Any male victims from female abuse?
I was talking to a dear friend of mine who told me years ago how he has been physically abused by his wife and how hard it was for him to share this, because so few people believed his story. Or laughed when he dared to share. Yesterday we talked about how hidden these stories are. He believes it is a lot more prevalent than it seems. People are just to ashamed to share or afraid they won’t be believed.
I recognised his trouble. I was abused by my mother for years, physically and mentally, after she separated from my dad (who she abused as well). In my life I have shared this story to only a handful of people, often being disappointed by their reactions.
What made this especially difficult was how my mom managed to convince me and the people around my family that my dad was actually the aggressor. ‘Woman gets beat up by man’ is just a lot more believable.
In hindsight, it feels like such a twisted dynamic, where my mom as a female abuser used the stories of actual female victims to hide or defend her own abuse.
Of course I do not in any way want to diminish the aggression that women experience. It is a lot more prevalent, and this issue needs all the attention it can get.
I was just wondering if there are any other men here who are victims from female abusers and if you recognise the difficulty in sharing your story as well.
Yes. I can't yet talk about it, even with my therapist, but yes.
I get it. I send you all the strength and kindness I have. You’re not alone.
Far more prevalent than thought, absolutely.
If you take a quick read on the Wikipedia of Domestic violence against men, it both incredibly under reported (roughly a fifth or more compared to women who report), and much more prevalent than thought with about a 1/10th to a full fifth of all men being on the receiving end of domestic violence in their life.
Police are less likely to believe men being abused, doctors as well, and the societal conformity demeans them even more so if they talk openly about it as they continue to receive societal effects of the physical abuse ensuring that less and less people willingly talk about it.
Thank you for sharing. Awful stats and yet somehow in a strange way comforting to know.
My ex was verbally and emotionally abused by his ex for years. He ended up getting back together with her after we broke up. I really hope she has changed.
I know this isn't really the point of this discussion, but I'm a female victim of female abuse. Due to my upbringing (with a homophobic/transphobic parent), I have a lot of shame about it and it makes my life a living hell sometimes. My parents are still friendly to my abuser and go out of their way to tell me about their interactions with her/her family because they don't take my aversion to them seriously and find my squirming entertaining. I have only barely touched the topic in previous therapy and shared a couple things with my husband, but it's like the one thing in my life that I don't talk about and could not be pried out of me.
First of all I’m sorry for limiting this topic needlessly to male victims of female abuse. By reading your perspective it dawned on me how insensitive that framing is. Thanks for taking the time to reply anyway. I’m glad it didn’t hold you back.
When reading how your family reacts to your ex, it just hurts me to see how the burden of proof is placed excessively on you as the victim. To me, it would be enough for someone I love to say they feel discomfort with me keeping in touch with someone like an ex, for me to take notice and act accordingly. It just baffles me how hard you are pushed as a victim to share harrowing stories in order to be respected. (And even when you do share, you rarely are respected.)
I wish you all the best. You’re not alone.
It wasn't insensitive. It's okay to look for people like you. It would be insensitive to shut out someone trying to contribute because it's not 100% what you asked for. But you didn't do that. You were just looking for people to relate to. That is okay.
For clarity - my relationship with my abuser actually wasn't even a romantic one, but a "friendship" I felt I didn't have the power to leave, and the situation was exacerbated by little physical distance (and I was a minor at the time, so I didn't have the power to remove myself from the situation). This kind of adds to the shame factor for me, because my family just doesn't even make an effort to understand and seems to think we had a one-sided (my side) falling out and seem to find weird joy in bringing her up to me. At this point I hang up on them if they insist on telling me about her. They can find someone else to entertain their gossip.
I'm sure there are a lot more weird stories out there like mine than we hear about. Thank you for bringing up space to talk about it.
I have found Margaret Atwood's Cats Eye to be a good read. The protagonist is an adult painter, who thinks back upon the childhood era where she was abused by a same aged but obviously more powerful female friend.
