TwistingInTheWind wrote:

Controll your OWN anger - I had enough of that as well. These "man" imposters go around sucking and fucking, lying and cheating and THEN try to pretend to be human beings. What a racket. Then they have a bunch of hapless women worshiping him. WOW - When will WE - as WOMEN wake up to the continued and continuing abusiveness of this kind of behaviour. I am desperately afraid that our entire culture is imploding. When it is possible fo anybody to do ANYTHING and then walk about and crow about it and be thanked and praised for it we are in BIG trouble. Yes, I am angry and I do not think that being angry is inappropriate on the contrary I can't understand why the rest of you aren't angry as HELL too. Men, deceive, cheat and steal ourvery lives and we should "control our anger" - WELL, that ain't happenin' with me.

yes, agreed Twisting.  Personally I feel our species is imploding.  Re Sean, he did help a number of women get a grasp on how their husband was actually thinking feeling and behaving.  Shame they could not listen to the straight spouses who were telling them the same but I get it - it is coming from the horse's mouth and it broke through the trance.  He was in a committed gay relationship and I think part of it was 'proving' to his lover that he really was 100% gay and committed but also I think it was genuine atonement.  When he first got here he expressed anger and rudeness towards his ex wife and got pulled up over it.  But way later down the track his story line was not so clear, he said a couple of things that gave me the impression that his ex-wife was a monogamous bisexual.  He appeared to be unable to tolerate that thought (the irony of it!).  

I don't mind calling myself an idiot, I know that, I just don't like being called one as an insult.  I also think it is the way we are.  Nothing you can do about it, it is only when your love has been worn through by the abusive relationship that you are able to see the seriousness of your situation.

​Re anger.  You are right to be angry, we all are, but what you do with it, that's the rub.  I have seen women come here consumed by their anger and unable to do anything else with it but confront their husband and all that happened from that is further manipulation and abuse.  First you need to get that wedge between you and your abuser or you are just feeding him more of your precious heart.  

Fear and anger are meat and potatoes to an abuser, love and jealousy are the icing on the cake.  First you need to detach so you can use your emotional energy to help yourself, not to interact with him.

Sean really did help a number of women find their way out of the 'but honey I love you' trap.
 

One thing that helps me when my rage overwhelms me is to tell myself that he got more than half my life and I'll be damned if he's getting any of the rest of it (I'm 66; divorced at 64 after 36 years of marriage).  I also remind myself that my anger has no effect on him, only on me.  Our rage is justified.  But the effects of that rage are bad for my health, so I try to deflect it or rework it or channel it into something that helps me.    Physical labor.  The joy I find outside in the natural world.  You get the point. Seeing him or even reading his name is a trigger for me, so I try to avoid any and all mentions of him, and have distanced myself from mutual friends.
You process your rage at your own pace and in your own way.  
 

Twisting, I'm not the one who said control your anger, am I.  I've been nothing but supportive.  Other than to say don't call me names.  Which is fair enough isn't it.  Do not want to muzzle you at all.  I'd like to hear more.

Are you separated or still living with the (insert expletives)?  

I am 65.  The story of my life is no better than yours.  I live alone now.  If it is daylight hours and I can go pull some weeds or wash the car then I positively like feeling angry - it is bright and clean and turns to pleasure when I am doing something.  tbh my biggest problem at the moment is the grief - it's just too painful.

Yeah, out the frying pan into the fire - loving with your whole heart only to find you are being used.  No mercy given to the kind-hearted.  Happened to my mother too.  And last night I turned on the tv, story about a young couple setting up a market farm in Tasmania, a lot of hard work.  I look at the young woman, what beautiful hair, lovely face, look at the young man standing so close to her and he looks like a mean nasty controlling transgender type to me.  Who can tell her to run now?  and where to?  

let alone at our age.  

yes, we can be grateful for what we do have.  The most harrowing story I read here was a woman in a wheelchair, she had some sort of disability and along with it came a pension.  So there she is completely helpless as she realises not only has she married an increasingly abusive GID but she is his second victim - he has done it before.  

I think it's more complex than teaching young women to be more assertive.  What about the lesbians?

I've seen what an abusive narcissistic GIDW can do, I seen it up close - the hapless husband trusts the wife to have a moral core and she doesn't, he soaks up the punishment she dishes out to him, 'a happy wife is a happy life' right, right?, instead of a moral core she has a jealous fury in her heart - we see the husband doing the dirty work, a deadly tool in her hands, we don't see the power behind the throne manipulating him until it is too late. She created an agony in the family that does not go away.

But yes, you are right, I am not sure its possible to teach youngsters how to avoid being hooked by an abusive partner but it would be better to say watch out rather than extolling the virtues of being loving and giving, if you are like that you are like that and if you aren't you aren't.  

I look at all the punishment I soaked up in the name of love and see how the hurt extended to my whole family.  And I can see it was the same situation for my mother.  

I am very much afraid that we are NOT "all in the same boat".  We are each in our own life boat and trying to stay alive and sane.  Every day is not easier for me.  It is harder.  I wish it were not so......there seems to be no end to it.