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Abusive And Controlling "Friendships"?

Eddi

Agnostic
Premium Member
Has anyone here been subjected to abusive and controlling behaviour in either a friendship or some other kind of relationship?

I have, this is my story. Or at least some of the highlights of it.

It was 2007 and I’d recently been discharged from a psychiatric ward and was living in a supported living institution, with a view to getting my own place to live.

They put us together into a self-controlled apartment, that’s how I met him.

We quickly became good friends and I was happy to be friends with someone else who had a serious mental illness.

Eventually we both left the supported living institution – I got my own little apartment and he and someone else from the institution moved in together, into a little house.

We were good friends for a couple of years. Everything was good.

And then it began… the sponging.

It was very much a case of “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile”

He started borrowing off me frequently, initially small amounts. But when the time came round to pay me back he didn’t, and would then ask to borrow even more. I believed he would pay me back eventually, as I trusted him and he gave me his word. I had once lent him £100 and he had promptly paid me back, so I expected he would this time round. I assumed he was acting in good faith.

His debt to me eventually built up.

We were both in receipt of state benefits, and had a secure but quite low income. We both got exactly the same money but he was always broke and I always lived within my means, and was financially OK. I've always been good at living on a budget!

He messed around with cocaine, ketamine, weed and booze, and was constantly smoking, and smoking was then as it is now a very expensive habit. He always had money for drugs and would extract money from me so as to survive as he spent all the cash (that the government gave him to live on) on drugs!

I was unhappy with this, but he was very controlling and would insist on me lending him money, he would never take no for an answer and would argue, berate, guilt-trip and brow-beat me into handing him cash on demand, which he always said he’d pay back. He behaved as it I had an obligation to hand him cash and assumed it was cool for him not to pay me back!

He treated me like a payday lender who offered zero interest, on demand. To pay back whenever.

He messed-up his relationship with the person he lived with and needed somewhere else to live – he kept expecting to sleep at my place, and I was not happy with this and he overstayed his welcome and got me in trouble with the landlord. He couldn’t afford the deposit and the first month’s rent for an apartment he’d found, so I “lent” him the money. And do you know what he did? He moved back in with the person he fell out with and spent it all on amphetamines, cocaine, takeaways, ciggies, and booze! He blew MY money on crap. He may have well have flushed my money down the toilet, for all the good it did him. He obviously thought there was nothing wrong with doing this - selfish *******! When I raised this with him he seemed surprised that I was quite annoyed, I don't think he thought he'd done anything wrong. Selfish *******!

It carried on, always borrowing but never repaying. I tried to make a joke of it, make a game of it, but all he could offer was pie in the sky. Paying me back was always in the future.

He really had his claws in me, he was nagging and controlling, and my will was weak. I was becoming increasingly unhappy with the friendship and started to resent him. I began to value the friendship less and less, but still hoped he would sort himself out and repay his debts to me. And stupidly, I felt compassion towards him. He was very persuasive and, dare I say it, manipulative.

He eventually fell out with his housemate again. And would sometimes stay with me, amongst other people. STUPIDLY, he persuaded me to financially help him get a place of his own AGAIN, and said that he’d start paying me back immediately - I still hoped that he would pay me back, he always said he would…

…but he didn’t. Not a penny. But at least I’d got him out of my home and at least he actually spent it on what I gave it him to spend on.

I once lent him my DVDs of Dexter as he said he wanted to see it… and he went and pawned it! Cheeky *******!

In my home I have a spare bed. He once spent the night at mine, and after he’d left the following day THERE WERE S*** STAINS ALL OVER THE SHEETS AND MATTRESS. Because of this I now refer to him as S*** Stain.

Between 2010 and 2016 I “lent” him about £4,500 – and I was on a low income. I could have had that as savings, for financial security, or to buy stuff or to improve my condition.

He obviously didn’t understand the concept of “opportunity cost” – if you spend all your money on drugs that costs you the opportunity to buy food – and if you take someone’s money you take away their opportunity to buy stuff with that money!

Did it ever occur to him that I’d rather have spent that money on myself, or saved it? Or did he just not care? I don’t care what was going on subjectively, behaviourally he was a sponge and that is what I judge him on.

He behaved as if I had an obligation to hand him money on demand, but would get outraged and would challenge me if I felt reluctant, and basically bullied the money out of me. He would not accept "no" for an answer.

If he had a personal motto, I think it should be "easy come, easy go" in Latin!

