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Is This Emotional Abuse?


halfinhalfout

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My ex finally told me why he broke up with me. Long story short, he was very hurt and resentful of the fact that I didn't do some things he wanted me to do. But the thing is, he never asked me to do them.

 

An example of this would be not going to a music festival with him that I wasn't able to attend because of money (a couple thousand dollars for VIP tickets, hotel, flight, etc). The concert apparently meant a lot more to him than I thought. I knew he loved going to this every year but I didn't realize how important it was for me to be there because he always went with a group of close friends and this year was no exception. He admitted that he had actually bought a ticket for me but didn't tell me because he wanted me to ask him to do it (he's very wealthy and I'm not). The ticket went to waste.

 

He claims he dropped hints here or there but I didn't pick up on them. He even acknowledged that no, he didn't tell me anything directly and even lied on a few occasions but he still holds it against me.

 

He believes that this is a result of us being "incompatible". Maybe we are, but even in this conversation I told him that if I had only known about what bothered him I would have done my best to make him happy. I also told him once again how much I love him and that now that he had finally communicated the issues to me we could feasibly give our relationship another chance with this knowledge going forward (we had no other issues during the year we were together). He doesn't want to hear it and thinks he's better off without me.

 

Is this emotional abuse? If so, is there a term for it? And is it ever okay to break up with someone because they couldn't read your mind? I love him and never, ever wanted to hurt him. Also, worth noting, at 27 years old I am his only girlfriend ever. Maybe that has something to do with this? Any insight would be much appreciated. I'm having a lot of confusion and pain and trouble letting this go.

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I think that it is entirely possible to read the mind of your partner, especially with hints, and it can also be a lovely thing to not to have to be blatantly obvious about some things. But if you do not say what you want then you run the risk of no-one knowing what you are thinking.

 

In all honesty, I think that he thought his hints were a lot more obvious than they were, with him too full up of his own self importance and genius to actually have any empathy towards you and knowing what you were thinking. If you want someone to understand your hints, then you have to understand what they are thinking too. Clearly then he did not know what you were thinking as much as you did not know what he was thinking. I imagine even that his hints were articulated in such a way that deep down he knew you would not get them.

 

I can see no purpose in not wanting to invite you to the gig though. If he wanted you there and had the money then he should have just invited you. You are better off leaving him to his own devices.

 

He is making it out like it is your fault when it is not. This is emotional abuse. He does not deserve your love.

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I don't think it's fair for him to have expected you to pick up on hints, and I would question whether it's compatibility-related or just poor communication on his part. But no, it's not emotional abuse at all. Emotional abuse is intentionally putting someone down. He had expectations for a relationship that were not met (because they are probably unrealistic) and thus he didn't feel like you were on his wavelength with things that were important to him

 

On what the above poster said, sometimes it is possible to read your partners mind or to put yourselves in their shoes enough that you can explain their experience even better than they can. But not all the time. There are times where there is a huge rift between their experience and your own, and when someone notices that, it's their responsibility to be direct in order to get their needs met. That shouldn't be put on you

 

Sounds like you have an explanation from him, and even if it doesn't seem justified to you, you have to accept that this is what he believes and that he doesn't want to try again

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Sounds as if his ego is much too large to have fit into your relationship.

He had the "me, me, me mentality" from what I can summize.

Dumpers often place the blame onto the other person to alleviate their own guilt and

make them question their own actions, which is what he has you doing.

 

I hope you find the happiness you deserve, and are able to leave him behind you.

You deserve someone who communicates with you, as opposed to leaving you guessing

what's going on in his mind.

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Is it abuse? No. Is he extremely passive aggressive? Yes...and I do mean extremely so to the point of causing intentional damage.

 

Basically, he intentionally set you up to fail and then looked at you and said "nah nah see you failed and now I get to dump you over it." This isn't on you and you didn't mess up. What this tells you is that he is one very messed up puppy and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Letting the tickets go to waste rather than actually tell you and take you with him, especially since he is well off, knows this is a lot of money and probably was aware that you really can't quite afford to go on your own funds with him was flat out vindictive and very very nasty of him. In all honesty, it kind of sounds like he was actually setting you up to dump you and then blame you for it rather than acting like a decent person and ending things simply because he's lost interest or whatever the case may be.

