What made you leave him?

[Hackneey]

What was the last straw/light bulb moment?

There are women who are getting far worse abuse than I am so I'd feel a fraud contacting women's aid

He hasn't put his hands round my throat for a couple of years now though, and he's never actually hit me.

I'm still planning to get him to leave him though but I still need to be careful how I do it. Can women's aid give me this kind of advice. I contacted them years ago and they threatened to report me to social services so I never went back

I literally wrote a post earlier bout my partner leaving me because I'm pregnant!! My final moment was today wen he told me I'm already a shit mum so why bring another child into it??? I'm gonna kick his arse out!! He been nothing but controlling over who I see what I spend and where I go!! In the last few hours I have finally got the confidence to tell him to do one!! He been emotionally bullying me in to a abortion (5weekspg) ...he told me I'm worthless and my daughter will probley grow up and end up a scumbag!! She's five years old!!!... I literally just told him to pack his crap and get his arse out off my house!!!!!!!! He was very shocked lol

I also found on my ex's Facebook page, a photo album with the title, "Hunter'sex'ssecretcrushes", it was full of women in their underwear. Sadly, I didn't look like any of them.

I also had low self-esteem, felt very ground down in my teens and throughout my 20's and my family thought my ex was a charmer. My dmum still thinks so to this day.

She recently showed me a photo of him on Facebook and I said why would I want to look at someone who is a complete twat? Dmum made a quip about him making intelligent points on Facebook (They have a mutual friend on Facebook, I've since deleted my account). Why she wanted me to look at him, I'll never know.

The only consolation I got out of it was that he looks pathetic and the moustache he has since grown looks like a slug across his top lip.

I had so many of these moments with ex-H. I endured years of physical and emotional abuse but the final moment was relatively minor.

Moments I didn’t leave:

I had surgery and a general anaesthetic. He was bored waiting so left and made me get the bus home so he could play his computer games.

He tried to seduce my 17 year old sister. He made her sleep in the same room as him while I was away for work and frightened her to death.

He once shouted at me on a bus that my breath stank and I was a disgusting bitch. He also told me at top volume that everyone I ever met thought I was stupid and pointless, my family didn’t love me and without him I had nothing. He liked an audience.

Told me I was the lowest common denominator in any situation.

Told me I was seriously fucking ugly when I smiled and never to do it again in public as I embarrassed him.

My straw that broke the camels back moment was at a party. I was sitting chatting to my best friend who had her feet resting on my knee. I had my hands on her legs and he was really jealous. The only way to avoid a beating and a very ugly scene was to let him shag me in the toilet, 6 feet from all my friends. I remember watching him sleep in the morning wishing he was dead.

It took meeting someone else for me to feel worthwhile enough to have to strength to leave him. I had an affair, I escaped him and will never be sorry for it.

When after years of stress and unhappiness (unsuccessful ivf) but marriage was failing regardless I was out with friends and fancied the arse off someone and gave him my number.Ended it with dh next day

When I smelt a rat about all the 'overtime' he was doing at work and did some digging. Found some interesting credit card transactions in different towns and a lot of lovely f**cking gross pictures he'd taken of himself with his various lady friends. I packed up the house, it was all my stuff! hired a van the next day and moved back to my flat. Thank goodness I'd kept hold of it and not sold it like he wanted me to. !

When he scolded me like i was a misbehaving dog (I never treat my dogs this way BTW! ).

When he threw a tv remote at my head to wake me up in bed, called me a fucking cunt, put his fist in my face and told me I'd better not be there when he woke up (jointly owned house). Didn't leave immediately but knew it was the last straw. Put everything financial and practical in place and left 6 months later.

We went away for the weekend and he told me I was taking too long to drink a take away coffee (I wasn’t “allowed`’ to actually sit in the coffee shop and drink it), he ranted on and on about it. I said to him “please, can we just have a nice day out together for once” (he liked to ruin any days out we had). He then demanded the keys to go back to the hotel. I threw them at him. He stormed off and starts texting me that I started an argument on purpose to get rid of him and meet a lover (an utterly ridiculous accusation he’d made before). He then comes back all full of smiles “so let’s go sightseeing now”. I felt like I was losing my mind when I was with him.

