I have a dear friend who has been married a long time, to another friend of the family. They share a daughter and both work very hard at their jobs. However, whenever this husband has an idea and then gets his family all excited about it, he will then change his mind without warning and leave the others high up in the air, not understanding why or what had changed his mind. ~The latest episode was last week. I agreed to go to another European country to look at houses, so my friend might look to purchase. We were going to stay three days and hopefully the Agents would show us around and take us to see the houses. Whilst we enjoyed a four star hotel, and were ferried everywhere by the Agent, we were very interested in seeing Off Plan apartments and houses that were going into their first phase. Accordingly we were shown some very fine examples and my friend fell in love with one plot. She rang her husband who didn't ring her back until late in the evening and by this time, she was feeling most deflated indeed. All her enthusiasm was slipping away and she was very anxious that he was going to repeat history and change his mind. However he had agreed that she go, that if she found something, she should say yes and purchase, and also he knew that I was going along, so that was another amount of money that I had to find in accompanying my friend.
Finally he did ring, and she explained it all and he said YES..go ahead... Of course she was over the moon and really did believe that her dream was coming true. For the next two days we were reassured by this, and thoroughly enjoyed our visiting and the Agent took us to local towns and paid for the extra night we stayed over.. Just before we left the airport, she received a text saying he agreed to all she wanted, and to enjoy our trip home. We had a terrible time getting home, delay on delay meant that we didn't actually arrive home until after 6am in the morning, instead of the expected midnight**
Over the next few days, things were up and down, up and down and she was feeling very very weary, and upset with all the mind games he is playing... and finally after telling the Agent to go ahead and they would be sending the deposit, he changed his mind again and so it was all off again... Now tonight he was supposed to come over to discuss business matters in arranging the money for the deposit, and he cancelled the meeting as he has definitely decided that buying a house abroad is not what he wants..
This man makes a whole load of money and owns a few houses that he already lets out in the UK, so money is not the problem, I think it is his controlling nature that doesn't allow his wife to make any decisions on her own...
She qualified as a Lawyer in her home country, went to University and is highly intelligent, but she has to give him all the receipts of everything she has spent in the week, and they have to total the bills up so that they balance, if they don't , he gets into another rage... not a pretty sight as he calls her bad awful swear words and all in front of their child.. he has a completely different nature when he loses his temper.
She has had to work in a part time job, because he will not allow her to work from home in a self employed capacity, he makes her meagre salary go straight into the savings accounts which they add up and use when buying the houses to let. Every penny she spends, she has to account for... Also he has had software installed where he knows exactly where she is at any given moment, to the point when if she buys something in a shop, he is texting her to ask why she is in that shop and what has she bought!
I find all this behaviour absolutely difficult to understand how she has put up with it for so long. She has been living with a person with two sides to the character... one that is kind and loving and the other that can appear without warning, that is swearing and shouting and flinging things all over the place. This home life has gone on for years, but I have only seen it at close quarters this trip, and I am at a loss as to how to help her cope with all this change and verbal abuse she has to suffer daily.. Of course her child is also deeply affected and barely speaks at home or school... although with friends, she is more relaxed and chats a lot.. .
Now he has started on his child, who is going to sit exams this summer and who is already highly anxious as she is expected to get no less than A's in her results of all subjects.. with the atmosphere in the house highly charged all the time, despite him being away all week until Friday, she is getting more and more worried in case she will not get the high marks he expects and he has started to harass the staff at her private school about her mock exam results*(*
If anyone has any ideas that I could relay to my friend on how to cope at a difficult time of exams for her daughter.. I would be grateful... a tall ask, but maybe someone would have an idea?
Just random thoughts on my day to day world, now that I am retired.
Unless she comes to you asking for help it will be very difficult. She is likely used to his behaviour and thought it is upsetting for her she will continue to put up with his controlling ways. People in abusive relationships are usually so controlled they don't see a problem and think the problem is with themselves.
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