To feel like I’ve destroyed my life

[TheyDontKnowWhy]

Six months after separating from H and I can’t get over the feeling of having nuked my entire life. I planned to leave H in secret and had a whole house set up ready to move into.

I know if I listed the reasons that you would all tell me I’m being ridiculous and I’m much better off now but the consequences have been catastrophic.

My parents are devastated and I’m consumed with guilt at causing them so much worry as they are both elderly. It feels like the equivalent of dumping a whole rubbish bin at their door.

I feel I’ve ruined my kids lives and caused so much upset for everyone. Oldest has chosen to remain with his Dad and is very angry.

I miss my old life, the lovely little village I used to live in, being a part of a family and all of us being together.

Reasons for leaving-
Years of name calling.
In arguments he would tell me to do everyone a favour and kill yourself.
Threatening to urinate on my clothes in an argument.
Threats of physical harm
When one of our children was a baby he said if I took him away he would kill me.
Shouting out in public that I’m an abuser.
An incident involving our youngest which was deeply upsetting which I’ve posted about before.
Tell me no wonder I have no friends
Call me a bunny boiler and say I am indifferent to our children. Also that I ignored our oldest when he was a baby (I had PND)

lots more which I won’t go into. He knows why I left and says how could he ever trust me again and how I’ve ruined everyone’s lives.

I know this is a terrible list. He had “improved” and our lives had calmed down with fewer arguments. Some of these things were from years ago. Things were “normal” when I left.

He was also -
Funny
Generous with gifts on birthdays/christmas
Intelligent
We could enjoy each other’s company, go for meals, coffees and walks
He worked hard
We had nice family days out and holidays.
we were financially comfortable.
We had a whole life which has now been obliterated.

I know I’m being unreasonable but I was also sold the idea of two happy homes being better than one miserable one but it doesn’t feel that way, my children are split and I feel more miserable now than I did in my marriage.

AIBU?

They were shocked as they thought we were happy which then makes me doubt myself and feel like I overreacted.
In the end I had to be honest about why I left. My parents want me to go back but know I’d only be going back for my son. Despite my mum wanting me to go back and being very anti divorce, she has seen how he’s behaved post separation and said she can see why I left, she also says he would destroy me if I went back and punish me forever but my parents still hold out hope that we will patch things up 🙈

My mum unfortunately keeps bringing up how she “cried for days” when she found out and I’m filled with so much guilt, especially my sons reaction when we told him, I’ll never forget his face 😔

I'd say you're having a massive panic because you've been conditioned to put everyone else's wants first before your own needs. Standing up for yourself when you've had that conditioning causes you to panic at the consequences of putting yourself first.

Logically you know you've done the right thing, the only thing that's reasonable to do. But because you've been trained that it's "wrong" to ever put your own wellbeing first, and there's always been consequences (punishment) if you've stood up for yourself before, your brain (which hasn't adjusted to your new totally normal and reasonable life rules yet and is still in victim mode) is expecting punishment and that's scaring you.

The way to avoid consequences in the past would be to backtrack, back down, "put things right" by apologising and return to how things were ie you at the bottom of the pile. Your brain has incorrectly labelled your current actions of being assertive as "wrong" because it's still in victim mode, so now you're panicking in the way you would if you'd just done something actually wrong eg a hit-and-run in the car or mugged someone.

Basically OP, it's a trauma response and these reactions will subside over time to become less frequent and less severe.

Your parents are arseholes. You've escaped an abusive relationship. They should be
A) believing you
B) giving you a big hug and comforting you
C) pleased you've escaped
D) supporting you emotionally and practically in any way they can

They should not be
A) dumping their emotions on you for you to "fix" as if that's your responsibility
B) unhappy that you've left a toxic abusive situation
C) siding with your ex in any way
D) disbelieving you at all

That they are doing any of these things means they're toxic themselves. You might want some therapy to deal with that and recover from it so you can move in with your life properly, free from the kind of emotional baggage that could see you landing back in another abusive relationship if you start dating again.

Your DC only saw what you two showed them. Obviously you'd have tried to protect them from the worst of the DA and they're also children, so they haven't known all that's happened to you and they don't really understand the nuances of adult relationships at this stage in their development anyway.

There's no pleasing DC a lot of the time. Even in cases where horrific child abuse or neglect has occurred in a family and the DC are removed into care, most of them aren't happy about it. Because they didn't ever really want to be removed from their parents, they wanted their parents to be people capable of loving them and caring appropriately for them.

Your situation isn't one of CA but it also isn't so different from a child's perspective. They want to be a family, they want their parents together, they want the marriage to be a happy one. And if wishes were horses, I'd have a whole herd. But children have yet to learn this. All they know is their family has fallen apart and they aren't happy.

They're entitled to their feelings about the situation. It doesn't mean you should have done anything differently OP or that you've done anything wrong. It also doesn't mean you should backtrack to appease DC or try to "fix" their emotions for them.

It's ok for people to experience negative emotions, it's not ok to martyr yourself to prevent others from having to experience and deal with their emotions. As an abused parent you couldn't have been operating in full capacity as a good parent. Now you've fixed that issue and can be a parent to your full potential. You can give DC at least one home where there's no undercurrent of abusive behaviour and the toxic atmosphere that causes. That's a good thing.

