u/Psychological-Age24

I am beginning to lift the fog of the emotional abuse. I realised recently the amount of mental gymnastics I perform in order to survive him. How many odd things I find myself thinking to reason with myself on how to survive.

Making plans to leave, things are in motion. I just wanted to vent out the absolutely ridiculous things I find myself thinking in order to hold myself accountable. I am working on "mapping" them, some of these things aren't even really my own thoughts. They're his abusive manipulations working their magic.

I need to start overcoming the way Ive been thinking!!

"If I just stop saying anything, things will be better."

No!!! This is a direct result of his constant gaslighting. He says he "doesn't create issues, he just has to deal with them" and "if you just stopped bringing me these issues, we wouldn't be like this/I wouldn't get like this"

The issue is not confronting the addictions, violence, boundary violations, etc. The issue is those things occurred. Silence does not avoid the issue, it avoids the confrontation. If he was a healthy partner, he would be able to avoid doing them in the first place or not become violent when held to account.

"He is just struggling with his own shame. Bringing these things up is too hard for him and I need to show more compassion for him. I am the one with CBT knowledge. etc. I should be able to coach/guide/help him"

I am not his therapist and I cannot be his victim and saviour. This is also a thought that stems from him telling me that due to my knowledge and interest in psychology, he should be able to get from me what a therapist can give and avoid needing a third party. He has sought therapy and rejected it, one of the reasons being that they were just backing things I already said. He doesn't want therapy from me, he just can't abuse his way out of accountability with a therapist.

"If I just shut up and let him go, eventually he will kill himself with the addictions. Just wait it out."

This is tired desperation. You're already not coping. Should you continue to push yourself to the brink and sacrifice your life waiting for his to inevitably end?

"He is 80% a good guy. It's just the struggles with empathy that create the issues"

Struggles with empathy are more than 20%. Acts of love bombing need to be called for what they are because that's what it is. It is part of the manipulation. The only reason I am even considering it is because of how often he says "I'm a good guy" and points out the things he does. Cleaning the house, running errands and giving back rubs dont make him a "good guy". He is unreliable, abusive, lacks in empathy, does not care at all what you go through. He is secretive and manipulative. He is devoid of the ability to even fathom another person's ability to experience things.

"If I just study/understand his behaviour better, I can figure out how to balance my needs with his"

His "needs" are to avoid accountability. Mine are to not be thrown up against a wall or held hostage when I try to leave. I need someone who can say "I'm sorry I hurt you when I said that", not "YOU made me do it". I need someone who doesn't lie and act dodgy, leaving me in a state of constant hypervigiliance. He needs someone who will allow him to never have to face consequences.

I do understand him and it's up to him to decide to change. He doesn't think he needs to, so there is no amount of "understanding" that will help.

"If I help him, eventually our relationship will be the strongest thing ever. We will be able to get through anything. This is what real love is, we help the ones we love through thick and thin"

That may matter when the 'thick and thin' isn't him abusing you. It's sickness, job losses, life circumstances, not him pinning me to a wall and screaming that I am crazy for saying I'm hurt he lied.

Again, he has outright rejected that he needs help at all. He says he is of sound mind and perfectly fine, even when others are now asking me if he is ok because he is incoherent in daily life. There is no "helping him through it" unless he wants to do something for himself. There is only surviving him.

"I'll be alone forever"

I have a lot to offer. That's why he desperately begs for me to be "the real me" and "stop being so cold". I am a good partner and I am wasting it on someone who takes advantage of it. Loneliness is a much better alternative to abuse.

I also need to reflect on when I was happiest. It's when I was on my own. I do so well alone.

"I'm not ready for the grief"

Yes, I don't do grief well... but grief is temporary. Abuse is ongoing. Avoiding the temporary grief is just fear. I'm avoiding grieving him, but I am actively grieving myself AND him currently. I have been grieving the illusion of the man I fell for in the process if accepting who he is really is. I need to just cut the cord.

"I'm being dramatic, it's not that bad"

No I'm not. He smashed my phone, punched a door and threw me into a bookshelf for reading his own text messages back to him. If he is so offended by his own words he spoke to me that he feels the need to get violent to stop them being said and then still tells you're "abusive" for "harassing him" by reading them, he is dramatic.

