…and not alone…but WITH our daughter.
Our daughter’s behavior suffers when she is alone with my wife, and i stabilize things…i just don’t have anywhere to go. I’ve called crisis centers and they have places for women, women with children…and they even have places for families…but they don’t have anything for a man with a child.
so it looks like i have to buy my way out of this…i need a pretty significant amount of money NOW to bring in what our situation requires. i don’t see any other way…
but tonight…i’m on my way home…and i’m scared.
My wife has basically lost her mind,i dont know if its because she has so much internal anger,which she denies.lately im finding that she is very bored or unfulfilled in life,shes 40 years old and has been trying to become an actress or something to do with music.Which i think is great,the problem now that is arising is she is shutting me out of her life,burying herself in her computer and lying about where shes going..shes been coming home at noon the next day high on ectasy,the worst part is she wont answer her phone because she says she doesnt want to listen to my bitching,so she would rather me suffer with anxiety.She gets drunk and accuses me of lying to her about things which is not true,i think she is just trying to justify her actions towards me.I am the sole providor and i try and restrict her spending to about 3 thousand a month but when I do im called a controller and she threatens me with going back to exotic dancing,which really doesnt bother me.I guess what bothers me is that I really dont trust my wife anymore and I dont know who she is anymore..It seems the minute Im out of town on business the party wife shows up and goes nuts, and then wont answer my calls,thats the worst abuse for me.Then she reverses the discussion into a full blown fight and the rvolving door starts again.what do i do with this woman
Change doors. Change the locks. She seems like a delusional slut…not that she’s necessarily doing anything with other men, but what self-respecting 40 year old gets high on ecstacy and drunk and wants to be an exotic dancer? Those sound like the actions and pipe dreams of a young (very screwed up) teen.
Talk with someone. If she’s ever called you crazy or accused you of abusing her, or any other sh** about you being ‘the problem,’ use that to your advantage. Say, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said (about me being an evil A*hold), and I’d like to talk to someone about it.” Then find yourself a trustworthy counselor – you may have to shop around – who you feel safe with.
TIP(Dr. T, feel free to correct me): a Good counselor will not tell you what to do, but will ask you questions to get you to think about what you want to / need to do for yourself. If you find someone who is constantly defining you or telling you what to do, keep shopping.
Take care of yourself. Geez…I’d be in hog heaven with $3k to spend every month!! I don’t even make that take home every month!! And I’m making the highest wages I ever have!! Come on!
thanks for the advice,i do appreciate the advice,i dont know why its so hard to break the chains but she has left to punish me more im sure but the locks are getting changed today
I agree with TheGirlInside.
Assuming there are no kids involved, I’d be telling her to hit the road.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but, you have to take care of yourself.
My wife said that she would have full custody of our daughter today, she said our relationship was over and what’s the point. She also told me what I was thinking, doing, saying, and feeling, but would not give me a leg to stand on regarding defining myself. She told me “I wasn’t the kind of man who wants to spend time with the family,” even though I am, but I’ve been clear on no longer wanting to be exposed to abusive behavior.
The conversation was almost entirely one way, and mostly filled with my wife’s projections and false assumptions and well…uncomfortable “definitions” of what I think and what I must think, topped off with “since you didn’t say anything, that proves I’m right.” Which is ludicrous, because maybe I’m not saying anything because I’m shocked at how ridiculous what she’s saying is…especially after all the counselors, books, etc. I’ve brought in.
Even though it’s Sunday, I went off to a cafe to work.
I called 2 crisis lines while at the cafe just to get my head straight. If I were a woman, I would be sleeping in a shelter tonight with our daughter. That is certain. The conversation was scary. But I don’t have a shelter to go to…I just don’t have a place to go.
So, I mean, I’ve never “lied” before really in my life. I am very honest. As I was thinking about whether I would just do a “snow job” on my wife and simply discard her abuse, take care of our daughter as usual, make dinner, make sure she goes to bed, etc. … and just “not talk about it…”
…my wife calls, has our daughter come on the phone, and I agree to go to an amusement park.
What else was I supposed to do?
I was literally petrified.
Where can I find you to talk online?
Hi Daniel,
If you would like to schedule a private session, please contact me at shrink4men@gmail.com.