Also female and I was sexually assaulted by a female family member in my tweens. I was lucky that another family member intervened, but my parents never got wind of it (I assume), so I had to see that person again several times. I know what you mean about living with the shame, I also don't talk about it much even in therapy.
It super sucks and I'm so sorry you have to live with this burden. You didn't deserve what happened to you. The only one who should be ashamed is your abuser and anyone who enabled them. I know it's not much but from one victim to another, just know you're not alone and I'm rooting for you to find peace.
Oh friend, you write so empathetically, my heart breaks that you went through that, but I'm very glad you're around and have gained those insights into your own situation and are offering help and comfort to others.
*edit: typo
Thank you for the kind words Nsutdwa, I appreciate it.
My grandmother is a very typical covert narcissist who only ever had enough power over me to teach me how not to fall into her mind games, thankfully. But I did have a few dark nights when I was little.
In grade school, I had multiple teachers who proudly came out of the SCUMier side of radical feminism. The scrutiny on boys was intense, the bias placed front and center along the lines of "women and girls are the responsible ones, and boys and men shouldn't be allowed to make decisions, they're only good at destroying things". Both my parents having raised me feminist, and being a kid who struggled with injustice, the relationships I developed with them were adversarial at best. I can't in good faith attribute all the blame to their treatment, but I have four or five years of lost memories that coincide with the start of their 'tutelage', so I don't know exactly what I went through either.
Finally, just to round it out, I had a romantic relationship in my teen years that heavily featured her threatening my life, and her own, meant I was on-call to talk her through her eating disorder while trying to cope with my own, was choked and challenged to fight back numerous times, and when it was all over, she (falsely, I should say) accused me of physical abuse and rape. A few years later she called and apologized for it all, but especially for the accusation. I believe she meant it, because nobody chooses to act like she did, and wish her the best, but it took years for me to recover from her abuse.
To anyone who has been trapped in cycles of abuse: there are peaceful waters, we just have to tread deliberately. You deserve to find them.
Thank you for sharing. Triggers all kinds of memories. The way my mom spoke about men was horrific. I hated myself and distrusted myself so hard for being male. Even now, it still makes me so vigilant for other people’s boundaries in a way that often makes me forget I have boundaries too.
I remember that during the abuse I had this one line I kept repeating in my head that got me through. ‘It ends with me.’ Even at a young age, I was very aware of the intergenerational dimensions of abuse, probably because my mother kept repeating how she had always been a victim. That sentence, ‘it ends with me’, gave me the strength to keep looking for the peaceful waters as you so aptly call them. I found them, more or less. Even though I still struggle to accept how I will always carry this history with me.
(And the accusations my mother and sister directed at me when I dared to speak of the abuse at a later age, are probably the biggest scar.)
Holy shit, I'm just now recontextualizing the behavior of a couple of teachers I had as a kid...
The gender situation was complex in my last relationship, and while it was definitely not healthy by the end, I wouldn't characterize it as necessarily abusive in either direction, just mutually not really working. So I want to apologize to anyone here who thinks this comment distracts from those in which victims relate their experiences. But my own experiences do exhibit a lot of the same gross gender stereotypes and essentialist assumptions that lead to people dismissing male abuse victims.
When my wife left me, she immediately started to frame every problem in a deliberately gendered way, erasing any nuance in our gender identities (we both identified as non-binary at that point) in order to rely on gender-essentialist stereotypes to frame the problems in our relationship as all being my fault as "the man" (despite this not even being an identity I held at the time). Every personal failing of mine was suddenly framed as a sexist offense that I, the evil man, committed against her. I've sucked at keeping up with housework and doing the dishes throughout my adult life, including when living alone and with platonic male roommates, but when those same issues arose while we were married, it had to be Gendered so that she could be the innocent victim and I the perpetrator.
