My partner is damaging his daughter's mind, body and soul (follow on thread)

[RedStripeLassie]

A follow on from my dp doesn't look after his mind, body or soul (Offreds words for the title)
I understand people's anger, sadness and frustration at the situation I'm putting dd in but would appreciate further help as I feel I'm getting somewhere and don't want to lose the momentum and ignore everything.
Thanks to everyone that took time posting and don't feel like you have to again if you feel it's not going anywhere or its falling on deaf ears.

[Mamia15]

As I have already said on the £2.80 thread, contact SS - they should be able to help as well as refer you to the appropriate agencies to get practical help in leaving him.

I would also contact Women Aid for support.

[Costacoffeeplease]

What do you think you need to hear to keep the momentum going?

[53rdAndBird]

Hi Red,

I wasn't on your last thread, but I read some of it and appreciate the kind of situation you're in.

I haven't been exactly where you are. But I have had a depressed, abusive and self-destructive partner, and had to make the decision to leave.

I wanted to say this: You can still love him after you've left. You can still want him to get better. You can still believe he's a generally good person who needs help, after you've left. You don't need to hate him to leave. I know one of the things that held me back from leaving for so long was thinking that I'd have to write my ex off and give up on him and cut off my feelings for him - but no, it's not like that. You can still care deeply about your DH, while getting yourself and DD in a better place elsewhere.

Also, all the time I stayed with my ex, he never got better and he never really saw any need to. Me leaving was hard on him - but it was also the kick up the backside he needed to finally get help and get his life together, because it was the first time he'd faced serious consequences he couldn't brush aside.

So if you want to frame it that way, you can tell yourself leaving is actually the best thing to do for your DH, as well as for DD and for you. Right now what you are doing is supporting him to continue living his life the way he is. That is not the kind of support he needs, it really really isn't.

[RedStripeLassie]

I'll try woman's aid but it doesn't feel right as I'm not an abused woman as such (apart from him using my anxiety to stop me asking him for money) I've accepted that is a type of abuse.

I don't know costacoffee. When I talk to some people in RL they don't react the way people on here do. I came into work a while back and told a colleague that my husband had told me to fuck off in front of our dd and had said I'm pushing his buttons so it's my fault. She just looked a bit non plussed and said 'urgh men' and that was it. Or talking to my sister about his pot habit and her saying 'oh I know, dps just the same, let's open a bottle and have a bitch about them'
On here you say differently and I'm stuck between thinking maybe mumsnet is full of people overreacting because your life is different or that I'm somehow selecting to tell only certain people the truth in real life because I know they won't force change on me.

[mrsaugust16]

If you think no one will raise much of an eyebrow in RL, go to your daughters teacher and tell her what you tell us and show her your threads, let's see if we all stand corrected and the teacher is like "meh whatever bloody men".

You won't though because you know they will writing out a safeguarding sheet before you're even out of the school gates.

[Offred]

You are very brave.

Yes, please do contact women's aid. You really wouldn't be wasting their time - everyone thinks that at first I promise you really do need them.

[PenguinsandPebbles]

I've not seen the other thread but this is my thought from the very little I've seen here, I hope it is not too harsh.

If you really think for a second that someone who is meant to love, protect and care for your daughter is destroying her mind, body and soul I don't think it should matter what anyone else thinks - you move mountains to get them out of that situation.

I do appreciate it is more than likely much easier to say than do, but from the very little I've read I wonder if sometimes a simple statement is better than keep going round and round trying to make what (from reading between the lines) must be a very difficult situation somehow acceptable in your mind.

I would think using the thread to plan an exit strategy would be more valuable.

[Costacoffeeplease]

I think you're more honest here so we're building a more complete picture. Your colleague was possibly a bit shocked and didn't know how to respond - I might be the same if someone said that to me - I wouldn't know if they were just venting about one incident or really asking for help, and it would probably feel a bit intrusive to question them, almost like I was looking for gossip and salacious details

Your sister also has an addict for a husband, she's not going to give you straight advice as otherwise she'd have to take it too, and it doesn't sound as if she's ready for that

[Myusernameismyusername]

I've really struggled to be totally honest in RL situations because it's very hard to be that harsh face to face. I have a friend who confided in me and if I showed one sign of disgust at his behaviour she just cried and minimised. So I never got very far. He was an arsehole and I actually KNOW him which is just as hard if not harder to say 'LTB'. I absolutely hate him now and avoid her because I did try to help and she didn't want to know so I couldn't really be totally honest. But other closer more open friends I have been, open and brutal. Nothing I haven't said to you.

Still want to help you x

[Offred]

And TBH asking other people what they think may not be very useful. I think inside, you know this is wrong. You are the woman who has never even smoked a cigarette who is nervous around the neighbours etc... You need to build your confidence that what you feel is right and wrong for you and DD is the correct way, not what he says because he is an addict in a family full of addicts and you don't want that to be your DD in the future.

[Offred]

You need to start unpicking the brainwashing he has done re drugs and alcohol

[sarahnova69]

When I talk to some people in RL they don't react the way people on here do. I came into work a while back and told a colleague that my husband had told me to fuck off in front of our dd and had said I'm pushing his buttons so it's my fault. She just looked a bit non plussed and said 'urgh men' and that was it.

She probably felt extremely awkward and didn't know what to say or whether you just wanted to vent or wanted serious help. It can be very hard to judge this in a workplace context. Whereas here, we know you want help, we have time to formulate our responses, and we don't have to navigate working with you on top of all of that. A lot of people in RL just won't be equipped to give you helpful input here, sadly, as you're finding from your own family, and others will have been burned in the past by trying to help people who didn't want to be helped.

