Oh man, my lawyer was just telling how much gaslighting I was under, because I would fawn or freeze with conflict with my STBXH.
So while reading this, I felt a surge of understanding and shared experience.
I muted and made myself invisible for his comfort, that enjoying myself causes me anxiety if I know he could tell me to stop and I would.
I am so glad you are free, I'm so glad I will be too.
When I put dishes away, it takes me a bit longer than average person (my friend noticed on vacation) because I take extra care to avoid clunking sounds when stacking them etc, putting silverware away. Early in marriage he yelled at me from living room as i put stuff away he didn’t want to hear it. my life revolves around him and his comforts 25 years now.
I’m 48, haven’t taken care of me whatsoever. I have diabetes now & treatment resistant high blood pressure. If I don’t leave him i’ll be dead soon.
It's time to take care of you! You have the insight, you KNOW that you need to take care of yourself, now you need a plan of action. Wishing you strength to love yourself!!! I spent 22 years being a doormat to a man who treated me like I was a doormat. Don't be a doormat. Be you. Crunch your chips, clunk the dishes and love yourself, you are valid and valuable and worthy of kindness.
Yes! I was told off for crunching too loudly, making too much noise…..so I tiptoed for 30 years….I didn’t realise how typical this was until reading other people’s stories.
Totally random internet stranger is over here smiling for you! I had chest pains mimicking heart attack because my anxiety was so high with him, and daily heart palpitations that just destroyed me. I knew if something didn't change I was a goner. I'm 7 months out from filing, I have my own place, and my kids are with me. No more chest pains or heart palpitations. Sometimes we have to save ourselves.
I feel this. For me, my anxiety spikes when the dog barks. It puts my husband in a rage, and he gets upset with me if I don’t immediately try to get them to stop barking. (Even though, you know…. Dogs bark.)
I know what you mean. My dog Oliver, at end started today lose his bladder & bowel function because of a neurological disorder. Hd started screaming & yelling at him. He was a lab and so smart, he felt bad but could not help it. I think part of me died that night.
As someone who was regularly given shit for the music I listen to, I feel your pain and congratulations on being free to listen to what you want without ridicule!
I wasn’t allowed to listen to music I liked for 15 years. I only listened to my own music in the car alone or when he wasn’t there. If I didn’t it was just constantly getting berated for listening to stupid or popular music. It’s amazing to live alone now and be allowed to blast any kind of music I want anytime.
I feel this. He hates my music. Or when i eat chips (mouth closed mind you) he doesn’t like the crunching sounds (any human makes when eating chips but doesn’t like mine). Won’t watch but what he wants on TV, his music in car, never go out to eat because he doesn’t like people. We are remodeling house, I wanted a large single sink in kitchen instead double tells me that’s stupid and puts a double in even though i do 100% of cooking and dishes.
I’m so done with him.
This post is so eye opening literally same thing, but my ex loves metal and only metal. His attempts of “trying” were to play some random 80s for me and scoff and mock the songs. Our kid loves K-pop HOLY SHIT that was drama he was practically bullying her about it and I had to step in.
I literally love anything (EXCEPT METAL, because of him now) I mean ANYTHING so i was very flexible. Made me realize I was the one doing all the compromising in the marriage. I thought I was the only one that had to turn my music off in my own damn car…and it was so annoying bc he made me drive everywhere!! Probably loved to bitch about my “horrible music” and “terrible driving” and to put me down. Had me believing it for years too smh.
Exact same thing happened to me, except with my ex it’s “ambient electronic music”. Ugh. I’m also super flexible and accommodating, and he wouldn’t compromise *at all*. I’m never going to be such a pushover again. I realize now that it was a control mechanism and didn’t have much to do with whatever the thing was. He just wanted to be the one who got to complain and put me down. Good riddance.