The idea that women are always innocent victims and cannot perpetuate harm is grossly sexist and imo even misogynistic, but it can be so easily weaponized when it's useful. I don't think my particular circumstances were particularly egregious on this front, as I suspect my ex-partner was grasping for anything to feel justified in what she wanted to do (leave me). But the fundamental underlying stereotype of women as innocent pure victims does absolutely do much greater harm in other contexts, and I don't even think it's good for women in the grand scheme of things.
Sorry you had to go through that. All men/male presenting people are tied to the patriarchal monolith somehow, but when others believe in unidirectional bad guys and pin it all on that tie, what's left to do? There's no goodwill left.
I hope things are better for you now.
Things are doing a lot better! After the first week or so after the breakup, my mental health actually began improving a lot over what it had been beforehand, which is probably a sign the relationship needed to end regardless.
Not me, but a friend of mine was heavily physically and emotionally abused by his mother and it eventually drove him to attempt suicide. He was without oxygen for a significant period of time and he is permanently affected by it. His mother was eventually, several years later, involuntarily committed for a couple decades.
I was in a toxic relationship for three years and a half where she abused me both physically and mentally. I struggle to explain the shame and the pain that comes with it. She was physically smaller than me, younger than me, but she made my life hell for a long while.
The worst part in all of that is that I was staying because I loved her. Because I wanted her to change.
When her social worker warned me that my life was in danger, I should've listened. It took me almost getting stabbed to wake up. It's a terrible wheel.
You have my utmost sympathies. I cringe when I think back to my teen years and 20s (probably even into my late 20s, to my shame), of how callous I was when thinking about abusive relationships (thankfully never to anyone's faces, as it wasn't something that ever came up, which also says something about my conversations with those around me, of course). I was so dismissive and just did not understand how complex that situation can be and how many factors can lead to an abused person being trapped and staying.
I'm glad you got away and am also glad and grateful that you are able to share your experience. It's reading about people like you and then meeting them in real life that made me realise what a reductive view I had - that my pretty sheltered upbringing had (fortunately, I suppose) lead to me not seeing some of the awful behaviour that can be taking place behind closed doors.
Thank you for the words. I know how you felt because I felt it too. It's so easy, outside of it, to tell ourselves that it would never happen to us. I mean, it's pretty clear cut right, violence is easy to recognize, and you wouldn't let yourself get hit. You'd defend yourself, you'd go away.
But the truth is insidious. It's the love you feel. It's how slowly it unfolds. It doesn't start with a punch, it starts words and some kind of illusion of vulnerability from them. You love, you want it to work, you're already invested. And things ramp up so slowly that it creeps up on you without your notice.
Then in my case, her violence at first didn't hurt. It's not like her slaps really hurt physically. It's mentally that the toll is paid. But you can endure everything. She's sorry, she's so vulnerable, she's so small and scared, she's afraid of so much..you rationalize. You try to help. She becomes your sole focus. She becomes your universe and in a way, you forget yourself. It's not about you being happy, it's about trying to calm the storm that's inside her.
It's so insidious. It's been almost a year now and I still am affected. Afraid. Afraid that she won't be okay without me. That's the weird part. I'm learning to pull away after going no contact a year ago and it's still hard.
Now that I've gone through it, I understand better. But before that, my ego wouldn't let me understand it truly.
Yep.
It sucks because I had a very traumatic relationship in my senior year of highschool because I caught my ex cheating on me then she threatened to falsely accuse me of SA and being abusive if I told anyone. I told people anyways, she spread the rumor, school got involved, I got expelled, police were involved, only for one of her friends to feel bad for me and go to the school and police with AIM chats of my ex confessing to it all being BS. That one person saved my ass and it's terrifying for me thinking about how close I was to having my life ruined.
Well, the school and cops dropped it after that, but I was already at an accelerated learning school, and it didn't make sense to reintegrate back into school in just the last few weeks. I never got to walk for my highschool graduation.
