Our r/s was full of emotional blackmail. I ended up walking on eggshells for most of it. I had a constant knot in my stomach. It was most definitely abuse.
I am so familiar with that knot. It only happened in my r/s a few times, but I'm almost certain that's bc we didn't spend extended periods of time together until JUST before we split up. We hadn't even spent an entire weekend together for the 2.5 years we were dating, right up until the three weekends before it all blew into smithereens! The first two of those weekends were actually pretty nice. I felt like a "normal" couple, at last, doing things adults do together (traveling and taking care of kids together). There were a couple of moments where I thought he acted like a jerk, but nothing outrageous... .more "to be expected, we are spending a lot of time with kids together."
The third weekend was just awful. It's like Mr. Hyde came out. He didn't rage or anything, just treated me and my kids like we were not even there, really, while he catered to his own kids at everyone else's expense (not just me and mine, we were with a very large group of people) and acted like a general grouch. I was shocked and embarrassed, to tell the truth. It became clear to me that he truly expected EVERYONE, not just me, to put his needs (and his children's wants, not needs) before the "good of the whole." This surprised the crud out of me because he truly was a polite, affectionate, and considerate guy, usually. I didn't say anything, though, because I thought: we're all getting tired and on each other's nerves and it's a huge adjustment. I began to feel resentful though, AND I noticed that he was really, really self-centered... .he didn't consult me on anything and allowed his kids to determine the agenda the whole time, without asking how I felt about anything, or what I wanted to do. Still... .I thought, he doesn't really know what he's doing, this is new for all of us.
Cut to the following week. We were all exhausted from traveling and during this time I discovered that he was doing something he'd agreed not to do... .related to his r/s with his ex-wife. I asked him for an explanation, and he gave me crap, sarcastic comments, pretended not to know what I was talking about, minimized, etc. I let it rest for awhile and then brought it up again the next day.
I tried SO HARD to communicate appropriately, I rehearsed it. I said, "I don't feel safe in this relationship if you aren't honest with me, and if my feelings don't matter to you enough to make a change. Since you say that this is not a big deal to you, but it is to me, I feel like you should be willing to change it. Especially bc I never fuss at you about anything, and you know I don't make demands."
At that point he said:
- You are being dramatic
- You are making a mountain out of a molehill
- This is stupid
- I don't have to ask your permission to do what I want
- I refuse to partake in this
I tried to articulate that I wasn't making a demand, except that he TELL ME THE TRUTH so I could decide for myself if I wanted to accept his terms, but he kept pretending like the argument was about one thing (what he was doing) and not the other (his lying/misleading me), when it was actually about both things!
That's all she wrote, folks. He refused to talk to me for a week or more (claiming exhaustion, but still yukking it up on FB with all his "friends" and when he finally spoke to me he said, "you were right, I don't hold your feelings in high enough regard, I'm done."
I'd say there's more but there really isn't much more, he refused to talk with me, didn't say one nice word while breaking up, didn't wish me well, didn't say he was sorry (and he should have been, he claimed I was the big love of his life).
Then right when I started coming down from totally reeling, he started harassing me via prank phone calls to my cell in the middle of the night, phony emails, and fake calls to my office, all meant to make me anxious, I'm sure (bc I had a mentally ill stalker last year that he knew about--but this wasn't that guy, he doesn't have my contact info).
Last week, I contacted him, and he told me that he'd heard about me dating someone else and it "made him sick." No coincidence, the timeframe where he heard about it was when the harassment started.
I'm not sure why I just retold that story. I still feel very uncertain about the nature of the beast, and am working on understanding.