 

Personally, I think you have dodged a bullet here. Underneath whatever nice he pretends there are a lot of bad issues lurking and he is hands down not a good human being deep down. Please don't try to excuse his behavior as lack of dating experience. Lacking relationship experience doesn't make you act like a passive aggressive vindictive psycho.

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Hi loveiscomplex, thank you so much for responding. I wish with all my heart that I could have seen it from his side before it was too late. But, as hard as it is, I have to remember this isn't my fault. I still love him and the fact that he truly believes I'm at fault is painful, to say the least. I'm learning how to make peace with it. No idea yet what to do yet but your comment helps me get a little closer. Thank you.

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Is it abuse? No. Is he extremely passive aggressive? Yes...and I do mean extremely so to the point of causing intentional damage.

 

Basically, he intentionally set you up to fail and then looked at you and said "nah nah see you failed and now I get to dump you over it." This isn't on you and you didn't mess up. What this tells you is that he is one very messed up puppy and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Letting the tickets go to waste rather than actually tell you and take you with him, especially since he is well off, knows this is a lot of money and probably was aware that you really can't quite afford to go on your own funds with him was flat out vindictive and very very nasty of him. In all honesty, it kind of sounds like he was actually setting you up to dump you and then blame you for it rather than acting like a decent person and ending things simply because he's lost interest or whatever the case may be.

 

Personally, I think you have dodged a bullet here. Underneath whatever nice he pretends there are a lot of bad issues lurking and he is hands down not a good human being deep down. Please don't try to excuse his behavior as lack of dating experience. Lacking relationship experience doesn't make you act like a passive aggressive vindictive psycho.

 

Thank you DancingFool. This really really really helps me understand. I think you're correct on a lot of these things. This perspective actually make me feel a little bad for him. But not bad enough to go back. I'll be rereading this a lot in the coming weeks. Thank you sooooo much.

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Not sure if I would label it as abuse, however I would not want to be with someone who expects a mind-reader.

 

You're totally right. Abuse is far more extreme and I apologize to anyone who has actually endured abuse who may have been offended by my post!!! I should (and will in the future) be more sensitive to using that phrase but I'm glad I posted because now I know the difference. And even though it was not abuse I can certainly say his behavior wasn't fair. And yes, I don't want to be with someone that has those expectations either.

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Sounds as if his ego is much too large to have fit into your relationship.

He had the "me, me, me mentality" from what I can summize.

Dumpers often place the blame onto the other person to alleviate their own guilt and

make them question their own actions, which is what he has you doing.

 

I hope you find the happiness you deserve, and are able to leave him behind you.

You deserve someone who communicates with you, as opposed to leaving you guessing

what's going on in his mind.

 

Thank you so much for this. I agree with you 100%. Your post helps me get a little bit closer to letting go and I greatly appreciate it.

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I don't think it's fair for him to have expected you to pick up on hints, and I would question whether it's compatibility-related or just poor communication on his part. But no, it's not emotional abuse at all. Emotional abuse is intentionally putting someone down. He had expectations for a relationship that were not met (because they are probably unrealistic) and thus he didn't feel like you were on his wavelength with things that were important to him

 

On what the above poster said, sometimes it is possible to read your partners mind or to put yourselves in their shoes enough that you can explain their experience even better than they can. But not all the time. There are times where there is a huge rift between their experience and your own, and when someone notices that, it's their responsibility to be direct in order to get their needs met. That shouldn't be put on you

 

Sounds like you have an explanation from him, and even if it doesn't seem justified to you, you have to accept that this is what he believes and that he doesn't want to try again

 

Yeah you know, we were very compatible. I now definitely think this was a communication issue on his part. I do see it from his perspective when you mention the wavelength thing. But I can also see that I can't be responsible him not sharing what was in his head. It breaks my heart that I wasn't able to put myself in his shoes prior to the actual event. But I guess it's okay because now I'll know for the next person. This is all so tough, I'm so appreciative of you and everyone else who took the time to respond. My mental gymnastics around the whole thing is exhausting.

 

And you're right, I do have to just accept his decision. It feels almost impossible to do that right now but I'll probably be okay with time.

