Thoughts on coercive control and abuse in a relationship
Hello there. For the sake of anonymity, well as best as any website can be, I will not be using any names here. While this is all from personal experience the names do not matter as it is the principle that counts.
From researching others stories it is clear that mine, while unique, is not unusual; specifically that it took a catastrophic event to trigger my escape. Too often that event is fatal. This is being written in the hope that it helps at least one person escape.
Let me be clear from the very start here, the first big mistake, one I need to take ownership of, is that I followed the widely believed but fundamentally wrong premise; which is that a loving partnership, whether marriage or a committed relationship should be for life. ‘Til death do us part. That it should be worked on by both partners in both joy and adversity.
This is WRONG. People change. People LIE. People make mistakes.
I’m not saying that one should not work at a relationship, but that effort comes at a cost, and at some point an individual needs to evaluate that cost against the value of the partnership. No one deserves misery or fear. When it ends up with you doing all the work, making all the compromise, and still you are not happy, then it is time to go.
In my case there were no children, but even if there had been I still needed to leave. It would have been much more difficult but I know I would have found support.
So here’s my story.
The whole of it is much more complex. There are hundreds of anecdotes and examples but they would be highly identifying so thats for the book to come. This is a quick summary.
Five years after coming out of a fifteen year long loving relationship, where we agreed to separate amicably, I got together with someone I thought I knew. We had met at parties and social occasions and I was attracted by her vibrant personality. She was fun to be around, we shared similar passions and it all felt like a good fit. We dated and had fun. Pretty soon we talked about marriage and she was very keen, and so was I. We both had busy work lives but hers was high paying and immobile so I upped sticks and relocated so we could live together.
Even at this stage there were warning signs. Simple stuff, where she would claim she was busy at work and asked me to do a run around for her, only for me to find later that she was home with a glass of wine, or had gone to the pub. When socialising it was always me as designated driver.
We planned our wedding, where family and friends really helped out, and I didn’t even notice that it was me and my friends doing most of the work.
And then, some months after we were married the first major bombshell. She revealed how much debt she was in; over double her annual income. I, of course, as a facilitator and fixer, came up with a plan. And this is where, for me, things started to go very badly wrong, only months into our marriage.
Her attitude to money became clear over a period of months and years. She would simply not accept any limit to her ability to spend. So as I diligently organised paying down credit cards, she would simply get another one, or two. She would drip feed information, like she forgot to tell me about the bank loans, over and above the original debt she confessed to.
And the absolute worst. She started to weaponise sex. Any form of physical affection would be predicated on being allowed to spend, not being confronted about debt, and more and more only when she was drunk and initiated it.
Her drinking, while looking back was always problematic, became more so as time went on. It became difficult in social events. I started having to make excuses to friends and family when engagements were broken. I became more and more isolated as my life became whatever she wanted, when she wanted it.
Her abuse was verbal and financial, along with behaviour that impacted on my ability to socialise. Everything revolved around her.
The verbal abuse was cutting and demeaning. We did not have sex because I was rubbish in bed. She used previous experiences with other partners to say I was worthless. She would fawn over me when in any social situation, even and often when inappropriate, then verbally abuse me as soon as we got home. When she wanted something that she could not get by herself she would dangle the carrot of sex but if I facilitated what she wanted first would never actually show any physical affection.
The financial abuse was crippling. She could find ways to spend that beggared belief. Clothes that would often end up in charity shops with the labels still attached, collectables that she would bid on on eBay (often while drunk against herself), and on hobbies and pass times. Books had to be hardbacks arriving at the door several times a week. With a photographic memory, she had every one of her credit cards memorised. A £500 iPad became the most expensive single gift she ever got, as it facilitated on line shopping and eBay to a near industrial scale.
I found myself having to stick to a lower payed role at work as it facilitated a lot of payed overtime, which offered a better “guaranteed” income. I could not maximise my ability to save as could not afford to drop my monthly income as I struggled to try to bring the debt down. Bonuses that could have gone to my pension were used to clear down credit cards. But it was a never ending cycle of a comedic 3 year plan to get out of debt that she crushed at every turn with a spending spurge. So I was busy doing 60 hr weeks at work, and seeing little to no benefit.
She would claim that I got the benefit of a luxury lifestyle. But in truth the large house we lived in was wall to wall cluttered with her stuff. I had a partitioned section of one spare room to call my space. I was taken on holidays, but this was to be her chauffeur and bag carrier.
