He does things such as throwing glass/smashing car doors and punching holes in walls to frighten me into doing something when I suggest an alternative because of my anxiety. He victimizes himself constantly in arguments, repetitively humiliates me in public, constantly blames me for things and commonly guilty me using “do you not want daddy to be happy?” and ”why do you have to ruin the weekend?”. He also tells me not to share his behavior with my mother, who is the only person I ever open up to about these issues.

Though I have tried to tell him the way he is acting is wrong and it makes me feel unsafe, he refuses to make a change which leaves me with no choice, so I tell my mother (his ex-wife) in hope that her words might make it across to him. then, when he tells me not to tell her (and guilts me), i have no-one else to talk to and im left silently suffering. i dont know what do do. even when i was around 6 years old, he threatened to grab me by my hair, yelling and swearing saying he’d throw me in the garage when i cried because i was afraid of the dark in his new girlfriends house.

writing this now makes me feel sick. though i’m only a young teenager, so i can’t have my mother take full custody of me. he keeps asking for me to come back so that he wont look like ‘the father whose kids didn’t want to see him anymore.” not to mention how whenever im crying before an argument, he forcibly makes me stop before he meets a new woman in public. otherwise he shames me afterwards for making him look like a ‘bad dad’.

for anyone reading, please understand this behavior is incredibly wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated. if you can do something about it, please, escape the situation as soon as possible.

I’d advise anyone on the receiving end of manipulative behaviour to be sympathetic, to try to talk to your partner but be prepared to walk away if you seem to be wasting your time. A relationship has to be a two way street and it could be years before they address their issues – if they ever do.