He has smashed 4 door handles to get to me when I've locked yourself in the room because he felt that you stepping out of conflict was such a severe rejection. He tells me that I am dramatic.... but his ego is fragile that he blames me for that. I am not the problem...

"I'll have to start over. it's overwhelming"

I struggle at work, I spend all my "free time" dealing with his drama. I'm so used to chaos and drama that the only thing that will be overwhelming is the quiet.

I also have ensured I am not over a barrell needing him. I'm avoiding a temporary change for the better to deal with a constant and permanent conflict.

"Ive tried to leave before. He just hunts me down. It's pointless"

So have him arrested. That's not my fault. If he breaches the orders, he has to face real consequences. He does it because he knows he has been able to get away with it.

I'm hoping this is the right sub for this. I'm in a coercive controlling relationship and will totally own that one of my biggest issues is struggling to admit another person's flaws to myself. I lean into a sort of "I can save/change/fix this" mentality, to the utter detriment of myself. I'm not necessarily thinking is he clinically speaking a narcissist, but I do believe there are narcissistic tendencies. Despite a mountain of reasons I feel that way, I keep second guessing myself.

I have come to the realisation recently that my partner isn't having a hard time expressing or articulating empathy, I just don't think he has it. This has been a roller-coaster ride mentally and while I get counselling to help me gather the strength to leave, I am finding the thing that is helping me to detach is to analyse the behaviour. Essentially, I feel as though (and therapist agrees) I am almost reverse-gaslighting. I am still playing out the same painful process, but with new eyes. I am gather 'evidence' to confirm or deny my theory. I am observing the reactions or ways in which he responds to things and no longer questioning why, but rather reflecting on how it does or does not fit my theory.

I realised the biggest thing holding me back from breaching the protection order I have was the fact I find myself empathising with him either by believing his victim narratives (examples to come) or knowing that even if it's untrue, feeling for him that he feels it is. That leads me to challenge myself and fall into the same pattern of "if I change, I can fix/help", even though it is clear it won't.

I'm looking for ways to ethically and without hurting him, test the theory that he lacks in empathy. I will give some examples and I know some people may think it's enough already, but for whatever reason I just haven't quite totally convinced myself. I am stuck in this observational phase where I find I am emotionally unattached, but utterly fascinated.

Some examples I have so far:

1. Every single apology has a 'but' or an 'I just' attached, often something that either frames him as a victim or a hero. They are also heavily focused on perception and not taking any accountability for any potential wrong.

Example: I took issue with him saying "I'm sorry but I'm confused. I thought you had come to the conclusion that I was just marching through what you had put me through. I dont know what you want me to apologise for?"

This was in reference to a six week long argument where in the 6th week, I was so emotionally exhausted I entirely shut him out. He had said he will not be able to express remorse for anything unless he was sure I could "own my shit" and I explained that I had become hesitant to do so, as I felt like it was a trap he laid, whereby he insists on me 'modelling' accountability so he can 'understand what I need', then will allow me to take ownership of all things and rebutt with "see, I'm not that bad" or "see, you were the problem all along'.

He responded to me raising this again with him as an example of how this plays out and that in the 2 weeks since, he has maintained that he was a "victim" of the argument with:

"I'm sorry you took my comment the wrong way. What I meant was I thought you were just giving me the apologies I was owed and didn't realise at the end of it, you would expect anything from me. I didn't think you would require that."

I reminded him of how the whole conversation played out and that his own words were that he didnt feel he had anything to apologise for. I stated I had been hurt by it. He responded:

"You were hurt by it? I just didn't think you expected that of me. I just need you to understand what I meant instead of what you think I was saying. I just thought you were giving me what I deserved for a change."

Example:

"I'm sorry I lied to you, but you have to admit, I did it to protect us. You need to start seeing that for what it is. I care enough about you to want to protect and save this relationship!"

