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Emotional bullying: Are you married to an emotional bully?

Article updated June 2024

What is an emotional bully?

Relationships take many forms, but the fundamental principle is that you should feel safe, secure, and confident with your partner.

If you suspect your partner is an emotional bully it’s crucial to familiarise yourself with the signs. Identifying the signs can be the first step toward addressing the issue.

Am I married to an emotional bully?

Emotional bullies often use words as weapons, employing coercion, manipulation, and intimidation to control their partners. Their behaviour erodes trust, kindness, and respect within the relationship, leaving you feeling drained and uncertain.

If you find yourself constantly second-guessing your thoughts and feelings, or if your partner’s actions consistently leave you feeling manipulated or controlled, it may be time to seek support.

Remember, you deserve to be in a partnership built on mutual respect and trust.

Four tell-tale signs you are in a relationship with an emotional bully

Emotional or psychological abuse is difficult to define because it is intangible and manifests itself in a variety of ways. Before you ask yourself “What should I do if my partner is an emotional bully?”, here are four key behaviours to look out for.

Aggression

Emotional bullies use verbally and physically aggressive tactics to control and intimidate a partner. Typical emotional bully behaviour includes:

  • Shouting and swearing
  • Being loud and obstructive
  • Slamming doors, throwing or hitting things
  • Lying and making false accusations
  • Blaming you without cause
  • Deliberately creating tension and hostility
  • Physical intimidation
  • Deliberately causing fear
  • Turning on you unexpectedly.

Once they have established the pattern of using aggression as a first response, the bully can then control their partner through fear of causing further anger.

Controlling

A bully will use controlling or coercive behaviour to limit your freedom and increase their power over you.

Coercive control is defined by the Home Office as:

“a purposeful pattern of behaviour which takes place over time in order for one individual to exert power, control or coercion over another”

Typical examples of controlling behaviour include:

  • Monitoring your time and activity
  • Checking your messages, phone history and emails
  • Isolating you from your friends or family
  • Controlling where you go, what you wear, and who you see
  • Regularly degrading and humiliating you
  • Stalking you on social media.

Emotional bullies will likely make you feel guilty when you spend time with others of do things without them. They’ll call you continuously to check where you are and what you are up to.

Passive aggressive

As well as outwardly aggressive behaviour, emotional bullies are skilled at passive aggression. This is a particularly effective tactic for an emotional abuser because it’s more subtle. Because of this passive aggression can more easily go under the radar, meaning you may not even notice it’s happening to you.

Passive aggressive acts include:

  • Silent treatment, otherwise known as Stonewalling
  • Expressing anger and resentment covertly
  • Deliberately avoiding cooperation
  • Withholding sex or intimacy as punishment
  • Controlling finances and limiting resources
  • Undermining your decisions
  • Ignoring or excluding you
  • Patronising and humiliating
  • Strategically disclosing or withholding information
  • Sabotaging things that matter to you.

Passive-aggressive behaviour will often include acts that in isolation don’t appear serious, but when used with intent or multiplied, cause harm and distress.

Making threats

When a bully gets scared of losing you, out comes the threat card.

They may threaten divorce, moving out, cheating, or even harming themselves or others. Other threats might include lying, sharing private messages, divulging personal information, destruction of property, reckless behaviour, deliberately diminishing finances, revenge porn, sext re-posting.

Emotional bullies will use any leverage they have to manipulate you and get the outcome they want.

Living with an emotional bully

In a healthy relationship, both partners are equals. However, in a bullying relationship, there is a significant imbalance and an uneven distribution of power.

People in relationships with emotional bullies often experience lowered self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. They frequently feel fearful, powerless, and trapped.

These emotional struggles can also manifest physically, leading to issues such as addiction, insomnia, changes in appetite, and various illnesses.

Leaving a bully

Being married to a bully can be extremely emotionally distressing and the road to separation very stressful.

One of the hardest parts is recognising your partner’s behaviour as bullying. Especially when you’ve been in a long relationships when behaviour patterns can be difficult to break.

Start by keeping a written record of your partners bullying. Note down dates, times, situations and how they made you feel. Sometimes when you are living in a situation it is hard to see the bigger picture. Writing it down will show you the extent of your partner’s behaviour.