What also sucks is a few years before this, my grandmother who I was living with threatened to call the police if I didn't listen to her during an argument. She called the cops and when they told her they can't take me away just for not listening to her, she blurted out that I threatened her and they immediately cuffed me and took me to juvi for a few days. When I had never even came close to threatening her, just arguing with her.
Anyways, fast forward to my 20s, I'm an open book so I freely talk about my trauma and past, had told another one of my exes about everything above, and she ended up using the same threat to threaten me with false accusations knowing it was a painful memory of mine. During a particularly bad argument she started hitting herself and said that "now everyone will think you're an abuser".
There were a lot of instances like that, she knew it was the one 100% chance of success cheatcode to winning every argument with me or getting me to do or not do anything she wanted.
Like I'm not sure how to put into words the hell I was going through watching her cover up the bruises she had made on herself the night before after hitting herself and threatening me, and with her acting completely fine and normal and me knowing that if I didn't act fine and normal with her she could just wipe off her makeup and I could go to jail.
She would also gaslight me saying "If this keeps happening to you, then there must be some truth!" and she tried to straight up gaslight me into thinking I had actually been abusive.
And I'm a very progressive person, so this isn't a criticism of the #metoo movement at all because there was some valid and necessary justice happening there, but as a man who had personally dealt with weaponized false accusations more than once in my life, reading everywhere that false accusations don't happen and that my abuse wasn't valid practically retraumatized me. It made me scared to talk about it, and scared no one would believe me if I did talk about it.
Don't get me wrong, I did have some past toxic traits that I've been introspective about, but I wasn't abusive. It took me years of therapy after being gaslit and thinking I must be abusive since I've gotten so many accusations of it in my life, to untangle what was just my own toxicity and what was accusations.
I still have worries and doubts that talking about it will make people think I'm abusive and I'm just making delusional or malicious excuses.
It really fucked me up and it's taken me years of therapy and some intentional use of psychedelics to move past all of that, and not see myself as abusive or bad when I'm not.
Yeah, I've always felt uncomfortable with the response to the idea of false accusations being that they're incredibly rare. I'm on board with #metoo and the like, I'm a pretty ardent feminist on that front, but this response never sat right with me. I understand why it was the dominant response, as a lot of the guys bringing up false accusations were sealioning assholes who were opposed to basic accountability. But even if it is extremely rare (and honestly I'm really curious on how we can establish that with a strong degree of certainty on a stats level, but I haven't dug into any cited stats for this so I'll take the claims at face value), that doesn't necessarily mean it's not something our framework for how we treat people should account for. I think the way we treat rape and sexual assault victims was (and often still is) abominable enough that it outweighed the problem of false accusations at the time, but I don't think dismissing their existence entirely is a sound philosophical or practical position here.
And that's before you get into the fact that there is a long and well-documented history of white women weaponizing assault and rape accusations against black men. I'm not smart enough to know what the absolute ideal solution is to respond to sexual assault accusations that balances treating victims with kindness and respect with not presuming men are guilty without any evidence, but I don't think it's viable for "it's incredibly rare" to be shat we say in response to something that historically was weaponized by white supremacists to murder black men and absolutely does still happen a non-zero amount.
Thankfully no, but I bet it happens and it is extremely underreported.
I am 194 cm and weigh 130 kg. About door-sized for the 'Muricans.
If a female close to me were to attack me, there would be no credible defense I could use without immediately being seen as the attacker myself. No police officer or judge would take me seriously.
Thankfully I am surrounded by great women in my family and friends circle.
I had a very toxic and emotionally abusive ex in college, and while I am far from door sized (maybe the size of medieval peasant's door), I almost went to jail during one of her meltdowns that eventually involved the police.
