Far and Away

I have had numerous arguments with my mother about their situation also @Faith-and-Hope She tells me to support her no matter what and I tell her to stop enabling the ongoing behaviour by pretending nothing is going on. For a long time we were quite distant - mainly because I did not want to be involved in such a stressful and abusive environment. Once he stopped the drinking and drugs it became easier to be around but under any kind of stress his true character comes out. I have not liked him from the beginning - we went away to the footy one weekend and he came - this was right at the beginning of their relationship. He drank the whole day and then yelled abuse at me in the car on the way home - swearing, shouting and saying really nasty things. I still to this day do not know where that came from or why it was directed at me but I had nowhere to go. I have never been back to the footy when we have played in Tassie again ...and I didn't have a birthday that year as I didn't want him anywhere around ...been pretty much the case ever since.

When they got engage I was the last person my sister told - she knew what my reaction would be. After she told me she also said she would leave him if he did not change ....that was over 10 years ago.

Oh @Zoe7, that’s terrible. I think I know why he treated you that way, and without being able to say that it is the same, it is uncomfortably familiar.

Within my in-law family, the ones inflicted with this type of personality generally don’t shout .... but they swear to an ugly extreme with no provocation, in a confronting and unnecessary way, and speak abusively and mockingly about others all the time. Their initial presentation doesn’t hint at this, so you are blindsided when it first breaks out, and it makes you complicit by being in their company - or risk vindictive backlashes if you take any sort of stand. While WH didn’t contribute, he condoned and enabled, leaving me thinking that he was not the same, but what could he do ? They were his family .....

Now the picture has shifted. Now I see triangulation, and that that behaviour was confined and enabled because it helped to keep me submissive to him by default. It kept me thinking that he was the black sheep of the family, and coupled with his hard-working ethos (now it reads as an addiction) and the image as a faithful husband and would-be family man if work didn’t consume so much of his time and energy (now it reads as mirroring my values and revealing only what I wanted to see in him so he appeared to be my soul-mate), he engineered the outcomes he wanted.

There are different meanings to “far and away” .... and different ways to travel in directions you never intended to go .... amongst people who have never had your best interests at heart.

I feel so sorry to hear what you have gone through, and what you are watching your sister endure, but you are also right - the decisions she has to make are hers, and I think she would have benefitted greatly from listening to you.

Edit: “confined and enabled” = condoned and enabled ^^^

@Zoe7

You’re up very late @Zoe7 ....

I have for a long time 'watched' what you have been through Hon and related a lot of it to my own experiences in so many ways - between my Dad, my ex and my sister's partner I have seen so much similarity in WH - and so often wanted to do anything I could to get you out from under the constant abuse control and vindictiveness. But it was never my place (or in my control) to do any of that for you - just like my sister (and me before that) it had to be you that did that for yourself. I am so very sorry that you have endured so much for so long and that it continues to be such a horrible situation for you to be in. I know how it is when you love someone so much and you struggle with the actual reality of what is happening but hope that things will change. ...and even though our situations are/were very different there takes for the other person to eventually leave for the relationship to end. I can only hope that WH does not continue to be so nasty and vindictive in the coming months and that things can be worked out more amicably. ...but if that is not the case then get all the support you can possibly get to stand your ground and fight for what you deserve - because @Faith-and-Hope you have withstood so much and now it is time for you to live your life

Yep still up - can't sleep.

Me neither, re sleep. When I lie down at the end of the day, it means putting away all the distractions I have been keeping my mind busy with, and my problem-solving thinking starts up ..... turning things over in mind mind and piecing then together. As uncomfortable as that is, I can also recognise it as armouring up and preparing to fight. My baby dragons are caught in the crossfire, and having their own hopes and wishes of what they want their father to be mirrored back to them ..... and I don’t know how much or how well they can see through that mirage. The legal exchanges in the background are producing a completely different story.

Until ten years ago, the patterns of abuse in our situation were difficult to identify and define. That made them appear random and confusing .... all part of gaslighting, I am learning. They have progressively, and by stealth, become increasingly overt (as opposed to covert) across that time, and I mistakenly thought they belonged to the eating disordered behaviour ..... and then to control issues where a need for order, routine, perfectionism had taken over, so he didn’t mean for it to happen. That phase is what is referred to as “the devaluation” ..... and it was engineered.

