Cindy’s Signs of Being Abused
I read The Verbally Abusive Man: Can He Change? by Patricia Evans. I realized my husband had made me his dream woman. In other words, I was there to express some part of him that he had never learned or been allowed to express. If I had my own thoughts and feelings, and they didn’t line up with what he thought they should be he would simply block me out.
I felt frustrated because he never remembered things I told him. He never, ever asked how I felt, what kind of day I had, if I liked something. He said I was too sensitive, that he was only joking after saying something mean. He got more and more rude with the way he spoke to me, like I was some guy in a bar, not his wife.
He never shows me consideration. One time at church I was standing next to him having a conversation with someone and when he waved his hand in the air he flipped a cookie right out of my hand. I was embarrassed, but not surprised that I had to pick it up myself. He carried on as if nothing had happened, though he knew exactly what he had done.
Cindy’s Emotional Signs of Abuse
Frustration, Anxiety, Confusion, Fear, Anger
Cindy’s Story of Abuse
If we fought he would blow up way disproportionate to whatever we were disagreeing about. He said mean, hateful things and I gave it right back. Then he’d storm out of the house for a while and I would be bewildered most of the time. He’d come back, apologize and then add BUT…. there was always something I had done or said that MADE him act the way he did.
I’ve been married thirty-seven years. For many of those years my husband and I had many conflicts that were never resolved. He seemed to accept a lot of responsibility for our problems, and I got tired of counting the number of times he swore he was going to “do better”. We went to a marriage counselor once but he refused to do anything the counselor suggested.
I hated going to visit his family out of state. He would revert to being his mother’s child the whole time we were there. The men were so disrespectful to her. She’d put this great meal on the table and my sister-in-law and her husband would be there, too, and she’d call the men in for dinner and they wouldn’t come for five minutes…ten minutes…until they were damn good and ready. This happened until the day my father-in-law died two years ago.
One Christmas my mother-in-law secretly bought my father-in-law a new reclining chair for a surprise. She wrapped a picture of it and gave it to him on Christmas day when we were all there. I’ll never forget this. He looked at her and said, “What the hell do I need that for, I got a perfectly good chair.” He was just mean and selfish and my husband is turning into him.
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