They despise you for staying with them, but at the same time accuse you of not being loving and supportive enough as they are abusive to you.

If you stand up to their abusive actions and words, they accuse you of being crazy, aggressive, not loving, not supportive, jealous, insecure and horrible. If you don’t say anything, they think you are weak, pathetic, naive and deserve everything you get.

Will talk about you needing to be more positive, but everything that comes out of their mouth is critical, condescending, or part of their fake image. If you try to share your feelings about a challenge or how they are treating you, they will accuse you of being so negative that they don’t want to be around you. The feelings that you tried to share are dismissed. Next thing you know, instead of being heard, you are defending yourself and then punished by them ghosting or giving silent treatments.

They will say and do horrific things (worse than your worst enemy), then operate with selective amnesia about all they did. If you bring it up, it didn’t happen and if it did happen, it wasn’t that bad.

When you finally have a discussion and it seems you have been seen, heard and understood- for example, feeling burned out by carrying the full load of housework and child rearing as they disappear every weekend, it will all be an act. The understanding, remorse and glimpse of empathy will all be false. Later they will do the EXACT same thing you asked them not to do (like disappear without a call or text leaving you with the kids, chores and no idea if they will come home or now). They will break basic boundaries and totally disrespect you after they promised the opposite.

They will lecture you about all the things you are doing wrong and need to do better as they do the same things, but worse themselves. “Toughen up and just get over it drama queen” as they come home the next day raging about a person randomly saying “you look tired today”. The things they claim to despise about you, are actually things they are and do.

Don’t be fooled by the manipulation. If you find yourself constantly defending your feelings in order to be treated with basic human decency, there is your red flag.