Your safety is important. If at any point you find yourself in danger, contact the police right away by dialing 999. 

Get in touch with Stowe Family Law

If you decide to divorce a bully, you will need a strong support team in place. Seek out professional and emotional support from lawyers, counsellors, consultants as well as friends and family on the side.

If you would like advice on divorce, separation, or other family law issues please do contact our Client Care Team to speak to one of our specialist divorce lawyers. 

Helpful contacts

If you are in immediate danger, contact the police immediately on 999.

Or you access support via the following organisations:

  • National Domestic Violence Helpline – 0808 2000 247
  • Solace Advice Line – 0808 802 5565 – [email protected]
  • Mankind Initiative support for male victims – 01823 334244
  • The Mix, free information and support for under 25s in the UK – 0808 808 4994
  • Galop, National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline – 0800 999 5428
  • Refuge National Domestic Abuse – 0808 2000 247
  • Samaritans Helpline: 116 123

Useful links:

Understanding coercive control and what you can do about it

Lost sense of self: Seven signs you are in a relationship with a narcissist

The cost-of-living in an abusive relationship

What is tech abuse?

What is economic abuse?

 

Julian is Stowe Family Law’s Senior Partner and is based in our Leeds office. Julian has extensive experience in all aspects of family law particularly in complex financial disputes. He has been with the firm for over 20 years and has a reputation for his strategic thinking and ability to cut through to the key issues and solve the most intractable of cases.

Comments(30)

  1. spinner says:

    “withholding sex”, “Start by keeping a written record”. This just sounds creepy, so if your partner puts on some weight or for some reason you just don’t fancy them anymore but you stay together for the children’s sake or whatever reason but you really don’t want to have sex with them, you are now bullying them by withholding sex and you would tell your clients to start making a written record of each time they were refused sex?

    Will the family court be providing guidance on how many times we should be having sex every month so as we can better judge for ourselves if we are being bullied by our partners?

    • H says:

      I don’t think you are understanding the collective picture. I believe, the suggestion is, collectively, if these things are happening, record them. It is true narcissistic individuals will exact control through sex or withholding it, grey-stoning, gas-lighting, the silent-treatment, et cetra, which are passive forms of aggression and are, in fact, abusive. By logging them with date and time, it gives the victim a clear picture of a pattern and it helps to build your case in the event you must separate or divorce.

  2. naomi says:

    This is where I am, I have been trying to separate for over a year, he continues to bully and control. I have a very strong support group but I also have a child and am financially restrained by him. It is incredibly hard to escape but I am increasingly desperate to

    • H says:

      I feel for you. In the US, there is a tactic called “starving out” which a partner may use to force the spouse to stay in the toxic marriage. Basically, the abusive spouse makes it impossible for you to have any financial freedom, thereby, forcing you to stay or bend to their demands. You may google “starving out” tactic. It’s a form of abuse. I’m sorry.

      • AL says:

        My situation is I’ve had all of the tactics you describe including threats to my children’s life if I left but the police aren’t interested. Upon asking for divorce I was frightened out of the home as the bullying escalated. Two years on I’m STILL trying to finalise the divorce (I got the decree Nisi in Nov 18 but he won’t share his police pension (80 per cent of the marital assets) . We first co habited in September 2004. We have two children. I was main carer and worked a zero hours contact around his career and kids. He earns six times what I earn. I’ve had no money to divorce or legal aid as I have equity. A lot of time has been wasted by solicitors I’ve paid advice about what to do after the D81 and consent order I had drawn up was rejected by the court. It doesn’t seem to be viable in how it suggests the pension is split. Now his solicitor seems complicit in dragging out the court process. Ex lied on form E questions and has submitted a pensions CETV that is 11 months old & this was pointed out but is being used to get the actuary to work in which I’m paying for. Are there some rules solicitors have to follow or are they allowed to be complicit in financial strangulation? I’ve spent £9000 I’ve had to borrow and could be facing double that with no legal aid and minimum wage. Is this not just more bullying that I’m actually paying for now? Can anything be done. It’s nearly Three years Since I started this process and many years plucking up the courage to leave. I’m appalled and staggered at the system. I had little meaningful help. Thank you

  3. Rebecca Harrold says:

    I believe I am in a bullying relationship and I thought I should start keeping a journal. We are in marriage counseling and it has come to my attention that I don’t even recognize when he is bullying. I have a strong threshold for taking a lot of crap and put up with a lot. But when our counselor said she didn’t know if she should call the police as she was witnessing one of our angry outbursts with one another, it dawned on me that I have really been supressing my “fight or flight” response and have basically been giving into him or fighting back in verbally abusive ways just to keep the peace…. I fought back in front of our counselor so she could witness what we go through together on nearly a DAILY basis. I’m feeling sick about all this.

