My husband won't let me see my daughter

Your husband has no right whatsoever to treat you like this.

Abusive partners rely on gradually wearing their other half down and this is ultimately what gives them the power to make the sort of decisions he seems to have made as well as belittling you and your disability with friends and family. 

You describe how supportive and understanding you are, but I find myself wondering if really what you do is to walk on eggshells around him in the hope of appeasing him or getting him to treat you with the dignity you so richly deserve. It becomes a pattern of learned behaviour, again one which abusive partners promote.

I’m not remotely surprised to learn how alone and confused you are and anyone would feel as you do now.  The important thing to make quite clear here is that you have not brought this on yourself in any way. Abusive partners often insinuate or actually tell you that if you were different, then of course, they wouldn’t need to treat you as they do. None of this is true because behaving as he does is an active choice which is everything about him and nothing about you.

We all get it wrong sometimes. We all say and sometimes do things that cause a partner unhappiness. That’s because we’re human and sometimes can’t see the wood for the trees. We put our own needs first and whilst that’s what we need to do sometimes, the sort of behaviours you describe are a systematic abuse of power. I think you should reach out for professional support to help you to consider what your best moves might be.

I wonder too if you might find it difficult to talk directly with friends or your own trusted family members. Sometimes people feel a sense of shame that they’re in a situation such as you describe and it’s this that makes it difficult to talk to people about what’s going on. If that feels like something you recognize in yourself then taking the first step to reach out as you’ve done with me and have your distress validated will hopefully encourage you to seek more practical help and support.

I think it would be worth getting some legal advice or perhaps making an appointment with the CAB so that you start pulling together knowledge and information to help you to better decide on potential next steps. It’s often really helpful to go with a trusted friend or relative too.

Our fantasy is often that if we could just get a partner to ‘see’ how painful their behaviour can be, then they would stop – as I’ve said, we can all be thoughtless sometimes. But healthy relationships are generally based on equality with no one person consistently using hurtful and unkind behaviours to undermine their partner. Feeling isolated and constantly undermined is no good for mental, emotional or physical health so individual counselling could be useful to help you to feel emotionally supported whilst you consider the next steps.