h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmmm, sorry to remain sceptical here but I had a girlfriend like this once - Mrs Nasty the one day and nice as pie all of a sudden whenever I started getting about it.

It had one word written all over it...

Manipulation

It took me far too long to see through it. Please don't make the same mistake.

Oh god im sorry you are absolutely right. As soon as im not mad at him he does something to make me... Today i come back from work, his car is gone. (that means he came home but left)We dont have any food in the house and i dont have a car (nor driverslicence) so i go inside to wait for him for like an hour. We usually go out or order something when we are both working. So i wait, and i wonder where he could possobly be, he knows what time i come home. So i call one of his single friends, and he is there!!! its 7pm!!!! So i ask him to come home i want to eat, he says yes after i finish talking with the guys, about an hour ill be home. I just tell him to f**k off... what am i doing here... its like he is the devil and he whants to such my emotions out of me or something. He will prob not come here at all tonight... tryed to call my mom but she wasnt there....

man...im in big trouble...

I posted a while back and I said I didn't want to come any snap answers. Well from what you've posted since then, I'm changing my opinion. Give your mother another call. Tell her you want to come home. When you are home, then you can start to work out your next move.

Now I have never met you. I do not know anything about you over and above what you have said in this thread. But I and others here are getting really worried about you. Please do something, do not carry on accepting this guy's manipulation of you.

PLEASE GO HOME.
Find your passport,pack your bags,buy a ticket and go home to the one person who REALLY loves you unconditionally-your mother.I speak as the mother of an 18 year old daughter whom if she was in any kind of trouble I would go and fetch home myself.Have you even told your mother?-I bet not.Well you told us and we all think you should go home.
Go home now.

I SO agree. Don't put yourself through anymore of this, just get out of there. Please. And please keep posting, or I'll worry even more.

Love,
F

You must leave him. However, once you have plucked up the courage and made the arrangements, you will have to do it so that you pack up and leave whilst he is at work, if he knows what you're doing he'll pull out all the stops and turn on all the charm to keep you, and you'll find it extremely difficult to stand up to him.

Just go back home and take time out to sort out what you want, believe me once you are away from his influence you will think much more clearly, get your self-respect back and I am sure any decisions you then make will be the right onces. (When at home you must tell your mother everything - only then can she be in a position to give you the right advice). Be brave, be strong. Everyone here at h2g2 thinks you should leave - we can't all be wrong!!

Keep calling your mother.
She will be the best person to advise you what to do.
Even if you have to go home to escape him, you can always apply for a visa when you are stronger.

I seriously believe your life is in danger.
Too many domestic squabbles end in the death of a partner and the perpetraiter {sp?} in jail for life.
I am trying to scare you here.
Scare you or shock you, to save your life.

Don't worry about worrying your mother.
I have children in their twenties, a teenager and an 8 y.o.
I would also move mountains to make sure they are safe.
Believe me, I'd rather know what's going on, and help, than have to bury my child.


Please leave.

If you can't do it for you, do it for your mother.

and for Zappgirl

This is an awful situation.

Hoping for the best

Orcus, I read Zappgirl's last post on the previous page, and she seems convinced this is not a violent relationship
Yet I remember her stating that he dragged her out of the car when she ran after him, and he yelled at her that she "Had to learn".

That is abuse.

Zappgirl, I'm guessing you are 20 years old, or so, and don't know what an abusive relationship is.

My daughter was with her fiance for 2 years and he was a control freak. She eventually left him, and he found her and beat her up just because she left him. She did get compensation awarded but he has never paid it. She is well out of the situation but she still has nightmares about it. All the time she was with him, she never told me what he was really like, I only found out afterwards. I thought he was wonderful, and I was looking forward to having him for a son-in-law, he appeared to dote on her and I would have said he loved her.


Please leave, Zappgirl, we are all so worried about you.

I agree with you AGB - it's horrible, I just wish there was more I could do

*waves to Rainbow*

One thing which has been said, but not explicitly said, is that there are people who effectively hypnotise you when you are near them.

Many years ago I was in a relationship with a man at Uni who was like this.

I did at least know that I was not in love, but I was young enough to think that it mattered. (Being in love *does* matter - but it is not essential).

Anyway, we lived apart, but I would spend nights over at his, (he had a double bed, I had a single).

When we were together I didn't think that much, but I thought that I wanted the relationship, no matter what it cost me. When I was with him I thought he was ... insert good adjectives of choice here.

When we were apart I realised that he was drowning me, and that I had to get out.

But the only way to get out was to see him and say "it's over". And every time I saw him I was incapable of even wanting to say that. The classic female Catch 22.

What saved me was the fact that this was University - he went home to momma for his Easter vacation. Even so, it took me 10 days or so to make the phonecall.

I dread to think what would have happened if I had been in your circumstances.

If you cannot bring yourself to buy a one way ticket, then buy a return ticket. That way you can go back to the US if you want to. And I suggest that you book the return half at least 3 MONTHS later than the one home.

