What made you leave him?

[Hackneey]

What was the last straw/light bulb moment?

When he phoned up from a police station over 200 miles away wanting me to get our neighbours to pick him up (we had no car at the time) on a Bank Holiday because he had gone out for a bike ride unprepared and he couldn't go on anymore. (He only had to cycle another 10 miles back to the hire car he had hired for the occasion).
I worked out where he was and told him to get a train back to the hire car but he just started yelling at me wanting to be picked up.

Later in the week he had been for a job interview where it turned out they wanted to give him the job straightaway and he should start that day. (This was after he had wriggled out of 35 other possible jobs from the job centre - we were in a different country so different rules to the UK). He phoned me up saying he was in a big black hole and he had turned the job down and now his benefits would be stopped.
I got home 3 hours later and he was sitting in bed, watching TV, eating a pizza and drinking from a bottle of beer, saying "Everything's fine now. I'm alright now"
Well it wasn't alright - I gave him 2 weeks to get out.

I’m fine Hackney,, and I’m sure you will be too.

I have a hundred stories I could tell. It doesn’t stop until you leave. All promises are empty ones. All dreams come to nothing. Men like this just don’t change. Get out and don’t look back xxx

The first one when I giggled at a tv program he came over, told me to shut up grabbed my hair and slammed my head over and over and over into the hard wooden arm of the sofa he had hit me many times before but for some reason this woke me up. The second was after physical and emotional abuse he is an alcoholic that please give me another chance all whilst drinking from s can of lager

I am in tears reading some of this. I am so incredibly thankful my own husband is a solid, steady man who actually had to ask me what gaslighting was when he heard the plot of the archers a few months ago.
Op you need to get out of there. I promise you there are good men out there!

When I caught him sleeping with an OW and he denied it. I had solid, concrete evidence yet he still tried to push the blame on me and deny it. I recall laughing my way out when leaving.

There were huge red flags waving all over right at the start of my last relationship but i was naive, had low self esteem and ignored every one. Seven years together, one child, married almost two of those years.
He cheated (probably not for the first time) and I remember looking at my daughters school photo in tears thinking "we have failed her". Almost exactly a year later he cheated again - this time I looked at that same photo and thought "we will fail you if we stay together". Threw him out.
Cue a year of vile, toxic behaviour towards me because i had the audacity to stand up to him. Nowadays we are civil for our daughters sake, I only do it for her sake and nothing else.
During my early counselling sessions, I learned that my relationship had been full of sexual coercion. I didnt even know that was a thing.
He called me a lazy, ugly, frigid bitch.

When he went for a ‘quick drink’ after work with a new female colleague whom he’d made it clear he was very attracted to, and whom he’d conveniently forgotten to tell that he had a girlfriend.

The ‘quick drink’ went on until 1am and I had to resort to the humiliation of calling his sister to ask if she knew where he was.

When he eventually came home he was in a massive strop and told me point blank that he supposed he would be sticking with me because she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested.

I’d been through years of emotional and sexual abuse before then, but even with my self-esteem at rock bottom that was the final straw. Something about being told so callously that I was just the consolation prize while he brazenly explored other options just made me finally snap. I went to stay with a friend that night and never went home again.

A build up of 'last straws' for me.
Him punching me because the fuse went on the iron.
Watching me struggle downstairs in the maternity hospital with a full suitcase because he was angry that they wouldn't start me off.
Him punching me because dd1, only a week old wouldn't stop crying
We moved into our own house. Decorating one night he told me he'd been screwing one the nurses he worked with... And that was it.. The door was open for me, It all ended with him leaving but then coming back a few nights later and aiming a punch at me while I was holding DD. He hit her instead.. Bastard.

Good god sweetpea , I hope he was prosecuted !

OP you’ve taken a massive and important step by realising you need to get out of there- go with it.

For me, it was my ex allowing his friend to sexually assault me on a night out because “he’s got me beak (cocaine) I can’t kick off now or he won’t give it me back”. - I think that gave me a much needed push. He was truly fucking awful in many ways but I saw clearly how little I meant to him. I mean, he had no respect for me anyway never did, but I couldn’t hide from it anymore.

Thank you Foxy it did take me a while to realise how fucked up my marriage was.

I'm glad you remarried and happy now open up

Olympia my STBEXH sounds like yours. Very aggressive, controlling. He loved to blackmail me into doing things. For instance I was really ill and was vomiting the night before, he told me to get up and iron his clothes or he wouldn't take DD to nursery. I normally take her but I couldn't that day.

How did you leave? And how long has it been?

Mines been building for a while..years perhaps

Smashing my stuff in temper
Punching holes and breaking glass in walls and doors
Pinning me to the floor
Has had hands round my throat

Punched a heavy stereo speaker off the side in fury after I came home from work one day and he'd rearranged the front room yet again and when I objected punched this speaker so hard it narrowly missed our one year old daughter

The aggression has largely stopped but it simmers when he's drunk..We all avoid him when he's had a drink.

But my light bulb moments lately..and I'm now making plans to leave without him knowing

He threw his takeaway across the floor and tried to kick my front door of his hinges on tues..I'd broken down in my car and didn't expect to be out for hours..My dd1 was looking after the younger dc and forgotten to lock the door at bedtime, he came in drunk and kicked off about it.

