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For people who have been in abusive relationships, how long into the relationship did it take you to figure out something was wrong with the person you were dating and what were the things you should have been on the look out for. What made you realize, I might have a problem here? Second how predictable was the abuse, ie did it occur just when he or she was drunk or mental health episodes or was there no rhyme or reason to it? Lastly was this person initially charming or what initially drew you into a relationship that made you initially decide this was a good person to date? Was their any type of grooming involved?
Lastly did anything anyone else said or did, was it actually helpful to you when you felt trapped in the relationship?
For people who have been in abusive relationships, how long into the relationship did it take you to figure out something was wrong with the person you were dating and what were the things you should have been on the look out for. What made you realize, I might have a problem here? Second how predictable was the abuse, ie did it occur just when he or she was drunk or mental health episodes or was there no rhyme or reason to it? Lastly was this person initially charming or what initially drew you into a relationship that made you initially decide this was a good person to date? Was their any type of grooming involved?
Lastly did anything anyone else said or did, was it actually helpful to you when you felt trapped in the relationship?
I've been in the situation personally. You might not notice anything until it's too late, until the first shove, slap or punch. Right off the bat, if he is drinks more than you think is normal, STAY AWAY from him.
If you make the mistake to continue seeing him, in the courting/grooming phase, you will be romanced and treated like a princess, affection openly expressed, and plenty of intense rolls in the hay with long cuddles after and warm softly spoken words of endearment. There will be flowers and gifts but they might not be wrapped, maybe stolen from someone's garden, or picked up at a pawn shop. Rings he gives won't fit you. He seems to forget his wallet and you end up paying. That sort of thing. DON'T LET IT GO PAST THIS POINT. It's almost too late anyway.
If you move ahead without using good judgment and have him move in, it's a major mistake. Control will escalate. He won't go to see your folks and won't visit your friends or let you go anywhere without him. He will lie about his family and won't share about them. He'll find things wrong about how you keep house, like the carpet has to be vacuumed everyday and likewise the tub cleaned daily or the way you fold his clothes. He'll block your car in. He'll get overly upset with you for talking to him while is watching his sports. You end up walking on eggshells around him.
Ending up in the hospital is going to happen, that is if he lets you leave to go there. If he has you under surveillance of some kind, it's danger and you should run to a woman's shelter. They will help you with the things you need to do from there, like legal advise, how to protect yourself. I suggest you don't fall into the trap of trying to reclaim your possessions no matter how much you think they are worth or how sentimental they are. You have to make a severe clean break.
What a heavy question. Its not your usual style, shelato. You are usually very positive and don't focus on negative topics like this.
I have been in relationships that weren't healthy, when I was young, and still figuring things out. I wasn't one of the lucky ones that have never ever erred. But to my credit I do tend to learn from mistakes and part of that process involves thinking and processing long and hard.
Thankfully I have never found myself actually trapped in an abusive situation. I am very concerned about anyone who does. I strongly believe grooming is involved, isolation, financial abuse (taking control over finances), and targeting of those vulnerable (the very young, naive, disabled, poor, etc.).
My situation can be summed up by listening to Taylor Swift "I knew you were trouble."
But it doesn't compare to truly abusive situations in which a definite power dynamic exists and one person is exploiting that dynamic without remorse.
What a heavy question. Its not your usual style, shelato. You are usually very positive and don't focus on negative topics like this.
I have been in relationships that weren't healthy, when I was young, and still figuring things out. I wasn't one of the lucky ones that have never ever erred. But to my credit I do tend to learn from mistakes and part of that process involves thinking and processing long and hard.
Thankfully I have never found myself actually trapped in an abusive situation. I am very concerned about anyone who does. I strongly believe grooming is involved, isolation, financial abuse (taking control over finances), and targeting of those vulnerable (the very young, naive, disabled, poor, etc.).
My situation can be summed up by listening to Taylor Swift "I knew you were trouble."
But it doesn't compare to truly abusive situations in which a definite power dynamic exists and one person is exploiting that dynamic without remorse.
I usually am pretty positive, but this question sprung from the thread about the tv weather guy who made the elaborate on air wedding proposal to his on air coworker at the television station and my own intuition that this guy was trouble. So when I found out that he was divorced within three years from this woman and hit her, that made me wonder how tough is it for women to actually identify guys like this guy? His behavior just seemed too over the top and I thought what is this guy hiding? The local weather guy should be getting plenty of attention already, why does he need to invite the public into his wedding proposal?