It is like a virus, it takes a while to get out of your system. (Any relationship does, good, bad, or manipulative). But it WILL get out of your system

So go home for Christmas. (Do you really think he will spend the 24th December with you? Or will you spend it alone in a foreign country?)

So take on board the experience of the people in this thread. I am not the only one writing from personal knowledge here.

Let our pain save yours.

With love

Ben

Imagine Christmas with your family.


Imagine Christmas waiting for him.

Well, he came home after an hour, ordered pizza for us. I said he is a total asshole and ask him why he is so manipulative. I told him he should be embarrassed to play these games with someone 13years younger than him. And then he starts to expain its not so, its just that he needs to cool down after work before he comes home to me. bla bla bla... on and on. I said to him that his ego is to big for me and im sick of waiting for him. About the leaving when he is at work, believe me i have thought about it a lot. Then he tells me he will try harder and that i have to help him, be smarter than him, no i dont!!! he is the older one!

Aboout christmas... well i couldnt imagine he would do that. We are going to spend it with his family, maybe i will do that by myself.

I have decided to give him an ultimatum. i just havent figured out what kind of ultimatum... i know you all think i should leave right away... byt what can i do. i have a "heart problem".

Zappgirl, he can be a total s**t to you at Christmas, in the same way he is a total s**t at other times.

Try to find out how serious your 'heart problem' is by going home. If you still feel the same way in 3 months, then - well that is up to you.

Don't negotiate, don't talk to him, don't let him hypnotise you.

Go

With love

Ben

Ultimatums don't work - he'll never change. All you are doing is exposing all your feelings and insecurities to him which simply enables him to manipulate you more easily.

Even if he does 'try harder' for the next week or so, he will definately change back to his old self, but in the meantime you are just becoming more and more depressed and losing more and more self-esteem.

Eventually you won't have the strength or courage to leave him. You are too young to let someone ruin your life like that. Don't let your fears of life without him cloud your judgement - there IS a happier and better life out there, move forward and embrace it.

Your boyfriend knows you are alone in a foreign country and is abusing the situation. Get up and go. Show him you're not trapped there and you're not his prisoner to treat how he will.

Phone your Mum tonight and tell her how it is. If she's out, leave a message with a friend or relation asking her to call you. Phone up and enquire about booking a flight home (they do get very busy around Christmas). Start making plans and decisions - you'll find you feel a whole lot better for it.

*waves to agcB*

And once again, I say that a lot of the advice on this thread is coming from personal experiences.

Keep us posted, my dear, and use our email addresses.

With love

Ben

HE WILL NEVER CHANGE
Guys like him will not do that.
This relationship sounds like it is getting violent. Manipulating guys are the worst kind, and you deserve better. Everyone deserves better than that. The reason why he was nice to you the day after the fight was because he actually thought you would leave him, and he didn't didn't actually care about how you feel. It sounds pretty bad. Get out of there, do not spend Christmas with his family; spend it with your own. The best thing you can do for yourself is to get rid of him now. When you dump him you will probably feel bad, but that will go away because you will realize how better off you are without him.

I've been searching for stuff on domestic abuse to help you understand and I found this, unbelieveably written yesterday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A657911

If you don't understand it, I/we will all try and help.
Just ask.
We are all your friends here.

That entry may give you an insight to what is going on from his point of view.

And how it may end.

I need to tell you all about something. I was reading that text about the thoughts of an abusive person, and i feel i can relate to some of it myself. Not at all everything, but some. I am only 23 years old, but i have had relationships before, where i have been the controlfreak....! Maybe that is the problem. I am kind of suffering WITH him right now. Studying him as he brakes throu the ice at times. But not with my help, he does it himself, coming out like a shivering newborn child. Have to be careful and not hurt him even thou i am angry, i could break him with a teaspoon... He has got a drinking problem, i havent discovered that until just recently, he told me when we met he used to drink alot, and he did when we first met, but suddenly stopped and he hardly had anything for a whole year. Which is weird that i didnt realize cause i grew up with my father having major alcoholism. And my mother beeing codependent, this was throu my whole growing up until he left with a younger woman when i was 10. Maybe i am just reliving my childhood???

Well, yesterday he had a talk with me about that he has to get away from the drinking, period. And that he was so thankful i still love him. he said to me before that if he cant change the way he is treating me i have to leave him.

Thank you all for being my helping hand. Wish i could buy you all a .

I wouldn't say maybe, I'd say you are definitely repeating the same behavioural patterns you saw as a child. This may sound harsh, but to me this only confirms that you two are *not* right for each other. He obviously needs help, but you are most likely *not* the person best suited to provide it.

I still think the best thing to do is to go home, but if you're dead set on working on it, I think you are going to need professional help - he needs it to help him deal with his drinking problem, you as a couple need it to make this work, and you yourself will benefit from it as well, having grown up with alcoholism.

Just out of curiosity, what's his dad like?

lots of love & s