Kind Regards,
Dr Tara
Hi. The lies just come naturally to them. It was a trait I noticed with my girl friend. Often she would wildly exagerate things so much that I didn’t know if she was telling the truth. Her son even noticed the same trait and would only ever half believe what she told him and had a saying “if my mum tells you something drastic, half it and then you are nearer the truth.”
I guess it is part of the histrionic make up of their personality. I too had a saying and it went along the lines of “you always act like you are on a stage and this is some big dramatic play.” She would almost make “entrances” to a room just like she was on the stage, if it hadn’t been tinged with aggressive behaviour it would have been funny but I always knew what was just around the corner and the next step in her tantrums and that was throwing things or attacking me…sigh…
But the point is Aapeli I am out of it and free from it. Yes it was damn hard and scary to make the break, but I wouldn’t go back to that. I paddle my own canoe now and can see me doing that for quite some time. By all accounts she already has a guy in her life and to some degree I am glad because it takes the focus off me and I also know his life will be hell. You see I was the 7th partner she had either been married to or lived with and so with a history like that I can only ever see one outcome for that woman. Pity she just couldn’t learn to listen and absorb the help people tried to give her.
Mine also has another victim in her life…for the first time. It’s painful but kind of neat….as I, can no longer be blamed for her problems. The other night at 3 am- a sentence came into my mind and it seemed profound, so I went into the kitchen and wrote it down…..”After awhile, all that is left is the anger, and even that must be let go of”
Very true. Thank you, chester.
Damn it:
“But he could keep smiling.”
He is a she of course. My native language doesn’t separate between male and female like that and I do that mistake sometimes, I have to admit.
I have to add that I have noticed that my girlfriend lies quite often to me. I have only realised this in the last few years.
It has been shocking to notice this too as she portrays a very honest image of herself when in front of people like co-workers or friends or strangers. She is like the most honest person on Earth.
But the reality is very different. I have caught her lying to me when it has been blatantly obvious what the truth is. I don’t know how these kinds of people manage to convince themselves that they can lie to other people like that and actually not look like liars.
She will even lie to me when she really would not need to! I mean she will lie to me about things I have absolutely no problem with either way. The lying just makes her look pathetic… one time I asked her directly after such a lie that does she realise that it’s obvious that she is lying. She didn’t say anything, she just stared at me *smiling*, maybe with a slightly puzzled look on her face, as if she genuinely did not know how to respond to what I had said. But he could keep smiling. A simple ‘sorry’ would have been very well done from her but she never does that when I catch her lying to me – she just pretends the whole thing doesn’t exist at all. It’s pathetic. I am starting to think that kind of a behaviour is indeed that of a 5-year-old. They think they can lie when it’s blatantly obvious that they are lying. I think I have met many small children who are way more honest than she is, though…
This thing about lying is something I don’t feel angry at her actually. I just feel disappointed at her. I am on my way to break up with her and I could really do it without seeing her lie and do other bad things to me. I feel I could break up with her and perhaps respect her more if she would not lie so much to me and do other bad things to me. I feel that she is ripping apart the remains of the respect that I have had towards her. As I believe she is not a completely bad person I feel sad about seeing her rip apart the remains of the respect that I have had towards her – we could really end this relationship without that. What I can do is to try and act better by myself and as I have gotten a lot of my self-confidence back this year (through deliberately increased interaction with “normal” people and by going walking and cycling, improving my fitness in general, working with others, and so on…) it has become easier for myself to stay out of the conflicts with her and to ignore her attempts to drag me down with her.
Hi Aapeli. From what you describe I would say that you have 2 choices…Either stay and work like a trojan to get the studies done and then get out OR get out now and complete the studies after you have healed for a few months.
Listen we all make a 1000 excuses why we don’t leave, I have done it myself but once you start to actually get depressed then it is only going to get worse for you. This woman sounds like a real monster. Just from what you tell us I would walk right now. Nobody would dictate to me where I can sit in my own home! That is scandalous behaviour and should not be tolerated by anyone. The other stuff re-enforeces the fact that she is a classic BPD and control freak. She even has to control the shower head!!!