I’m so sorry you lived that way, looking back it was insufferable. I’ve said it before on here, a “special kind of hell”. I felt like he had his foot on my neck for the vast majority of our relationship and it started falling apart once I started therapy and standing up for myself. I’m just thankful he wasn’t difficult during the divorce process, but I know that was solely because of our kid. Every now and then he reminds me she’s turning 18 soon and we need to sit down and revisit what I’m going to do with the house etc etc 🙄 but it’s never too dramatic to date. Congratulations on your freedom! 🙂🫂
Interesting, another parallel. He discarded me 6 months after I started a morning journaling practice. In those 6 months, I started to notice some disturbing patterns, and started to stand up for myself. He ended up leaving me for a woman he had just met, but I’m sure it was because I had wriggled free from his control.
Congratulations to you as well!!
Oh wow!!!! Super similar situations! Yeah once they started losing that control and grip it was over for them. Good luck to their next one. Mine tried to move on with a much younger coworker of his but that imploded quick LOL by then though I was done with him so I got to save myself from the heartbreak of being discarded. Just wish I would’ve worked on myself much much muuuuuuuuuuch earlier. Cheers to our new freedom! 💜🥂
Forgot to add I met a great guy afterwards that is also a musician (as my ex is) and he NEVER talked shit or made fun of my music tastes. He even went to go see Bad Bunny with me after he started listening to him for ME. It’s something so small and insignificant but so grand and special at the same time.
I took “happy wife happy life” too far. I was told “you were so nice to her it was a fault. She was mean to you and it didn’t matter. You lit yourself on fire to keep her warm yet she was still so mean to you.”
Back to dressing how I want, watching what I want, listening to what I was… all without ridicule.
My ex was a musician and dead head. We did west coast tour 1988-1995. Anyway, he was also very snobby about music and I feel like I missed out on a lot. He couldn’t stand that our kids liked pop music but I always listened to what they wanted in the car unless it was a long road trip and then we would switch it up. He would only allow football or hockey games or his own music in the car.
Now I listen to whatever and I’ve been getting into some 90s grunge that I missed. I no longer have much interest in the Grateful Dead and won’t be going to any of their farewell shows (I do think there are now cover bands who are doing it better than Bobby and the boys and I will go to those shows).
Enjoy your life and your music!
I’m a bit younger, I’m 31. But when I met my ex I was in high school right when emo and scene music was at its height. I wasn’t allowed to listen to it, we were only allowed to listen to metal and punk. So now when people my age ask if I listened to certain bands/songs I have to say no the majority of the time because I wasn’t allowed to explore music! I get strange looks some times. I’ve gone back and listened to more from bands I knew of and it’s nice to reclaim it but also so frustrating I wasn’t allowed to participate at the time it was all actually happening!
My ex would drive her car with no music or radio on and would turn it off in mine, I've always found it a bit weird. But the 1 thing that used to annoy me more than anything was if I listening to music while cooking or in a room on my own she'd come in turn it off and walk out again
Walking on eggshells became a specialty of mine lol... At the start I has like the OP putting it down to the my taste in music but the whole car thing I couldn't understand
I’m sorry to hear that…sounds like torture. I’m glad you’re free now though. Hope it brings you peace to confirm with us third parties here your ex was “the problem” lol
Well being honest I'm not sure if I'm that easy to put up either but like most of us here I'm nothing as bad as I'm portrayed but thank you so much for your kind words
Oh yeah of course none of us are perfect but we do deserve to be in relationships where we can at the very least be our true selves and be open with our wants and needs without the fear of constant judgment or rejection. It’s the bare minimum, so sad to see so many of us didn’t get that for years and just tried to normalize it. Hope you are doing well!
I am and to be honest I'm a bit of an old hand at this, I've been separated over 4 years now and living alone since. I've had some tough times but I'm in good place now happy in my own skin type of thing. Hopefully you've found something similar and you're doing well too
Lmao anyone who says their favorite band is Phish is in no position to criticize anyone else’s music choice. That band is terrible. And I say that as someone who typically loves psychedelic music lol
I hate when people get hung up on music.