Reposting from prev attempt to start new thread - red, I know it might feel like we are again coming down like a ton of bricks on something you thought was not only normal but 'lovely'. It must be easy for you to feel like we just don't understand, like our expectations of you are unreasonable. Maybe they are. But we have to have them, because your perceptions of 'normal' have been warped beyond recognition to a family not steeped in substance abuse. The first time I took my child to a party like the one you described would be the last, and I would have walked out by the time a second person sparked a joint.

If your daughter was able, physically, mentally, and emotionally, she would be screaming at you: 'Fuck him! What about ME? What about my precious life? You're the only one who can help me, and you aren't!' It's down to you. It must feel very hard to step up. But you can. You can dig deep.

What is the thing you'd need to see which would stop you putting into action your plan to leave at Christmas? Because I think anything less than 'H is in treatment and admits he needs to stop altogether' is gong to be too little.

[53rdAndBird]

I want to clarify my post upthread, as it's more about your DH than DD:

I think you need to leave him for your DD's sake, first and foremost. She needs to come first here. This situation is bad for her and won't improve until you get her out. But if what's stopping you doing that is love for your DH - well, you can still love him from a distance, and maybe the kind of love he needs right now is facing up to the impact of his addiction, namely: "you are harming your daughter, you cannot keep both your addiction and your family."

[Jointhejoyrun75]

Red, please don't think that all (pretty much 100% of responders to your OP) who have responded to your thread with horror at the environment your daughter is currently living in have a "hive" mind and are so straight that we see your story differently to how the rest of the "more normal, accepting" world would see it. As this is coming across in your last post.

This is not the case, and you would be able to see this if you were thinking clearly. Posters have given you lots of sensible and helpful (and repetitive) advice, which you should really start to take for your DDs sake.

[Jointhejoyrun75]

Also remember it is much easier for anonymous posters to be honest and direct in giving you advice, than your friends and acquaintances who would want to be more sensitive and diplomatic and will often say what you want to hear.

[Myusernameismyusername]

Also I have no good advice to give on some subjects so I just don't. This one I have personal experience of and I actually want to help.

I have been (and still am but as a grown up) in your DD's shoes

My dad got so drunk this weekend he bombarded me with endless voicemails. It's too depressing to deal with. Thank god I don't have to be trapped with him any more.

I'm free. I can't tell you how it feels to let go of this crushing responsibility... it's far more liberating than you imagine. When that weight lifts off your shoulders it's not till that point that you realise how bad things have been.

You could be free of it too

[RedStripeLassie]

I think a big part of what stops me changing things is that every time I feel really sad or pissed off, he does something really sweet for dd or me and i feel guilty for even thinking of leaving. After he was a dick about money last week he won £100 and gave me a £50 note in front of everyone at the party to get my hair done because some of the other women were talking about highlights! It was so out of the blue and sweet of him and I know he got to look like a great guy which is why he did it in front of everyone but still. (Obviously I'm not going to blow it on my hair either).
And today he had dd after nursery. I got home from work and he'd been making a paper Christmas tree to decorate with her. Zero drugs and alcohol as he's gone off to work now. Things like this I feel like I have to say on here otherwise you're just getting the bad side of the story.

i think he's making a big effort in some ways since i talked to him which makes me hopeful but I know not everyone will see it like that.
I'm not posting that because I think you'll all go "oh shit, my mistake Red he's a catch" more that you might see where I'm coming from that he can so easily pull me back in by doing nice things.

I'm still attending al anon and will talk about the party tomorrow at the next meeting. I might try and call women's aid after her bedtime. I literally don't know what I'd tell them though.

[RedStripeLassie]

And he made cupcakes with her too.

[RedStripeLassie]

I hadn't read your post username co that took forever to write thanks dd!
I really feel for you having to deal with that.

[Costacoffeeplease]

he can so easily pull me back in by doing nice things.

And that's why he does it (sigh)

He can feel things changing and is reeling you back in - hoovering is the term - and giving you the £50 in front of everyone so he looks like the good guy, and if you leave now you'll look like the bitch

He's not as green as he's cabbage looking, as my gran used to say

[Myusernameismyusername]

My dad isn't always awful red. And I have some ok memories as a child. He actually loaned me a LOT of money for something a few years ago. He always sends me birthday cards. He desperately nowadays wants a relationship with me. But I'm kind of done. I can't entirely walk away

But the damaging stuff was SO damaging that none of the little gestures could ever begin to make up for it. Your dad playing Lego with you when he is sober compared to all the times he scared me when drunk and how we had no money through being selfish just over shadowed all of those things, so they don't really count for much in the grand scheme of life, do they?

[Myusernameismyusername]

Oh and if we ever talk about it now, when I try to tell him how I feel he just says he was depressed and unhappy. As if that's meant to help me come to terms with it. Ok then. Also massively helpful. Like your DP it's on his terms what he decides to change and his terms what gets discussed and his terms what effort he decides to make because it's all about him.

[Myusernameismyusername]

Currently on this page there is a man OP who lost his family through his drinking and he is in recovery trying to get them back.

That's what someone does when they hit rock bottom and want to change. Read it

[Dozer]

Those actions were not "sweet", but manipulative. Not doing a good thing to give you £50 from unexpected windfall when he burns away the family money all the time.

[Dozer]

You previously said on MN that what you need from him in order to stay is to stop smoking weed and seek professional help for his weed and alcohol problems. And stop the financial abuse and pay bills etc that are all in your name. He has said he is fine as he is, indicating that he is unwilling to do those things.

"Being sweet" from time to time is not a factor.

MNetters have suggested that there are types of abuse in your relationship that you haven't yet recognised.