Sanctuary for the Abused
Saturday, December 09, 2017
Everything I've Done, I've Done for You
The 'other side' of the breakup.
by Tigress Luv
Abandoning those you love....
Yes, it hurts like hell to get dumped, abandoned, rejected, or left for another. You have given and given and given your all to a relationship... and what do you get in return? In return you get to have the person you were most attached to, willfully and purposely withdraw their love for you, and detach from you.
Getting abandoned sucks!
But, I am going to write to you right now via the perspective of being the one who does the abandoning. As a 'dumper'. Let me tell you, being the one that makes the decision to leave a relationship - well, that hurts like hell, too!
I am, at this moment, preparing to leave a man. And this guy is going to hurt like hell. And I know it. And I feel bad - I really, really do. And I know exactly what he is going to say - and I know how very true those words will be. He will say:
- "Everything I've done - I've done for you."
- "I give you everything I can."
- "I would always be faithful to you."
- "I care for you and worry about you."
- "I'm good to your children. I love them."
- "I love you so much I want to make you my wife."
- "I would never hurt you."
- "I only wanted you to be happy."
- "Your smile I live for."
And, he can honestly say to himself that these things are true - because they are true. But I am leaving him anyway. Here's why:
"Everything I've done - I've done for you." Yes, this is true.
You basically have become a love-slave.
You sacrificed your friendships, you see them no more - lest I get a life and visit my friends, too.
You quit your job - to make sure I didn't do anything or go anywhere while you were gone at work.
Every move you make - you make to keep me prisoner.
"I give you everything I can." Yes, you do.
- Unfortunately, because you have quit your job to 'watch over' me, I pay for it all out of my hard-earned money.
- I would rather pay the rent then have you buy me flowers with my money because you are 'sorry' about what you did 'last night'.
"I would always be faithful to you."
I've no doubt of that.
- You are so dependent on me that you can't even go to the service station without me on the passenger seat right next to you.
- Or is this because you are so hideously insecure that you can't 'trust' me to be alone for five minutes?
- Women are not 'cunts, whores, bitches, scorned, psychos and sluts that are having affairs if they can't account for every second that they are 'out of your sight'.
"I care for you and worry about you." How sweet.
- Like the time you knocked the doors off of the bedroom closet in a rage because I was too ill to have sex.
- The times you yelled at me and belittled me and made me feel weak and dirtied.
- You controlled my personal space and time.
- Your bedtime is not necessarily my bedtime.
"If you're having a bad day, I don't mind helping you with the housework, or letting it slide for a day." How kind of you. How truly, truly kind. I remember you vehemently vacuuming the living room (even though it didn't need it). I remember you coming home with the flu and a fever and having to wash the walls in the hallway because you thought 'I was having trouble breathing'. Yes, to the outside world this might have looked grand. But to me, who knows you well, it was an act of control and martyrdom. Translation: Instill guilt on me at every opportunity. Next time I'm having a bad day I will - for sure - clean your home.
"I love you so much I want to make you my wife." You want to make sure I'm unavailable to other men. If another man so much as looks at me, or talks to me, you rush over and shove your hand out to shake his, "nice to meet you. This is my girl you're talking to." Why don't you just lift your leg and piss on me?
"I would never hurt you." Too bad you can't remember what you do when you are drunk or high. Which is like 8 days a week.
"I only wanted you to be happy." Really? Yes, perhaps that's true.
- You wanted me to be happy 'owned' by you.
- You wanted me to be happy without any 'life' left in me.
- You wanted me to be happy in giving up my world and dying for you.
- You wanted me to be happily enslaved by you. If you truly wanted me to be happy, then why do you rule me, abuse me, hold me prisoner, use me, keep me?
- Why do you make me needy?
- Why do you steal all my options, all my freedom, all my independence, so I have to be totally dependent on you?
- Why do you deprave me of the very air I need to breathe?
- Why have you crushed my spirit?
- Why am I an empty shell where there once was life?
- Was not your point to enslave me psychologically? To have absolute and unrestricted control over me? To annihilate my self-esteem so I wouldn't leave you? To become more manageable of me?
"Your smile I live for." Then you must be blind or dead, because - in case you haven't noticed - I haven't smiled in months. I'm physically sick every day, and the constant stress and pressure - and fear - is only making me more ill. I fear I will die if I am here with you one more day. If you want me to be happy - if you want to see me smile - then you will let me leave you without you stalking me. You will set me free and set your heart free.
....As I write this I am having an anxiety attack - after a day of deep, defeating depression. This is what abuse does to you. It is so easy for people to say, "well leave..". They don't understand how your resources can so gradually be depleted you aren't even aware of it. They don't understand how the isolation can be so enveloping that you wake up one day and realize you haven't any friends left. They don't realize how the abuser can be so subtle and crafty that you become 'needy' before you're even aware of it. They just say, "why doesn't she walk..?" and then they get angry if you don't.
And you don't walk. Because.
Because...
* Denial - Some people truly don't believe they are being abused.