  4. L says:

    My husband took a lot of my clothes. He cut my hair . He is mean to me. How tell his parents how really is ?

    • Mrs Bean says:

      Just leave him , stand up to him & his parents . Go see a solicitor no one deserves this . You are better that that believe I. Yourself get rid of this toxic creep & screw him big time financially. Starve him from you life

    • T says:

      My husband will give me money and says he wants to help towards household cost but few hours later he finds a way or tries to fins a way to get it back then makes me feel like I’m wrong when I don’t give it to him I see what he’s doing now it hurts I know he has issues but didn’t realize how deep they are.

  5. Bhargava Ji says:

    It is a great blog post.Helpful and informative tips. I like it thanks for sharing this information with us

  6. Sam says:

    Good article and very appropriate for me as I have just today managed to walk away…and I am shaken shocked n it will take time to recover… I am very appreciative of my mum n step dad letting me stay …n bring there for me … though it’s worrying due to covid …as I do not want to give it to them being a nhs worker…
    But the title says are you married I think it should say are you living with not necessarily everyone is married
    Thanks

  7. Mark C says:

    My wife has epilepsy and comes from a verbally abusive father. I am now in my 20th year of marriage with four children. She constantly shouts and is a bully. I have lost all my friends and most of my businesses have crumbled because I am constantly having to placate her needs from seizures to ongoing insecurities. the constant push back on everything and obsession with religion is stifling. Once I flew gliders, dived in the oceans, sailed and raced motorbikes. Once I have so many friends and family around me. Now I am poverty-stricken and too scared to leave her because I fear for the way she will and is treating one of my four girls. Our house is perpetually and in strife, shouting screaming, it’s awful. I feel drained and don’t want to carry on…Women can be just as destructive and manipulative in bulling and shouting as men

    • Someone who cares... says:

      You owe it to yourself and ALL of your daughters to get yourself and all of them out of this situation. Your wife sounds unwell and needs help. Either insist on you and your wife getting help from a good professional counselor or just leave this relationship for everyone’s sake. As the bible states: The sins of the father (and mother) are revisited on the children. As healthy adults, we must find the strength, courage. and love for the sake of our children (and their futures) to break this cycle of dysfunction or it will repeat for generations. If your wife won’t go to counseling, then go on your own. And if your daughters are old enough take them, too. You can do this. There are people doing it everyday. All the best to you and your family.

  8. Sad and unhappy says:

    I need and want to leave but have nowhere to go, no support and no job.

  9. Zuna says:

    How do u seek help as a male that is to embarrassed to talk to someone…I can’t keep fearing for my life everytime we alone….as a man fearing for my life makes me feel weak

  10. Suffering says:

    I would very much like to leave my wife, who is a massive bully and control freak. She has been through bullying inquiry at work due to allegations of bullying her team (I am not in the least bit surprised), but was found ‘not guilty’ and the victim was ousted (again, I’m not surprised by this corporate behaviour).

    She threatens divorce regularly, and everything is my fault (apparently), even her problems at work are my fault.
    The one problem is we have a young boy, who she neglects now. The only reason he is not neglected, is because I do almost everything for him. If I leave, I know she is the sort of emotionally troubled individual who would absolutely wage war and use the child as a weapon in any way they could to hurt me, and he would not be looked after in the home if I were not there because my wife is one of the laziest people I have ever met. I have no doubt that if we did separate, I would almost never see my child again and she would have no problems disobeying court orders to the contrary. My wife is happy ‘launching the nukes’ in any situation, and she does not care if she is stood at the target location.