You know the part were you say “if I had broken up with her after 2 years living together” well my friend you would be out, be free and by now be finishing your studies and maybe even in a great relationship with someone else. Don’t waste your life staying because of this or that or some other reason… CARPE DIEM! YEP SEIZE THE DAY! That means do it now, not tomorrow or next week, because trust me you will still be there in 5 years time, still hating your life and still no studies completed.
I know its tough, I know deep down you still care for her but man don’t let her treat you like a door mat any longer.
Good luck and strength to you
Thanks. I agree…
The things that she has done to me do sound crazy. This year I have had a strategy for myself that I remind myself of what she does to me most of the time. Writing a log helps with this a lot. I just read through the old files to come to my senses about her.
This year I have in fact felt sorry for her as I think she may have realised that I have gained some confidence in myself back and therefore I am not so vulnerable to her attacks any more. She is also probably realising that this relationship can end soon by me saying that it will end. She has at times looked like she is falling apart as she is realising I may in fact have the power to end this relationship at the moment I choose to do it. If that would happen she would have lost control over me. I have actually asked her what would she do if I would go away and she would then have nobody at home to yell at. I know what she would do – she would just go meet her mum and dad who live a short distance away from our house and control and bully them. I am fortunate that I can walk out of this but her mum and dad will have to bear with her until their death.
She has actually told me a few times that the relationship will end “now” but then the next day she is going through a catalogue of houses that are for sale and then showing them to me like I should be very excited about buying a house with her. I have told her that this is unacceptable – if she says we must break up then she can’t be asking me to buy a house with her the next day. It’s like she goes from one extreme to the other extreme – and sometimes it happens within a few minutes.
I actually feel very sorry for her mum as she has a kind personality as I have and her husband (my girlfriend’s father) is also a bully. The mum of the family is a really nice person, always working hard and trying to make sure everyone is happy. And her husband bullies her and does pretty much nothing at home other than eat and watch sports and go out to do his hobbies. I feel sorry for the mum as she has not only her husband but also her daughter who show the same kind of behaviour of a bully with NPD.
I’ve read many posts from this page now and there are many comments that sound very familiar to me – like taken directly from my own life. Reading and writing about this helps a lot. When I first found a website about this it was amazing to notice how well the things laid out there matched up with my own life and with my girlfriend. It was like a perfect match.
Someone commented that he feels stupid. I feel stupid too. I should have understood sooner that this woman is not worth of my time. But it’s so easy to say now. I remember that when things started getting bad in our relationship I was indeed very confused as I could not understand her behaviour at all, it was like she had changed into a completely different person overnight when we started to live together. I was unable to understand that that is her real personality and she had just hidden it from me in the first few years when we only dated and didn’t live together yet. Actually one thing that could be seen as a warning sign of this is that we never argued about anything before moving in to live together. Not even one small argument. She was always extremely nice towards me and everyone else in our company. So the shock was very big when she first attacked me at our home. I tried to explain it to myself in many ways and I guess I indeed subconsciously just blamed myself for it. Someone with a better self-confidence would have understood sooner that the problem is the other person and would have gotten out sooner. I know I have never had a very good self-confidence and I believe this may be a common thing for many of the people who end up in this kind of a situation. I think someone with the NPD needs someone who is very kind and maybe with a weaker self-confidence so that they have easier time controlling that person.
This relationship has taught me a lot about myself. This is important as if I don’t learn anything about myself then I may end up in the same situation again with someone else. I hope that my current girlfriend has also learned something about herself, but frankly I don’t think she has learned much. Or at least she displays an image to me which suggests that she has had nothing to learn about, because she has been right and I have been wrong. She is perfect and therefore she has nothing to learn. That’s the image she is displaying. I feel sorry for her because of that as I think she will not learn how she could improve herself and enjoy better relationships in the future. She is in great danger of repeating the same things over and over again.
Hello. I’m a 30-something man from Finland and I can relate to this very much. I’ve been with the same woman since I was 19. When we started to live together 9 years ago it only took about 2 years from her to drive me nuts with her behaviour. It was like a constant storm of mystifyingly aggressive behaviour from her. She would usually come home from work usually half-an-hour later than I did and in about 5 minutes she would start yelling at me red-faced. Over something like a spoon she would have liked to use was dirty because I had just used it to take food. It was not like there were no other spoons she could have used… this problem is not one to go berserk about.
