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Dreaming about my abusive ex-husband when will it stop?
by stillgrowingLisa, Oct 21, 2009 01:03AM
When will I stop dreaming about my ex-husband? We have been divorced for 10 months. I keep dreaming that we get back together, or he is with another woman and I am hurt, or other variations on these themes. Every dream is soooo emotionally charged. I end up crying for hours the next day. I was married to an emotionally and verbally abusive man for 20 years. He was very controlling and made me so anxious I was physically sick. I got the courage to divorce him in spite of the fact that I love him. I knew that I must to survive - the life I had would have killed me eventually. But now I'm having these dreams that are tearing me apart. I see a psychologist, and I am working through understanding what happend, but I am so tired of being sad all the time. Has anyone been through something like this? When does my heart heal?
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So I was instructed to figure out a way that I may demolish that person or persons that hurt me or didn't protect me. And take out my pain, anger & frustation on them. I used water balloons. I took each on & focused all my anger, frustration of each of them & once I had gathered as much anger for that particular balloon I would then scream at it as I smashed it against the grown. Repeat as often as need until you finally begin to feel relief.
Eventually you will discover that the nightmares will go away or not occur as often, & if they do occur it will probably be on a very traumatic event in you history, repeat the exercise above & focus on what the trauma might have been for that time frame during your life with your abuser & than focus on that event to repeat with the exercise & smash the event until you feel relief.
Debra
Your comment about not understanding why anyone would put up with abuse for so long interested me. Every situation is different, but here are a few facts about why I stayed. It might give you some insight for the future.
1. I was emotionally abused by my mother as a child, and this lead me to accept (at only 20 years old) an abusive situation with my husband as "normal".
2. I was the only person willing to pacify him (translation - be a door mat) and so he "loved" me for it. My self esteem didn't allow me to see I deserved better. Of course all spouse abusers seem wonderful in the beginning and get progressively worse.
3.. My husband was abused as a child too. Weird as it seems, there can be a bond through this type of thing. I saw him as a person who was hurting too. He was and is. The problem was he took out his pain on me.
4. I take marriage seriously. I wanted to make it work. I saw myself as a "loyal" person, it took a long time for me to stop thinking of loyalty as a character trait that I valued over self preservation.
5. We have a child (now 12) who we both love. Being a child of divorce, I didn't want to put my child through that.
6. I was just plain scared to do anything but try to pacify him and avoid the next confrontation. Every confrontation killed me a little more and drained my strength.
The good news is that psychological therapy, and drugs that tamp down my anxiety allowed me enough room to grow. Eventually I grew to have enough strength to leave. I am so sad that it took 20 years.
My advice to young women is that if you feel put down or scared to be yourself with a man. If you avoid certain topics, or try to "make everything just right" to avoid his anger - you are with a man who has serious problems. Whatever it takes, find the strength to leave. It won't be easy - in fact it may be heart breaking - but it's the only way out.
Thanks for listening.
It's encouraging to hear that the dreams stop. I am making changes to get on with MY life, but unresolved feelings keep popping up at the most unexpected times. I think it would be easier if I could have no contact with him - but there has to be some contact because we share custody of our 12 year old son. Whatever my brain needs to do to process this **** is fine, I just want to get through it.
I went from one abuse situation to another too (from mother to husband). My psychologist helped me understand why I did that. Don't get me wrong - it's never the victim's fault - no one has the right to abuse. My point is that there are reasons why I made the choices I did. I'm quite frightened of making another bad choice in a relationship, so I'm working really hard on looking back to see the "signs" that I ignored. I like to think I can learn from my mistakes! Abused women DO tend to end up in more abuse situations and I'm determined to break the pattern. Sounds like you are too.
May God bless you with peace beyond all understanding.
My moment was when a year ago at the age of 41 I told her that she was a self centered, selfish *****. (I have never talked like that before) I told her that she had hurt me for 41 years. I told her that she had hurt every single person I loved. I told her it was done, she wouldn't be hurting me any more. I left and have no intention of having contact with her in the future. It was an incredible relief to be angry with her. I had suppressed it for my whole life and now it was out. I think this was a turning point.
Now to work on my anger at my ex.....
Thanks again.
I too suffered dreams after my abusive marriage. They always went the same way. I would find myself dreaming that we were back together. I cannot adequately describe the fear, agitation and sick feelings that Always resulted from the dreams.
I did some research on dream analysis. And they all said the same thing......
UNFINISHED BUSINESS .....
That really, really p****d me off. I mean how much more could I take of this???
But then I learned that at the very, very bottom lay my fear that I was untrustworthy. I couldn't rely on myself to keep myself SAFE.
Took a long while to work through this. Logic and rational thinking have nothing to do with the Reptilian part of the brain. UNLESS it is brought out into the open. Then you can start to create new ways of thinking.
I hope this helps.....
Wow ! We seem to have hit the nail squarely on the head here !!
I think you have great insight. It's ALWAYS about our own feelings. I too had terrible trust issues. You know the odd thing was that at first I thought it was because I couldn't trust them. But then it dawned on me that it was MYSELF I couldn't trust. I had decided that I exercised such poor judgement in the past, and why should I believe that I knew anything about anything ???
It's a long process isn't it ? But I think I just started to listen to that inner voice who said ..Hang on a minute, that doesn't actually tally with what happened...
It's the hardest thing in the world sometimes to completely change your own Belief System.
Sounds like you have made terrific inroads already. Being AWARE is the first and best way to start healing. Congratulations on using that self-awareness to benefit yourself. I think that is commendable and very very praiseworthy.
Well Done You !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like the way you express yourself. Clear and concise, informative and compassionate.
Anger Management was and is a difficult area. Especially when Repression was the keyword to survival.
I started piling up dirty laundry (whilst waiting for a load to finish) and kicked it round the kitchen floor. I felt frightening at first, knowing how deep-seated my anger was. But Oh the RELIEF !!!
Now I tend to do the cushion-bashing thing. Get a really good swing and smash it down on the bed.
Thank God for privacy.