Recognising Domestic Abuse and Adult Bullying

You’d think it would be obvious. Like when you’re driving your car and someone blares the horn and swears and cusses out of the open window or throws a finger sign.

Domestic abuse and adult bullying can be like that but more often it is covert, smothered in lashings of blame and justification so that much of the time you don’t even recognise it, you think it is your fault or you justify and excuse the person’s behaviour because of life conditions and environmental factors – he’s stressed, tired, drunk and so on. Even when it’s physical, it can come so out of the blue that, afterwards, it is almost hard to believe it even happened. These are just some of the signs in my case: 

Some bullies and abusers hide behind a shiny public persona. It is only now that I look back on our relationship and realise that the signs were there from the start. I just refused to acknowledge them. Many people have said the same about my husband; that they cannot believe that he would do or say the things I am telling them he has done and said. But as I have said here before (and as I truly believe) if there is one thing he is good at it is being his own best pr practitioner.  

They thrive on drama and conflict. He seemed to enjoy creating drama and conflict and enjoyed nothing better than when he was fighting with someone or some organisation, which he often dragged me into. I found myself cleaning up his mess a lot.

They are self-interested and disinterested in truly relating with others. He seemed bored by the things I needed like peace and tranquility and liked nothing better than having an audience, holding court with a social group and being seen in places that were to be seen in but always in a central role. 

There is incongruence and inconsistency in their messages. One day he would belittle things that mattered to me and the next he would openly favour them to try and manipulate me. For example, I am a spiritual person and although no-one would describe me as ‘new-age’, I am interested in things metaphysical. Aware of the fact that my mother died when I was quite young, early on in our relationship my husband told me he had had a visitation from her in the night whilst he was in a hotel in San Francisco and she had told him we would get married and everything would be fine. It aroused my curiosity at the time but I found it hard to believe because some of the things he said made it clear to me that – whomever he had been talking to it was not my dear mother!

They demonstrate an insatiable appetite to be in control of you. Socially, he seemed awkward and uncomfortable if I was having a good time and would purposefully do things to stop me having a good time like pick a fight with me or someone else, be mean to catering staff, insult me in front of people, put me down, create a scene. 

Abusive Arguing – the pattern of arguing for us was that I would say something that he did not like or that made him feel uncomfortable, which in our case was something like: “we need to talk about this letter from X and how we are going to deal with it.” His retort would be to say something really mean about me like: “you always do this. Why are you so incapable and insecure that you have to keep pushing me all the time? You are useless, an imbecile.” to which I would get angry and defensive and shout back at him: “I am not pushing you and I am not insecure, we need to talk about this as two grown-up people and get it sorted out. It wont sort itself out.” to which he would respond: “there you go again – see! I told you, you are an insecure, fat, ugly fuckwit. Look at you! Look at yourself! fat fucking bitch.” By this stage I would be seething and would probably have thrown something or slammed a door. Often, from then it would escalate into physical abuse. He would hit me with any weapon he could get his hands on (never just his fists) and I often would hit back whilst at the same time trying to escape.  

There is a permanent edgy environment – it felt to me like I was living in a permanent edgyness. I could never relax or look forward to anything – social arrangments, anniversaies, anything because I never knew when things would kick off. He was hyper sensitive and critical of everyone and everything and never shy to voice his opinions about anything he heard on the news, read in the paper, was told by a member of his family. It got where I could only relax when he wasn’t around. I used to look forward to his being away. 

They suffer from paranoia. He was fixated on court cases and people taking legal action against him and seemed to be forever ‘collecting’ evidence or ammunition to fight them if it ever happened.

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