Select examples of emotional abuse and my/the children's reponses to them

THE MARRIAGE

Rabbi Jekyll never had anything good to say about me.

I read dozens of books on marriage during the course of our marriage - about one book a year - and, like a good girl, made sure to compliment him and tell him what I appreciated about him regularly.

I once asked him if there was anything good that he could say about me, and he responded that "I was trying to be a good person."

When I asked him if he could say that I was a good person, he responded that only Hashem (God) could say who was good.

Early on in teh marriage, when I asked him to calean up after himself, he responded that I had a perverted sense of priorities if I expected him to clean up whne he could spend the time learning/teaching Torah.

He criticized my singing and I stopped singing.

He criticized my piano playing and I stopped playing the piano.

He gave divrei torah about the quest for graduate degrees being our generation's version of idol worship and I dropped out of graduate school.

During the month that I tried out vegetarianism, he gave a dvar torah on the conflict between vegetarianism and Judaism, and guess what? I gave it up.

During the course of the mariage, I gained 100 pounds. Granted, some of it was probably part of the natural course of things, which included 6 kids, nine pregnancies, but I believe part of it is related to all the stress caused by the marriage.

After the birth of child number 1,when I started going to Weight Watchers, I would come home from my meeting to have the smell of freshly baked/baking chocolate chip cookies/blondies/brownies greet me.

Later, within a few weeks of when I started going to Overeaters Anonymous and realized that I had become addicted to sugar and white flour, he decided to start sweet baking challah.

The only time he ever told me he loved me was after I told him I loved him.

During the first four years of the marriage, we played no music in the house because he claimed that it was forbidden zecher l'churban (in memory of the Holy Temple).

We also stopped drinking orange juice because he said that there was a machloket (rabbinical disagreement) on what bracha (blessing) to say on it and therefore it was better not to drink it at all.

He lied about taxes, insurance and bank statements.

During the last 2 months before I moved out, there were 5 incidents in which RJ left the gas stove on on the lowest flame (with no food on the stove) after he finished cooking. Four out of 5 times were on Friday night, and I felt compelled to turn the stove off each time to avert a potentially dangerous situation. When I asked him to be more careful about turning the flame off, he turned his back on me and left the room. I never got a response.


THE KIDS

He called the kids morons/imbeciles and never apologized to them or admitted that it was wrong.

He stated that it was good to yell at the kids for making mistakes such as spilling a drink.

He told the kids that it was unnecessary to clean the rooms when I asked them to, but that they should do what they wanted to.

He once was sitting with our 18 month old daughter on his lap while he was talking to a yeshiva student. Daughter fell off of his lap, onto the floor, and was screaming. He just went on taling, totally ignoring his daughter. No explanation or apology was ever offered.

He refused to discuss child raising with me at all. There was no joint effort.

If I set up rules, he refused to enforce them.

He stated that it was unnecessary to verbally teach children anything, that it was enough to set a good example for them to follow.

He publicly humiliated/harrassed the children's teachers and tutors and refused to apologize to them because he said they deserved it.

When I asked him about Maimonides' statement that one of the sins for which there was no atonement is publicly embarrassing someone, he said that it didn't apply here because they deserved it.