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He is making you feel guilty and blaming you for the relationship failing even though you didn’t even know what the issue was . Now you know what it is and is willing to change and he still doesn’t want to work through it . That makes me think he just was looking for reasons to push you away and blame it on you . So he probably has deeper issues going on there . While it may not be full emotional abuse it is definitely manipulation and not someone I would want to be with . If this is how he communicates and problem solves you would have a hard time in a relationship with him unless you were sort of psyhic and able to therefore read his mind 😊

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You're totally right. Abuse is far more extreme and I apologize to anyone who has actually endured abuse who may have been offended by my post!!! I should (and will in the future) be more sensitive to using that phrase but I'm glad I posted because now I know the difference. And even though it was not abuse I can certainly say his behavior wasn't fair. And yes, I don't want to be with someone that has those expectations either.

 

I think you did ask the right question and no need to apologize for that. Frankly, people who act like this guy can, given time, cross over into becoming emotionally abusive. Abuse is actually sneaky. First it's the tickets or that you didn't read his mind or didn't pick up his hints, then it's something else and it keeps on building until you are walking on eggshells not knowing what's black and what's white anymore, turning yourself inside out trying to please him and yet somehow failing....because you aren't supposed to succeed and he'll make sure of that. So you really did dodge a bullet here and your instinct to question if this is abuse is actually on the right track. In your case it just didn't reach it to that level...yet and hopefully never will as I hope you keep well away from him going forward.

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He is making you feel guilty and blaming you for the relationship failing even though you didn’t even know what the issue was . Now you know what it is and is willing to change and he still doesn’t want to work through it . That makes me think he just was looking for reasons to push you away and blame it on you . So he probably has deeper issues going on there . While it may not be full emotional abuse it is definitely manipulation and not someone I would want to be with . If this is how he communicates and problem solves you would have a hard time in a relationship with him unless you were sort of psyhic and able to therefore read his mind 😊

 

I think you're right. Thank you so much for commenting. I'm starting to see this has more to do with him than me For very practical reasons, a partnership with someone who cannot communicate simply isn't possible.

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I think you did ask the right question and no need to apologize for that. Frankly, people who act like this guy can, given time, cross over into becoming emotionally abusive. Abuse is actually sneaky. First it's the tickets or that you didn't read his mind or didn't pick up his hints, then it's something else and it keeps on building until you are walking on eggshells not knowing what's black and what's white anymore, turning yourself inside out trying to please him and yet somehow failing....because you aren't supposed to succeed and he'll make sure of that. So you really did dodge a bullet here and your instinct to question if this is abuse is actually on the right track. In your case it just didn't reach it to that level...yet and hopefully never will as I hope you keep well away from him going forward.

 

WOW I didn't think of it like that... thank you so much, that makes sense. Glad my instincts are finally coming back - feel like they went into hiding in all of the post breakup heartache! I'm going to try to stay away... he is a primary figure in our mutual friend group and insists that I start going to the weekly events he hosts at his home again. He was very, very eager to stay friends. But that's a whole other can of worms!

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Hahahah this made me smile. I'm sorry your ex was an idiot but I'm glad I'm not alone in that!!

 

Glad you got a laugh but I've been married for 40 years and was just making an observation.

 

Anyone who s**t tests you like your ex S-tested you should be told: "Thanks for breaking up with me and saving me the trouble of nexting you."

 

Good luck in your next adventure in dating while keeping in mind that he is indeed an idiot. Ha!

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WOW I didn't think of it like that... thank you so much, that makes sense. Glad my instincts are finally coming back - feel like they went into hiding in all of the post breakup heartache! I'm going to try to stay away... he is a primary figure in our mutual friend group and insists that I start going to the weekly events he hosts at his home again. He was very, very eager to stay friends. But that's a whole other can of worms!

 

Pfffttt....oh he insists does he? I think I'd become very very busy leading a fabulous life and perhaps making some new friends outside of this group....... Doing what he wants would be so low on my priority list, it would be falling off the bottom of it.

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Pfffttt....oh he insists does he? I think I'd become very very busy leading a fabulous life and perhaps making some new friends outside of this group....... Doing what he wants would be so low on my priority list, it would be falling off the bottom of it.

 

Good point. I've seen him at a party recently and he was overly friendly and asked me to get coffee soon. *sigh* I know he cares about me but I'm going to keep in mind that I have to prioritize other people and things now.

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