I have an unfortunate update. Due to domestic violence I am leaving my husband. This means that my dogs will be rehomed. I cannot endure anymore. One dog will go to the breeder, and the other I will look on my own to find him a home.

Thank you to everyone who has been supportive. I am staying secretly with my neighbour. I am safe and figuring out how to restart my life and mourn the loss of my two best friends...

RSC

I am glad you are safe but I am so sorry for what you have and are experiencing.

Sorry to hear that you're going through an awful time.

Hoping the bad times are brief. Stay strong!

Not sure where you hail from, but, are you ok with the residency permit?


Good luck and hope things will turn for the better for you soon!

I am so very sorry.

You have shown great strength and courage in leaving; I wish you all the very best.

I'm very sorry this is happening to you. Relieved you are safe.

Thank you. I am very sorry too..

I am trying, but I feel at my weakest at this point.

I am American. I have gone to a certain office, (will not reveal so that I am not giving away anything to anyone who knows me and could be looking), and I have found out that the laws for Domestic Violence in Switzerland have changed for the better. My neighbours all know what has been going on with me, they have heard my husband yelling from our house. Given that my neighbours know what is going on, and that they are willing to write on my behalf, that they have called the police and worried for my safety, I can prove that my husband was being abusive and this separation is necessary. It has been suggested we go to Paarberatung.. during the separation, I am ok with this, but the lady I met with regarding domestic violence said most likely these people do not change. So I am not a glass half empty or half full person... I am just practical and statistics show the outlook is not good.

I have had depression, struggles with mental health and post traumatic stress due to a tumultuous past. I shared this with my husband and he used the information against me to make me think it is my own fault that I am currently sick and unmotivated. This is what happened:

1. No access to accounts. I have to ask permission to spend anything. I cannot get money if he says no.

2. At least every other day I am called the following words in Swiss German "Fette sau," "Fotze," "Tussi," "Dummiekuh," "arschloch," "bitch," "dumm," "faul" and so on. I am also told I am worthless, I do not contribute anything monetarily and I "don't do anything." He has made fun of how I look, my weight and my body. Called me fat, told me I would look better if I lost weight even though I am the same size as when we met. Even though I told him that weight and issues around food were below the belt with me because I have a few disorders around those areas. He has hit me a few times, but honestly that didn't really bother me. I defended myself and I healed from that. I am admittedly sensitive and a bit weak so when people make fun of me or make me feel small with insults, they stick in my head a while. He says I need to get over it and stop living in the past, but the past was literally two days ago and has been going on since even before that.... so I do not know how I am supposed to "move on" from dysfunctional behaviour that is still present. I do not get it. He also yells at me in public, and this makes me feel.. I can't explain.. but if you know how in the cartoons the ostriches put their head in the sand? I get that feeling...

3. My mental health has been used against me. Although I coped with these issues and I was very upfront will all of my problems, my husband's understanding did not last long. When I needed support he would berate me, tell me I used my depression as an excuse and so on. Was jealous when I wanted to go to a therapist. So I spent a long time thinking I was a bad, lazy, shitty, stupid unmotivated person because with all of the name calling and put downs my symptoms became worse. After being screamed at and called all of these really horrible words, I would have days that I just was resting in bed with the curtains closed, no light. I had extreme anxiety and with the exception of walking the dogs and appointments when I could keep them, I just wouldn't go out. I became a bit agoraphobic and did not want to see anyone when I came outside.

The house was in disarray because I did not clean it, because even when I did he would just say I do nothing and I don't earn any money so I have no value. I just kind of gave up and let everything go. I would cook us dinner and make enough for him and he would not eat the food and let it spoil which hurt my feelings. I even came up with a budget for the month and a cleaning chart so we could stay on task with chores while I was in school and job hunting and he just laughed in my face. I started to feel like I didn't exist, because everything I did was never acknowledged. Whenever I would ask him a question he would say "don't be stupid" or roll his eyes, or sigh, or just dismiss me all together.

4. I have not been the perfect wife. I have my faults, but after speaking to the lady in the office I realise that verbal and emotional abuse are real issues and it seemed really stupid to me, that I was so impacted by all that he has said, but it is not stupid or weak. I LOGICALLY know the words he says are not true, but EMOTIONALLY not absorbing the words is next to impossible. The constant ruminating about WHY someone who loves you would put you down.. and not coming up with an answer is just maddening. He said he "wanted to make me toughen up" or something like this, but I told him I respond better to constructive criticism and positive reinforcement. Who is made better by being put down? I don't know what it helps. But at this point I feel confused and like he has done enough gaslighting for a decade.

5. All I can say is that if you stay around a person putting you down enough you start to feel like an idiot that is incapable of managing your life. At first I just was thinking to myself, "he is angry, he will calm down" and so on.. but as time went on those words and passive aggressive behaviours became part of my psyche and subconscious. It is truly sad. I really hope therapy and these consultations help me to see myself less negatively and more objectively. I need to make sense of all that happened, and I need to separate what I am responsible for and what I did not deserve .. as I have a big cloud of guilt over my head and I don't know why.



meloncollie, thank you so much, also for the information. I feel like a scaredy-cat right now..

I am so sorry.

It sounds like you need to really take care of yourself. In Switzerland, the mental health care is excellent. There are great centers where you can go away and get some daily therapy, rest, good food and care so that you can be in a safe place and work on feeling better again. They aren't at all like the "Girl Interrupted" scary places you think of in the US...they can even be like nice hotels with therapy. I recommend to see a doctor as soon as possible, they can refer you accordingly.

Peace to you, be kind to yourself. Remember to never forget that walking away from something unhealthy is brave even if you stumble a little on your way out the door.

Redsolocup, you are most definitely not a scaredy cat. You are brave and you acted to get yourself out of a most vile situation. I wish you courage and am thankful you clearly have wonderful neighbours.