* Financial - Not only do most women make less money than a man, a lot of abused women can't work because their partner won't let them. Abusers, too, withhold money, checking account, credit cards, etc, . leaving the abused financially needy, taking away important resources needed for her to leave. This issue is compounded when there are children involved.
* Fear - Making threats to kill or harm the abused party, pets, or family members - should an abused woman chose to leave - is a very effective method abusers use to keep someone in a relationship, which is the goal of the abuser. She may feel, "why leave? He'll just hunt me down and kill me." Also, threatening suicide is a common method the abuser uses to 'keep' his victim. She really, truly does not want to feel responsible for another's pain or death.
* Love - Most people want their relationships to work. Hope that things will improve, or believing promises of 'change', keep many women in abusive relationships.
* Children - It is important for children to have good relationships with their father. Most women are compelled to try and hold the family together, innocently unaware that the abusive atmosphere is actually having an adverse affecte on her children.
* Religion - Many religions discourage divorce. Verse has it that a woman that leaves her husband is a prostitute, and any remarriage is adultery.
* External Pressures (family, church) - Yes! Abusers are - surprisingly - very well-liked. That's because most abusers are master charmers and bull-shitters. "He was such a nice man." The abuser has two faces: public and private.
* No place to go - Sometimes, by the time a woman admits or realizes the abuse, her abuser has already succeeded in isolating her from her family, friends, financial resources, and transportation.
* The Abuser's Main Goal is to Make the Abused Feel Worthless - This is to ensure that she will stay with him. As many abused women state, "no one else would ever love me. I am a miserable failure. Ugly, stupid, bad lover, can't cook, lousy mother..." "I deserve this abuse, I am a bad person. It's all my fault."
* She's Too Compassionate - The abuser can really come off as a pathetic lost child - so misunderstood. A compassionate woman often stays with an abuser because she feels so sorry for him. "No one else understands him the way I do."
* She Mistakes His Abuse for Love - Face it, who could ever love you so intensely and consuming as the abuser can? Sometimes the abuse actually feels good! This is one of those 'unadmitted' facts about abuse, that the intense jealousy and need someone has on you is actually an ego boost! "Wow - does he love me! I must be great and no where else could I find someone who will ever love me this deeply. I am wonderful!" Ugh!!!
Yes, I am about to abandon my man. And yes, he will grieve. And yes, he may find a breakup board, or a grief board, and write a post that says something like this:
"My love of my life just left me. I am so devastated. How will I survive? I love her. Everything I did - I did for her. I gave her everything I could. I never would have cheated on that woman, I loved her so much. I worried about her. I loved her children. I miss them so much. I miss her too. This is terrible. What could have gone wrong? I was so good to her. I wanted her to be my wife. I never would have hurt her. I only wanted her to be happy. How can I go on, when I lived for her smile? Oh, won't someone please help?"
And he will sound like a truly great man, grief-stricken by the woman he loved so much.
Don't think this doesn't hurt me - the abandoner. It hurts like hell. But I won't die for love.
I need to breathe again. To smile again. To not be sick and live in fear. I need to stop walking around on egg-shells. I need to feel safe, and accepted, and trusted, and I need to feel like I am giving my love freely - not like it is being coerced out of me by threats and guilt and fear.
It's not just the abandoned that hurt.
~~Tigress Luv
NOTE: To all who have answered this -
Thank you for your show of support! Abuse is the unbelievable psychological horror.
You can't help but initially fall in love with the abuser (before the abuse becomes evident) - abusers can be such charmers! They are the extreme of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - however Mr. Hyde is well-hidden in the initial stages of the relationship.
You almost become addicted to their intense love, but before you realize you are being abused you are suckered into the life. Abuse is so subtle, and sneaks up on you so inconspicuously, that you aren't even aware of the abuse.
I know I wasn't in the beginning. I just told myself, 'he's moody' 'he's worried', 'something happened at work' 'his first wife made him distrustful' etc.
But then you just wake up one morning and realize your 'innocent zest' for life - your beautiful free spirit - exists no more. And you feel empty and without hope and joy. Your eyes betray your false show of cheerfulness around your children/co-workers/friends. Your shoulders sag, and you have become hypervigilent to EVERYTHING!
Thank you for your words.
Tigress Luv
ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE
Labels: abandonment, abused, denial, depressed, hurt, narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, stalking, threats, toxic hope, trapped, two-faced, worthless
11 Comments:
Just remember that you are beautiful.
Well I am glad this person got out.
Sometimes, one endes up with nothing and if you are going to the food pantries even with the abuser, and know your income will be halved should you escape, and you'd already been abused by social workers and others who do not care, who expected a woman with serious heart conditions to do her own move.. and know you are expected to live in such deep poverty, that it will endanger your health, you don't leave. Being sick and disabled, fearing the nursing home, you stay. There is no Calvary coming, if a woman is poor, sick and old sometimes if you leave you can end up in worse circumstances.
