My therapist implied she'd have to involve social services if I allow my husband to move in with us.

[RedStripeIassie]

Long back story..... dh became an ex late last year after I had enough of him drinking and smoking pot and skunk all the time and generally being neglectful of my dd and myself. I said that if he could turn his life around I'd consider getting back together after 6 months plus. I moved back home and found a place to rent starting in March. I became seriously ill and in hospital it was touch and go on a couple of occasions. Dh was by my side the whole time and we starting rekindling things during all the madness.
He doesn't drink anymore and just smokes a couple of light spliffs a night. He is the man I remember falling in love with and the relationship he has with dd is growing by the day.

As well as my physical health my mental health has been pretty shaky and I've started seeinga really good therapist. This is a first for me. My understanding was that's everything was totally confidential unless it was a life or death situation or child abuse or another serious crime.
Because of this I have been so open and honest about the past thinking that is the best way. Some of what I've told her has clearly worried her and she has said a few times how lucky I was to not attract SS involvement. She did a risk assessment today and when I mentioned I had been thinking about letting dh move in with us in the new place she basically said that if I did it would be a safe guarding issue as he is still 'using' and she would have to report, otherwise it would look like she was colluding.

So WWYD?? I'm really getting a lot from therapy and she's a really good professional whose highly recommended. I'm lucky as she's doing me a big discount because I'm skint too. But what's the point in having therapy if you start having to lie to your therapist? It would be a waste of my money and both our time. I feel dh has made some really true and meaningful changes and I've been looking forward to us being together again after almost 4 months. Dd also wants to live with both of us and has really developed a great relationship with him after not really liking him before. He still needs to work on stuff but I disagree that he's a safeguarding issue. The worry is making me reconsider letting him move in though.

So yes, having started out on this thread saying you need to filter what you say to your therapist as they have to err on the side of caution, I now say something different.

I agree with Believeit.

Your therapist is doing the right thing. She is being the adult because you aren't being. You can't put your daughter through this again. You can't risk it. It isn't fair on her. : (

So if he comes back in, then SS will be monitoring you. Which is right.

I just let my guard down and told her all the truth from our fist session

We just hadn't got round to talking about it [the strangling incident] yet. It's been more focused on my anger and self harm issues ( which is another story). I've said as much as 'the night I decided to leave he behaved unacceptably' but she hasn't asked and I haven't gone into detail yet. I've only had a few sessions.

We're meant to be moving in the next few days! Wed 29-Mar-17 19:12:38
There nothing new for me to post either. Wed 29-Mar-17 19:02:31
I can give a good example today. We were unpacking at the new place after school Wed 29-Mar-17 21:12:46

I think people need to be very careful with this poster. There is something strange and manipulative about the sum total of the posts and a number of outright inconsistencies.

Not sure that things are as they appear.

I probably need to step away from this now but the things you have said about him being good to you while you were ill in hospital struck a chord with me.

I was seriously ill in hospital when my children were very small. My DH didn't sit by my hospital bed night after night - he couldn't and I wouldn't have wanted him to - he was running round trying to hold down his job, keep a home running and look after our children with a semblance of normality. It would have been far easier to plonk himself next to me in a hospital chair and be sympathetic but it wasn't an option - I'd hazard a guess it was only possible for your DH because he doesn't accept the responsibility of providing for his family and looking after his child.

Your previous threads were full of the same sort of optimism and denial. I happened to come across an old post where you said "I'm grasping at straws but I'm really an eternal optimist" and I think that is the absolute truth - and that was before things got so bad that you finally left him. You believed in him before and he abused your faith in him. He really has to pack in cannabis once and for all, and to be clean for a year, before you can even begin to think he might have changed. And even then there will always be the danger that temptation will be too much for him.

The very fact that you don't want to talk about this and instead want to talk about packing in the therapy reveals only too much about the situation. You've told us he's destroying your daughter. Do you really want that to happen?

SeaEagle - agreed

well spotted seaeagle

I am guessing Red has not been entirely honest with the therapist or in her posts here about how much she's back together with him, which is why she was jumping between "I'm thinking about moving him back in" to "we're supposed to move soon" to "we were unpacking in the new place, and..."

I did this too after getting out of an abusive relationship. Telling my friends and family "oh, we're just friends, maybe one day..." while secretly messaging I-love-yous to each other. It seems so embarrassing to me now but I think it's not that unusual. My ex was determined to wheedle me back and very nearly did, several times over.

Red, you are not going to want to hear this, but when I read about your husband coming to sit by your bedside in hospital I did not see it as a loving gesture at all. I saw it as a way to make a big grand gesture to win you over, a way to make himself indispensable to you, a way to make sure you don't get space apart from him to think and process. My ex did things like this too. And like you, I thought: how lovely! How generous! See, he is worth another chance after all! And it's only later, looking back, that I think: yeah, but he was doing that instead of making any of the sustained life changes I needed him to make. Just like your husband has wheedled out of therapy, wheedled out of financially supporting you and DD, wheedled out of quitting drugs. Because my ex did not actually want to change - he just wanted to get me back.

It is really common for people to take several tries to leave an abusive relationship. Please at least consider listening to those of us who made it, even if it took two or three or ten attempts. And please also listen to the posters who grew up in your DD's position with a mother who never made it out, or the posters who've worked with children taken into care because their mothers couldn't or wouldn't put them first.

I know you think that your situation is different, and nobody understands. I thought that about mine too. I was wrong.