    Some people say ‘you can only control the things you can control, and if things goes wrong away from your control after you’ve left, that’s not your fault’. I can’t accept that, as I think it’s more like taking your child to the edge of a motorway with you drunk and practically unconscious wife, and walking away at that point saying the child is in the care of the other parent. You have a pretty good idea of the outcome.
    So, I have to just suck this up until the child is old enough that they probably want to spend time with their dad, and there can be fewer years where the mother is the sole carer and can feed poisonous lies to the child and turn them against me.

    You might ask how I got in this situation? Well, in large part the extent of my wife’s behaviour was hidden from me until our honeymoon. She fell pregnant a month before our wedding, but even from our wedding night, I could tell something had changed. The honeymoon was pretty miserable, despite me trying to put a brave face on it and trying to encourage my wife to have a good time. Since then, it went to rock bottom and has pretty much stayed there. Only 3 years after we were married did she reveal that she previously had to be committed to a mental hospital. When I’ve mentioned this to her family members, they were all casually like ‘oh, I thought you knew’.

    We both work with fairly even salaries. I would be happy to walk away with nothing except my son and take not a penny in support from her in future if only we could just be free of this. However, what will happen from any split is my wife will want to cause maximum hurt and damage to me, and will try and wring me for everything she can get. I would even expect her to consider giving up work to enable a worse financial outcome for me. I would also expect her to move around a bit to make it difficult for me to see my son, so I would have to be prepared to move regularly to try and keep contact.

    It breaks my heart to live like this, especially for my boy. If I thought I was truly the problem, I could just about get comfortable with leaving my child with his mother, who would then be better off without me if it meant a kind, stable, caring upbringing. But (as I now know) my wife has a history of highly abusive relationships, and if I were not there to be the recipient of the abuse, she would just turn to the next nearest target (the child). Even now, she lashes out verbally at him, and I have to regularly pick him up and exit a situation to remove him from something emotionally harmful; I of course get a torrent later when put through the inquisition about ‘why did you take him out of the room!?!’. Our boy loves his mum, but of course he’s too young to see and understand what’s going on.

    • Sally Shakespeare says:

      Thank you for your comments. I have passed your concerns on to our Client Care Team who will be in touch to see if they can offer you any help. Best wishes

  11. Anon says:

    My soon to be ex showed many of the signs of an emotional bully named above. It’s been really exhausting to deal with such a person for 18 years, and yet he is still continuing to do that through the courts by using our daughter to try and destroy me mentally as well as financially. We are still in the process of a divorcing but he is so good at playing the victim in front of others, while he bullies me behind the scenes through whatsapp, sms and social media. It’s been really stressful and above all it has instilled alot of fear in me especially for the sake of my daughter since he is using her to hurt me . And It’s just like no one sees what he is busy doing.
    So I just do not know what to do anymore.

  12. fatima says:

    Well
    My husband is a mental bully and financial too. I have all the responsibility of house, finances and my twin kids. he earns 0 to low. While i am the one paying the house rent, credit card, utilities and when the expenses are not met, he forces me to take more work. Even if i do more and more work, the expenses are still not met.
    Mentally, he is a bully. from a simple thing he can easily dig out a negative thing, even if i ask something simple, he will find the negative. he is always calling me names, misbehave and angry and agressive, not me only but to everyone. Everyone is problematic only he is perfect, this is what he thinks. He controls all the decisions from clothes to house. I wanna get free of this prison. How can i? Even, i wanna leave the kids (this is height). What i should do? I know i can easily survive without him, as i have no love for him.

    • Anon says:

      My husband is an alcoholic bully, I want to leave him but I have so much debt which has accumulated because he doesn’t pay enough to support our children so I’ve used credit cards. He earns 3 times what I do and he has around 20k in savings but if he leaves I can’t afford the bills and pay off the debt so I’m trapped in this situation until I can pay off the debt. A solicitor told me I won’t get any financial settlement if I divorce him as we don’t own a property and have no equity to pay legal fees even though he has thousands in his bank. I don’t know what to do….this situation is affecting mine and my childrens mental well being.