My ten year old dd2 asked me to ask her dad to leave..She hates the way he makes her feel

He's going, but doesn't know it yet, I'm planning

He also steals my money and cash cards, I hide money wherever I can, even in my socks. Also hides things like keys and I think my work pass although I can't prove it

hackneey Exercising power over you when you are at your lowest physically and mentally is what men like so many on here do. He never lifted a finger in the home even when I was heavily pregnant. My DD was due in a week or two and I had SPD. I remember standing at the sink washing up at 9pm and could hardly reach the sink. The SPD felt like it was ripping into me and at that moment I hated my gorgeous, beloved DD. I didn’t even think to ask for help. My exH didn’t need to threaten me like yours, I was so ground down already.

I put up with it 13 years. The final straw was trying to walk away from his screaming at me, saying nothing. I made a cup of coffee and walked past him to go upstairs and he lashed out hitting my arm. The coffee went up my arm and all over the kitchen, even on the ceiling. He blamed me for making him do it. I downloaded the divorce papers that day.

5 years later I am with a lovely man who has restored my faith in men.

ExH blamed me for everything and said I controlled him into making him lose his temper. Like I enjoyed being abused? He never made a genuine apology, only when he knew he’d gone too far. He completely messed with my head. Told me I was having affairs, interrogated me about my movements, told my family lies about me (only the women because he thought he could manipulate them) and so on.

If I’m honest I don’t think it ever really heals. Abuse leaves you doubting yourself more than anyone else.

I found, in the months up to the house sale, completely ignoring him except where I had to, really help distance myself from his behaviour and cleared my mind of all the gaslighting.

I think you become acclimatised to it- their abusive behaviour is as natural to you as breathing. I know women in the same situation as me- fleeing domestic violence- who still have some questionable ideas about acceptable behaviour even after leaving. The freedom programme is a great way to see how this takes hold and arm yourself in the future to hopefully avoid other abusers.

When I was being accused of sleeping around even though I had two toddlers with me all the time & I wasn't allowed to go to to the shop, have friends of contact family.

We'd been out the night before and he'd punched me in the chest in front of his friends who did nothing because I'd asked him when we'd be leaving so I'd woken up, with a bruised chest, to him screaming at me that I was a cunt, and a whore, and a slut, I was ruining his life, and so on. He punched a hole in the wall then kneeled over me and said he wanted to break my nose while I sobbed. The dog was whimpering and trying to be as close to me as he could and I just looked at him (the dog) and how terrified he was and thought 'how could I ever have children with this man?'. He'd never change, and they'd be scared of him too.
He went to work and I literally ran away. Got my brother to pack all my stuff and load up the dog and the horses while my ex was at work and I was gone by the time he came home. Lucky that the tenancy was in his name.

blackheart please contact women’s aid for support and if he does kick off again throwing punches at anyone or anything or putting his hands round your throat call 999. Tell your kids they should call 999 as well. Please. You’re at risk from him.

Hope you are o.k. OP.

Mine: I was given 2 hours to pack mine and baby's things and leave our house as a punishment for being such a poor wife and mother. He said he didn't care where we went or what we did but that he didn't want to see our 'fucking faces' for at least 2 weeks and would be expected to return when he felt I had served my punishment. It was 8pm on a cold November night and dd was 4 months old. My parents raced the 100 miles to collect me while I threw stuff in black bin bags. He got the shock of his life when I told him I wasn't returning. His control was such that he genuinely thought I would return to him after that. A few days back in comfort and peace in my parents' home and I knew I could never go back. No contact now and dd is a happy chappy and so am I.

Unfortunately I did not respond to earlier lightbulb moments which included amongst other things:
him spitting at me while I breastfed dd.
him cornering me in the kitchen screaming in my face while I held dd tightly and covered her ears.
On holiday in Italy. First morning of the holiday, so still getting my bearings and I asked him a question. For my impertinence he took the local map we had which had our guesthouse highlighted and stormed off. I managed to get back to the general area but could not find the guest house which was in a backstreet. He would not come and get me until it was pitch black (hours and hours later). By this point I was scared that I would be left all night in the street. He had been sighseeing, went for dinner and told me I deserved to be raped by the drunks who were leaving the pubs for the way I treated him. I have never told anyone that.

So many brave women on this thread.

So many times when i knew i needed to leave but the lightbulb moment was when i realised that if i didn't leave, my daughter would grow up thinking it was acceptable and my son would grow up to treat his future partners that way. I rang women's aid as soon as he left for work and was gone by the time he got home. The kids were 2 and 4mths and if i'd stayed i wouldn't have lived to see my daughter turn 3 or my son turn 1

Wow. So many shitty arsehole men . to those who have escaped x

Him punching and kicking the walls and doors as I held 3 day old baby and 1 yr old slept upstairs. Because i had t put them to bed in a way he agreed with (despite him never having done it)

Ultimately, having children. I realised that the things I put up with were not the things I wanted them to see

I just remembered before I had DD he told me that if I ever had a baby it would be a mongol (his words) because I'm half a mongol myself. That he wouldn't let me have driving lessons because I was too stupid to pass the test. And that it was a waste of time me taking an exam to become a Special Constable because they didn't accept retards. I passed first time.

OP how awful, you don't have to live like this.

My very final straw was ridiculous really. He had booked go to away for work (of course with the assistant.... Again) but he didn't tell me he was going. But this was my cherry on the top of years of gaslighting and ea. Still will argue to this day he told me and I forgot. Again. Sigh.