But I realized I actually wanted to hear how actual women interact with guys like this and how they spot them and if it is hard to for women to actually spot guys that are going to be trouble for them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kitty61
I've been in the situation personally. You might not notice anything until it's too late, until the first shove, slap or punch. Right off the bat, if he is drinks more than you think is normal, STAY AWAY from him.
Okay so booze is a big factor that makes sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kitty61
If you make the mistake to continue seeing him, in the courting/grooming phase, you will be romanced and treated like a princess, affection openly expressed, and plenty of intense rolls in the hay with long cuddles after and warm softly spoken words of endearment. There will be flowers and gifts but they might not be wrapped, maybe stolen from someone's garden, or picked up at a pawn shop. Rings he gives won't fit you. He seems to forget his wallet and you end up paying. That sort of thing. DON'T LET IT GO PAST THIS POINT. It's almost too late anyway.
So there is an actual grooming process I can see that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kitty61
If you move ahead without using good judgment and have him move in, it's a major mistake. Control will escalate. He won't go to see your folks and won't visit your friends or let you go anywhere without him. He will lie about his family and won't share about them. He'll find things wrong about how you keep house, like the carpet has to be vacuumed everyday and likewise the tub cleaned daily or the way you fold his clothes. He'll block your car in. He'll get overly upset with you for talking to him while is watching his sports. You end up walking on eggshells around him.
Ending up in the hospital is going to happen, that is if he lets you leave to go there. If he has you under surveillance of some kind, it's danger and you should run to a woman's shelter. They will help you with the things you need to do from there, like legal advise, how to protect yourself. I suggest you don't fall into the trap of trying to reclaim your possessions no matter how much you think they are worth or how sentimental they are. You have to make a severe clean break.
So he gets controlling real quickly, I can see that.
I don't think I would ever accept physical abuse from anyone.
However, I feel like I was gaslighted, brainwashed, worn down and manipulated to the point where I thought I am the problem. He was mentally ill, on a lot of pills, charming like no one else, nasty like no one else also. I think I only let it happen because he was the most amazing/smart/brilliant/sad/attractive/charismatic/lonely man I ever met and he started showing his true colors slowly by the time I was 100% committed and had no voice of reason in my head anymore. I made excuses for him to my friends and myself and was completely out of my mind, trying to make it work, no matter what he did/said.
It was a 3 year up and down and it took me at least 4 years to recover. I felt like someone sucked the life out of me.
For people who have been in abusive relationships, how long into the relationship did it take you to figure out something was wrong with the person you were dating and what were the things you should have been on the look out for. What made you realize, I might have a problem here? Second how predictable was the abuse, ie did it occur just when he or she was drunk or mental health episodes or was there no rhyme or reason to it? Lastly was this person initially charming or what initially drew you into a relationship that made you initially decide this was a good person to date? Was their any type of grooming involved?
Lastly did anything anyone else said or did, was it actually helpful to you when you felt trapped in the relationship?
I think back to the beginning of my relationship with the first husband, and everything was a red flag. It's just that at that age, nothing seemed...serious. Like I had all the time of forever to correct any mistakes I might be making, I could handle anything, and I had little care for the consequences. Those aspects that older me would instantly see as a problem, at the time I was like "maybe with me in his life, he won't be like that." Also, he did a lot of blaming of his first and second wives for all of his own problem behavior and he was really convincing that he was only like that because they were the way they were. That if only the women in his life hadn't been so crazy and bad, the crazy bad incidents and situations would not have happened, HE, after all, has a "heart of gold" and is a "good guy."
He even had me saying it.
And I think he tested me in some ways. Like he would tell a story, repeatedly (I heard it a number of times while we were together, he'd say it with this distant expression)... Where he walked in on his second wife having sex with another man, and he blacked out with rage, and he doesn't remember doing it but others saw him punch her twice, and then he threw the guy off a balcony. Telling that story, over and over...what purpose does that serve other than to say, "you had better never betray me or I will not be responsible for the violent things I do."...? Or to see if I would accept the idea that a man pushed too far has a right to violence? He was always talking about all of his military training and how deadly and dangerous he was.
