What would you have done?

[HarrysOwl]

Slightly untraditional thread, as this was a situation that happened 20 years ago and I will update what actually happened; I wanted to ask opinions first, I hope that's not too annoying.

So you've been married 10 years, unhappily. Your DH is sexist, controlling, selfish, obsessed with money and generally quite unpleasant. He was all charm when you met, of course. You have two DCs, age 9 & 12.

You're depressed and trying to get financially independent so you start a new company and it's going well.

Do you:

1. Move out, leaving the kids with DH after verbally agreeing 50/50 custody.
2. Move out, taking the kids with you.
3. Insist DH moves out after agreeing 50/50 custody.

We'll get an update when the op feels they've got their money's worth

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it's an odd thread but I really wanted to see what the majority of posters thought would be reasonable.

I'll explain.

I was the 9 year old. My DM chose 1) and she moved out into a house of her own. My DF then went back on his verbal agreement and, purely out of spite, went for full custody and got it, saying she was unstable and had left the family home. He wasn't a nice father. Whatever spite he had left over for DM he then directed at me. I didn't see DM for years.

It was the start of quite an awful time (I won't bore with life stories) but I'm now in contact with DM.

On here I've seen the amount of women who would walk through fire for their children, and can't help feeling conflicted with her choice.

As an outsider, I wouldn't want to judge her or resent what she chose, I wasn't in her shoes. But as a daughter I feel let down.

She explained to me what happened, and says it wasn't her fault. She said he was so awful that she had to leave, for her own well-being and sanity. She said he was talking about quitting his job to join her new business and that was the last straw.

But if she knew he was so awful, how could she leave her two children to live with him?

What’s the point of this?
What’s done is done.

What’s the point of this?
What’s done is done

What happened then has had huge consequences that affect my relationship with DM now, there's no need to comment if you don't want to.

HarrysOwl have you had any counseling or therapy to help with this? It sounds like there's a lot to process in order to get to an easier relationship with your mother.
My mum did the same, left me and an older sister with my dad. He wasn't horrible but neglectful. I understand at least a bit where you're coming from.

My father was a bit like this (but probably worse?) and my mum ended up doing 2. She felt she didn’t have much choice because he flatly refused to leave “his home”.

Personally having lived through it I’d have antagonised him (doesn’t take much usually) until he yelled/hit me/broke something, phoned the police and pressed charges and got an occupation order, then fought him from here to kingdom come.
But that’s because my father was pretty abusive and it’s caused me a lot problems. I was adamant from a young age I’d never end up “a victim” like my mother.

A lot of people will say 3 probably because they don’t understand abuse and what it does to the victims and they don’t fully comprehend how unenforceable a reasonable request is when dealing with someone who is abusive.
If you managed 3 fair play...

I'm thinking that the person in the actual situation left the kids with the man, probably thinking they were safe with him and it would be less distressing than uprooting them - only the man mistreated them horribly and they have never got over feeling that their mum abandoned them. (OK, maybe the man didn't physically abuse them but was controlling and manipulative, or convinced them that their mother didn't love them while making sure that she got next to no access to them.)

OP if this is you, you probably made what you thought was the right decision, for valid reasons. Maybe a therapist would help you if you are still eaten up by guilt.

I left and did 1.

Because I’d i had of stayed I was going to kill myself. I was already self harming and I knew the abuse towards me was such that I would not be believed.

Things have changed so so much in the last 10 years or so. I genuinely thought I couldn’t see how to make him leave when he refused.

I had no access to money and no means to pay for a solicitor and the abuse was such I thought I was worth less and my kids would be better off without me. Because that’s what he told me and them.

I am sorry you’ve struggled. I have guilt every day for what I did and I don’t know and argue with myself and torture myself every day about what I did and what I could have done.

I'm sure your mum did what she thought was best. Knowing that your children will have financial security is no small thing, and although I did 2, I knew that I was the only parent that would provide that.

Have you asked her why she left you with your dad? Have you told her how bad it was? I'm sure had she known it would be, she would have fine what she could to avoid it. Hindsight is 20/20.

I’m sorry this happened to you Harry.
It has devasting impact on you to be exposed to this.
I would look to therapy.
I would struggle to forgive my mother.
She made a choice.
She was thinking about herself. 🌺

You’d be better off just starting a thread with what you want to ask, without the game playing.

You need to understand that only (1) in your case was a true option. And it’s not your mother’s fault that your arsehole of a father lied to her and painted her badly.

Sure, she might just have been a bad mother - they exist.

But she stuck around for 12 years!

If you read threads on here, you’ll see there are plenty of threads from abused women who believe that the father is “a good dad”.

Your mother didn’t know your dad was going to turn on you.

(3) is really hard, legally. And she was fighting a dirty fight, with a total arsehole - from what you say. You cannot think that these were 3 equal options for her.

You think (2) was an option? See what happened when she only wanted 50/50? Your father fucked her over. How much do you think (2) was ever really an option?

