MY HUSBAND IS MENTALLY ABUSING ME

Dear Coleen

I think I have an emotionally abusive husband. We have been married nearly 20 years, but I think I’ve only just recognised the signs.

We have four teenage kids and leaving now would be bad timing. He has never hit me, but the mind games are starting to drive me crazy. As I write this, I’m lying in bed while he’s in the lounge downstairs, behaving like everything is rosy, while the kids play in the garden.

What gets to me are the little digs every day and the constant fights every week, plus feeling like I’m the unpaid help in the home. All I do is cook, clean and look after him and the kids, and go to work on top of all that. He does nothing and it’s making me feel very low.

Coleen says

Whether your husband’s behaviour is abusive really comes down to how it makes you feel. If it makes you feel worthless, controlled and unable to talk about what’s happening, then it’s abusive.

Constant criticism, undermining you, withholding money, intimidation and verbal aggression, and telling you what you can and can’t do are all examples of emotional abuse.

If you want to find out more, Relate has some good information on its site (relate.org.uk). I definitely think you need professional support – you could see a relationship therapist initially on your own to talk through your husband’s behaviour.

If you can get him to come to subsequent sessions, then it could help you unpick why he’s behaving like this and if you can move forward to a healthy relationship.

As for your kids, I’m not sure there’s ever a “good time” to leave your marriage. But I do know if you manage a separation, putting the wellbeing of your children first, then they’ll be OK.

It would be down to you and your husband to make that happen.