What made you leave him?

[Hackneey]

What was the last straw/light bulb moment?

Well, it wasn't that he never cooked, never put on a wash load, never did a school run, never looked after me when I was ill. It wasn't not visiting me in hospital after I'd had an emergency section for our twins because he'd been there for the birth, he was tired and wasn't that enough. It wasn't the infidelity, both emotional and physical. It wasn't the sexual coercion, the names, the under the radar pushing and shoving. Or spending all our money. I was planning anyway because he was treating our dds really badly, but the day he told me that my very gentle, quiet, much loved and long dead father had thought that I was abusive and stupid I called the police. My father would never have said those things in a million years. The policeman was wonderful and kind and said he'd never seen anyone so scared of another person. More to the point he believed me and arrested him for coercive and controlling behaviour. That policeman gave me and my children a new life and I will always be grateful to him.

When he said he didn’t want me to work until ds was in school, and he didn’t want us (me and ds) to go and visit my family overnight ever as he got lonely. Presented as a done deal. It didn’t matter what I wanted, and it was obvious he didn’t care about my experience of life at all.

It was like death by a thousand cuts for me, but one day I realised he really didn’t like me and had slowly worn me away by criticising me and anything that made me me. I was just a woman to him. Then on day he said something about my opinion not really being important and that was it.

With distance and a new DP, I can now see what a fucking arsehole he was.

When he tried to kill me. After many years of mental abuse, occasionally physical. I finally tried to leave and he shut the door on my fingers, dragged me across the hall by my hair, kicking and punching me. It was only because the dog managed to get out onto the road that he stopped and I got my chance to escape.

He managed to twist it to all our friends that it was all my fault and told so many lies about me. Sadly many believed him and felt sorry for me. Cunts the lot of them.

It’s over four years ago. I still have flashbacks and panic attacks but I’m still alive, im in a happy loving relationship with a good man and as far as I know he’s still a sad alcoholic mess.

“Sadly many believed him and felt sorry for me”

Ffs... felt sorry for HIM that should have said. They shunned me.

Haven't left but it may happen. On Valentine's Day this year totally forgot to get me a card or flowers on the day as he was really busy, however not so busy that he had a 15 minute porn session in afternoon before calling to meet me for a coffee ( he works from home) and doesn't know that I know he has a rather frequent problem that way (4/5 times a week) even though he deletes and hides like mad. Router stats are a great thing!! This all comes after sticking by him following discovery 18 months ago of an old historic emotional affair with a young employee of ours . He does know how I feel as I made very general comments about Porn a few months ago and said whilst I don't mind an odd bit away from home, I take issue with any secret frequent use in our home , thought he might have got the hint but no!!!!

I knew it was over when our eldest DD asked him to book a restaurant for Mother's Day as a surprise for me and he told me to do it because he was too busy. That's when I really knew meant nothing to him. I didn't leave though, like other pp's I was so used to his gaslighting and EA and being treated like shit I put up with it thinking that by staying I was doing the best for my DD's. I really wasn't! I wish I had known about MN back then!

Leaving someone cos they watch porn is no way in the same vein as what others have left for!

Getting injuries photographed

Food that’s really cheeky. Yetmore never said it was. Everyone is sharing their own story. Porn addiction and an emotional affair with an employee are terrible.

@FoodGloriousFud the ops post questioned what made you leave, @yetmorecrap answered that for her circumstances

FoodGloriousFud

That's not really the point and I don't think it's a competition. He said he was too busy to get yetmorecrap a card but had time for porn. And he had an emotional affair with a young girl previously.

I'm shocked, saddened and angered by alot of the posts. I also wonder if any of these men, when left by their partners, are shocked into treating their next partners well. But I agree with a pp who said that they are usually abusive to the next woman as well.

If you've read the thread it's obviously about leaving abusive partners. Some of these women have had to flee for their lives with nothing and I find it really condescending for someone to say they 'might leave cos their partner watches porn'. If it bothers her that much then she can leave with fear or without having to make an escape plan and scrimp money to do it. I think it's really bad taste to compare the 2.

If you've read the thread it's obviously about leaving abusive partners.

It's not really. I never asked why someone left their abusive partner, I simply asked what the last straw was for them, what made something click in their head that day that they decided to end their relationship. Sometimes the last straw is something so small compared to what happened in the past. And the fact that yetmorecrap stood by him when he had a 18 month long emotional affair and is now considering to leave because of his porn addiction shows you that. She's properly not in an abusive relationship as such, but she simply answered my question. To be honest most women here have been through a lot, more than what I've been through. DH( as in dickhead) has never hit me, but he's done everything else. He knows that's a line he can't cross because as Olympiathequeen said society recognises that as DV and that would ruin his "good guy" persona in public.