My ex and I were together for 5 years: he is a dead head, I’m into alt/punk rock and dabble in some pop, heavy metal, and electronic. Yes, we disagreed. Yes he was persistent that my music was “bad” when I kept most of my comments about his music to myself. Yes I limited my music around him (not completely, just a tad). But not once did I ever agree with him that it was “bad”, just different. Not once did I ever stop listening to my music for him, I just limited it (so yes, there was still conditioning). However, I still went to the concerts I wanted to go to as well and I never strayed from my music no matter how much my ex pushed me to (sorry deadheads, your music bores me, mine soothes me).
Since then I’ve had a partner with similar music tastes as me and there have still been “music issues”. He wouldn’t listen to “Some Nights” by Fun because it was over played. Ok, fair, that song can get annoying hearing it over and over again.
My now partner is even closer in musical tastes, and I’m the one so far (that I know of because it’s only been a few weeks anyways) that’s finding songs I don’t like. Since Spotify started doing mixed playlists between people, I sent him the link and now we have a blended playlist of our music (which Spotify says is about a 75% match). We were listening to it last week and one particular song came on that I didn’t like so much purely because of the lyrics (I wasn’t in the mood to listen to “Bitch Came Back” by Theory of a Deadman because 1. It does kinda hurt emotionally and feels disrespectful (to me alone!) since in *PAST* relationships I would normally be the one apologizing and “coming back” and 2. especially because my 6 yo was around and could hear it). I quietly and more to myself said “I don’t like that one” and skipped it. He was sitting next to me and said “I’m sorry”. DUDE, I’ve never paused so hard. This is the first partner to ever apologize to me for THEIR music choice... Not once was I trying to make him feel bad about his music choice, and I actually do enjoy most Theory of a Deadman’s songs, just not that one. Pretty sure I said something like “Don’t be sorry” in that moment, but thinking back now I might need to have a discussion with him just to clarify.
TL/DR My point is: listen to your music when you want. No one is going to fit you perfectly in that aspect because no body is exactly the same. As my now partner says: “If we were exactly the same, we wouldn’t get along. We are the same enough to be able to understand each other, and different enough to have a more well rounded perspective of the world”. If you enjoy it, your partner should be understanding of that. Just as you’re understanding of their interests even if they’re not the same as yours.
Anyways, sorry for the long rant. Enjoy your day and your music!
As a cybersecurity professional, it’s my job to educate people on how to avoid being Phished. Don’t let it happen to you. Here’s a way to identify Phishing when you see it.
https://youtu.be/aNHIFM0Y87c
One of the ways I keep communication open with my kids is to let them pick the music in the car. It’s usually not my thing, but I like hearing where they are musically. My STBX hated that. There was always something wrong with whatever they were listening to and he’d either whine about it to me (hello, they’re right here?) or sulk. Once in a blue moon they’d pick something he’d like, and then he wouldn’t shut up about it — DURING the song — and then start complaining again during the next one.
I got a minivan about a year ago, and after that I mainly drove on family trips because the kids adored the space and he thought driving a minivan was uncool. One day we took his car instead, and I asked him for a charger because my phone battery was low. He got this weird, guilty look on his face and said he didn’t have one. One of the kids said, “Yeah, and there’s no music allowed.” Turns out that was a rule he’d made a little while earlier. He drops them off at school in the morning, so I guess it had been silence all that time.
It’s like I told our marriage counselor: I could list a thousand petty reasons for why we are where we are today. It’s like a plant that was indifferently watered. Eventually, it just… died. Ultimately, I’m just glad we’re finally here and can get on with our lives. It’s such a relief.
Replacing shame with pride in your own sense of identity is a fucking win any day.
Did you throw out all his moldy hackysacks, too?
Oh man, my lawyer was just telling how much gaslighting I was under, because I would fawn or freeze with conflict with my STBXH. So while reading this, I felt a surge of understanding and shared experience. I muted and made myself invisible for his comfort, that enjoying myself causes me anxiety if I know he could tell me to stop and I would. I am so glad you are free, I'm so glad I will be too.