You may want to contact a Frauenhaus, for example:


http://www.beratungsnetz.ch/frauenha...rich-violetta/


24H HELPLINE 044 350 04 04


Give them a call, they know what you are going through and can offer advice and support.



If they are too far from where you are, they can for sure give you links to another one.


Take care, you are strong and you will manage!

+1 for that.

The statistics show it's more common for women to stay in an abusive relationship than find the strength and bravery to get out of it.

Could you perhaps link to some, here, which you know to be great? Thanks.

I thought about it...but depending on many factors, I think it would be best if a medical professional offered a recommendation according to the OP's needs. There are many good options...

From my own personal experience, I can recommend the following two:

https://www.clienia.ch/de/standorte/...-oetwil-am-see

https://www.sonnenhalde.ch/

I'm sorry to hear of this abuse. It messes with one's thinking, but mainly about one's worth and place in life. Your long post, on the other hand, OP, makes complete sense and you set out those awfully destructive mechanisms of abuse with clarity. Thank you.

I recommend the work of Patricia Evans, the author of "The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognise and Avoid It".

Evans sets out a model of there being two "realities", as it were. Most people live in Reality One, in which they are basically going about their own matters, but are glad to lend a hand when they can, and are free to ask for some help when they need it. Those in Reality Two, however, seem to want or need to exercise power over others.

They feel that need to such an extent that they view each interaction hungrily as a potential chance to show themselves as bigger/stonger/smarter, and since by the laws of nature they cannot always be that, they feel compelled to put other people down, so as to keep their superior power balance. The easiest way to succeed in this it to have one target person, often the partner.

Evans has a list of ways in which Reality Two people abuse. This includes such mechanisms as direct verbal insults, as claiming that they or the abused person had said/done the opposite of what was the case (gaslighting), insinuating that the victim had had evil intent when she had none, denying her reality, directly contradicting what she said as if her position held no validity, dismissing her concerns as irrelevant, accusing her of starting to pick a fight when she tried to gain clarity, twisting an arrangement, saying that her person has no value or that her views have no significance, and saying that her statements have no meaning, or that she is over-sensitive, that his nasty words had been only a joke and that she has no sense of humour.

Evans' premise is that once one learns to identify these mechanisms, one can learn how not to get involved in the path onto which they try to force one. In that way, it gradually becomes possible to extract oneself from the emotional range of an abuser, and to learn how not to get involved with another, be it as a partner, or elsewhere.

Evans says that although most of the verbal abusers she has worked with are male, she has also known female verbal abusers, and that in any case, happily, most men, like most women, live in Reality One, in which they have no particular wish to hurt or dominate anyone.

There is a sticky here somewhere with links to women’s refuges and child protection services in the different cantons which might be useful for the OP.

You're very brave for getting out of this abusive relation and opening up on a public forum. (please ignore the not-so-kind posts, I'm pretty sure they'll pop up sooner or later)

I wish you all the best and I hope you'll get all the help needed.

Well said...
...or maybe, just maybe, this thread will get by without anything unkind. I hope so, since OP has suffered and is suffering a great deal already.

You know, it is really ok. Normally I am hyperaware of how cutthroat Internet forums are due to the cloaks of anonymity we wear and our degrees of separation from each other. I would not post much of my life like this were I in my own country. Going through abuse is embarrassing, there is much pressure not to let your private life spill over into the public sphere especially if you live in such a small village. And people gossip in small towns and the farther you get out of ZH proper, the more this seems to matter. Sometimes English Forum is like the last frontier for me as an Anglophone person in Switzerland.

I need to be more cognisant of the fact that I am opening myself up to criticism by posting my issues on this forum, it is public after all. It would still be good if we all remembered to exercise kindness. Some of us are here because we have left our strong support networks back home, have yet to establish some here, and perhaps maybe even have nothing and no one to go back to. With the right EF users (I have met some real cool people here) you can find yourself a launchpad from which to spend your time meaningfully in Switzerland.

I have upcoming meetings with lawyers and further mediation to do with my husband (you cannot divorce for 2 years unless all parties agree). I hope with the appropriate therapy I can manage this situation. Silly enough, the hardest thing about the entire situation is losing my dogs. They became my passion and hobby here. It is like losing very close family members.

Today I have to stop thinking so much and just accept that I do not know all that is coming, but that when it gets here I will manage it to the best of my abilities.

I have to remember that most people are living in Reality One. It is hard to wrap my mind around what someone gains by making another person feel small. It is easy to hurt someone, it is no accomplishment. The sad thing is, my husband and I shared how we had both been the victims of childhood bullying and I thought he could understand me there. He knew I felt strongly about name calling and also picking on people for superficial things like weight or teeth or well.. anything.. I always vowed never to do this. And I feel like he, in this situation, is being a bully.. doing to me what children did to him growing up. He will say, well I went to therapy so words no longer hurt me, so you need to stop letting them hurt you.. because you are choosing to be hurt when you don't have to be. To that statement, I have yet to come up with a response.. but I do know I didn't sign up for this!

Thank you for recommending Patricia Evans. I also want to add in the book, Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
by Lundy Bancroft. I have this on my Kindle, and I try to read this when I cannot make sense of everything happening to me.

It ultimately takes two to tango, but I have realised that abuse is more than a series of actions. It is an attitude and mindset, and this is what has to change. And if this doesn't change, there is no hope. And my problem is the fact that my husband does not acknowledge his behavior as abusive. He does not accept responsibility and feels entitled to use these tactics against me when I do not meet his expectations or otherwise annoy him in some way.

RSC

I'd just like to say again: you are describing it very, very clearly. I commend you for that, and you will find your way back to feeling that your emotional life is comprehensible, too.