  13. Sms.Abuse says:

    Im scard i get treated with pyshical vilence from ither family menber, everything is my fault i have no phoneetc and have 2 be with yis family menbers all time . Ill never get out

  14. Unknown83 says:

    Advice like this is ubiquitous on the internet and it is misleading. We’ve reached a point now where every other divorcing woman on MumsNet will claim that they are divorcing a “narcissist” or someone “emotionally abusive” because they’ve been convinced that there is more to their breakup than a bad relationship. I similarly was drawn in by the possibility that my soon to be ex-wife was emotionally abusive (from the list above I could count critical comments, slamming doors, blaming (me for her depression), undermining decisions, arguments from nowhere, demanding we live near her family and a long way from mine, coming home late, withholding sex, not controlling finances but spending money we just don’t have even when I suggested we needed to be more careful to stay out of the red, cheating and claiming she has self harmed. She also put on an act when I finally said we were getting divorced.

    But hang on. Is she a nightmare to live with? Yes. Is she a bully? No. Is she coercively controlling? Absolutely not. The reason for that is just because she’s become unpleasant to be around doesn’t make her a bully because she has neither set out to nor succeeded in controlling me. She hasn’t stopped me deciding after repeated episodes of cheating, it’s time to call time on the marriage.

    Too often groups like Women’s Aid are handing out bad advice that doesn’t distinguish between two people falling out and actual domestic abuse. The clue to whether it is domestic abuse is to take stock of your unhappy situation and to work out what power you have to get out of that situation. People who are genuinely coercively controlled have often lost touch with their family and friends, don’t have any access to the bank account, been convinced that they are helpless etc. The article mentions the power imbalance but doesn’t talk about how crucial this is to forming a picture of whether the partner is a bully.

    If you’re like me it’s more likely six of one and half dozen of the other. I listed above the things I could accuse my ex of. She could equally accuse me of doing far less than half of the housework (as I was working full time and she didn’t work), tracking her movements (which I did briefly to end the gaslighting and prove she was having an affair) and asking not to spend too much money (which could easily be interpreted as financial control). Again though, I didn’t do any of that to bully or control her. I did it partly because of the hours I had to do to fulfil her wish to be a stay at home parent, partly to keep a roof over our heads and partly to answer the question “should I leave this relationship?”

    I think many of us would really appreciate better advice on solicitor’s websites about what emotional abuse actually is, to stop frivolous claims in the Family Courts.

    • Sad and unhappy says:

      Thankfully the new No Fault Divorce procedure will make divorcing a bully a bit easier. I can’t take any more.

      • RK says:

        No-fault divorce has been a disaster in the United States for over fifty years now. Neophyte Gov Ronald Reagan signed the first bill in California, and spent years apologising for it afterward. Fault-based divorce is supposed to handle bullies. No-fault allows the bully one more way to dominate.

        • Rosemerryn says:

          This is actually a really good point you have raised here. The ‘reasons’ why you divorced are never documented in a ‘no fault divorce’. This does allow for manipulative ex partners to continually ‘control the narrative’ of why you divorced to their children. This has happened to my husband who divorced just after the new Family Law Act (no fault divorce) of July1976 came into effect in Australia. The ex wife took off and hid the 4 children for 7 years until the eldest finally found her father through a chance meeting with someone who knew his family. The children’s relationship with their father is extremely dysfunctional as they have been brainwashed with false information for years about him. I appreciated the no fault divorce at the time as it made it relatively easy for us to marry but the ‘reasons’ why the parents divorced have been an ongoing issue for the first 4 children between them and their father.

