Am I going crazy?

By SallyJane

It wasn't physical abuse - well, that happened just the once. When I look back now it was there from the very early days of our 30 year relationship, and for some reason I chose not to give it the significance it deserved.

It was a constant belittling, a laughter at my ideas, an agreement after discussion or argument which then didn't happen and when questioned was denied, it was so many emotional manipulations. I began to question my ability to remember events, conversations, agreements. I thought I was always wrong and had to try harder to be a good partner and later, a good mother. When I questioned what had happened, why I had got things so wrong (according to him) I thought I was going crazy.

Individually the events seem small, but they undermined and eroded my confidence. It was their constancy that wore me down more and more and still I felt I had to try harder and do more. It got the the point where I stopped asking him to do anything, because I realised he would not do it, or if he did he would make me feel a failure for not doing it myself. Or he would laugh at the idea that I wanted it done at all. I found myself working, doing everything for the children and managing the house and garden solo.

One day at a couples counselling session I thought we'd agreed to separate. When I raised the subject at home that night he denied it had happened. The next day I was feeling brave and I called the counsellor who was reluctant to speak with me as he was seeing us as a couple. I asked him to just confirm one thing, whether he thought we had agreed this. He said he had. Then I realised that there were many, many instances of events being "recreated" or "reframed" to deny my thoughts or recollections. I began to realise I was not going crazy, I was being manipulated.

There was also financial abuse - no access to family funds and having to purchase everything for the household and our three children and myself from my wages. He only paid for what he felt like paying for. He questioned my financial decisions and derided them.

This continued for quite some time. He seemed to have a radar for when I wanted to discuss something. I'd come out of the bedroom from having put our children to bed and he'd be gone - no note on the kitchen table, message on the phone, just gone.

I wanted to leave because after trying for a number of years to shift the dynamic in our relationship, I realised it would never happen - he was happy with the corner he had boxed me into and the way he treated me. I felt stuck because I felt I would be ostracised by my Christian family and stuck because of my own beliefs that a) if you try hard enough you can make a relationship work and b) I couldn't afford to live singly and c) the children were better off living with both their parents.

For me the final straw came when he asked me to pay rent. I don't know why it was that event that finally made up my mind. Leaving was the most stressful and difficult thing I have ever done and I lived in poverty for the first year, worried about every cent I spent and where the next dollar would come from. But now after the passage of time, I am glad it happened and while I regret that our relationship didn't work out and wasn't what I had hoped it would be, I don't regret leaving what it had become.