There are many other examples I could tell you. Like when she commanded me not to adjust the height of the shower. It was like I had to bend my knees to fit under the shower just so that she would not have to adjust it for herself. This is ridiculous stuff, but she looked very serious about it. I ignored that command…
Oh, and I was not allowed to sit on the sofa in our living room. That meant I had no seat whilst she was there as there was only one chair and one sofa. If she sat on the chair I was forced to stay out of the living room. Does this sound like “sane” life? Ha-ha, no it doesn’t.
Well, what happened is that I became depressed. Seriously depressed. I guess I subconsciously thought that she was right when she was mocking me for many things. Maybe I was that bad. So, I became depressed. I actually considered breaking up with her after about 2 years of living together. But I decided I would need to complete my studies before I make the decision whether to stay with her or not. I had started 4-year-long studies at the same time we moved to live together.
Well, now I still haven’t completed my studies. You know, a depressed person can have such difficulties. I only have a final thesis to complete but it’s very difficult, I have trouble focusing on it. I certainly have the knowledge and skills to complete it, just not the strength at the moment. I got excellent grades for most of the reports that I turned in at the school. But this one I can’t seem to complete. And I am still with the same woman! But this year I have slowly gotten some of my strength back and breaking up with her and completing the final thesis seems more likely now. It is ironical that had I broken up with her the moment I considered it for the first time after the couple of years of living together, I might actually have been able to prevent myself from sliding into depression. This is so easy to say now but it wasn’t easy then.
What to do when this woman is your mother? Many of these describe how my mother in law treats my husband. Most recently, we were out of town for her birthday, and she has not returned his phone calls for 3 weeks or more. We ended up getting home earlier than expected, but weren’t able to see her because she would not make contact. We have no idea how to respond.
He calls her everyday and usually sees her about once a week, but it is never enough. When upset, she frequently tells him that he is a bad son, he doesn’t care about her, she doesn’t have anyone else, etc. She complains about him to friends and family, even in situations that she has manipulated (i.e. – complaining that we would not come along to some family gathering, even though she never passed along the invite–and all communication from the family must come through her).
I’m sure as the new wife I am taking a lot of blame in public or in her heart for her unhappiness, and though I don’t mind being the scapegoat, I sure wish it was enough to spare my husband on the grief. I’m terrified of when we have children because we have no idea how to handle her.
Guys. You have been programmed, that’s the point! They re-configure what you consider normal and acceptable. I would bet my last dollar/pound or whatever that everyone here would agreee that if they were sat watching this on TV they would say to the TV “Jeeez just leave the bitch.” But in real life we put up with it. Now that can be for many reasons including fear of the unknown, a grain of good times now and again, children etc etc. The fact is we all went onto the internet and thought “hmmmm I wonder if I can get help because this isn’t right.” We took the first step and that’s so important because it is the first step out of this mess we call a relationship.
Some of us are further along and some of us are still considering what to do. But don’t for one minute think you have any blame in all this. I certainly don’t! Yes I am human and yes I have made mistakes but I have always tried to remain calm and controlled. I read on here stuff that’s worse than the punches and drinks thrown in my face and it astounds me that these women are still able to even speak to us. I would not be able to look at a person that I had wronged so badly let alone try to defend my actions.
Poor little lady had such a hard up bringing or this that or the other. Well utter rubbish I say! You get kids in Africa that grow up dodging bullets and have nothing but they make damn fine human beings. Their is no excuse for the way they act or behave and don’t for one minute think you owe them anything other than showing them the door and informing them “don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.”
I grew my set of nuts a few weeks ago and damn fine I feel now! Have her back? Not if she won the soddin lottery had a major boob job and could suck a golf ball through 10 foot of hose pipe!
Keep the faith guys, Stay strong.
Excellent Stefano, you hit the nail on the head, begining with (The fact is we all went onto the internet and thought “hmmmm I wonder if I can get help because this isn’t right.” ) And you’re right if we watched it on TV we’d say “Jeeez just leave the bitch.” But in real life we put up with it.
