Understanding Each Other is Important

yes! been there done that.
good for you mary.
this is all growth.
thanks for sharing this.
what a doozy, ouch, but glad you see what happened. the confusion , to me , is the hard part.
once i see the reality i know how to move forward.
it's liberating even if painful.
the truth does set you free.
we have to refine our perceptions with time and experience and self investigation, having not learned what healthy loving relationships look and feel like in our families of origin.

it's a tall order to learn all this but we certainly can.
it's progress. good for you. i'm sorry things turned out badly.

@mary, i can see that this forum will be helpful to me also to improve some of my habits.

as far as understanding the why- in my case this was helpful with my partner because he is not abusive. he is not skillful at empathy as an automatic response but he is indeed kind and supportive.

so understanding can provide the opportunity to grow together, or grow APART, grow AWAY, lol!

when there are power plays in a relationship it's all about ego, not love. of course you know that.
i have had a hard time in my life recognizing abuse for what it was, but the love i have in my life now teaches me and my instinctive reaction to love is peace and a feeling of value. so that is how i differentiate now. i have to know what love feels like in my body without trying to reason it out much. my reasoning left me in a tight spot most of my life because my thinking and understanding was skewed.

by my feelings have been a good guide.
not that i always feel something objectively lo- it's not that feelings are facts. but when i listen to my heart i do better than relying on pure rationale.

don't know if this makes sense to anyone but me. but i do know that love doesn't hurt.

i get it. I was able to endure very serious and traumatic things stoically, that is the word that i have been called.
i remember being very much like that as a child, i remember my parents physically fighting and even there was blood and i went to the conflict to see what was happening and take it in, i don't know why. i wanted to help. my siblings remember none of it because they hid. they were smart. After i would see the violence i would go to my bed and lay down in the dark and i physically felt like the bed was tipping me out! it is a very clear memory for me! i think i shut down then.
Now, i really rely on my body and physical sensations to alert me. for years i was just kind of a block of doing... not feeling. It's so weird to explain but maybe you can understand it. i know in my body what i can not figure out with my head. i am getting better at getting the two to jibe.

i have a long way to go too. when i think i have arrived somewhere life hands me another clue- this whole process is like a scavenger hunt trying to find myself.

I would be happy to learn about things together with you here. i am not able yet to share my deepest thoughts with my closest friends and that is because i am still sorting them out after all this time. The closest i can come to raw open is my partner but that is a process also and i am still finding out how i hide from him. he has seen my at my messiest tho and still understands so it's helpful. he's messy too. sometimes!

I am so glad you are getting some understanding , that's a huge push forward. you don't need or deserve that crap, i'm sure you know that full well!

i am sure that such an insecure person was threatened by your independent nature and your strength. that is what therapists have told me about he abusers in my past. they don't go for weak targets, they go for strong ones. what's the point of dominating a weak person? it's really something if you can dominate a person of substance. strength can be in the form of fortitude or beautiful character.... there are many ways to be strong.

in his weakness, and probably combined lack of empathy for you, he needed to dominate instead of love you. so he just didn't have he capacity to love and appreciate you. that's all, it's that simple.

i bet you are an incredible woman and he probably saw that and didn't know what to do except bring you down to his level. try, anyway. i'm sorry you endured it but now you can be peaceful and free.

I like your description of emotions as "a block of tangled yuck" -my emotional life often seems like this - some unrecognisable semi tangible pot of darkness to be avoided if at all possible. I would be interested to see the resource you mentioned.

Sometimes it has everything to do with an insecure attachment style. If he was secure, he wouldn’t have the need to go searching for someone he can be superior to, repeatedly, and for someone that he would even think of pulling the abhorrent race card on. That would have to be the lowest of the low. It may have everything to do with attachment style, but at the end of the day it’s what you’ll accept that matters. Mary, you’ve come leaps and bounds in the last couple of months. I’m sad this has happened. This sick, screwed up fool has prepared you for something, someone better (if that’s what you choose). I could go through every cliche, but I’m sure you’ve heard them all before.