I honestly didn't realize "oh god, this is horrible, what have I gotten myself into" until I was very pregnant with our first child...and I'd decided to keep the baby because from the moment I knew of the conception I was just crazy full of love for the concept of "BABY" in my mind and heart... Well one day I had an ultrasound appointment and I wanted him to go with me, and we were at a bus stop and he had been arguing that he wanted to go home and get high and didn't think he needed to be there. And finally he yelled at me about how hard he works and how tired he was and he just took off and left me there. And in that moment I felt like I was on my own. I was 19 and pregnant out to there, and I think from that moment I felt I no longer had a partner in building a family, I had a man to manage and use to get a job done of parenting a child and surviving as best we could. But I was going to have to be strong on my own even though he was there. He wasn't in this with me. He was in it for himself.
He had moments...maybe two or three over the span of 18 years...where physical discipline of the kids went just a little too far. But they were so rare and not injurious enough to require medical care...I filed them away but they did not trigger me to leave, the fear of trying to survive and parent them as a single parent on what money I could make...the fear of poverty, which I HAD experienced...was greater than a perceived need to get away from him then. Things did not get truly violent and overtly unacceptable and abusive until he got out of the military in 2013...and it just steadily went downhill from that point.
Alcohol was a big factor, too. He was less awful in the years when he did not drink. There were many of those. But after he returned from Iraq, he started drinking and just got worse and worse.
But there was stuff he hid from me from the very beginning. He'd had a fight with 2nd wife where he fired a full clip of bullets from a handgun into the wall about a foot away from her head. He'd gone behind my back and physically beat up and intimidated every male friend I had that he knew of when we barely knew one another and were just starting to date, to get anyone he saw as "competition" to stay away from me. I sometimes wonder if I'd have stopped myself getting involved with him if I'd known those things.
For people who have been in abusive relationships, how long into the relationship did it take you to figure out something was wrong with the person you were dating and what were the things you should have been on the look out for. What made you realize, I might have a problem here? Second how predictable was the abuse, ie did it occur just when he or she was drunk or mental health episodes or was there no rhyme or reason to it? Lastly was this person initially charming or what initially drew you into a relationship that made you initially decide this was a good person to date? Was their any type of grooming involved?
Lastly did anything anyone else said or did, was it actually helpful to you when you felt trapped in the relationship?
When I was in my 20's, I dated a guy for about 3 months. He was VERY handsome...movie star handsome, and at first, seemed like a pretty normal and nice guy.
Then I found out he drank a lot. It was a red flag, but I rationalized it as "Well, we're young. We drink. Not a big deal. But it was a big deal. He stood me for a date once...didn't hear from him at all, until about 10 or 11 oclock that night, when he showed up outside my bedroom window, drunk, begging me to come outside and talk to him. I fell asleep, after circular arguing with him, to the sound of him begging me to talk to him. Another time, he showed up drunk to my place, and fell asleep on my couch.
Then we were on a date, and at this bar, having fun. He suddenly decides we need to go...like RIGHT NOW. We were both inebriated...should not be driving. Plus, we (he) was driving my car. I didn't want to leave yet, because we were drunk. This made him mad, and he grabbed my arm and we left. And he drove my car like a maniac. He intended to drive us back to his place, but before that, he stopped at a liquor store to buy more whatever.
I said something like "You're going to buy MORE beer?!? You're already drunk!" He raised his hand to me and was going to back-hand me. He thought better of it, but I was shocked. I said "You were going to HIT me? You almost back handed me?? He told me to shut up, and got out of the car, bought a 6 pack, and we went back to his place.
I was pretty scared. I sat on the couch, he went in his room, stripped down to his underwear, came into the living room, sat next to me, put his head in my lap, and passed out.
When he passed out, I slowly and carefully got up, looked around in his room for my keys, found my keys, and I left. I was happy to make it home alive. That was the last time I ever saw him.
He called me the next day to apologize. I told him I appreciated the apology, but we were never going to see each other anymore. We were done. I actually was pretty nice in my tone...but firm. Nope...we're done. I told him he needed help, but I was not the one to give it. And that was it.
Oh...I forgot...there was another guy. One time there was this guy I was dating...I pinched his cheek once...not an aggressive angry thing...not a hurtful thing...more like a love pat, but he grabbed my hand, and bent my fingers back to the point of pain, and told me to never do that again. He did it in front of my boys.
That was it. Relationship over.
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