Be difficult for abusers to love

CoffeeCakeGod · 2020-03-17T22:44:06+00:00

My ex told me I was a difficult person to love. The context? I was cooking for him and he asked if he could add cilantro to the food, I said sure. He has a bad habit of micromanaging and just took the pot and absentmindedly put in a weeks worth of cilantro into one days worth of food because he typically meal preps for a week. I smiled, laughed, then tasted it and said "now it tastes like salt and cilantro, but it'll be fine." He reacted by asking why I didn't stop him, he told me I need to learn to stand up for myself and that this wouldn't have happened if I just told him not to add anything. He kept saying now the food is ruined because I didn't stop him from changing my recipe.

I thought he was overreacting and I just kept letting it roll off my back until he said "You never communicate, you make it so hard to love you." In less than 5 minutes he tried to turn a little mistake on his end into my mistake and start a fight. I finished the food, took some for myself, packed my things and then left. Dumped him over text. He was furious and kept trying to blame everything on me even though I never matched his anger nor insinuated I was upset. I'm not going to be with someone who tells me I'm difficult to love when I can be with someone who thinks loving me is more natural than breathing.

ivy176 · 2020-03-18T00:00:39+00:00

Yep. Don't put up with the small red flags. Don't become slowly accustomed to abuse. Dump a man as soon as he shows those red flags and don't let the relationship continue. Don't let it get to the stage where he feels so "invested" that he'll kill you if you left. Dump him at the dating stage. Be "a b*tch", be "not compassionate enough", disappoint him.

If he's rude, negging, controlling, bossy, inconsiderate, doesn't have really stable employment, ignores you, starts fights, pouts and sulks, has a victim complex, often expects you to say sorry for things that weren't even trespasses, nitpicks, argues semantics, gets annoyed or angry if you ever cry, struggles to apologize, struggles to understand you, if you have to educate/explain to him all the time why something was not okay or went too far, if he's slow to show empathy or doesn't at all, if he pressures you for sex or types of sexual acts, criticizes your family or friends unfairly, makes negative comments about your looks, comments on other women's looks to you or in front of you like compliments or "You could look like her if you just did XYZ", if he's a mommys boy and his mom acts like he is precious and can do no wrong (it really fucks men up and gives them huge victim complexes, and victim types are way more likely to be emotionally and physically abusive), if he gets tipsy and snarky and blames it on the booze, if he won't let you have space or freedom, if he insists on having excessive freedom, if he says he can see the appeal of group sex ir opening a relationship, if he goes out partying all night, if he flakes on plans, if he forgets your birthday/a christmas gift/whatever, if he yells at you, if he throws objects in your presence, or at you, if he breaks his things, if he breaks your things (deliberately), if he is jealous of you or your things, if he gets "too comfortable" and starts using you as a sounding board or ranting about himself and not asking about you and your day, essentially forgetting or not caring that you're a real person, if he does things fairly regularly to hurt your feelings but he always says sorry, if you find yourself wishing for a partner who was better or that he could just improve in a couple of vital areas, if the relationship felt way better at the start and now you question it, if he describes events in a very different light or in a different order or omits vital details that twist reality and make you look worse or in the wrong, if he criticises your ability to remember things properly, if he says he doesn't remember anything because he was too drunk so it can never be resolved because he doesn't feel responsible, it wasn't "really him"...

These are just some red flags that you should not ignore. Your inner voice may say, maybe I'm just being too picky. Maybe I'm overreacting. Your boyfriend will say you're overreacting. A friend or your mom might even agree. Maybe I'm being unreasonable. Everyone argues sometimes. I can be a bit demanding. Maybe I'm pushing him too hard. Maybe I'M controlling HIM, maybe I just need to improve a bit, maybe I'm a perfectionist. It was only a couple of times. He's really into me and he's super nice and caring a big chunk if the time... well so long as we're having fun and I'm not annoying him. But everyone likes to have a good night, right? I can't blame him for wanting less stress. I probably do cause him stress. Every guy wants a breezy fun girlfriend and I haven't been super fun or carefree lately. No guy wants to be criticized. I'd get defensive too... but this easy breezy cool chick girlfriend doesn't exist. The only women who have no demands either don't give a flying fuck about the man and view him as an empty shell with a dick and/or money. Or they're pushing their own feelings down and not being authentic for the sake of being liked. Men truly do not want either if those women. They'll imply they do, but they don't. Option 1 will soon be called "the gold digging whre btch" in his eyes, and option 2 will end up being "boring, stupid trailer trash with no self respect" in his eyes.

