Talk

Flip

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

1 2 3

Relationships

Need to get this straight in my mind - cant believe this is happening to me

64 replies

DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved · 03/10/2010 01:14

So something awful happened & i cannot tell anyone in rl, but its hard to sort out my head on my own. especially as dh is pretending it didn't happen, so much that i am getting a bit confused, so I wanted to write it down [name changed]. This is a very long and jumbled post as I am trying to work out what happened. For some reason it feels really important to me to sort the details out in my head. I don;t know why. Maybe it will make me feel more grounded and real somehow.

Relationship with dh has disintegrated, and 4 weeks ago, he moved out - pushed by me as I gave him an ultimatum, treat me better or leave, and he chose the leave option.

He is i guess you'd say mentally abusive, i've been really worn down and he will be rude and mean and belittling, and leaves me to do everything [money, baby, housework etc]. He will be horrible and then keeps pretending that everything is ok even when they aren;t - i mean really changing reality, to the point when I feel like I am going mad as I naturally mirror his reality, except I know its not true and I start to doubt myself. is this 'gaslighting'?

Anyway, I have realised how much it is grinding me down and making me believe I am worth less than everyone else, and its permeating everything in my life, and other people are also treating me like I am worthless.

Very hard for me to give up on him, but I desperately want more children, and to build a nurturing, safe and satisfying life for me and ds [5 months]. So although its going against every fibre of my being, I am trying to keep him moved out. But he is creeping back into my life and ends up staying here but not being nice to me or apologizing or even acknowledging how hurt and panicked about the future i am.

This is what I mean about weird reality - he creeps back in and stays on the sofa, every few days I have to have a big 'moment' with him where I tell him he walked out and if he doesn;t want to be my partner he doesn;t have the right to be here, and that means he can;t stay here anymore, and he acts shocked and angry, and walks out for a night, then is back hours later pretending it hasn;t happened and genuinely shocked when I build up courage to do it all again... I am used to living a lie as thats what I had to do growing up, and it feels like some kind of hell, constantly doing the one thing I find almost impossible to do, see through the lies and stick to what is actually the truth of whats happening, over and over and over again...

So anyway, the evening I am really freaked out by happened 3 weeks ago. That evening I try and talk to him about getting some routine into when he comes over, what he does to help etc. But it all went wrong, I probably wasn;t very nice, and he got angry. He did hit me but it wasn;t unprovoked, not excusing it, but trying to be being balanced.

Don't know if I am over reacting, or under reacting, I guess thats where my sense of reality is screwed up, dont know what to do really. It was only once, but i've read enough to know thats how it always starts, but I really don't feel scared of him now, 3 weeks later. Except maybe I do as I won't be getting into another argument with him again, as I don;t trust him when he gets angry he's not in control of himself. He also said some pretty terrifying things which am scared by too [about taking my ds away]. But then there really is no history of him doing things like that, so maybe it really is an isolated occasion. But can I really think that as he may not have hit me before, but he's destroyed my heart and soul and sense of self. crap. I really don't know.

sorry I am going to go on, here are the details of that night, so I can think it through, as its already slipping out of my brain.

He wouldn't acknowledge that this half in/ half out of relationship is destroying me, and so I went on and on at him, he was stonewalling me and when he did speak it showed a total lack of any humanity or empathy towards me. ust dismissive, & belittling of anything i tried to say.

And I did move towards him, get in his personal space and I was screaming at him to notice me and how I felt. I think I grabbed him, and thats when he just lost it and whacked me around the face. I know he gets overloaded with emotion, and that he tries to block out everything, but I just wanted him to acknowledge what he is doing to me. I guess I pushed him too far as I wanted a reaction, and i certainly got one, but it wasn;t the one i wanted.

He hit me across the face and neck, my head went into the sofa back, which I think made it alot less bad than it could have been. It least was soft, as I cannot believe how hard he hit me, I felt like my head was flying off my neck.

My eyes went blurry and my ears were ringing for it felt like ages after. Everything went a bit wobbly, didn't hurt for a while as it all felt a bit unbelievable and 'white noise'. I felt like I guess whiplash would be like - thats why am glad my head was near the sofa, if i had been standing up, or near a wall, I think it would have been worse [v scary, it felt like my neck would have snapped - meladramatic? maybe, I've never been hit before, I don;t know how much damage a hand can do, more than i thought, thats for sure].