This has been repeatedly said about his ongoing drug addiction issues. I had said I pass no judgement but don't want to date someone who does it and he lied and gaslit me into oblivion when I clocked it, including slamming me up against a wall and screaming "wake up" repeatedly. "I have to defend myself against these fucking fairytales you make up in your head" he tells me.

2. Despite the fact he has been caught lying in a variety of ways, across the entirety of our relationship, he gets angry and tells me he "deserves trust", despite doing absolutely bugger all to repair it. In fact, he usually further compounds or proves it. He argues that he "doesn't deserve to be doubted" and that he feels it is "truly unfair to him" if I doubt him on something but I am wrong.

3. He found messages over a period of time where I had been venting to a friend about how he makes me feel "hunted", had expressed fear of him and referenced a safety plan. He was LIVID that "now your friend thinks poorly me, which is just unfair. I don't need her thinking I'm some sort of abusive monster". I asked him if he cared at all that clearly I was repeatedly expressing fear and a desperation to find a safe way to leave him. He responded "I know that's how you feel because you can't admit that you do wrong sometimes, too". I asked him if he saw anything wrong with the fact that he was more concerned about how he is perceived by my long distance best friend that I see face to face every 2 years over how scared I was. He scoffed and asked me why he wasn't allowed to have his own feelings.

4. I outright asked him in a calm conversation, in a measured tone that indicated a genuine interest in him, whether he thought he was incapable of empathy or was he just struggling to articulate it. He responded pretty positively, with no offence taken, but never directly answered the question. He didn't deny anything, he seemed more interested that I was posing it in a way that sort of implied I thought he was exceptional.

5. Outside of our relationship, I see similar situations where accountability is avoided.

Example:

He was fired by our boss (who is his dad - we work together) for drug use, not getting along with others in the workplace and the police putting a protective order in place when he got violent with me. He is extremely hostile towards his father still and feels that he was the wronged party.

12mo prior to this, he was found to be doing cash-in-hand jobs through the business, as well as having a litany of staff complaints made against him. His father didn't fire him, but withdrew him from being around staff where possible and demoted him. He also refers to this as "his dad fucking him over". He is of the belief that he was wronged by his dad and his dad "owes him for how he's been treated".

6. He either does not retain what others say about their experience or just flat out denies them, if it challenges him at all. To the degree that he will argue for literally years about how he is victim when someone expresses something negative about him. For example, he has absolutely 0 respect for peoples time and will actually do things that contradict or detrimentally impact commitments of others. If others raise with him that this is stressful or detrimentally impacted them, he will get very hostile. For example, he wanted a new part for his car because his ac only worked on full ball. It was broken for weeks. The day I had a family Christmas party, which had been planned for 6 months, he decided he wanted to find, buy and replace the part. I said no, we are leaving in 30 mins and it's 20mins just to get to the shop to pick up the part, plus I had been asked to run an additional errand on the way. He quietly went away and spent 25mins calling around to see if he could get the part until I caught him and urged him to please just get dressed. We STILL ended up almost 2 hours late, even without the part. When I tried to explain calmly why that frustrated me, he told me I was unappreciative of the fact I was trying to make the ride comfortable and that he can get ready quickly so he doesn't know what I worried about. He also then said that he doesn't respond well to pressure so I was wrong for urging him to be on time. He simultaneously claimed he "didn't know when we had to leave" and that he "didn't know I was stressed about time"

His mother has expressed several times she misses him. He has cancelled plans with her every week for about 3 months straight. When she expresses (admittedly usually pretty explosively a bottle of wine deep) that she is hurt by the consistent let down and broken promises, he carries on about how "this is the sort of bullshit he has to deal with" and how she is wrong for "stressing him out". If I point out to him that 2-3 broken promises to visit every week for weeks on end would be hurtful, he will use whatever excuse he has for the most recent one and focus on that, as though it is the entirety of the argument and it's usually something like "I couldn't bring myself to go because I wanted to stay home and save our relationship" (yet I'm at work and he just sits there waiting for me to get back)

I didn't realise how lengthy this would get so I'll stop here for a bit hahaha

TL;DR: I think my partner has a severe lack of empathy. I am looking for ways to ethically test this theory for my own good, in a way that does not cause him harm.