After Emotional Abuse: Do the Side-Effects Ever Disappear?

I was married to a doctor for 13 years, didn't know he was BIPOLAR......he refused treatment, he was a spend a holic............out of control.........slept with over 16 women that I knew about ........most were patients and old fat and ugly,,,,,,,,,,,,,threw things at me, screamed at me daily, belittled me, when I was ill he let me rot, never once tried to give me medication, he used my sick time as perfect for going out with women.
My cardiologist told me if I didn't leave I would be dead in so many years.
Seven years since the divorce, still in a legal battle of my life, he spent over half a million in legal fees seven lawyers later and still won't settle, for the first four years he paid me at will my alimony. He moved in with one of his women the night I booted him, ten months later he dumped her for someone else...........It took me years to learn how to be calm,
he lives a lavish lifestyle while I struggle. But I wouldn't change my life for the world, I never look back.
I have been told that he lives with a woman that he fears, SHE TREATS HIM LIKE HE TREATED ME...............KARMA CAN BE A GOOD THING

I have just read all of this and can't beleive it ...after 13 yrs of not being with my abusive pattner now he is trying to control my son who is 18 which he left when my son was 3 ..don't know what to do

Saw this article by chance online. Thanks for your advice and all the others' sharing. It helps a lot to know that I'm not alone in this kind of horrific experience. I was in love with a classmate for 4 years, but we never dated. He's verbally abusive, often calling nasty names and trashing everything I did. He would call me "fat", "annoying as hell", "shallow", "superficial", "stupid" and many more, Even if I was one of the best students in my school, and got a loving family, I still felt complete worthless. We separated since graduation and he was dating one of my friends. I once confronted him about he lying that he never wanted to date her. He said this was all my fault of being too gullible and annoying.
After I left, he contacted me once or twice, especially when he knew I was struggling on the professional side. He preyed on my vulnerability, my constant desire for his approval and support. But I was too exhausting to allow him to be back in my life. I pushed him away and he never contacted me again. I have been happier ever since, with my loving family and many supportive friends who share similar interests and worldview with me.
8 years later, I learnt about emotional abuse, I realized he is an abuser. I am not the problem, but he is. I have been working on healing for 4 years now. Sometimes I still have nightmares about him, waking up wondering if I'm worthless and unlovable. I also have difficulty in finding partners. I can't help but keep finding something trivial on every guy I met and like reminding me some parts of him. This makes me so scared to start a new relationship. I'm still very young at 22, I'm afraid that I'm too emotional damaged to even find my first ever serious date. Honestly I don't know what to do, even if he's no longer in my life.

I've been with a verbal abuser for 13 years. I've experienced everything mentioned in this article. The thing that stuck out to me is the part about abusers convincing the abused that they can't make it without them. Another thing mentioned in the article is how the abuse has changed me to the point that I am someone I don't recognize and do not like. It has made me act almost as badly as him at times. When I have talked to him and explained that I think we're better off apart, he tells me I'm like my mother (married 7 times) and that I want to leave at any sign of trouble (even though he's the one who used to tell me to get out over any little thing that made him mad). I've raised his daughters, and sacrificed attention I could've been giving my son and myself for all these years. I feel crazy most of the time. Two of his daughters have moved out because they can't take his constant criticism. I'm afraid to leave because I know I will begin grieving over the time I lost, the way I've betrayed myself for allowing this to happen to me for years, and the unanswerable "why". He has mellowed out over the years, (especially after watching me have a nervous breakdown) but I'm still not happy and I feel like I need to get away to heal.