  15. B says:

    Hi, i think i’m marrying a bully. My husband is really obsessed with my weight. I know i’ve been gaining a lot of weight. First because of pregnancy, i managed to lose a lot after my son is around 1.5 yo. Then i got diagnosed with HNP and i constantly feel pain running through my leg everyday. Sometimes the pain is unbearable, i slowly reduced my activities and i gain weight. The pandemic just make it worse. He constantly made vicious comments about my weight throughout the years. He even “gifted” me a digital scale for my birthday. He blatantly told me that i’m not appealing and he couldn’t even erected because i look like a pig. He didn’t want to have sex anymore and i didn’t even dare asking. Even one time i got hospitalized for almost a month because of pneumonia, and i had this severe pain through my chest, he flipped out when he knew i weigh more than 60kgs. He shout and yell at me at the hospital room, saying how disgusting i am. How i ate like a pig and didn’t even care with my appearance. He told me to look at the mirror. I even have a hard time reminiscing his words, i trembled because it was so awful. I could only cry silently at the hospital room and ended up refusing the food that was offered for me as a patient. Now he signed me up in this diet plan. Initially i lost 4kgs, and this week i gain 500grams and he lost it again. He even told me to weigh on the scale every single day and send him pictures of what i ate in a day. He made me feel so guilty about eating. Now i’ve been skipping lunch and dinner but still i only lost 200grams. I really just wish this would be over. I don’t think i could lose weight as much as he wishes for. And now i know that he targeted i lost 20kgs in this diet. I don’t know what would happen if I don’t make that target because so far i only lost 4kgs. Everyday i’m thinking i just wanna quit living. I feel ashamed telling this to anyone else. On the outside ppl really respect him, they know that he’s a bright man with a bright career, compassionate, athletic. He’s all the good things, but no one knows he’s treating me this way. Even my son got scared, and he feels bad for me because of the way his father treats me. I don’t know where to get help.

  16. Sandy says:

    Since my daughter was born which was 3 months ago, my husband has threatened me that he will take her away if I teach her anything from my religion. He only wants her to follow his religion and nothing else. On numerous occasions, he has offered me money to leave my daughter with him permanently in exchange for money ( just the thought of it disgust me), made me feel so belittle and that he’s in the marriage because of our daughter otherwise he would have ruined me if I didn’t have her so I should be thankful that our daughter saved me. And, so many other things such as calling me retard and that I’m not as beautiful as his previous girlfriends. It is so hurtful and so disheartening but still stuck in the marriage.

  17. Witts-End says:

    So…. okay I can do this… I don’t know if I should leave my wife or not. She got me fired from my job (literally) I lost my job and am collecting unemployment cause of things she said to my boss. (Have proof) When we first met, we were super poor and were super happy! She respected me she listened to me. I FELT SHE LOVED ME. She had kids but I didnt care. I took care of them like they were my own even though her husband is a deadbeat and never sent one nickel for child support… I kept us alive and made enough money to take care of all of us with no regrets. It all started when I told her how to budget and balance our finances and books. I had fantastic credit. She did great at first but started getting lazy and pretty much threw everything I taught her out the window. She made me sell my house just to lose all the money for a reason I wont say here… Now i am renting with her. My step kids are old and it really pains me to say I guess its just a stage, but they dont listen to me at all, my wife always takes their side and makes me look terrible in front of them and yells at me in front of them. She for some reason loses her freaking mind if I say anything about the kids for example. I dont think it is a good idea for my youngest to be with her boyfriend 4 times a week when we dont know what is going on in that house. She loses it, which really hurts me. My oldest child told me to gtfo of my old house with no repercussions from the wife…. She constantly controls me, I sit down she tells me to do something. She has quit a job and put us in dire straits but i never did the things she is doing to me. Because I dont have a job now that she got me fired from, she makes me the literal butler of the house. (Kids constantly and I mean constantly throwing dishes in the sink and trash in the trash can with no help cant say anything or n she either loses it or says she will say something and never does) Do the dishes, vacume, take care of animals, take out mounds of trash. We have 2 trash cans and both get dumped at least 2 times a day. Cook EVERY DAY. ALL outside work. It is literally expected of me now…. no matter what. She wakes me up at night while Im sleeping on purpose. She knows it takes me forever to go to sleep yet wakes me up claiming shes “playing with me” And I look and feel terrible if I dont get at least 6 hours. My looks are now showing. She actually tells me I look like you know what. I tell her its cause she wont let me sleep and anytime I complain about her cause I have had enough of something she does. She goes on with the I am a dime if you dont want to play with me, someone else will. She has tried everything she has to strip me of my masculinity. She has made me sell everything I loved because we needed the money yet held her own stuff. She makes pretty good money and is so bad with the books that she still made me sell stuff telling me we will get it back and we still have not yet