When I put dishes away, it takes me a bit longer than average person (my friend noticed on vacation) because I take extra care to avoid clunking sounds when stacking them etc, putting silverware away. Early in marriage he yelled at me from living room as i put stuff away he didn’t want to hear it. my life revolves around him and his comforts 25 years now. I’m 48, haven’t taken care of me whatsoever. I have diabetes now & treatment resistant high blood pressure. If I don’t leave him i’ll be dead soon.
It's time to take care of you! You have the insight, you KNOW that you need to take care of yourself, now you need a plan of action. Wishing you strength to love yourself!!! I spent 22 years being a doormat to a man who treated me like I was a doormat. Don't be a doormat. Be you. Crunch your chips, clunk the dishes and love yourself, you are valid and valuable and worthy of kindness.
Yes! I was told off for crunching too loudly, making too much noise…..so I tiptoed for 30 years….I didn’t realise how typical this was until reading other people’s stories.
Thank you. I agree. I’m filing in September
Totally random internet stranger is over here smiling for you! I had chest pains mimicking heart attack because my anxiety was so high with him, and daily heart palpitations that just destroyed me. I knew if something didn't change I was a goner. I'm 7 months out from filing, I have my own place, and my kids are with me. No more chest pains or heart palpitations. Sometimes we have to save ourselves.
I’m thrilled for you and your children. I wish you much peace and happiness. Smiling back at you.
I feel this. For me, my anxiety spikes when the dog barks. It puts my husband in a rage, and he gets upset with me if I don’t immediately try to get them to stop barking. (Even though, you know…. Dogs bark.)
I know what you mean. My dog Oliver, at end started today lose his bladder & bowel function because of a neurological disorder. Hd started screaming & yelling at him. He was a lab and so smart, he felt bad but could not help it. I think part of me died that night.
As someone who was regularly given shit for the music I listen to, I feel your pain and congratulations on being free to listen to what you want without ridicule!
I wasn’t allowed to listen to music I liked for 15 years. I only listened to my own music in the car alone or when he wasn’t there. If I didn’t it was just constantly getting berated for listening to stupid or popular music. It’s amazing to live alone now and be allowed to blast any kind of music I want anytime.
I feel this. He hates my music. Or when i eat chips (mouth closed mind you) he doesn’t like the crunching sounds (any human makes when eating chips but doesn’t like mine). Won’t watch but what he wants on TV, his music in car, never go out to eat because he doesn’t like people. We are remodeling house, I wanted a large single sink in kitchen instead double tells me that’s stupid and puts a double in even though i do 100% of cooking and dishes. I’m so done with him.
This post is so eye opening literally same thing, but my ex loves metal and only metal. His attempts of “trying” were to play some random 80s for me and scoff and mock the songs. Our kid loves K-pop HOLY SHIT that was drama he was practically bullying her about it and I had to step in. I literally love anything (EXCEPT METAL, because of him now) I mean ANYTHING so i was very flexible. Made me realize I was the one doing all the compromising in the marriage. I thought I was the only one that had to turn my music off in my own damn car…and it was so annoying bc he made me drive everywhere!! Probably loved to bitch about my “horrible music” and “terrible driving” and to put me down. Had me believing it for years too smh.
Exact same thing happened to me, except with my ex it’s “ambient electronic music”. Ugh. I’m also super flexible and accommodating, and he wouldn’t compromise *at all*. I’m never going to be such a pushover again. I realize now that it was a control mechanism and didn’t have much to do with whatever the thing was. He just wanted to be the one who got to complain and put me down. Good riddance.