I have tears running down my face having just read your article. I went to a women's centre appointment and told them everything and they confirmed it was emotional abuse when I finally asked my husband to leave the marital home after a very lonely unhappy 19 year marriage and told him I was fed up of his affairs lies and emotional abuse he told me I was insane and did not know truth from reality and lots of other things too numerous to mention....... I believed him! I told him about my appointments and he said they only thought my husband was emotionally abusive based on what I had told them and that there is two sides to every story. He often says that one day he will tell my family and friends what I am really like and that our children are already beginning to realise...... I began to believe I was bad and had done something wrong.... Your article felt like you was writing about me, so accurate, thank you

I feel like Im dying inside and what scares me most is being unhappy for 20 years is way to long to dream or believe I can or will be able to welcome with open arms and embrace life as I did one day a long time a go. MY body is in motion but my heart and soul are rolled up in a ball in the depth of where we go to protect what ever we many have left but am I really breathing?

thank you for allowing me to share. if anybody knows where i can get hellp and go e-mail me

I was married to a woman for 24(!!??) years who was extremely emotionally abusive. I stayed with her because we had children and I felt it was important for the children to have two parents, and because I naively thought if I was nice enough to her, she would gradually come around. So this being abused thing also can happen to a guy.
Instead, she got nuttier with time. She would stop talking with me for days, and I rarely knew why. If we had intimacy once a month, I considered myself lucky, and even then, it was something she did because she felt she had a religious obligation to have sex, not because she wanted to be close.
When our youngest turned 13 she went uber bonkers, accused me of having an affair and secret bank accounts. Thank God I gave her a divorce and am now remarried to a woman who loves me. I was awarded full custody of the younger children.
It was like those 24 years with the first one I was never married. We've been married for 12 years and still feel like newlyweds. It is really a blessing. And our children, each of whom has had counseling to help cope with their mother's strangeness, are doing fine, thank God.
And the first wife? Gets nuttier by the year. She has cut off all communication with our children save one, and she spends her time harassing people on the telephone. And she still creeps me out, even though she lives 7,000 miles away.

After 10 years of emotional abuse I had started hating myself. Though my inner voice always told me, it's not me but then I couldn't help blame myself for being weak and not being able to leave. I hated the person I had turned into, angry, frustrated, sad, depressed just all emotions one can feel except happiness. Now after taking this first step towards recovery, I remember how I used to be, a happy go lucky social person. Your blog has given me hope that I can still be a wider version of my older self some day. Thanks to all of you for giving me hope

It's been 2 years since my split from my husband going through the divorce now. I am single handedly raising my 3 year old daughter. I spent 10 years with him emotional abuse thankful it never got to physical. But after two years I haven't even begun to heal. Whenever I finally feel ready to move on I see him with his new fiance and his two new kids in the store. It's not love I feel anymore once he was gone the denial lifted. Now it's fear an anxiety. I'm not sure I'll ever cope. His new fiance will approach me like I'm her friend and hell stand there eyeballing me and my daughter not speaking his look alone caused a panic attack it lasts for hours after the meeting. For months I felt safe and happy moving on but the last two days we've crashed into one another and it just brings all those bad memories back and I have to fight my inner demons all over again trying to claw my way out of that dark space in my head.

I have just recently left a 33 year verbally/emotionally abusive marriage. I know it was the right thing to do but at times I feel a dark cloud of sadness. It seems like it has divided our family. I have read the books but I would just like to be over the hurt.

I was emotionally abused for four years when two former coworkers set up a gang stalk and cyber attack against me. I feel so ashamed. I don't know how to begin to stop the mental trauma this has all caused me. I kept thinking justice from the law would make it easier to heal.

Thank you for this. My 9 year relationship has recently turned even more abusive since my boyfriend decided to "leave" me for a much younger woman, The problem is that he won't move out and even brings her over to spend the night a lot of nights. I just recently realized just how emotionally abusive he really is. I don't think I ever saw it before because for the past six months I was doing everything I could to reconcile our relationship. Now that I finally see things for what they are I actually feel slightly better. I'm just scared that I will never live a normal life again. For the sake of myself and the sake of my children I hope I can heal in time

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I iii I don't have 2 years, my current love said I have 2 mounts to recover from a life time of emotional abuse

I have been in 4 abuse relationships in the past and my last one I was in totally damaged me as a person. I have not been with him since I left him in 2006. He always called me every name in the book, threatened to kill me many times at the time and would even spit in my face. However through the years I have not been able to keep friends, live a good life, be happy and I'm hard on myself as well as I can't even be in a relationship. Been single for 11 years and I'm 41 years old. I'm tired of living this way and I always tell myself I'm not good enough or pretty enough. PLEASE HELP!!!

