Hi, I’m Catherine, I’m in my early thirties and I get verbally abused on a daily basis. I’m new to this forum. Been with my partner 11 years and for the least at least 5 he’s got increasingly verbally abusive, to the point that he says I’m soulless, a vacuous nothing, I suck the life out of everything, not even a human being anymore, a cancerous tumour and I should throw myself off a bridge and die.
It sounds pretty extreme, I know. He’s also got PTSD, ADHD and a million other health conditions and I’m supposedly his carer but actually our relationship is more like angry parent (him) and irresponsible teenager (me). He is not wrong that I have taken his life and health for granted to such an extent at crucial points (lying about what I wanted to do then pulling the rug from under him at the time of impact) and for so long that his situation is horrendous. We are in his narcissistic mum’s house for the fifth year in a row, his whole family has collapsed and barely speaking, his dad’s just died overseas and we weren’t able to get over there to say goodbye - something that I was more responsible for than I want to admit to myself.
Anyway, you get the picture. He’s been very wronged and is suffering an unimaginable amount. But still. I hate his rages, I hate him shouting in my face that I’m a useless idiot every day. I hate that in the last year he’s become a bit physical sometimes and can’t control his complete rage - hitting me round the head with pillows, hoiking up phlegm and spitting it in my face, soaking me with water. He even cracked an egg over my head once and rubbed the contents of a bin into my hair and face.
I live a double life as nobody knows this is going on outside of him, his brother and mum. And it’s been like this (at least the verbal abuse) for years and years now. It’s probably hard to fathom from the above but we still have a strength to our relationship, he is incredibly insightful and intelligent (which makes particularly the specific and personal insults he spouts all the more crippling) and also very sweet and caring at heart, and I believe only has these rages as his reality, agency and identity has been so denied for so long by his family and me. So I am stuck feeling like I understand and deserve his anger but also I’m entirely angry myself and hating the rages and abuse!
We have to get to his dad’s funeral overseas in a few weeks’ time and I have to go with him. I find everything extremely hard and unbelievably draining. Can anyone relate?