I didn’t know it was engineered until the betrayal surfaced, and the mask was removed in what is called “the discard” ..... and there was the same aggressive, abusive, smirking and arrogant body language and tone of voice that I had experienced for so long in the other family members I spoke of.

And now he has moved directly into a set of values completely at odds with the ones we raised our children with - it’s a complete 180 degrees - and as shocking as the verbal attacks had ever been. He is now living in exactly the way he has professed not to be throughout our marriage of 35 years, and that he professed not to respect for all that time. In fact he scorned his father and other family members for doing the exact same thing, only WH is worse. They didn’t parade their conquests and new life choices across their old one, publicly devaluing it. He doesn’t seem to realise, all he is achieving is devaluing himself.

It will become more obvious to those around you what he is doing Hon but your baby dragons will take more time to see that because of the ideal father they WANT to have. They also will not stand for you to be abused so much in amongst it all now that he is parading this new woman in front of everyone. If that had not been the case then there would have been a fair chance that they would take een longer to see what he is really like so in a way this is a blessing in disguise.

My sister's partner is exactly the same - he is a mirror image of his father and he hates his father - but he can't see those same characteristics within himself ...and much like your WH He idolises his mother - who has similar traits but less obvious on the surface. My sister can see that - and openly states that - but it is not enough presently for her to leave hiim.

Unlike you though there are no children involved and that is where it has been so tricky for you over all these years. Now they are older and can see things for themselves there is no doubt that more and more of his abusive characteristics will come out because it is not just you shouldering all of the burden now but they have their own voice also. Often with these types of people the more opposition there is to their 'ideal world' the more abusive they become and certainly if they are challenged in any way the vindictiveness, nastiness and abuse you are enduring increases. My fear for so long has been that once it gets to this stage that you will be the brunt of it all - and it seems like that is happening - so do whatever you need to do to protect yourself. I know you are also looking out for your kids and you do not want them to be hurt as much as you can prevent it in all this but please make sure you also look after yourself.

You have been the rock in this family for so long and put yourself behind everyone else - and of course you have had to do that for your kids - now they can step up themselves and find their own path forward - and that is just as important as you doing the same. I know you have D2 to consider along with S2's and D3's mental health but they also need to step up for their own selves and take some of that control back for themselves as well.

As for the not sleeping - I totally hear you. You have so much whirling around you need to think about and do - and it is uncomfortable, scary, upsetting to have to do that. My mind is playing games with me again lately so you have me here with you until you can turn off and sleep Hon.

💐🦋💜💕 @Zoe7

WH (and I have a different interpretation on that now than the Wayward Husband it started out as) is masquerading as having turned over a new leaf in terms of his parenting, and is using our finances to claim to be the sole supporter of our kids. He is vying to be seen as the principle carer, and using my studies to suggest J have abandoned the kids for my own selfish pursuits ..... projecting his own behaviour into me in that regard.

All I know is that truth is a force to be reckoned with, and it doesn’t remain hidden. It keeps rising to the surface no matter what you do to try to conceal it.

There will come a day of reckoning out of all of this.

He has been manipulating that behind your back for sometime @Faith-and-Hope It is certainly obvious now in hindsight that that is what he has been laying the path for over the last year or so especially. That is calculated and nasty to the extreme and besides doing that he has had this other women there as well. ...and although you have right on your side that makes it very difficult. Truth will come out - stay that course Hon. You have moved across the country for your kids, you haveshown them the way with your own role modelling of what can be achieved at any stage of your life with your studies and you have continued to hold your family together under exceptional adversity. He is the one that cheated on the family, he is the one that travelled back and forth at his own whim and he is the one that continues to be vindictive and cruel - yes the truth will out eventually but for now it is a living nightmare - my whole heart goes out to you and I am going to be by your side the whole way

I can’t thank you, and my other forum friends, enough for helping me find the courage and strength to persevere @Zoe7. Just knowing that I have a place where I belong with all this, amongst others whose challenges are different to mine, but no less difficult and difficult to share beyond where you are understood and cared for.