Well said Hackneey

Hackney, have just seen your update. You are doing the right thing.

OP asked the reason we left. For some this was physical abuse, for some mental. Whatever the reason, and there has been some horrific situations shared here, every single one is a valid reason. Once you get to a point, at that point you have had enough. Every one of us that have posted here, have suffered as a result of it, and have been at that point.

There is a short story on which the Jame Bond film Quantum of Solace is based of the same name which says when the amount of solace (comfort, pleasure) you receive from a marriage gets to zero or below that is when people leave. For me it was just after struggling on a long time a last holiday abroad when the older children and I felt we were on duty looking after someone (him) in shifts and needing almost respite from the shift work of enduring his temper and moods and criticism.

The tipping point had been tipped. The quantum of solace was zero.

Sorry Hackney my page hadn't refreshed so I didn't see your last post. Didn't want to be just repeating my same thought.

Although my final straw seems trivial to some, it was just that. The most ridiculous thing in the grand scheme of things. But just to show that he will never change, the last time I saw him he was bragging about his great new life, how amazing things are for him etc etc (let's not put aside that fact he is all alone without his DC...). Why he felt it necessary to, one by one, pick through every one of my family members and tell me just how awful every single one of them are, and then started on my friends. I sat there in disbelief. If he were surrounded by support from his, I could possibly understand better, but he isn't. Just yet another mindfuck game to get to me. Just an example of a small thing, that really doesn't matter really (as it's not true) but he got his way as I can't get it out of my head. Why be so hurtful to people who did nothing but support him for decades. So maybe some will think this minor, but when it's constant, it is abuse, maybe not physical, but abuse none the less.

Just a long winded way of saying it's not just physical abuse that is harmful.

Xenia, thanks for posting this. This really does make perfect sense, in just one line.

He screamed at me in front of his best friend, calling me every name under the sun, because I’d left a button pressed down on the shower. It was awful. His best friend was lovely about it, but it was a real lightbulb moment for me. He didn’t apologise and they still went out to the pub afterwards!

I’d been really unhappy for a while, there were a lot of incidents like that, losing his temper over nothing and me constantly walking on eggshells. I left and have never regretted it for a second! My friends at work had been my main support network as I’d been telling them everything that was going on - I walked into the staff room on Monday morning to a round of applause! When I went back to clear my stuff from the flat, two separate elderly neighbors caught me to say how glad they were that I’d left him.

I knew I had to leave him when he tried to stab himself with a knife I was using to prove I was violent and dangerous so he'd get DC when they were born.
I actually left around 4 months later when he shoved me round the hospital room a couple of hours after I'd given birth and shoved me into DDs crib nearly knocking her out.

You could say mine wasn't abusive either. He just prioritised booze over everything else.

But he stopped being a parent for his DDs. He stopped being a life partner. He was nothing more than a black shadow in the house. And he never, ever admitted there was a problem - all I ever got was excuses, the blame or a lot of self-pitying tears. It's no different now that he no longer lives with us - he complains that he hasn't seen his DDs for 4 months but hasn't done any of the things he needs to do to mend that relationship. He just wants someone to wave a magic wand and rescue him.

The only thing I regret is not walking away 2 years earlier when I caught him sneaking spirits straight from a bottle in his backpack when he already had a full glass beside him in the living room. And that was all my fault, because I 'nagged' him about his drinking.

Yes , I responded as such because it doesn’t have to be’abuse’ to make you leave and the OPs original question never mentioned abuse, as I said secret porn addiction on top of other secretive disloyal stuff and anger management issues for me has been the final straw to some extent. I don’t have young kids in the equation or children at home etc.

Starfish that is horrific what a vile vile excuse for a human ?!

EXDP (not so much the D) hated me smoking, I tried and tried to quit but it was really hard, he hit me if he found cigarettes in my bag. Then he started limiting the amount of time I was allowed to spend with family who smoked. I could have 10 minutes at my mum's and if I was a good girl the next week he would up it by 5 minutes a time.

Amazingly I went along with this because it meant that he cared. I was such a dickhead.

Breaking point came when I had gone on a very rare night out with my sister who I hadn't seen in 6 weeks. He called while I was out shouting and screaming down the phone and asking if I was smoking. He said I didn't care about my DS and all I cared about was going out and drinking and smoking. A friend took my phone off me and told him in no uncertain tones to pack his stuff up and leave my house. I will be forever grateful to that friend as I'm not sure I would have got out of that relationship without him.

Am now married to a wonderful man (and a non-smoker lol)