    She even made my house I was so proud of and bought at an early age and blew the money… she has opened accounts under my name cause she knows my social. Maxed them out and not paid them. She yells at me all the time and acts like she is roid raging and gives me the impression I have now married a man and she is trying to make me the housewife which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t so spiteful and strict. I feel like a slave witb no escape. She tells me she doesn’t want me to work but two seconds later says if you dont like it go get a damn job ya bum even though she caused me to lose it…. She has threatened to ruin my life if I ever left her and she knows how to do it… She has made me hate myself sometimes even though I have pretty thick skin I really feel like IDK what to do and am at my wits end. I stayed because I’m too proud to go back to my parents or someone elses house and am old school. I LOVE HER when I said I do. I meant it. There isnt a thing I haven’t and would not do for her. She is making me hate her now… Now I have turned to drugs to numb the pain and of course she threatens me every 5 seconds that if I do something she doesn’t like she will tell everyone I’m an addict… (she does it too but thats beside the point) threatens me with revenge porn. Threatens that if I dont do what she wants then she will find someone who does. Tells me she will cook get all the food door dashed. I put it away and then she says that I have to cook it…. I can go on and on. Took my inheritance and blew it. I AM AT MY WITS END… I have sacrificed so much and she doesn’t bat an eye. I lost all my friends, if I talk to a female in anyway she threatens to cheat and or tells me I should go f*** the girl I talked to instead super jealous… I dont know what to do or which direction to go in. Ummmm… Any ideas on what I should do?

  18. Rob says:

    I think my wife is a bully. I struggle to understand much of what she does and how she can say she loves me but then provides no support when I feel down (stonewalling I think). She accuses me of gaslighting but gaslights me (tells me I’m a bully for standing up for myself and telling her no). I’ve always found people very confusing and frustrating but women even more so. Just this morning there was an argument (I recorded it), I just wanted to talk to her about something but as soon as it doesn’t go her way BOOM, she grabs a banana and smashes it on the side then starts dragging things up for 15 years ago . She pretty much never lets me have my say instead choosing to talk or shout over me instead! She’s left 4 times in the last 2 years but after a few days (I don’t chase her, I just let her go) she starts txt’ing then I let her back. .I’ve asked “Did you come back for me or did you comeback for your home. She always says me then the cycle starts again!

  19. Dee says:

    Angel here:
    I am very sad reading all the above. I wish a magical wand can help. There is a message: Everyone needs help. Firstly ask yourself, what advise can you give to anyone of these situations and is it that easy to follow. If the answer is yes then do this for yourself, as long as its not endangering anyone or thing in the process. A healthy thought to a healthy mind and healthy action. Believe in yourself, your God, your spiritual self. We are given false imagination, stories that we grow up in a happy financial world. Isn’t not true and if you see all the suffering its because we don’t know how to cope with the indifference which is everyone needs to realise:
    1)money don’t grow on trees .
    2) we cannot make the other think like ourselves because there’s only one of us
    3) if we can not live with anybody to make adjustments or be flexible in our thinking or taking things for granted when things are going good. Ask yourself why do we meet or want company of another if we are content with ourselves so much..!
    Life doesn’t have to be bad but it becomes bad because we have let our guard down. We have trusted the other. We have become in lala land where we imagine the fairy tales of some being the hero to save the damsel. Please look after yourself. Try to find you. Talk to other people. Be patient. Stop focusing or giving time to those who give you no respect. You are okay if you think and want believe you are okay. If anytime you are in any danger by the other- if their was a fire what would you do? Would you wait for someone to save you or would you try to get out to safety. You need to help yourself and help those who are seen as being vulnerable:
    the (young) children,older adults and or disabled people. True lives matter. Leave God to do the rest. Don’t take the unnecessary load. What will happen is not in our hands. Do what you can mange to help yourself. Take care all. Peace be with you all. Remember we all have an experience that we have been affected by. Once I read the above, I thought more or less we need to think, change our mindset and start living and not become drawn into some else’s pain. Break this chain or cycle so that we can have better onversations. Be true to yourself. Life can be what you want to be. Be brave nd not let others or yourself dominate. As it always looks on either side: he or she did this and this will never stop unless you change.! Someone else is out there but unless we make that difference its always going to be someone experience/story that will be dire.
    Be mindful, meaningful, true to yoyrself. All best wishes.

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