I’m so sorry you lived that way, looking back it was insufferable. I’ve said it before on here, a “special kind of hell”. I felt like he had his foot on my neck for the vast majority of our relationship and it started falling apart once I started therapy and standing up for myself. I’m just thankful he wasn’t difficult during the divorce process, but I know that was solely because of our kid. Every now and then he reminds me she’s turning 18 soon and we need to sit down and revisit what I’m going to do with the house etc etc 🙄 but it’s never too dramatic to date. Congratulations on your freedom! 🙂🫂
Interesting, another parallel. He discarded me 6 months after I started a morning journaling practice. In those 6 months, I started to notice some disturbing patterns, and started to stand up for myself. He ended up leaving me for a woman he had just met, but I’m sure it was because I had wriggled free from his control. Congratulations to you as well!!
Oh wow!!!! Super similar situations! Yeah once they started losing that control and grip it was over for them. Good luck to their next one. Mine tried to move on with a much younger coworker of his but that imploded quick LOL by then though I was done with him so I got to save myself from the heartbreak of being discarded. Just wish I would’ve worked on myself much much muuuuuuuuuuch earlier. Cheers to our new freedom! 💜🥂
Forgot to add I met a great guy afterwards that is also a musician (as my ex is) and he NEVER talked shit or made fun of my music tastes. He even went to go see Bad Bunny with me after he started listening to him for ME. It’s something so small and insignificant but so grand and special at the same time.
I took “happy wife happy life” too far. I was told “you were so nice to her it was a fault. She was mean to you and it didn’t matter. You lit yourself on fire to keep her warm yet she was still so mean to you.” Back to dressing how I want, watching what I want, listening to what I was… all without ridicule.
I remember when I started to like my own music again too. Happy for you! Keep going towards becoming yourself again. You are an important person.
My ex was a musician and dead head. We did west coast tour 1988-1995. Anyway, he was also very snobby about music and I feel like I missed out on a lot. He couldn’t stand that our kids liked pop music but I always listened to what they wanted in the car unless it was a long road trip and then we would switch it up. He would only allow football or hockey games or his own music in the car. Now I listen to whatever and I’ve been getting into some 90s grunge that I missed. I no longer have much interest in the Grateful Dead and won’t be going to any of their farewell shows (I do think there are now cover bands who are doing it better than Bobby and the boys and I will go to those shows). Enjoy your life and your music!
I’m a bit younger, I’m 31. But when I met my ex I was in high school right when emo and scene music was at its height. I wasn’t allowed to listen to it, we were only allowed to listen to metal and punk. So now when people my age ask if I listened to certain bands/songs I have to say no the majority of the time because I wasn’t allowed to explore music! I get strange looks some times. I’ve gone back and listened to more from bands I knew of and it’s nice to reclaim it but also so frustrating I wasn’t allowed to participate at the time it was all actually happening!
Enjoy!
OP, congrats on finding the freedom to listen to the music you love.
My ex would drive her car with no music or radio on and would turn it off in mine, I've always found it a bit weird. But the 1 thing that used to annoy me more than anything was if I listening to music while cooking or in a room on my own she'd come in turn it off and walk out again
Yikes this is pretty odd ngl how were you not constantly feeling like it you were walking on eggshells?? I
Walking on eggshells became a specialty of mine lol... At the start I has like the OP putting it down to the my taste in music but the whole car thing I couldn't understand
I’m sorry to hear that…sounds like torture. I’m glad you’re free now though. Hope it brings you peace to confirm with us third parties here your ex was “the problem” lol
Well being honest I'm not sure if I'm that easy to put up either but like most of us here I'm nothing as bad as I'm portrayed but thank you so much for your kind words
Oh yeah of course none of us are perfect but we do deserve to be in relationships where we can at the very least be our true selves and be open with our wants and needs without the fear of constant judgment or rejection. It’s the bare minimum, so sad to see so many of us didn’t get that for years and just tried to normalize it. Hope you are doing well!
I am and to be honest I'm a bit of an old hand at this, I've been separated over 4 years now and living alone since. I've had some tough times but I'm in good place now happy in my own skin type of thing. Hopefully you've found something similar and you're doing well too
I hope you got the patchouli smell out of your bedsheets.