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 4 years and still think I am everything my ex said. Will I ever get over it? I dumped him last year.

I read a lot of the comments and the ladies have to at the first sign of mistreatment call the police. I did and the man who raped me is serving a 20 year sentence for all of his wrong doing. Anything that a man does against a women , he means exactly what he is doing. It's not the women fault. A lot of mean believe that being cruel is manly. But mean is mean , compassion is kindness. Love isn't painful . Name calling happens in grade school and high schooler do that when they are jealous. If a grown man does that dump him right away. Every women deserves respect.

I was in an abusive relationship for four years. He could not get over his now xwife.. But in the mean time i tried to love him through the whole mess. However as time continued through these years a friend of "i though" that we both knew spoke to both of us. The person i was involved with had put the mask on of his friend. Im going to school then and still now learning psychology.. I learned how this could be possible. I met them both at the same time.. As time continued my eyes began to open. The friend we had .. Had always gave me advice and told me what to do to get out of this relationship.. As time continued the friend would say things under his breath. "Wasting my time"... Being coxy.. And became arrogant. Not only did i have to go through the abuse of the relationship i was in.. But also then from the friend. He would call just to pick at my brain and noticed everytime i got of the phone i would cry. A few times felt dead and helpless.. So depressed. Now the "friend is gone"..because i told the truth. N the relationship i had with the narcissistic, he keeps violating the pfa. There are morning and nights i go to work n the anxiety is overwelling. I been through trauma therapy n now going through therapy. I really hope one day the physical and mental abuse thats plays in my head each day goes away.

I could identify with everything u said mostly the part about having people in your life that are safe; and u could tell them exactly what your feeling and they respond to u with love. I cried...I can only feel that way around my mother And everyone eles around me makes me feel like im crazy.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. You just articulated everything beautifully and are giving me hope that I'll get through this. thank you so much

I don't know how to stop being so nervous and afraid of everything. See my thoughts and fears aren't dilusional, or paranoia it's real. My ex fiance mentally broke me down. He became a Jekyll and mr.hyde. I may have hurt him while he was locked up. And I'm not condoning my behavior. I understand I gave him the reason to distrust me firs. We were only together for 9 full days when he went to prison for 6 months. I am wrong and I know that for what I did when he was gone, and I can never change the past or erase how he felt when he found out.i will forever be sorry for that. But he took it to a whole new level.i still was there when he was locked up. I had time on the phone almost every day, I wrote him letters all the time I did visit him. Once but I did. I would carry the couple of clothes that he loved the best and I loved around wherever I went. I even had my dad like himwhich never happens. I became cold hearted in the end because the f everything he did to me or put me through.he stole from me, tried to pin things o. Me that were proven to not be me by his own friends. He became dilusional. I was held captive in what seemed like a rollerdex of pain and made up lies.he lied about damn near everything. Every person I talked to weather I waved at the mail man and said how are you or texted my father. I was living.but I wasn't tho. He stalked me. He manipulated my dad in to thinking everything was my fault. I sold all the laptops.no I didn't. I broke every phone no I didn't.i owned up to what I broke or gave away. It seemed that no matter what I did I was in the wrong. I couldn't even walked to the mail box and back (5) minutes I'd be gone at tops without him saying you went to fuck orblow every black man in the city. He would sign me up for dating sites I never signed up for under my email he changed passwords to my emails, deleted pictures off my Facebook I will never be able to retrieve. Ever. All of my make up and got stolen because he stole from someone else.and made it look like it was me. I lost a beautiful beautiful apartment because of him and his sneakyness, he treated me like a dirty dog from the street. Physically hurt me. Had me in a curled up ball in the shower balling my eyes out his hand around my neck all because I decided to take a shower and get pretty up for him while he went to the store. I can't just put it behind me.i can't I tried...I loved him and will always love the part of him that's long gone.