He sprang up and started pacing up and down, screaming some terrible things, like how everything was my fault, he would take away my son and make sure i'd never find him, and he was laughing as he said it, and it was just dreadful. It didn;'t feel real, and I was still foggy from being hit, but I thought I better say something like I imagine people should say, so I said I was calling the police and he just laughed at me, and mocked me. I couldn;t find the phone so i couldn;t do that anyway, and at that point i realised i didn't know this man in front of me, he wasn;t my dh, he was out of control and very very scary.

I just got myself between him and the bedroom where the baby was sleeping, I couldn't stop thinking that if he'd hit my baby like that he'd have killed him. It wasn't that he'd threatened ds safety, but that he was so much stronger than I ever imagined, and that I couldn't physically protect ds if I needed. I really wanted to run away and that makes my heart hurt cos how could I want to run away when I couldn't get to my baby? I still couldn;t see properly and it was hard to focus enough to hear what he was shouting.

Then finally he calmed down a bit and finally noticed I was holding my face and neck, and it was only then he realised he'd hurt me. You could see finger marks on my neck, and my cheek and jaw were red, so he had to notice that it was a hard hit. humm, not sure about that actually, i think he believes it was not that hard.

He tried to excuse himself and say he didn;t mean to, he did it before he even noticed, and I had been too much in his face and it was a knee jerk reaction - and to be honest I think thats true. However, that wasn;t a glancing blow, that was so so strong, I never knew he was that strong. he said he didn;t even try and hit me heard - like he didn;t believe it was that hard - i think he thinks I am making a fuss but he didn;t dare say so as he knew how that would sound.

I was trying to find the landline handset as my mob doesn;t work in the flat, and I couldn;t find it, and was screaming inside as I just wanted to have hold of it as I wasn;t sure what would happen next.

He was mocking me for being scared of him, I think he thought I wasn;t serious, as I don't think he really registered what hed done. I kept asking him to leave and he wouldn;t and he was jeering at me, and I really wanted to run away from him but I couldn;t because ds was in the next room and I didn;t think i could grab ds and go as I was scared to try and take him, and I didn't want to wake him and see this, oh God, ds can;t ever know the depths to which I have sunk.

Then he finally realised what he had done and I asked for his keys, and he said no for a while, then he said he had to pack, but I didn;t want to let him go near the bedroom, so insisted that he left and went for a walk until he'd cooled off. he left and I sat there holding the keys and the phone and I had no idea what to do, I didn't dare go into the bedroom to check on ds as I thought he would be able to feel what had happened coming off me in waves. And i was shaking, this is my dh, how can this have happened, and why was i so upset, it was only what he'd being doing to me inside, but on the outside, simpler in a way to deal with.

anyway, I put ice on my face, he came back and apologized, and he seemed horrified by himself, really really shocked at what he had done. also said he wouldn;t really take ds from me, that he just said that to hurt me, and that he thought thats what I was threatening him with

[he had asked me earlier whether I would try and stop him seeing ds, and I said that although in my view he had no right to see him as he wouldn;t be supporting him or contributing in any way, I am a nice person so I wouldn't stop him].

and then he fell asleep on the sofa like nothing happened.

I know he sleeps to block things out, but then I was left with no space to go, didn't know if I should feel safe or not, didn't know if I should sleep or not. Instinctively felt that ds was safe as husband seemed in his right mind again, but very shaken, should I believe my instincts or not. Not sure at all.

nothing should be the same again, except it seems like everything is the same.

That was 3 weeks ago, and I had a bruise after, which i pointed out a couple of times, and he said 'oh god, I will go and buy something to put on it'. except he never did, and hes never mentioned the whole thing again.

Its like it never happened, am starting to doubt myself that it ever happened. Its kind of doing my head in actually. Hes not even being really apologetic or acting nicer, but not worse either - really genuinely like he's wiped it out from his brain.

OP posts:

Report

LadyBee · 03/10/2010 01:32

Hello. Why can't you tell anyone in RL about this?
You didn't do anything wrong, he physically attacked you.