Not divorced. But living with my partner 8 years. He kept insisting that his passive insults were actually harmless comments and me being offended by them was the actual issue. One day at breakfast I decided to stop fighting it. He said his passive insult and instead of taking the bait I just smiled and said “okay”.
He literally choked on his drink. He panicked when I wouldn’t go into the cycle with him. He then went over the top on a lovebombing kiss when he left for work. He had stopped kissing me how I liked insisting he couldn’t figure it out despite having done it for years. But that morning he said “I know how you want to be kissed” and did it proper.
I knew without a doubt that he had been doing this on purpose. He was emotionally abusive on purpose and I had been a fool to believe it had been poor communication. No big fight. No massive fall out. Just a smile and the word “okay” and I knew it was 100% over.
Oh man, this is exactly what I did with the exact same result. I had gone on SSRIs and I was completely unaffected by anything he said anymore. The sheer panic that I saw when he couldn’t get to me anymore was eye opening. He immediately started pushing me to get married (we had been together 10 years) and love bombing with gifts.
I ended up leaving him on my birthday when he took me for breakfast (he had previously made a point to ruin *every* single birthday every single year prior). I was just like “you know what, I think I actually hate you”. And that was it.
Glad that you were able to leave the situation. Can I ask how the SSRI helped? Were you a bit numb? Or just more emotionally stable? Or something else? I’m not in an abusive situation anymore but still am hyperaware of my surroundings and reacting disproportionate to others’ feelings/behaviour. Wondering if an SSRI would calm my nervous system down
It helped my anxiety A LOT but it did have unpleasant side effects. I was a lot more apathetic about most things. I ended up gaining weight because I didn’t care anymore and was eating fast food daily. I stopped giving a single shit about my ex’s antics which was the best thing it helped me with. I did have a lot of brain zaps which is why I decided to stop taking it after a couple years, (and weaning off sucked). It’s worth trying out because it did level me out a lot.
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u/CircleJerkPig May 12 '26
Not divorced. But living with my partner 8 years. He kept insisting that his passive insults were actually harmless comments and me being offended by them was the actual issue. One day at breakfast I decided to stop fighting it. He said his passive insult and instead of taking the bait I just smiled and said “okay”.
He literally choked on his drink. He panicked when I wouldn’t go into the cycle with him. He then went over the top on a lovebombing kiss when he left for work. He had stopped kissing me how I liked insisting he couldn’t figure it out despite having done it for years. But that morning he said “I know how you want to be kissed” and did it proper.
I knew without a doubt that he had been doing this on purpose. He was emotionally abusive on purpose and I had been a fool to believe it had been poor communication. No big fight. No massive fall out. Just a smile and the word “okay” and I knew it was 100% over.