There are many cheeky and outrageous, things he did to me. They could probably full a book, indeed I’m certain they would. For instance he twice did cocaine in my apartment after I told him not to bring drugs into my home. And once when I popped out for a few hours to do something I came back and he’d let all the scumbags from the doss-house across the road into my home! My digital camera went missing some time in this period, I suspect either him or one of the scumbags nicked it.

He used me as a source of money and would always extract cash from me using our supposed friendship as a device to do this – and he never paid anything back.

In 2016 I was in a psychiatric ward (again) and finally summoned the fortitude to tell him to get lost and never contact me again! – And so far he hasn’t. Which is good. The exact details of how this happened are interesting, but I don’t care to share them here as they are quite personal. But needless to say I had a huge infusion of self-confidence and my outrage with him had by then reached a critical level, and my own self-image had changed too. For the better.

I made it clear he was to stay away from me and never contact me again. I must have made the point quite forcefully as I’ve not heard from him since. Finally, I stood up to him. And cut him off.

I’m over the £4,500 but I have a sense of freedom and peace. A great weight has been lifted. I am now free from him.

He is now only an unpleasant memory.

Basically, he was guilty of the financial abuse of a vulnerable adult. But I’m vulnerable no more. He used and controlled me for his own personal gain. How will I remember him? By all the faecal matter that was smeared all over the bedclothes of my spare bed! Goodbye, S*** Stain.

Anyone have a similar story to tell?​
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Yes but i am afraid cannot recount it on RF for 2 reasons, first, i dont want to fall foul of forum rules. Second, ive not had a nightmare for some time, i dont want to trigger them again.

I am pleased you have disposed of your abusive acquaintance. Good riddance
 
For your own spirit, it may be worth you forgiving **** stain. I am not saying that you have to think what he did to you was right, but the baggage will be even lighter if you forgive what he has done to you.

Great peace will come if you do this.

In peace
 

Eddi

Agnostic
Premium Member
For your own spirit, it may be worth you forgiving **** stain. I am not saying that you have to think what he did to you was right, but the baggage will be even lighter if you forgive what he has done to you.

Great peace will come if you do this.

In peace

You’re probably right :)

Forgiveness is certainly the Christian thing to do

However I hate his guts and want him to suffer

I resent the fact that he exists

I know that every Sunday I say: “as we forgive those who trespass against us” but I’d find forgiving SS very hard

I’m simply not very Christ-like in that respect (and in many other respects!)

How do you (or anyone else reading!) think I should approach forgiving him? As my first steps?
 
Last edited:
You’re probably right :)

Forgiveness is certainly the Christian thing to do

However I hate his guts and want him to suffer

I resent the fact that he exists

I know that every Sunday I say: “as we forgive those who trespass against us” but I’d find forgiving SS very hard

I’m simply not very Christ-like in that respect (and in many other respects!)

How do you (or anyone else reading!) think I should approach forgiving him? As my first steps?
I think you are already taking the first step, i.e., you are able to see that you don't want to forgive him. Seeing this will help you fight the battle that needs to be fought!

Forgiveness is difficult at times, and we all fall short in forgiving those we need to forgive, but one thing you can do to help you forgive him is to put yourself in his shoes. People don't change quickly into the "monsters" that we perceive them to be in an instant like we imagine. There usually are events that happened in their life that turned them into who they are. Does this justify them? No. This can, however, help us see that we all in the same boat.

We all experienced hardships in our life that shaped who we are today, some for good and some for bad. Those experiences that causes us to change for the worse and causes us to sin, are areas that we all have in common. Some may do something seemingly worse than others, but the bottom line is: every sin we commit (whether big or small) deserves death. Yet, God has forgiven us through sending His son Jesus to die for those sins.

What if God takes the same approach to us that you want to with **** stain?

Although we can't forgive perfectly, we know someone who can. IF we sincerely want to change and be able to forgive our worse enemy, then we have to go to God and ask Him to help us be made willing.

Hate doesn't travel in one direction. It goes both ways. The longer you harbor hate in your heart, the more numb you will become to this feeling, until it is made almost impossible to remove. We need to let go of every hateful thought that is within us, so we can be completely free.

We tend to trick ourselves into believing that the hate is what will make us happy. Since someone did something wrong to us, we think harboring this hate is what will somehow "erase" the wrong that they did. This couldn't be far from the truth. The longer we hold the hate within us, the more it causes these bad thoughts to stay in our hearts, and we are never truly free.

Come to Jesus, sister; and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

In peace
 
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