Brainwashing and domestic violence

TishaBu , the ears might not be dead. The person could have any number of reasons for not leaving.

Love, love, love...

I am convinced there was brainwashing, but I’m not implying there is any domestic violence. There is subtle control dominance and emotional destruction. There’s nothing I can do as we were driven away by him, he thinks it’s his idea...brainwashing.

Anyway, I am afraid to post about this because I desperately want to repair the relationship some day and if found out, this will kill any chance.

Well that’s a good question and one I have thought about a lot ..I use to beat myself up over it but I let it go

When I got divorced my daughter was almost 6 ... of course she spent a lot of time with her dad we were both flexible about raising her. We didn’t stick to some every other week end stuff , so I suddenly had all this time “off being Mommy.. so I picked up a part time job, extra money is always nice.

I had a small group of friends, but everybody had kids and / or busy careers, so it was really hit or miss getting together.

I enjoyed being home. Anyway when I started dating Him... looking back now I see that he expected to talk daily many times... we are talking home phones and I had a pager lol

So yes red flag , since he would call on the house phone he knew where I was. I also see now it was classic case of cutting back seeing my friends. If we were going out with someone he often felt “ sick” so I’d cancel plans.

No one really pointed out anything to me..I was really a home body and loved time with my daughter and relaxing on the weekends I had a demanding job in the medical field.

After all this happened my 2 guy friends , one I am happily married too now both said they weren’t 100% okay , felt something could have been off but I always seemed happy so they didn’t push , because in general I didn’t take crap from anyone.

Had either of them come to me with a concern I’m sure I certainly would have take it seriously .. I trusted both of them 100 %

I think now a days more people are aware of women being groomed and isolated because it’s being talked about.. we see thread after thread here of women wondering if there bf/husband / wife whatever is abusive.

One thing I will say is that guy never mistreated my daughter at all .. I’d say he actually spoiled her.. which is another trait of guys like him.. get in good with the kids..

My experience however awful it was did help my daughter to watch for red flags as she started dating, she was super picky about who she would date and still is. So I think I have saved her from becoming a victim and I know she’s helped numerous friends over the years when she saw them in a unhealthy relationship.

I think if anyone suspects a friend or family member might be in a situation like mine they need to be careful/gentle when first asking some questions. You don’t want that person to immediately feel they need to defend there partner.

But if your friend is obviously being abused as in leaving bruises or you witness a person being verbally abused then step in right away.

I can understand that from the perspective of someone outside an abusive relationship. I knew someone as strong, confident and outspoken, so when I witnessed a few backhanded remarks from her boyfriend, I reasoned that she must've allowed it from him, like it was an in-joke between them or something. In retrospect, I probably should've pulled her aside earlier to see if she was actually okay with those jokes instead of just assuming she was.

Defending partner. Yes. Happens any time I try to call out abusive behavior, regardless of how I try to call it out. Absolutely maddening.

My mom does that all the time. She'll complain for an hour about whatever nonsense my dad is doing, but the second I say something negative about it - or even just agree with her too fervently - she starts defending him and tells me I'm a bad person for talking smack about my father.

I've seen it in unambiguously abusive relationships as well. Honestly, I just don't understand the need or desire to defend them.

Regardless, I think building self-esteem might be the key. Reassuring them that they deserve to be trusted and to be treated fairly.

This describes a lot of reasons people stay, often they are broken down.

11 Signs You're the Victim of Narcissistic Abuse

Yep. And I wish I could say more, but I just keep posting and deleting myself.

Yes, TishaBuv, I totally understand the posting and deleting, been there myself. The gravity of it can get overwhelming. Some of these symptoms can also develop due to exposure to alcoholism, both in one's childhood and as an adult as there are many narcissistic traits that are wrapped up in that disease. I know for myself, it's been a part of my life my entire life as both my father and my husband struggled with binge alcoholism and the cycles of the Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde that these individuals present. Many will talk about how there is a period where their SO can be wonderful and kind, and then also be mean and verbally abusive and controlling and intrusive and entitled and dismissive and unappreciative.

What It's Like to Be a Complex Trauma Survivor of Narcissistic Abuse

That tends to mean you are flooded too Tisha, so take it slow and don't beat yourself up when you can't seem to put it into words.

There is a brainwashing component that alienated a son from us who was a perfect kid never with any issues. I’m heartbroken from the reality that this happened and he couldn’t have loved us or he wouldn’t have been capable of being alienated....maybe???

As for the domestic violence, right now I believe he is happy. I don’t know if this will change and his relationship become abusive. The way I see it, anything so cruel can’t be healthy. But time will tell.

We have been vilified and accused of being bad, when we were so good. There is no defending yourself to someone who wants to drive you away. They make up excuses.

There is a component too, that his generation wants nothing to do with my generation’s values. This was an “OK Boomer”.

I also own up to generations of dysfunction. This is probably what made him fall into his issues. No alcoholics in my family. Just emotional issues. I feel guilty for my negative example even though I was so nice to the kids. I hope think his hatred of us was not about the few silly things he said we did. Rather it was our dysfunction with our marriage that set a bad example. Generations influenced the next. Never physical abuse. Emotional abuse.

I’m trying to turn it into something good that I can do with my life. There must be some divine reason for my recurring theme here. I hope I can find some purpose to make sense of it all.

Tisha, unfortunately, even though we love our children and do our best when raising them, they go through a phase where they want to distance and learn for themselves. It's unfortunate, but they can and often do get hurt while dating and figuring out relationships, a lot can happen while they are away at college too.

Patience, some of what you are experiencing is more normal than you realize.

It’s worse than that. He got married and went estranged. All we did was refuse the public humiliation they insisted on inflicting on us. They refused any compromise. They had to want to drive us off. So we stepped out of the wedding.

Now that’s over he won’t speak to us as though we did something terrible to him whe it was the other way around.

We want to move forward. He doesn’t. And his wife hated us from the start and that’s what this is about, her dislike of our values and her control of him.

I can’t cope with all this. I had already had issues with others in family. This broke me. I’m breathing, but don’t even want to.

I'm ever so sorry for you. I can't imagine how painful this must be. But you'll always be his mum. Nothing can change that.

I am sorry to hear that Tisha, I did not know the full story. Sometimes, even though it's so very hard it's a situation you can't do anything about really and the son/child makes a choice which he can because he is now an adult.

I just wanted to say Tisha that you are dealing with three different generations and that means three different generational messages that can have some very different ideals and values. You have some baggage from your mother's generation, then you have your own generation that was affected by your mother's generation that your generation wanted to change. Now you are dealing with your son's generation and what that generation is choosing to do that is going to actually be different from not only your generation but your mother's generation that you grew up in as well. What you consider insults and humiliations may be due to just how different your son's generation actually does things that can be starkly different than customary in your generation. There may actually be NO traditional in how YOU consider traditional protocals. Your son will be looking to fit in with his piers just as you had yourself at his age. This can be a bit painful and it's normal for a parent to wonder what they did wrong and why the distancing. Also, it's actually pretty normal for a son to distance from his mother when he falls for a woman who now wants him to follow HER needs and desires. So a mother has to learn how to understand that her son is really no longer "hers" but he has been drawn to another woman. There is a bit of a loss to grieve when that happens.

Yes, that’s very much what happened. My son went above and beyond the rest of his generation to boot.