How Do You Deal with a Nasty Person? *TRIGGER WARNING*

[Fiatlux]

Hi lovely people,

Some of you here may have followed some of my earlier posts, but I have complex PTSD from years of domestic violence and abuse from my current husband. My anxiety levels are very high right now.

Leaving my current living arrangements isn’t an option at the moment or this time in my life. I am 56 and still need to work and somehow run a business with my narcissistic husband.

Lately, he is becoming more and more vile and nasty with his words and taunts.

He knows how damaged my self esteem and self worth is and he is the cause of this.

I try to be civil and reasonable in living under the same roof but he’s getting more and more angry and hostile to the point of yelling at me to move out if I don’t like IT. He has yelled at me several times and lately in front of our sons, aged 27 and 29. 

HE knows that since giving up my apartment in 2022, I have nowhere to move out to. I don’t have any friends or family contacts or support. Not even a friend to talk to about this. I can’t keep burdening my sons with this.

I am scared that he is pushing me to the brink once again. I have come very close to ending my life several times but I can’t do that to my children. I want to live and enjoy watching them grow and hopefully have their own children one day.

He’s making me feel like I just want to end it all. Just abandon this life as it’s not ever going to be good. I will always have this trauma to haunt me forever.

Thank you for being here and listening. Fiatlux 🙏🏼

[white knight]

Hi

I have a few suggestions, some as to understanding your husband and some how to reply to his needs.

Not knowing left from right can be a sign of dyslexia. My wife has it. She also confuses things. Today a sign said "Geelong keep right", she musread it as "Geelong next left" so she not only gets them mixed up she often reads them wrong. In the past we've gone 20kms in the wrong direction  lol. Laugh? I do, I think it's hilarious and I cope better that way.

His demands while you are busy especially during a chore you can't leave is selfish and Inconsiderate. But this is where using wit rather than reaction might work. "I cannot leave cooking atm so in 10 minutes darling?". If he gets angry "so are you expecting me to drop my activity immediately"? 

Notice how the response is in the way of a question? This is subtle enforcement of him making him answer to his unreasonable behaviour.

If it escalates "so when you are tuning the car (mowing the lawn, up a ladder etc) you will leave that task immediately upon me asking you to"?

Again, a question. 

What is obvious to me here is that any spouse of his likely would be treated the same. It isn't you. Sort of "familiarity breeds contempt"

A favourite saying "I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations " can be used if he expects recognition for all good deeds. He might lack humility that wasn't taught as a youngster. His upbringing may have included expectations and so forth.

Google

Beyondblue wot- the only answer to torment

Beyondblue relationship strife, the peace pipe

TonyWK 

[Fiatlux]

Thank you Tony,

My husband is fluent in 3 languages. I have worked with colleagues with dyslexia and we all managed to work together with their challenges.

He is just simply impatient, impractical, impulsive and incapable of common sense and courtesy. 

In the past, He would get aggressive and violent with me for something as simple as dinner not being ready when he’s hungry. 

I watched him treat his mother disrespectful and she would tell me stories of him throwing plates of food at her and smash his toys in fits of rage. She pandered to him, did his homework for him and tied his school laces even when he was a teenager.

No, there’s no way to get through to him. He admits that he has always been disrespectful towards his parent as only child, but let’s not put all spoilt brats in the same boat. He also has deceptive and criminal tendencies. He admits that he’s always hated working, so his parents did everything for him.

I should correct that his father passed away in 2016. A week before he succumbed to lung cancer, he came to our home to mow the grass. Although a heavy smoker and at times a heavy drinker, he was very polite and reasonable and respectful towards my mother in law. 

He has a Jekyll and Hyde personality but those who have crossed him, have seen his evil side. People who know him have commented that he’s not a person who you would want to cross.

Have a lovely evening. Fiatlux 🙏🏼

[therising]

Hi Fiatlux

What you've been facing for so long is just terrible, depressing and anxiety inducing. I feel so deeply for you as you face a situation you feel you just can't get out of.