Olympia Im so happy for you. I cannot see myself be in a relationship again with a man who loves and respect me, it seems so alien to me because all I had for 7 years is abuse, belittling, name caling, threats and blackmailing. He’s done so many things to me, I never really spoken to anyone about it because I just think it embarrassing.

He once threw a packet of pasta at me because I put potatoes in a lamb stew I was making, because he was on a low carb diet and I should have known that.

When Ive just given birth to DS1 and been discharged from hospital, he took me home and went round his mates for drinks. I was alone and had just given birth, he couldn’t understand what the fuss was about because “I was at home and not at the hospital “

One time we had a big row about something I can’t even remember, he pushed me so hard on to the bed that it broke. I was 8 weeks pregnant with DS2, then I had to watch him make some excuse to his mother why the bed broke.

Called me a dickhead in the queue in Asda I was so embarrassed I wanted the ground to swallow me

He always insults and humiliates me in front of his friends and family under the disguise of joke. Whenever I speak up I apparently don’t have a sense of humour or he gets annoyed with me because I didn’t get the joke.

Then there’s the endless ranting, shouting, name calling, he has called me every name under the sun. From fat to cunt, bitch. Would insult my family and tell me my mother never loved me, all lies. I realised he only said those things to see me break down then would laugh when started crying. I don’t break down as easy now, when he goes on “ranting mode” i simply just tune him out and he eventually stops, but if I talk back it just escalates. He likes to tell me how he can just “knock me out and I’d be sleeping on the floor “

Tells me about how good looking his friends wives and girls friends and I should be happy he’s putting up with me because no one else wants me. He has ruined my confidence and my self esteem is so low because of him.

You know what I hate? I hate that in public he is seen as the life and soul of the party, the one who makes everyone laugh. He will small talk and make strangers laugh, people in shops, restaurants, cafees. And behind closed doors he’s a prick. He saves it all for me.

On another thread here on MN about abuse, one MNer posted this and I just had to copy and save.

Its interesting to note that I didn't leave it till I absolutely hated ExH before leaving him. I left him when I actually still loved him.

I passed that stage, I cannot stand the sight of him.

I'm so sorry to hear that Meganchips I cannot believe he made you do that. Hope you're ok now

You know what I hate? I hate that in public he is seen as the life and soul of the party, the one who makes everyone laugh. He will small talk and make strangers laugh, people in shops, restaurants, cafees. And behind closed doors he’s a prick. He saves it all for me

My ex was the same, mr wonderful to everyone else. When I cried he told me I was faking it to get sympathy, yet when a unknown woman on the bus started crying he fell over himself making sure she was ok.

I theorisied that the “stress” of putting on this nice guy persona was part of the reason I got all the shit. Who knows. Glad to be out of it either way.

When he raped me & my 6 year old DS was in the next room, a week later when I announced I was leaving him & taking DS with me he lit all the hobs in the kitchen & tried to burn the house down in front of DS. Fortunately DS had learned how to dial 999 at school & rang for help.

OP what you describe sounds like me 8 years ago.

I put up with years of emotional and financial abuse, but I decided to leave when he started getting physical. He would grab at my breasts and privates, painfully, then began hitting. He always hit me from behind, in the back, back of the head, back of the legs, so when I shouted out he would gaslight me and claim it was an accident. And of course, there were never visible bruises.

But he couldn't say it was an accident the night he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall nd threatened to kill me. Nor the time he threw me on the ground with his knee in my back, threatening to break my spine.

I found that once I decided to leave and was getting myself together I felt so much calmer, happier and able to deal with him. I hope you're making plans and feeling the same way. All I can say is that after all these years we are so much happier without him. He hung around for a few years, but has now opted to leave our lives completely.