My two most likely views on your situation?

a. Your mum wasn’t that great a mum, that happens (but as she’d stuck out his abuse for 12 years of your sibling’s childhood, I’m not seeing that as certain)

b. Your mum reached the end of her tether with the abuse. She knew he’d fight, so she agreed 50:50, thinking it was the best thing. She didn’t know he’d turn his abuse on you. Hell, maybe she had people telling her he was just controlling her and the reality was that he was a man, he wouldn’t get custody. Or - he would keep it up as it was just to try to stop her going - but once gone, her kids would end with her anyway as he couldn’t be bothered. Maybe she genuinely thought both parents should have equal access (I do, where it suits the children). So having agreed 50/50 he totally fucked her over. Blame your dad for that, not her.

I recommend that you attend counselling on your own, and possibly in the future with her. I recommend that you find out more about abuse and its effects.

I couldn’t take the kids with me. He wouldn’t let me. And he said he would make sure I never saw them if I did.

This is a hypothetical question: Your DM clearly didn't see 1,2 and 3 as her options. What she saw was the choice of staying with her asshole husband or leaving. Times were different and she wouldn't have had the luxury (?) of canvassing opinions on an online forum and would've been dependent on whatever support network she had in RL for advice and practical help.

Sorry you had such a terrible time with him after she left, but the decision to be emotionally abusive toward you was his. I agree that she (and whoever else was in your lives at that time) didn't safeguard you and your sibling though, and its understandable that you feel resentful. I hope you can get some help to repair the damage that's been done.

A father being granted full custody 20 years ago wasn’t as simple as just saying “she’s a shit mum” Unless he was minted and had a fabulous lawyer

I suspect you are getting half a story there.

There are two options. Your mum was either in a really bad place in which case she did what she thought was best at the time, did what she could in the circumstances.

Or, she didn’t want to see you and moved on with her life.

Only you can decide which it was.

20 years ago, there was less understanding about coercive control.

She had one chance to get away and took it, thinking she would have shared custody. Once gone, she was powerless, but wouldn't have known that before she went.

Try not to be too hard on her.

While women may well walk through fire for their kids, some of them do that by staying with an abuser for years which is also not a great choice.

Remember people tend to do the best they can with the resources available to them.

Yabbers. You have no idea. My ex told me stuff and I believed him. 20 years of how useless I was how shit I was no friends. No self esteem. No nothing of me left and I believed him. And I had no access to money to go to a solicitor and coercive control wasn’t a thing and who was ever going to believe me anyway because I was shit on everyone’s shoes and worth nothing.

You have no idea

And she walked through fire by staying with him as long as she did,

One can never know what one would do until one is in such a horrific situation. You can never know that you'd never leave your kids until you've walked a mile in the shoes of someone who had to.

Absolute sympathy for you OP, and also you Blue. I can't even imagine the pain.

I did get my kids back (after some time in a refuge) and they rarely see their dad now, my story isn’t exactly the same as the op but the choices were the same. You cannot underestimate the effect of that sort of abuse for years. It has taken me years and loads of counselling to get over it and get him out of my head, and sometimes he’s still there even yet.

It really wasn’t like it is now. There wasn’t the internet to google. There wasn’t mumsnet and message boards for support. It just was another time altogether.

It’s really not fair to ask people today, in today’s times and with the attitudes of today, what they woujld have done 20 years ago when they hadn’t lived the situation.

Wow! That’s pretty brutal and would be a hard pill for anyone to swallow I think.

My situation was different but...
We went with her and for a few years were all living in a one bed flat (which was horrendous)
My mother stayed for years as she believed shared custody would be worse than staying as she could “protect” us. We were older teens when we left.
There was a huge amount of emotional damage and fallout from this and huge anger from all children she took so long to leave him.

Basically
there are no good choices once you are in this situation. All your options as a mother are crap, just some are a bit less crap than others

Your mother can’t have been in her right mind at the time and as reanimated suggests likely did what she thought was best (no matter how absurd that seems objectively/retrospectively)

Have you sought professional help?

Sorry if this has trudged up painful memories for you, Blue

As much sympathy as I have for the situation her mother was in, I don't think this thread should be about denying OP her legitimate anger and grief and pushing her into putting her own, legitimate feelings second to sympathising with her mother.

And while awareness of DV has changed a lot recently, 20 years isn't that long ago. It wasn't the 60s or 70s. The courts weren't such that they did everything a man wanted on his say-so.

The mother is entitled to sympathy for what she went through, and nobody's saying for a moment that she had it easy and waltzed off into the sunset, but it's the OP we have in front of us here and she is entitled to her difficult and complex feelings and not to have them shut down in the name of sympathising with her mother. The mother was evidently a victim, but the OP was one twice over.

I’m not in any way denying the op her legitimate anger and grief but 20 years ago was completely different in attitudes.

20 years ago was 1999 and rape in marriage had only been illegal for what? 7 or 8 years? And the attitude that if you were married it couldn’t be rape was still prevalent and when you reported it you were told it wasn’t and wouldn’t be taken forward because it couldn’t be proved, for example. And emotional abuse wasn’t recognised at all.