I don't think they really split up. Yes Red managed to leave him and move back in with her parents but he followed her almost immediately and was probably texting/calling her constantly. And with her enabling family (who admittedly don't know the true extent of the abuse) and her illness, Red never stood a chance.

The thing is Red even if he had actually saved your life (rather sitting with you in hosp) you own him NOTHING.
Yes it was nice. Yes this is something that someone who loves you would do.
But he can love you to the moon and back, if he is hurting you and your dd in any way, if he is making your life miserable, then he isn't the right person for you.
Even if he was the best person in the world, always doing things with the best intentions etc etc.

I fully agree that being honest is about making you vulnerable. And that can be very hurtful and hard.
But if you don't have that truth and hide again and again, there is no way you will ever heal and find your way. That's what your therapist is here for. She will be able to support you. She will be able to help you look at the truth face to face, even when it hurts.

seaeagle i noticed too about the i told my therapist everything to we didnt cover what he done

something not right here

I've sat with a colleague in hospital for the best part of a day, I've run to help strangers injured in the street or the road.

None of them is marrying me anytime soon.

I kind of hope she is a troll. Annoying yes, but preferable to thinking that there's a real person out there who would actually do this. I'd rather it was an imaginary little girl who had these self absorbed idiots for parents instead of a real child

USER that's a really shitty thing to say. Red is in an abusive relationship. You're not helping.

Report it then.

i have-shame u cant even say what you think anymore

I'm ok thanks. Lots to think over. I've spent a really nice day with dd.

Not my doing so I know I don't deserve any praise but dh is thinking about moving later because his BIL wants him to continue paying rent for another month as this sudden move to my.new place wasn't planned. So at least it gives me a while to think things over.

The therapy I'm having is for many different reasons that I'm not going into on here. I felt that I went straight in from the first session and opened up massively. I didn't tell her about the incident when he was aggressive (it was just one isolated incident and I split from him the next day) because it seemed almost irrelevant at the time to my current issues. I wanted to discuss it at a later date as we continued to build trust.

53rd. That's scarily similar. We were from the end of Feb texting regularly and hiding it pretending we weren't getting back together. I am still living apart from him and we haven't slept together since I broke up with him back at the beginning of Dec.

Well done Red. So he has backed off moving in, you should start making excuses as to why not as well. Keep him out one week at a time if you have to. The longer you are apart, the stronger you will be, the clearer you will see things. You and DD are safer alone than with him. Wait until he has proved his commitment by paying you back what he owes, going to counselling, etc.

He's thinking about moving at a later date. He will want to get his money's worth if he's got to pay rent at BILs!

Gives me time to get another couple of therapy sessions in and get my head together.

Well, if it's his plan then that helps you in a way - you can agree with him it's for the best for a bit, start talking about "when you've got the cash together to pay me what you owe", "when you've had a chance to settle into your new job" etc.

In the meantime, please please keep being honest in therapy (tell her you are scared, tell her your doubts this week about trusting her) and try to be honest with your family about the past. If you could do that, it would be a big step.

I'm a fool to get drawn in again, but red, the incident that caused you to leave was not isolated, and he has been violent several other times.

Hi Red. Have been reading the thread a while. Can I ask - if this was happening to your DD, what would you tell her? Would you be encouraging her to allow her sometime abusive, drug using partner back into the house with your young granddaughter, or would you be telling her that if he truly loves her and wants to change, he would be happy to give her as much time and space as she needs to be absolutely sure that he has made all the changes she has asked of him.

You strike me as someone who loves your DD very much but I'm not sure you love yourself the same amount, and that's blinding you to the harm you may be exposing both you and her to.

Red, great, you are not moving in yet. Please use this time to work out what you want and think.

I'd personally be telling him it is not a done deal yet, give him a real reason to change. Tell him you are still considering; if he can change plans, so can you.

Will he get the therapy in the next month, one, two sessions or more or none? My guess is none, just see if he does....

Whatever your reasons for therapy I wish you best luck with it.

"...felt that I went straight in from the first session and opened up massively." that's the idea, really it is, she can't help you if you do not open up. If you are used to keeping your cards close to your chest this will be a challenge. BUT it will be worth it.

"I didn't tell her about the incident when he was aggressive (it was just one isolated incident and I split from him the next day) because it seemed almost irrelevant at the time to my current issues. I wanted to discuss it at a later date as we continued to build trust." Then do it, she knows it is on the cards so talk to her about it and ask her why she is worried.

Maybe, now is the time to tell her, maybe you need to allow her to see these things. Please also remember as you think about this one incident, you split from him because of it. You have no idea if there would have been more, I am guessing there would. But you had the chance to split, the courage.

Allow this courage to surge through you as you move on with your life.

Please do listen to 53rd she seems to really understand where you are coming from, and your situation.

In real life I have a friend who is in a similar situation as you, in real time. Her ex made a grand gesture and seemed to be doing much better, then suddenly it all slipped, he is not stable and suddenly it all comes to the front.

I really worry for her, she has several kids and they are all dependent on her, just as your dd is on you. Yet she seems determined to centre her ex instead of the kids.

I hope so much she will see a way ahead that will centre her and her kids.

"We were from the end of Feb texting regularly and hiding it pretending we weren't getting back together."

I am guessing this may be a bit exciting, like having an illicit affair? Not that I would know about either situation but I can guess. Maybe you are feeling special, you've got a secret that no one knows for sure, not even the anonymous people on Mumsnet are completely sure what is going on!

But the reality is, he has not done any of the things he said he would, not sustainable, not yet. Once bitten twice shy. Be wise, you are playing into his hands and you know from experience that is not a good place to be.