This may be different for those who are being beaten physically, Ive had more the emotional and some slaps, and fact he is an emotional child to contend with, no longer expect anything, and I am not disapppointed. The problem is moving here with him,. I made a giant mistake, I am now so alone.
One needs other people who are actually in their life, for support. Some of us only have long distant people, and that is not enough. I am a stranger to everyone it seems, my main friends from the internet who have never met me.
So I have stayed and I know I am judged for doing so. At the shelter here a bunch of the women ended up homeless. I am already on food stamps with the abuser, and knowing they are giving as little as possible when I do the math, I simply am not in a physical or emotional place to suffer even worse poverty, or being dependent on others some of whom are more abusive like family members. Ive been poorer, so I know how bad things can get. My decision to stay has been a purely economic one but it sucks, it is a Faustian deal.
I live knowing if a better deal comes along Ill take it, but do not see that happening, for I am just too sick, and have serious chronic health problems. At least I stood up to him enough to end the more aggregious abuse, and he is in counseling but I see it more as kind of ameliating stuff rather then ending what is wrong with him inside, the fact he never grew up.
I have been where you are now.. To leave takes immense courage, self-love, & resolve as you walk through the fear. You can do this. You will do this. You deserve to know peace. You deserve to feel alive, to breathe, to expand & explore. You deserve to love yourself & know true love from another. Keep the faith - you are worth it! And you are not alone.
Hi I love the article, and it fit my situation to a T, only thing is I am male. But I too ended making that hard choice and myself and my boys (sole custody) are doing better still a struggle but doing it.
This sounds like I could have written it, it's my story, it's other women's stories.
I am 4 years free, healing, & in a warm loving relationship. The scariest & best decision I ever made was leaving my abuser, & getting into therapy & recovery.
Thank you for sharing your story. I hope your courage & your self-esteem inspire others to (safely) leave abuse behind.
Break the silence- speak out - ask for help - tell someone what is happening to you - leave the shame & guilt to the perpetrator of abuse. Stay safe & get out!!
Thanks so much for this, you might save my life...
Omg I love this website!! Thank you so much for sharing your story. I was in a realationship with a narcissit/sociopath. It's been 8months since our break up and it took me a while to figure out what he truly was as a person. When I intitated the no contact rule and humble myself going back to my friends, I got a nasty game from him acussing me of lying, stalking him, and emtional unstability. And continues to try and pick off my friends, character assaisination and such to this day.. I have under gone loosing almost everything from this cut all the while I have walked through three deaths, loosing my place and suffering from severe depression. It was HELL to get help and took stick to my boundaries of he is not allowed in my life due to mutal friends. I have started to see a therapist and on antidepressents on myself and for a new job. He attempted the last of my friends this weekend she choose to leave us bot be hind.. sad but I understand that she needs to do what's beat for her.. on the bright side.. he can't torment me anymore.. and he has no more clout.. all of this is making look at myself and what I can improve and protect myself.. learning more about a realtionship with god.
I was in an abusive marriage for 25 yrs, he hit me within the first year of my marriage, beat my boys with his belt and controlled, demanded, belittled me, isolated me, pretended everything he did was for me. Treated me like a whore in the bedroom, pretended he had depression and was suicidal, threatened to leave 5 yrs. ago & never did, he waited to get his finances in order, I believe child support for 5 kids scared him off. He sought a divorce 5 yrs. ago and didn't tell me nor the children until our separation in Oct. 2010. The night after he told me he actually came into my bedroom seeking sex. If that isn't sick I don't know what is.Theres's more but it's disgusting, I am only glad Mr. Hyde is gone. L. Gallo
Very moving post.
You will get through this. I know because I've been there.
Stand strong. Be consistent with your children. Live well. Record every little thing your ex says and does after you leave. Do all of the things your ex stopped you doing.
You will learn to smile again - that's a promise x
You are mistaken, if you think they feel anything.
You are an object, to be replaced, so easy it will make you feel like you've lost you're mind.
A story about how they've lost the love of their life?
Not so much.
How about explicit posts online, of sex with prostitutes, written especially for you to find, in his REAL name.
If you get to the point where it's YOU or him/her, spare the misplaced empathy- Save that for the person who will need it most- yourself!
Wow, your story really made me sit back and think. I'm the one who told my wife that "I gave you everything."
Well, I did. Financially she has ruined me. Every nickel I had went to her and our family and she still has me overwhelmed with debt. Yet, when I would reach out to her for a simple hug or some affection she would get angry.
She could spend hours talking on the phone, but if I simply asked her how her day went, she would get angry.
I have been belittled and called names.
She had to know where I was every second of the day, but if I ask her about her giving her phone number to another guy she would get angry and act like I am unreasonable.
It's interesting, she told me how involved she would be in the marriage. She made great promises, yet she changed everything on me. That is, after we built the house and had the kids I was no longer anything more than a paycheck.
I think I did martyr myself a bit trying to be a good husband and a good father in an empty marriage. I did what I could to keep things together.
Lesson learned.
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