It sounds like you've been able to make a lot of sense out of why your husband behaves the way he does. Of course, making sense of a person's nature doesn't necessarily make things any easier. In you mentioning the way he was allowed to behave growing up, it leads me to think of a particular couple in my life who are currently raising their child who's now 4 years old. While it's their desire to be fairer, more encouraging open minded parents, they allow their child to satisfy his curiosity and his 'right' to explore and self advocate. I've seen this child walk over people's flower beds to get to flowers he wants to see, open other people's fridges and cupboards to look inside, have the freedom to say 'No' to just about anything he doesn't want to do and the list goes on. I never realised until I observed such behaviour from the parents and child that discipline and control (aka 'effective management') is what leads a child to develop self discipline and self control (including impulse control) on their way to becoming an adult. Being reason able or reasonable is also a skill that's developed from childhood, such as with 'The reason you can't walk on the garden is because you'll crush all the beautiful flowers that person has taken the time to plant, all those flowers they love'. Managing hearing the word 'No' is sometimes about learning to manage emotional regulation, dealing with the challenging feelings within us.

As a child grows into an adult (with all that's lacking), the result may be an adult who lacks self discipline in certain ways, self control, an inability to see reason and a lack of emotional regulation. You also get an adult who may be prone to full blown tantrums at times which allow them to get their own way. Regular full blown tantrums in an adult can be fearful, stressful, demeaning, depressing, hate fueled, abusive and even terrifying in their extreme. I suppose, in this case, it's a matter of 'How to live with someone who flat out refuses to grow up or develop in healthy and less self serving ways?'. While we could simply part ways with most people like this, it's of course far more complicated with a spouse or long term partner because legal separation's involved and division of assets (those things that become a financial resource for a new and independent life).

While I've found that it's impossible to reason with an unreasonable person (plus it's a complete waste of time and breath), it can be easy to instead appeal to their imagination and self serving nature. For example 'If I left this food to burn, imagine how it would taste. Imagine that, how horrible it would be' or 'Imagine if you found the saw, you'd never have to search high and low for it ever again. Imagine always knowing where it is in future'. Saying the following to someone is a way of gaining time to our self (aka 'being left in peace'): 'Imagine developing this or that new interest. Imagine how much you would enjoy such things. Also, imagine not having to spend as much time with me. Imagine what a relief that would be'. While some would call this manipulation, it may pay to simply call it 'Whatever works in my favour'. After years of torment and abuse, you deserve whatever works in your favour.

[Fiatlux]

Hey therising,

If only your friends could look into the future and see their 24 year old.

My husband found himself very lonely when I met him at age 23. None of the people who he considered friends would share a flat with him anymore. 

I listened when he jokingly told me stories of living with friends in a share house. He would get up in the middle of the night and eat their food and as they were all smokers back then, steal and smoke all their cigarettes. Everyone of them who I met told me that he was the house mate from hell. Not one had any positive things to say. He thought that he was entitled to everything.

Even his closest friend and he only has 1 left because they were born a couple of days apart and moved to Australia together, still catches up with him on their birthday week, but now it’s just the 2 of them. But this friend in particular has many stories about how disrespectful he was to all.

My mother in law was amazed and proud at how polite and respectful and well mannered my children are and have always been. Just so unlike their father as a child and now as an adult.

Even today at 1pm, I told him that I was taking a short break to have a Berocca. Not 5 minutes passes and he exaggerates that I have done nothing for the last half hour. 

Getting back to child raising, my children just wouldn’t ever open fridges at friends houses. The world is so much easier to navigate when they are taught to ask “may I please “ and thank you and no thank you. My children always thanked their grandmother if she did something as simple as poured them a glass of water. It was just a common courtesy. My husband has none of that.

With no much being spoken about ‘consent’ this goes for everyone and for everything.

I would say, I didn’t give you consent to open my refrigerator door and help yourself to my food. Let’s hear the parents respond to this.

Before I had my own children I had friends who did have children and 1 in particular who was so annoying that if I reprimanded politely the parents would look at each other, like how dare she! 

Some people are just a lost cause but of course I am to blame for this. 

He is 61 and desperate to retire. His impulsive spending throughout his life means that he doesn’t have enough retirement savings to this yet.

When I met him he would get paid on a Friday and by Monday he’d have nothing left and would be constantly borrowing from friends to get through the week. He borrowed from me all the time. That coercive control and financial control started very early in our relationship. It was always, I will pay you back but kept accumulating until we were married and it was forgotten about. Strangely he has no memory of this either.