The story for anyone interested, because why not. It's a doozy:
I took her to visit my parents in central Florida and we decided to go to Universal Studios in Orlando. It was a pretty good day, despite the fact that she made me ride the Harry Potter ride a half dozen times. Anyway, as the park was closing, we went to a gift shop so she could get gifts for her family. We walked in about 5 minutes to closing time and she took a half hour to pick stuff out. I could sense the disdain from the people who were waiting to close the store, so when she decided to change something mid transaction, I said something to the effect of, "C'mon, they need to go home. I'm sure [family member] will like what you picked out."
Huge mistake. That led to her screaming at me outside the store for a good 5-10 minutes, then, bizarrely, threatening/trying to jump over a ledge into some watery pit that was 10 feet below. Then, once she calmed down to a functioning level, she berated me the entire time we walked across the park to the parking lot. It felt like every 2-3 guys we passed gave me the "hang in there, brother" look and countless women and children seemed to gaze at us with bewilderment. As a socially awkward person who hates being the center of attention around strangers, it was hell.
She was still yelling at me when we got to the parking garage, and at one point she threw her purse, which caused her belongings to scatter across the concrete floor. I picked them up, of course, because I just wanted to go home and that was not a hill I was willing to die on. Then, when we finally got to the car, she stopped and refused to get in FOR AN HOUR, and continued to berate me the entire time I pleaded with her to get in. I had my moments in this relationship, but I was calm the entire time because I didn't want to further cause a scene. At some point I discretely started recording the audio, because I thought it would help her realize what she was like in those situations. Anyway, right as we got into the car, she realized her mascara was missing and demanded I find it. Another 30-45 minutes down the drain. Now we were one of the only cars in the garage.
After I finally got her into the car, which by the way, she was still yelling at me the entire time, we started to make the hour long drive back to my parents' house. I was fully checked out at that point, just thinking about what the recording was going to sound like, which must've made it worse because she started opening the door and threatened to jump out as we were driving 70mph down the freeway. Unfortunately, the road didn't have a shoulder and the nearest exit was about a mile or two away, so I couldn't really pull over. That's when I finally broke down and started screaming things like "WTF is wrong with you?" I finally gave up and started calling 911 because I felt like I had no other options. When I did that, she closed the door and promised not to do anything. I was pretty sure that I hung up before anyone could answer.
When I finally got off on the exit and pulled over, I grabbed a water bottle from the back seat and squeezed the shit out of it, which caused it to burst open. That's when she got out of the car and started sprinting to the freeway. Mind you, this was a random pitch black road on the outskirts of Orlando. There was nothing/no one near by, except for the freeway. I genuinely thought she was going to run into traffic, so I started chasing her to stop her. We were both all-state track and field athletes in high school and we always talked about racing each other. I did not expect it to go like that.
That's when the police lights came on. In my state of heightened stress and emotion, I assumed they had somehow traced my call and that the calvary was coming to my rescue. In reality, it was just a highway patrolman who had just watched a car erratically pull over only to have a young woman jump out and run for her life from her male persuer. Obviously, from his perspective, I was not the good guy. Lucky for me, she and I both stopped as soon as the lights came on. Within minutes, there were two other police cars on scene and I was on the hot seat.
There was a lot of craziness that night, but the craziest thing was how she completely changed her demeanor as soon as the cops showed up. She was totally normal and saying everything was fine when they first questioned her. Meanwhile, I was a bit of a mess. I had water all over me, I was afraid that I was going to jail, and I had just spent about three excruciating hours in hell. Apparently, all the stress made it look like I was on drugs, because they kept telling me that my eyes didn't look normal. It didn't help that she was sitting there calmly telling them how crazy I was.
Fortunately, I had my recording. The tables turned really quickly when I mentioned that, and I'm not above saying that watching her eyes widen when I pulled out my phone was one of the most satisfying moments of my life. Unfortunately, Florida is not a one-party consent state, so the only thing I could do to get everything wrapped up in that moment was to delete the recording and take her home. Whatever, it was a lot better than going to jail, and I don't think it was going to change anything anyway.