Very well put Stefano, glad you’re out
I unfortunately do blame myself, after all, I was held responsible for all that went wrong, I was responsible for the headbattering i Got as a result of a usually trivial matter, somtimes a coment I made, the look I had on my face, my tone of voice, the mind reading and projection. IF i then tried to defend what ‘I had done’, id get a real verbal onslaught, in such a controlled and powerful way. I really find it difficult to put into words what actually happened, it really seemed to temporarily wipe my emotional and mental hard drive, id leave, lick my wounds for a few days/week, then be made to feel guilty for leaving her. Id end Apologising???? wtf? I feel like ive been re programed and now having to un programme myself
Emotionally abusive relationships can draw anybody in for the long run. I hope anybody who is currently in one or recently departed from one does not feel its their fault.
My ex and I dated for about 3.5 years – through university and about a year afterward. We moved in together after graduating and that’s when things went bad. I paid the majority of the rent, bills, and she used my cell phone all day (not to mentioned calling LD to her parents). Our sex life ended.
Two months after moving in, my best friend and his girlfriend were in town for her birthday. We went out to celebrate but my girlfriend eventually got upset that we weren’t doing what she wanted to do. Long story short, she stormed off in a cab to go home (she said she was going to the bar she likes by herself), threw my friends’ stuff into the hall of our building, and locked me out. When I didn’t apologize for saying she was acting selfish, she broke the 42 inch flatscreen my father purchased for us when we moved in. When I explained why I was upset, she told me to stop caring about my best friend, that he didn’t care about me, and etc. with curses everywhere.
Eventually, I was walking on egg shells. I couldn’t go out with friends because I wasn’t allowed to have fun without her. My friends hated her and never invited her anywhere. I eventually became a shut-in. She told me nobody else cared about me and basically cut me off from the outside world.
She had issues with my friends that were women. Extreme jealousy that erupted into numerous arguments. She thought I would cheat on her any second and that every woman was trying to steal me away. With one friend in particular, she told me I was never allowed to see her again – if I loved her, I wouldn’t.
The few times I did go out, I would go to my university friends’ band’s shows. It was great – I’d get to see all my friends and it was usually a blast. For one show, I told her I was going the girl mentioned above and although my ex originally said she didn’t want to come, as soon as she found out, she decided that it would be a good idea if she did. We got in a tiff at the bar over the girl, and she decided to throw my pint in my face. The glass connected too, unfortunately, and she split me open less than a centimeter away from my left eye. I was bleeding everywhere, luckily not blinded, and she ran off. All my friends were there to witness.
To continue the story above, you all need to understand that emotional abusers always make themselves the victims (which most of you know already). In fact, she had screwed my head up so much over the years that when I was in ER getting stitches, I called a mutual friend (my ex ran to her house and I knew it) and told her to make sure she got home safely and that she didn’t do anything stupid. When I got home, they were there and my ex was sitting there balling her eyes out with some screaming thrown in. I was the one with 7 stitches in my face, but she was the victim.
Now how strong can an emotional abuser’s control be? I agreed to stay with her. I don’t know why, but I do think I was mostly scared that she wouldn’t have anybody to take care of her and that she may hurt herself. In fact, 1 month later I bought her a puppy on her birthday.
A couple of months later, I broke up with her over a minimal thing. I just snapped out of her control and knew I had to walk away or risk losing myself entirely. She stayed in the apartment for an extra 30 days just to spite me (she told this to a mutual friend).
Emotional abusers aren’t necessarily aware of what they are doing. They will always make themselves the victims in every situation – no matter how dire. They cut you off from all other people in your life. They take from you and expect to give nothing back. They train to you to feel like you can’t walk away. They use childish insults to hurt and attack you and in my case, she took it a step further and destroyed my property and physically harmed me.
You may feel like a fool at the end of it. I did. I’m a strong person and looking back, I can’t even fathom how I let myself go through all that. But, the more I read about emotional abuse, the more I realize that I wasn’t myself. I was slowly emotionally battered and beaten without my noticing until it was too late.
I just hope none of you blame yourself. I’m returning to my normal self and I hope the rest of you are as well. In fact, I’ve found somebody who appreciates me and makes me feel good about being me. We support each other and treat each other with respect. I had actually forgotten what a healthy relationship was.
Just wanted to share my experience and advice.