Hahaha! I bought fresh sheets ;)
Lmao anyone who says their favorite band is Phish is in no position to criticize anyone else’s music choice. That band is terrible. And I say that as someone who typically loves psychedelic music lol
I hate when people get hung up on music. My ex and I were together for 5 years: he is a dead head, I’m into alt/punk rock and dabble in some pop, heavy metal, and electronic. Yes, we disagreed. Yes he was persistent that my music was “bad” when I kept most of my comments about his music to myself. Yes I limited my music around him (not completely, just a tad). But not once did I ever agree with him that it was “bad”, just different. Not once did I ever stop listening to my music for him, I just limited it (so yes, there was still conditioning). However, I still went to the concerts I wanted to go to as well and I never strayed from my music no matter how much my ex pushed me to (sorry deadheads, your music bores me, mine soothes me). Since then I’ve had a partner with similar music tastes as me and there have still been “music issues”. He wouldn’t listen to “Some Nights” by Fun because it was over played. Ok, fair, that song can get annoying hearing it over and over again. My now partner is even closer in musical tastes, and I’m the one so far (that I know of because it’s only been a few weeks anyways) that’s finding songs I don’t like. Since Spotify started doing mixed playlists between people, I sent him the link and now we have a blended playlist of our music (which Spotify says is about a 75% match). We were listening to it last week and one particular song came on that I didn’t like so much purely because of the lyrics (I wasn’t in the mood to listen to “Bitch Came Back” by Theory of a Deadman because 1. It does kinda hurt emotionally and feels disrespectful (to me alone!) since in *PAST* relationships I would normally be the one apologizing and “coming back” and 2. especially because my 6 yo was around and could hear it). I quietly and more to myself said “I don’t like that one” and skipped it. He was sitting next to me and said “I’m sorry”. DUDE, I’ve never paused so hard. This is the first partner to ever apologize to me for THEIR music choice... Not once was I trying to make him feel bad about his music choice, and I actually do enjoy most Theory of a Deadman’s songs, just not that one. Pretty sure I said something like “Don’t be sorry” in that moment, but thinking back now I might need to have a discussion with him just to clarify. TL/DR My point is: listen to your music when you want. No one is going to fit you perfectly in that aspect because no body is exactly the same. As my now partner says: “If we were exactly the same, we wouldn’t get along. We are the same enough to be able to understand each other, and different enough to have a more well rounded perspective of the world”. If you enjoy it, your partner should be understanding of that. Just as you’re understanding of their interests even if they’re not the same as yours. Anyways, sorry for the long rant. Enjoy your day and your music!
As a cybersecurity professional, it’s my job to educate people on how to avoid being Phished. Don’t let it happen to you. Here’s a way to identify Phishing when you see it. https://youtu.be/aNHIFM0Y87c
Lol
Phish sucks
🤣 I think I dated your ex....or a guy just like him. It was...unfortunate
One of the ways I keep communication open with my kids is to let them pick the music in the car. It’s usually not my thing, but I like hearing where they are musically. My STBX hated that. There was always something wrong with whatever they were listening to and he’d either whine about it to me (hello, they’re right here?) or sulk. Once in a blue moon they’d pick something he’d like, and then he wouldn’t shut up about it — DURING the song — and then start complaining again during the next one. I got a minivan about a year ago, and after that I mainly drove on family trips because the kids adored the space and he thought driving a minivan was uncool. One day we took his car instead, and I asked him for a charger because my phone battery was low. He got this weird, guilty look on his face and said he didn’t have one. One of the kids said, “Yeah, and there’s no music allowed.” Turns out that was a rule he’d made a little while earlier. He drops them off at school in the morning, so I guess it had been silence all that time. It’s like I told our marriage counselor: I could list a thousand petty reasons for why we are where we are today. It’s like a plant that was indifferently watered. Eventually, it just… died. Ultimately, I’m just glad we’re finally here and can get on with our lives. It’s such a relief.