To wrap up this incredibly long and embarrassing story that no one asked for, I'll leave you with the important lesson I learned from that relationship (which, regrettably, did not end that night). There were a lot of red flags and crazy fights like that before that night, but like so many other people in those situations, I tried to push through it. It's not worth it, and it will never work out. That relationship brought out the worst in me and, I suspect, her as well. When it got crazy like that, I did things that I am ashamed of. I yelled, I hit things (not people, thankfully), and I said awful things. Those are behaviors that I never did before that relationship and have not done in the ~15 years since that relationship. Despite my proclivity to repeat dumb mistakes in life, I learned to never take part in a relationship like that one and to break things off when those red flags come out. It's a lot better than looking under cars for a tube of $12 mascara while your partner tells you what a piece of shit you are, and it's a hell of a lot better than going to jail.
That sounds incredibly stressful, I'm glad for you that you have been able to see that you deserve something better and get away.
:| is it insensitive of me to find this account .... amusing? I mean of course knowing you survived to tell this doozy, first off. Crazy lunatic at a Disney world parking lot. Yikes
I'm a huge fan of single consent recording laws. But yeah for younger folks reading this, if you ever feel like you need to record a partner for proof that this craziness is tangible, that's probably a good sign to let that relationship go .....
Absolutely not! I mean, it wasn't fun and the relationship did a bit of a number on me at the time, but it's not like this was a traumatic experience. And even if it was, I would still find it amusing.
It's difficult for me to tell what falls under abuse. Maybe because I experienced too much of it. And is it abuse, if it's unintentional? When thinking about abuse in general, it feels strange to think that there are people who haven't experienced a significant amount of abuse.
I don't talk very explicitly about the experiences that hurt when revisiting them, but many people I know can at least make educated guesses.
What I talked a lot about is the relationship to my ex-girlfriend. The intentionality and consequences are more straightforward. At the time of the relationship I saw a broken girl who couldn't be held responsible, who I thought would get better. Many people didn't treat me well in the past, so I didn't have the alarm bells to warn me. Today what she did only feels like pure evil. After the relationship we texted a few times and I doubt there is any regret or guilt she feels about any of it. I know she can be empathetic, but it's quite selective.
I never completely recovered from the emotional abuse and I've never been in a relationship again. On top of it, I tend to attract women who seem so innocent and turn out to be monsters. I wonder if acting innocent as a mask is conscious decision. A close friend of mine had a hard time believing my stories which doesn't make things easier. I think it has changed, but again, it makes me wonder why these things happen to me regularly while it is hard to imagine for others.
Anyway, I hope someday I can have a healthy relationship. Even though I have a few great friends, I still can't imagine being in a relationship.
Abusers seek out victims the way sharks smell blood in the water. They steer clear of people who seem like they have (1) agency to stand up for themselves and/or (2) other people around them who would believe them when they go to them for help.
Could I venture to guess that you used to tolerate problematic potential partners that others steer clear of, and give them too many benefits of the doubt? Yesterday I heard a quote that roughly says, when you extend consideration to others, if it's a good person they meet you half way and a new bridge is built. When it's a bad person, they use what you extended as a ladder to step over you and take advantage of you.
And I'm sorry your friend doesn't believe you.....sometimes we can be so stuck on one world view we can't see data points staring us in the face.
I'm aware of that, but I don't fit the description anymore. It's a bit more complicated. And even though I'm very clear about what I consider acceptable or not, they lack the ability to see their own behavior as problematic and will be surprised when I set boundaries.
You're completely right about giving people the benefit of the doubt. I have many friends with mental health issues and unfortunately it's sometimes impossible to know if a behavior is appropriate or not.