My ex and I broke up months ago. It was mutual. I didn't feel the pain of what he had done until after he was gone, and now I'm having trouble letting the pain and anger go. I fell like I still need him to understand what he put me through. He never felt as if he was in the wrong. Didn't matter the issue, he was faultless, so I don't think talking to him would change anything.
He began dating a girl we both worked with (one of his rules after the break up was neither of is could date anyone from work), and he dotes on her and she says he's the perfect boyfriend. I feel betrayed and hurt.
I could use the advice. I've been trying to date again, but I'm scared. Can anyone provide advice for me? It's time to move on.

Touched base with me! So much so, I put it on Facebook!

Hi there. I am in a pretty serious relationship, we have been together for 7 months now and we're very happy. Prior to that I stayed single for nearly 5 years after my abusive marriage. As the abuse was not physical (although sometimes aggressive), and was subtle and slow acting, it has taken a long time for the enormity of it to sink in. I'm going through a phase at the moment, a big internal shift, and I believe it is my power coming back fully. So while it's very uncomfortable it will be worth it. But the problem is I am finding it very hard to trust my current partner. At the beginning I thought I saw many 'warning signs', but they all keep amounting to nothing. I keep getting surprised by how awesome he can be actually! But I still cannot let go of the feeling that something could be wrong. I cannot tell if my gut is telling me something or if it is my understandable trust issues. I've really no clue and it is putting a dampener on what should be a wonderful time in my life, the first year of a relationship. He is very patient about it, but of course I mistrust that too, thinking he's modifying his behaviour in order to conceal a dark truth. Do you have any advice? Many thanks .

After 4 years after leaving my abusive and controlling ex-husband I still have some mental trauma due to him. It took a long time to say, "it's ok to leave a dish in the sink. " or to leave finger prints on the faucet. I still can't handle a guy or anyone mad at me or yelling at me. I get frustrated and panic to where I literally freak out on the person. When they ignore me I panic even more and deperately try to fix the issue. I'm very defensive as well, and always try to explain myself. My boss said I always had an answer and tried to explain myself when I did something wrong. I had a man who controlled me and yelled at me daily for no reason. No matter what I did I was in the wrong even when I did nothing wrong. The last time we were together he yelled in my face screaming, "you bitch." over and over again. He blamed me for turning down his stereo when I wasn't even near it. He even threatened to burn my hand on the grill and deprive me of dinner that night. He was very good at starving me and denying me to go food shopping at the grocery store. I had no money or a credit card, and I was only give $20 or less for gas money when I needed to fill my tank. I was only allowed to go to school or my in laws house. I had to fight to hang out with anyone or do school clubs.This was the same man who punched me in the face for lightly tapping his shoulder and threatened to push me down the stairs when I was 8 weeks pregnant all because I wouldn't go with a mahogany crib. I know what abuse is, and I still cry when I tell my story. It will take a long time to undo all the damage he has done to me mentally and emotionally.