You may think, he's going through a rough time, or the sob story he told about his childhood or his ex means I need to be a bit more lenient. No. Abusers almost always exaggerate their pasts and make it sound worse than it was because they're natural slimey victims and it's another manipulation tactic. They want people to feel sorry for them and to be #1 in other people's eyes because they have mommy and daddy issues.

He might make relationship/sex/behaviour suggestions for you, and you might think, well this stuff is considered normal these days so I'll be considered unreasonable if I say no. Women are on reddit every hour posting "Is this normal?"... girl if you are asking that it's because your gut is telling you it's wrong. Who cares if 400 other people say "nah that's fine, totally normal, get over it". If it's not right for YOU, that's all that matters. You do not need confirmation from outsiders. You are you. You say what's normal and acceptable for you, nobody else, not when it comes to expectations of how yoir man should treat YOU. If you're sitting around questioning if you've been nice enough, good enough, polite enough, open enough, respectful enough.. because you're trying to figure out if you did anything to make his meanness or criticism warranted - there's a high likelihood that you are good to him or you wouldn't question it. Asshole abusers have little to no remorse and they spend their brain power on thinking up ways to make you feel more guilty and to make you submit to them. Good people spend that time wondering what went wrong and how they can fix it, how they can make it better. Was it something I did? Maybe my tone of voice was wrong? Maybe I said that at the wrong time? If you're thinking things like that regularly then it's a huge red flag that someone's manipulating you, and yes, EVEN if you are naturally insecure. That's an abusers first choice in a person anyway.

You have to say no more at these stages. And I don't mean verbally. Chit chat means nothing to abusers no matter how real you are or how you express it or how many hours of heart and soul you put into a letter. Talking/arguing/demanding/crying, it's all bullshit to them and they'll just use it to manipulate you more. If you're still with them and interacting with them then you're still in their web.

No contact/removal from your life is the only option. It gets harder the longer you leave it. Way harder if you have combined assets or even worse, kids.

People's natural inclination is to not be too hasty, be fair, don't be irrational, give it a chance. Especially women. But you have to be pre emptive. Cutting the cord over a few smaller red flags can be hard but it will save you in the long run. Peoples traits usually exaggerate as they age, especially when it comes to being manipulative or abusive. That increases in a relationship as more boundaries are broken. It doesn't improve. If he's kind of shit now then he'll be a nightmare in 5 years.

It's like corona virus. Our government is refusing to shut anything here because they don't want people to panic or to damage the economy even more. But they need to shut it down pre-emptively or more people will die as a result of only having closures when too many people are infected.

That's like an abusive relationship. You have to shut it down before it becomes blatant abuse. Because let me tell you, by the time he's swearing at you and calling you names, or hitting you, or whatever... by that point, you will feel exactly as you do about the smaller red flags now. People think no way, if a guy swore at me or hit me, I'd be gone. But the thing is that the boundaries are broken bit by bit by bit by bit until it becomes your new normal over many years. With my ex husband, there were small red flags at the start. I spoke up about them but he shut that down or ignored it or brought up my flaws. I thought, well maybe I am exaggerating this a bit, I do have my flaws. Then fast forward 10 years and he's hitting me in the face and I'm telling him that he can't punch me in the face because it's unacceptable. You'd think this should not even be a discussion, but it was. He said it was not a punch, I opened my fist right before I hit you. I said well you still hit me. He said well it was not a punch, you always exaggerate, it was practically like a slap or tap. Now what it actually was, was a palm strike to the temple which made my eye swell and I had pain for a week. I am not a weak or stupid person, yet I found myself after 10 years having that discussion, it could have been the same discussion we had about him not doing enough housework or using a word that I don't like, yet it escalated to the point where I was having these same relatively calm conversations about BEING STRUCK IN THE HEAD. Because that is how abuse can build up. It's insidious. It's like a disease that creeps up and you forget your baseline of reality. It can happen to anybody.