The social aspect was odd. If we were out together it was her show, arrival and departure driven by her. I could and did go and see friends without her, but more and more often if it was planned for us as a couple she would cancel and the last minute so I ended up just going on my own.
Now at any point in this shitshow I could have made the call to leave. But the twist here is that she seemed to have some sixth sense to this. Just when I would convince myself that it was over, she would start to engage with plans to clear off the debt, we would sit down and discuss problems, make and agree plans. This pretence could last for what I thought as months, all while in the background she was simply hiding her spending and drinking better.
The end game really started when I took control of the finances. This was triggered when she had secretly received the cash from an endowment policy, payed a bit off all her credit cards evenly (rather than pay off and close the highest interest one), then used the realised credit to go on a spending spree. It was at this point that I had to approach our mortgage lender and ask for a transfer to a full repayment schedule. As an aside, I was overwhelmed by the kindness of the building society in brokering a deal way below the market APR, which then set us on a good footing for the next part, which was to approach a debt charity to set up a repayment schedule for the 12 credit and store cards and bank overdrafts.
At last we were set to be able to pay off all the debt, with the schedule for 4-5 years. This of course blocked any access to credit, and while our free income would have made most working families look at us and say how privileged we were, this put my partner, despite her agreement to do this, into a tailspin.
Despite the reduced income her drinking somehow escalated and she clearly thought she had a plan.
This was to become ill, and get “early retirement through ill health”. To this end she pursued a course that ended up with her nearly getting sacked.
This part of the tale is highly specific so I will not go into detail other than to say that I am very glad to be a trained union rep. After 12 months of convoluted hell I managed somehow to support her, despite her repeated lying and poor judgement, and negotiate a good outcome. This left us with enough cash, from her retirement settlement to pay off nearly all our debt.
All this time and effort, stress and heartache, and still my intention was to be with her.
Then came the moment.
I had put all this cash into escrow, specifically so she could not go on another spending spree. This caused a massive argument. She saw this cash as hers; to do with as she pleased. She wanted it and wanted it now. It was a vitriolic and violent outburst even for her. At this point I was sleeping in a spare room with a lock on it. The lock was needed as I no longer felt safe in her presence. So in the small hours of the morning, I simply told her she was not getting access to the money and we could discus what could be done in the morning or when she was sober.
Imagine my surprise when a burly but perfectly lovely policeman knocked on my bedroom door at 2am. Apparently I had physically assaulted my partner who was now in fear of her life.
5 hours in a police station, 3 asleep in a holding cell, and 2 being treated very respectfully and, I must say, with kindness by the officers looking after me, who even drove me to a friends house after release without charge. And that was it.
Something had snapped.
I realised at that point that it was over. If she was willing to have me arrested for assault, just because she couldn’t get “her money”, then clearly all trust had been broken. It was a moment of utter clarity.
I could not go back. I simply could not risk another trip to a police cell. I saw all the lies and deceit, all the manipulation, all the narcissistic behaviour over all the years and realised there and then that there was nothing this person could do to recover this. I had pretended to be this rock, this resilient soul that could forgive, look to the good bits and hope of a better future. But now the only better future I could see was one where she was not part of it.
In the aftermath, I took the opportunity to have therapy. I was lucky enough to meet a fantastic therapist who saw immediately what I had gone through and my personality and took me through Transactional Analysis, a therapy tool I had never heard of, but I’m so glad she did.
Now many years later, I still use TA to help me.
So thats my story, in summary. The book will come out later.
What I’m really trying to say here is that if you are in a relationship that has warning signs of narcissistic behaviour, substance abuse, addiction; unless your partner is in genuine rehab and following all the steps and is compliant and willing themselves to control their issue AND by them doing so you feel safe and loved, get out.
Get out now.
Even if you have been isolated, and you feel you have lost your friends and family, trust me, they will lift you up with open arms, hold you close, let you know that you are loved and worth every bit of the support you deserve.
If you are alone, without family or friends, or if they are part of the problem then there are community and support groups; people who have gone through what you have. They can be your support.
It took me 15 years from the first clear warning signs. The big part for me was being too sanctimonious about the institution of marriage. The insidious part was her behaviour making me feel worthless; all the time convincing myself that at some point things would change.
One last point to note. Your friends and family will tell you. They are on the outside looking in. They will see, even when you cannot, or will not. Trust them, talk to them, take all the love and support they are offering because they are showing you that you are precious and worthy. All the things your partner is stealing from you.
Don’t waste your precious life. It is yours, not your abusive partners.