Mine was gaslighting me but at the time I never realised it, after I left him I had zero confidence, I couldn't cross a road on my own. He got it in my head that I was going to be fired at work for breaking the official secrets act ( I was a Civil Servant & knew that if I was suspected I would have two investigators turn up at my desk, caution me & march me out in full view of my colleagues) I ended up going off sick with severe Mh issues & had a breakdown due to the gaslighting & rape, I never worked again.

Also my ex used to spill drinks down me. At the time, I thought it was accidental but looking back, I'm sure he did it deliberately.

He also laughed when he found out I'd been involved in a car accident on my way to school.

He also "accidentally" hit me with his sports bag on a school trip.

When he rang my mother and told her I was dead to see how much sympathy she would have for him. op

I’m horrified by the stories on this thread and in absolute awe of the strength demonstrated. My Grandmother was a victim of DV; my aunt is the product of marital rape. My grandmother packed up her 2 daughters (my mum and aunt) shortly after my aunt’s birth and left him. This was the 1940s when women just didn’t do that.

If anyone is reading this who is currently experiencing something similar, I remembered this article from a few years ago: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/outlook/which-domestic-abusers-will-go-on-to-commit-murder-this-one-act-offers-a-clue/2017/11/16/80881ebc-c978-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html

It basically says that strangulation is a red flag marker for a future domestic murder. So whilst the first shove should obviously prompt a LTB, strangulation means you should get out now.

I joked that I wasn't going to share my food with him and he went mad, had a go at me and said there's no point even trying to talk to him as he wasn't going to talk to me until the next day at least. When I tried to talk to him, just kept making sarcastic remarks.

Made it so obvious that he thought he was so much better than me.

This was after a year of small little things, ignoring me when we went out with friends, not doing anything around the house etc. I just decided I didn't want that life anymore.

Hope everything is okay with you - if you're worried about the future, please don't. I met the most amazing man and I never thought I'd be this happy. Remember, you are worth making yourself happy for.

I'm so sorry that you all had to go through this, you all sound like strong and independent women. It's scary how they all follow the same script.

I put my heart and soul in to this marriage and loved him with every fibre in my being. I will never do that again, I will never give myself 100% to someone again. I will never let my guard down again, sad I know but this is how he made me feel.

After playing PlayStation all night he just came to my bedroom at 7.30 and told me to get the fuck up so he could sleep.

So I'm sitting here with my DCs watching CBeebies and eating toast while he will sleep til late afternoon. Never helps me with the DCs or does anything around the house.

I've never really said this, but I think I'm scared of him. He's never really hit me, but I have a feeling that's just a matter of time, the way he gets in my face in arguments, throws stuff at me tells me all I need to know.

I'm secretly making plans to leave, it's gonna be a while before I can move out though. I hope one day I can come back to MN and tell you all my story of how I got rid of a useless abusive man child.

Sorry, my page hadn't loaded properly and I didn't see all of your updates before I replied

You're 100% doing the right thing and setting an amazing example for your kids. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.

Thanks for the link tattyhead will read it soon.

Oh I'm glad you're happy now daffodil

I sometimes wonder when we do split up and he gets a new girlfriend, would he treat he different because she's not me? I think about this a lot, how he will be around another woman. Maybe he just messed with my head over the years I dunno

Hackneey so sorry you’re going through this. You’re doing the right thing 100%. If he’s intimidating you physically and throwing things it’s only a matter of time before it escalates. You’re going to feel so good when you close the door on your own peaceful loving home, with him long gone.

P.S. and by then you won’t give a damn about his new potential girlfriend apart from feeling a bit sorry for her!

General abusiveness, although not physical (unless I count a couple of occasions that I can now see were rape). Oh, he could be charming, but his behaviour has affected both DCs. They are working towards getting better, as am I. My self esteem has risen since leaving and I can sleep at night, with no eggshells to worry about treading on.