I knew when it wasn't right with my ex. I remember the first moments. He said something inconsiderate and I cried and he acted frustrated and didn't hug me. Also, I noticed that he was slow to get ready for events and was often a bit late, and that frustrated me. But surely you can't break up with a guy over 2 small things? He also wrote poems and songs and 10 page love letters for me. He traveled 10000 miles to be with me. But.. those were the first red flags of being a wife beater and an unemployed bum. Such innocent little red flags. The same people who ask how women didn't see it coming and victim-shame are the same ones who would tell people they're silly for being upset over small red flags.

2020-03-17T21:00:14+00:00

Wonderful.

Well put.

laylamiller · 2020-03-18T00:57:28+00:00

There's a good book called, "Why does he do that?" By Lundy Bancroft. It's very good at explaining how abusers operate and how society enables their abusive behaviors. I personally knew a lot of these things I just feel as if women are socialized to ignore red flags.

EurasianEmpress · 2020-03-17T21:56:56+00:00

That’s a good shift in thinking, so how exactly do we make ourselves difficult for abusers to love without getting killed? I would think it’s to make them not want us in the first place. But then again, an abusive man who doesn’t want a woman would still feel entitled to her.

juliaakxo · 2020-03-18T01:25:57+00:00

this is giving me some PTSD my ex was fucking horrible

huevos_and_whiskey · 2020-03-18T02:38:40+00:00

The irony is people with low self esteem - like thinking they’re difficult to love - are abusers’ prime targets.

Unlikely-Marzipan · 2020-03-18T04:38:02+00:00

Oh I LOVE this! I’m starting to realise that if an abuser stays with you for longer than others, it’s because you were just more of a doormat.

imJustmasum · 2020-03-18T13:04:18+00:00

I can be with someone who thinks loving me is more natural than breathing.

This. This is what a healthy relationship should feel like.

Wiggy_Bop · 2020-03-18T14:51:31+00:00

I, too, was told I was a “hard person to love”. Do they all have the same playbook?!

sarstarss · 2020-04-11T05:49:02+00:00

My soon to be ex husband did that when I found he had cheated on me with his ex girlfriend from 10 years ago. He told me he was going on a business trip, I’m ashamed now to say that I begged him to tell me where he was actually going. I just had an inclination that he was lying. He told me I was “insane” and that I was stressing him out by being a selfish bitch. I cried all night and when he left the next day I called the airline. Told them I had lost my boss’s confirmation number and that I had his aeroplan number and had to change the flight. Turned out he’d flown to his ex’s city halfway across the world. Mind you, this man had not even gotten me a real engagement ring claiming for the 5 years of our marriage that once things got more financially stable he would. But he somehow have the money to spend on a last-minute ticket to Berlin. Anyway I found out and say anything to him waited for him to come back. When I confronted him he told me that I was an insane bitch that did not respect his privacy and that he’s been out of love with me for the last few months. It is now eight months later I have never been happier I walked out on his ass and I have not looked back. all the women that are reading this, Please note for the longest time I thought I couldn’t live without him. I convince myself that it was my fault and that I need to stay because he was doing me a favour by staying with me. And I realize this fucked up attitude came from the fact that he was a complete narcissist. Please get out you do not deserve to be mistreated you do not deserve to be told that you’re not worthy of love.

Title	Be difficult for abusers to love
Author	AntiCircles
Upvotes	2737
Comments	62
Date	March 17, 2020 8:58 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/fkcymp/be_difficult_for_abusers_to_love/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/be-difficult-for-abusers-to-love.680012 https://theredarchive.com/post/680012

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