I don't often open up about it, but back in 2008, I was in a relationship that turned out to be very emotionally abusive. I was blind to it for quite a while, but I was fortunate to have surrounded myself with some very good friends who actually had my best interests in mind. It took them some time, but eventually they pushed through and got me to leave her. I was infatuated with her, it wasn't easy, but a year later I realized just how much she was fucking me up, my idea of self worth, my motivation and drive. It was a great moment of learning for me about surrounding yourself with good people. I have a very small group of friends, but they've been "my brothers" for decades now, and I'll forever be grateful that they saved me from that woman. When I met my wife, getting the "stamp of approval" from all those guys in my close circle was a requirement, and a relief, when they all loved her.
Definitely my mom and sister did. My sister was the only one who physically abused me, choking, biting and scratching me. One of my earliest memories is of her getting kicked out of a preschool for being too violent. Our parents insisted on framing it as "siblings fighting", and what make me apologize to her when they pulled her off me. Luckily, she was a coward that stopped after I was strong enough to fight her off. But she continued and increased her emotional abuse, telling me I was unlovable and worthless all day everyday. And I do mean all day, because I was home-schooled.
My mother has covert narcissist tendencies. I've never heard my mom apologize for something without it being followed up with a 10x times longer rant about how its actually not her fault at all. Everything always "some how" looped back to her, back to her feelings, which where the ones that Mattered. Even though my mom home-schooled me and my dad worked from home, both have claimed to have no idea that my sister mistreated me. She was also obsessed with the idea that she was a good mother, but had no interest in actually being a good mother. She just wanted me to fake it for her ego.
This does get a bit heavier for me, so I feel like I should spoiler tag it.
Grooming and Emotional Incest
I suspect my mom kinda groomed my dad. The started dating when my mom was 17 and my dad was 14. An age gap that is a bit icky, but maybe fine? But I also have seen pictures of my dad at the time, and boy does he look younger then 14; honestly, he looked 12 and she looked like a normal 17 year old. And my dad came from a very abusive home, and my mom definitely took advantage of that. Overall, its just been thing that sorta sits in my mind and makes me sad and uncomfortable.It does connect with my personal experience of emotional incest from her. She never touched me inappropriately, but did expect me to provide her romantic partner level emotional care as a 7 year old. I have endless memories of her ranting at me and expecting me to do all the active listener shit. She mentioned after I became an adult that she had always known she would have a son, and that her relationship with Her Son would be the best relationship she would ever have. Needless to say, I have no memory of her providing emotional care for me. I imagine I provided a role she used to use my father for, but he aged out of it. And I'm certain as I can be that she didn't do the same to my sister.
Overall, they both cost me -976 self-esteem points and many, many years to get to my current, kinda okay mental state.
Chills. I think I know someone like that.
re: your spoiler box
I think some of these types of unhealthy choices in relationships aren't motivated by youthfulness, but power. Just like how rape isn't about sex but about domination. Predators like to choose prey that cannot injure them back. Like your sister backed off on the physical front when she can't win.
Did your mother lose interest in you when you started to live your own life and possibly gained powers to defy / ignore / point out her short comings?
Overall, I'm sorry they weaponized your empathy and kindness against you. Wish you all the best on the continuing journey, especially with regards to meeting others who have genuine empathy and kindness back towards you.
Thank you for the kind words!
Box
I mostly agree, but I'd say she cared most about control, control so she could fulfill her fantasies. Domination feels more about an audience, even if that audience is only your victim. She wanted to enact her fantasy version of motherhood for her own self image.It's hard for me to say about her losing interest. By the time I was a full adult, I largely cut her out of my life. She still tries small things whenever we talk, but I cut if off immediately.
Myrrh...... Is there anything encouraging that you'd like to hear from us? What kind of support can we give you, even very little?
Here's a blurry picture of someone's cat for no reason
Yeah. Toxic relationship with a manipulative depressed cheating narcissist, later marriage with children, that lasted for more than a decade. I lashed out at the kids some, and some of it came out in weed self-medication. Wasn't great, but now about a decade later I might have recovered from most of it.
I'm glad of the little things, like not getting misogyny from the experience.
I'm just gonna say "yep" and move on.