What keeps her in a Controlled, Emotionally Abusive Relationship?

[cazadorleon]

What keeps her in a Controlled, Emotionally Abusive Relationship?

 

I began a relationship with a woman who had been abandoned by her husband. He had packed up his things and left a post-it note in the kitchen. Turns out he had abandoned her before and she kept begging him to come back. He did but it only lasted about five months and he left again. He wouldn't answer any of her phone calls or pages. He did the same thing with his first wife.

 

So about seven months after he left the second time, with the encouragement of her grown children, she started dating. When we met there was an instant connection and we started seeing each other more and more. At first I felt I was a cathartic shoulder for her to release all the things that man had done to her over a 12 year relationship. He had had many infidelities. The last one was with a mutual coworker. They all work for the same large company. He had run up over a hundred thousand dollars of credit card debt. As she owned her own house she took out a second mortgage and paid off his debt, but now he has done it again and owes about $80,000.00. He has two grown sons who have never worked and are drug addicts. He supports and enables their criminal behavior (well, one is in jail but will be out in a year or so).

 

So after she got all this off her chest our relationship started to get much closer. She filed for divorce. We fell in love and started talking about marriage, so we became engaged. I told her that after her divorce was final, we would get engagement rings and take our time setting a wedding date. We started doing everything together and took lots of wonderful trips together. After about six months he found out about our relationship. He started to phone her every day. He cried and sobbed and threated suicide. I told her to stop answering the phone and above all don't agree to see him. Slowly he wore her down. He used her parents, children and friends to get through to her. He said that he had found God and had changed. He wanted to go to counseling and church with her. I told her this was all an act because these are all the things she begged him to do when he was having his affairs. In the end she agreed to meet him. He cried and sobbed and begged her to forgive him. She said she felt so sorry for him. He started stalking her at work and at her house.

 

She told me she was confused. She canceled a trip we had planned together because she said he would be so upset. Then she said she needed time alone to sort things out. I said that I would stay away and I asked her to tell him to do the same. She promised that she would.

 

She had been seeing a quack religious “counselor”. He started seeing the same “counselor”. This moron “counselor” told her that if her husband found God, then God could change him. He said that if he repented then she should forgive him and rebuild the marriage to “Glorify God”. The final blow was that this “counselor” told her that she could not rebuild the marriage unless she let him move back in with her. And in an ultimate insult, this “counselor” started telling her that maybe it was something she had done that drove him to do all these things!

 

As you probably figured out, she let him move back in. After a month apart I called her and found out all that had happened. She said she wasn't happy and she felt sick just looking at him. I asked her why she just didn't end the relationship once and for all? She said that she was frightened of his reaction and that she felt sorry for him. So now she supports him with free room and board even though his salary is twice hers.

 

We had a strange conversation in which she said that "His life is a complete mess, he's fifty years old and has nothing. I feel so sorry for him. Even though he's done it all to himself"

 

I said "Well what about us? Our relationship? Me? Don't you feel sorry for that?"

 

She responded with "Well your life is totally together!"

 

So I said; "Let me get this straight, you choose to live the remaining years of your life with someone who is a complete mess rather that with someone who is totally together?"

 

Anyway that was six months ago. She sneaks off to see me any opportunity she gets. Early in the morning before work. Lunchtimes. On the way home from work. She tells me over and over how much she loves me. She tells me that she loves me more that she has ever loved anyone. She says that she knows we are perfectly compatible and would have a wonderful life together. I tell her to “prove it”. I tell her that her actions don't live up to her words.

 

In the last week both been off work for the holidays. He has kept her a hostage in her own house. If she wants to go out, he'll say "I'm going with you". He monitors her phone calls. If he leaves he'll take her car so she can't leave. She calls me three or four times a day when she sneaks into the bathroom or outside and tells me she is going crazy. She made an elaborate escape plan yesterday to come and see me. She made it about halfway to my house and then saw him following her. She pulled into a nearby store like she was shopping and then went back to her house. When she does get out he calls her cellphone constantly; “Where are you? What are you dong? Who are you with?”

 

She will tell you that he's just doing all of this because he is afraid she'll come to me. I have told her that isn't fully understanding his motivation. He is a psychopathic, emotionally abusive man and it isn't the fact that she wants to be with me, it's that it would mean he has lost control of her. Exactly the reason he came back in the first place.

 

I also told her that if he genuinely loved her, her would want her to be happy. He would let her follow her heart. He is the one who destroyed the marriage with multiple infidelities and abandonments. If he truly loved her he would set her free from all the pain he has caused. But it is just what he wants that matters to him.

 

I still cannot conceive the unbelievably strong emotional attachment that abused women exhibit. In spite of everything, all that he has done, all he is doing, her revulsion of him, the desperate advice given to her from her parents, family and friends, she remains completely under his control. I told her that she has gone from being my fiancee to being my mistress.

 

I sent this to her which I called “The Pyramid of Pain” and represents just a few of the things he has done to her and others:

 

How To Impress “K”

Use her,

Lie to her,

Leave her,

Deceive her,

Open and steal her mail,

Let your kids steal from her,

Search her house and steal her things,

Abandon your 1st wife multiple times,

Abandon your 2nd wife multiple times

Don't talk with her or answer her calls,

Let your kids deal drugs from her house,

Charge over $100,000.00 on credit cards,

Let your kids shave swastikas into the dog,

Take a trip to London and leave her behind,

Use the "N" word because he knows it offends her,

Use her friends, children and parents to get what you want,

Take underage girls to motels for your kids to have sex with,

Have multiple adulterous relationships while married to your 1st wife,

Have multiple adulterous relationships while married to your 2nd wife

Let your child molesting brother live in the house with her young children,

Cause her great shame and embarrassment in the workplace by telling her:

you're working when you are actually having sex with a mutual co-worker.

Be 50 years old, and in spite of being a "workaholic" have absolutely nothing to show for it!

 

After she read it, she shook her head and said: "It's all true. Everything here he did or does. I don't know why I'm in this sick situation".

 

So the question is: What keeps her in a controlled, emotionally abusive relationship when she knows there is a much better life waiting for her?

[shelly7]

Codependency.

 

There is a lot of research on the subject if you Google it, I’m sure you’ll get a deeper understanding about the woman you love.

 

You should encourage her to go to counseling and NOT a “religious counselor”, because we know the Catholic Church (I’m just assuming) doesn’t condone divorce. If you don’t see her making an effort there really isn’t much you can do. Maybe you can try giving her a gentle ultimatum and say you want to continue seeing her, but only if she is making healthy choices for herself and her family.

 

In a way you’re enabling her to stay by being supportive of her decision to stay with this man. I know that you love her, but you have to start thinking about your heart and what you deserve.

Good luck to you.

[Maverick32x]

I just read all of that... and wow is all I have to say.....

 

You are on the right path on making her choose, but you really need to be serious about it. NC is the ONLY path, right now she knows that she can do whatever she wants and you still will be there..... She needs to realize that by staying with this.. err.... dirtbag?.... she will miss out on a great guy.... Good luck~

[DN]

I'm sorry to say that whatever the reason is it is powerful enough for her to choose him over you. And that means that you are now the one being hurt and are choosing to stay in a painful situation. So - by the same reasoning that says she should walk away from him - don't you think you should walk away from her?

[cazadorleon]

Good advice all.

 

I have actually arranged for counseling for her. From world famous author/therapists no less. Still she persists. I am moving on. Literally. I'm moving out of state. I realize the impossibility of this predicament. I just don't understand it.