Thank you so much for your support and response. It does get me thinking. 🙏🏼 Fiatlux 

[Fiatlux]

Hi therising,

I just spent a half hour replying to you and somehow I lost everything and I can’t retrieve it.

if it doesn’t appear soon, I will respond to you again. Thank you for your support. Fiatlux 

[therising]

Hi Fiatlux

While hindsight is great, it doesn't necessarily help in the moment, hey. It's kind of like with looking back over the earlier years in our relationship with our spouse and realising 'Oh, my gosh, so those things weren't quirks in my partner's nature, they were actually significant red flags. How did I not see or feel them for what they were?'. I think, as we develop greater intuition over time, our intuition can start to speak to us a little louder. So, while our original thought may have been 'He likes the exciting life. He's a big spender', intuition starts to say 'The exciting life is costly and it's going to cost you somewhere down the track. Watch out for that'. Or perhaps our original thought may have been 'It's so nice spending so much relaxing time in front of the tv together'. Eventually intuition may start to sound a little like 'He prefers to do little other than sit and watch tv together. A lack of adventure is going to change you and not for the best. Watch out for that'. I imagine you can relate to how motherhood develops our intuition over time. There's that little voice that says things like 'Make sure they've got their wallet before they go out' (so you check with them) or 'There's something about that friend of theirs that's not to be trusted' (so you stay observant) or if our child seems a little stressed or down, we can be prompted through the words that come to mind 'Check in with them, there's something wrong'. Motherhood gifts us great abilities.

I smiled when you mentioned how those parents didn't appreciate you leading their child to become more conscious. The parents I mentioned are somewhat the same, they don't appreciate it and the father will actually reprimand people on occasion for being so 'restricting' with their child. I agree with you 100% when you say if only they could look into the future. I think if a parent raises a child to feel entitled to such a large degree, they're actually in the process of raising someone who'll become a self entitled adult. I also smile when I think of the mantra my husband's drummed into our children over the years. Still, to this day, he occasionally asks our 18yo son and 21yo daughter 'What's the best thing about manners?'. They'll smile and roll their eyes while automatically responding 'They cost nothing'. Not only do they cost nothing, they also pay off as a social skill. They're a good investment. 🙂

[Fiatlux]

Hi everyone,

I feel sick to the stomach right now.

It has been a very stressful time for business and like I said previously my husband is desperate now to stop working as he’s had enough.

He is crying.

Normally I would go and try to comfort him but I told him to take the day off.

At times when I was exhausted and broken, he took the opportunity to kick me even further down. I don’t owe him anything. Not even a hug.

All he does is complain about everyone, even blaming our son for his problems. The poor kid is 27 and really too young to take responsibility for his father’s lack of discipline or knowledge.

I suppose eventually I will crack and offer him some consolation. I just hate that I still care. 

[therising]

Hi Fiatlux

I think if it's in our nature to care, we can't help but care at times, even if we don't want to. Just when we think we've got emotional detachment mastered when it comes to a particular person, bamm, a challenge comes along that leads us to feel for them in some way. Then you can be left thinking 'What's wrong with me?', with the basic answer being 'Right or wrong, I'm a caring person. That's who I am'. Some people will love us for this and some will take advantage in order to serve themself.

My heart goes out to you, with the business stresses adding to your challenges. My heart also goes out to your son. I've seen a number of people be led to reform the relationship they have with their fathers. For many, it's become about seeing their fathers as more than being that person in that role (of fathering). When it changes from 'The man who raised me as a child' to 'A man in my life who either measures up or doesn't, amongst all my relationships in my adult life', perception starts to shift. When a relationship changes from being parents and kids to being more so friends, the question then becomes 'Is he someone I would class as a supportive and caring friend at this stage of my life or someone who'd be regarded as an abusive or careless person in my adult life?'. It can be a tough transition, having to unlearn a lot of beliefs including 'Loyalty to a parent, no matter what'. This can be a self destructive belief when the parent is destructive in a number of ways. Loyalty to a friend in need is easy to achieve and is good for the soul. I imagine you and your son are friends.