Hello, I could use some direction in our situation. My wife and I have been married for 12 years and we are in individual and couples therapy over a whole myriad of issues. At first it was infidelity on her part, but then it came out that I had been physically abusive toward her in the first half of our marraige. The infidelity was pushed aside, needless to say. When I say it came out, neither my wife or I understood that what I had done was physical abuse. We were both floored, and horrified. I/we have come to understand that because of both of our abusive upbringings, we normalized the few instances it happened. We knew they were bad and wrong however, so the 3rd time I shoved her in a fight, saw red, and had a panic attack when I realized I had handled her again, I determined I'd never touch her again in anger. I haven't. The problem did persist, we found out, because everytime we'd have a fight during which I'd get angry, she would feel scared because I had put my hands on her before. This causing emotional abuse. I know, I'm a son of a bitch, you don't have to tell me. I hate myself right now and am sick to my stomach all the time over this. We are in a separation stage right now. She may leave me over this when the separation time is over, and she'd be completely justified in doing so. Of course, if she will stay, I want to make this work. I never tried to blame her for my actions, only wondered why I would lose control. I hated it. This is where my question comes in. We have always had a very destructive cycle of unhealthy communication that has lead to psychological abuse towards one another, even before any physical abuse took place. When I read the list of symptoms of the victim of emotional abuse, I can check every one of them for myself. My actions are my responsibility, nothing she has ever done warrants being touched in anger. Having said that, my wife is heavily psychologically abusive towards me, and has been since the first couple weeks we became a serious couple. She knows I am desperate for her and our marraige, and she uses that against me to get things she wants. She withholds affection, calls me names, hits me, and uses me when it comes to sex with almost no return. I've been lectured during sex about how I was not performing well enough. Very uncomfortable. My question is: because my physical abuse is on the table, does that over shadow everything else? Does any of the other abuse have a way to be addressed for my own benefit of healing and recovery, or do I need to set that all aside until we find more stable ground? Until she heals and recovers...or leaves? I just dont want to have a counceling session where I come across as trying to defend or justify my actions...i just know that with this whole situation i'm messed up and need help.

I have suffered physical, emotional and spiritual abuse since early childhood. I was not a wanted child and was blamed by mother who had no.oroblem telling me I was unwanted and to blamed for why she had to stay in a marriage she wasn't happy in. I was beaten, dragged by my hair, beaten so bad with a belt for not making it to the toilet on time so.i vomited on the floor and got beaten on my bare fanny until.i wet the floor and got beaten for that. The verbal abuse was everyday. I was called every me.in the book and told to go toy room everyday because she couldn't stand to look at me. There were s many times she wouldn't even en a knowledge my existence. I was choked because my sister's room was a mess. Needless to say I left at the age of 17. I married someone just as abusive. So for the next 18 yrs input up with the second exact treatment and worse. Even though I've been divorced for 18yrs now, I'm extremely sensitive to others comments when they are hurtful. I can't seem to trust anyone. And I'm tired of not being strong enough to overlook other peoples bad behavior. When this happens, I get super defensive and I Rumi ate about it for days.y feelings are deeply hurt and I feel angry and sometimes find dyslef wanting to fire back. I trust no one and am tired of waiting g for the next bad thing to happen. I have been diagnosed with PTSD. But my frustration also comes from not wanting g to feel this way anymore. I'm tired of being the odd duck that can't overlook what I consider inappropriate comments.

This has really shed some light on my own situation. I left my ex about 2 months ago. He'd been extremely emotionally abusive for the majority of the 3 years we were together. He started doing drugs and cheated on me at the end of it and I had enough. He tried to manipulate me to stay and when I didn't he went around telling lies (although he had done that before also) about me and about our situation and he turned one of my best friends against me and slept with her. It took me a while to accept that I'm a victim of abuse. So far these first couple months have been hard. Adjusting to life now is rough. I had moved across the country with him a couple years back and made so many wonderful friends, but I had to go back to my family and leave all my friends behind. It's been hard having to deal with that. Healing is hard. I hope I can get through this sooner rather than later. I've got other things to focus on now. Sometimes I feel like my recovery is going well and then something comes crashing down and I feel awful again. Hopefully things begin to go smoother. Thank you for sharing this with all of us. It was very enlightening to read. Much love, Lori.

Im so thankful i stumbled on your blog. Its been two years since i left my ex boyfriend who mentally abused me in ways I'm still recovering from. The week i finally left him was the best week of my life until it took a turn for the worst. I ended up having an acute psychotic disorder and was hospitalized for two weeks. The trauma from the mental break down evolved into terrible anxiety and depression. I just feel so damaged having to deal with the trauma of mental abuse, then a mental breakdown to now anxiety and depression. Its just frustrating how one person altered the course of my life and how i feel about myself and now I'm afraid ill never recover from all that trauma. Its affected my romantic and platonic relationships. Now I'm incapable of forming proper relationships with people because i feel so damaged and undeserving of people now. I have a decent enough support system but its hard talking to people who cant familiarize with what I've been through.