Don't forget also there's possibly some parental alienation going on by your ex. And all your DC, including the oldest, have been harmed to some extent by living in a DA household where such behaviour becomes normalised. Your oldest kicking back against the marriage breaking up is a sign of that. As he matures he will hopefully be able to see that remaining in an abusive situation wasn't a reasonable thing to want his mum to do.

Stay strong OP! You really did the right thing and in time that will become clearer for you, your children will see it too.

What twats your parents are, don't listen to them! What kind of decent person would want you to go back to a man who treated you like that?

You are grieving the life you wanted with him, not the life you actually had.

You deserve to feel safe and respected in your own home.

You left because if you don't have that, nothing else really matters.

It will get easier. Adjustment is always hard.

Leaving this abusive man was defo for the best

My mum unfortunately keeps bringing up how she “cried for days” when she found out

Honestly, tell her to fuck off. The only reason she should have been crying is at the realisation of what her DD (you) went through. She should be upset for you, for your suffering, not for the marriage breaking up. That's toxic AF. You don't need to comfort her, that's not your job or your responsibility. If she can't support you right now then stay away from her because all she's doing is harming your mental wellbeing and contributing nothing positive to your life.

If you explain all this to her and her reaction is anything other than "sorry, I really shouldn't be so selfish at this time when you need me, of course I'm happy you escaped that situation. How can I help you?" then she's showing her true colours. If she wants support for her old fashioned feelings of you being a "broken home" (or whatever it is that's going on in her head) then she can call her friends and lean on them.

Nothing would make me go back to that.

Hopefully your ds will come round, but if not I’m sure he’ll eventually see your ex’s true colours.

Your dp’s should be more supportive but unfortunately some people can only see things from their own sphere ie. they’re embarrassed to have to tell people, they see divorce as unseemly.

You’re not honestly thinking of going back are you? I’d leave my dh if he did even one of those things.

I’m in a very similar situation. Many horrible memories during the marriage, but things had “normalised” a bit. Also 2 kids. It took me a long time to build up to leaving and by the time I did things didn’t actually seem that bad. Now that it’s done it it feels catastrophic. Our lives are ripped apart. Children are split up like yours and seriously struggling with their mental health. I’m suffering from anxiety disorder and falling apart. If I think back to a year or two ago, I was actually quite well and basically living a separate life. Did what I wanted to, but still within a family set up. There was a lot of resentment towards my ex who could still be emotionally abusive. I know that I have CPTSD. On paper, I’ve done the right thing, but the reality is horrific right now. I spend a lot of time, wondering whether I did the right thing

it’s appalling to hear your parents response, this is not your mums drama , fuck knows why she’s trying to make it about her and burden you with her feelings. It is worth unpacking this with a therapist, it’s really not helpful or fair especially as you’re so fragile at the moment. I hope you have people IRL who can actually support you, hang in there love it will get easier but keep contact with this sort of shit to a minimum if you can.

Maybe because she's still suffering the psychological effects of DA. She's still in need of reassurance from time to time. Like a lot of DA victims she probably has very few friends and her family aren't any help. She needs somewhere to let it out because she has to be strong for DC at home and keep it together at work. Not everyone can afford private therapy, which is probably better than MN, so she's making do with us. You don't have to be here, you know. And OP doesn't have to recover in your timeframe. Recovery is going to be especially hard when she's got family actively gaslighting her at times, just because they're struggling with their own feelings about divorce in general. Maybe try a little compassion.

Omg that list gave me the chills he’s an abuser. Have you shown that to your family? And of course he’s nice and charming on some days, that’s how abusers operate or you wouldn’t stay with them for long

Remind yourself that abusers are never all bad. They can be all the things you listed as well, charming, generous etc except when they're being abusive. Be kind to yourself, 6 months is no time at all. Is there any groups, therapy/support groups you could join. You're not alone going through this and having doubts. I bet the first thing a group would say to you is that you didn't destroy anything. He did. He chose to do those things, you just chose not to tolerate and expose your children to it.

I'm not one to diagnose strangers online but I am wondering if you have some complex PTSD going on.

Emotions are complex and can be conflicting. Ultimately grounding yourself and trying to feel as safe as possible, and looking forwards to the future will help.

It sounds like the road hasn't been easy and still isn't. That doesn't mean you made the wrong decision, it sounds like you escaped an intolerable situation.

You're bound to question it and wonder what if. But remain firm, it sounds ds very sensible rather than staying. It probably would have got worse.

You know deep down you have done the right thing. It is just incredibly hard right now. Being brave and making big changes is not easy, you took the harder path but for the right reasons. Pls keep remembering this

Wanted to add that your parents ABU. Very unreasonable. Theyre making it all about them instead of supporting you. They sound awful, you don't owe them anything, least of all staying in an abusive marriage just so they don't have to be sad about the breakup.

Have you heard the expression "don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm"? Well that's what your parents seem to want. Fk em.

rainonfriday thank you for saying so eloquently the very response that I wanted to give to @Choice4567! I really was struggling to find the right words to use, but you had already found them! So all I can really say again, is thank you so much, both for helping me out of my predicament, but much more importantly, for feeling and knowing, just how wrong Choice was with their unfair attitude.

@TheyDontKnowWhy you are going through such a horrendous time, and I feel for you so much, and can only agree with what the vast majority of the PP's have said. I wonder if you can access a therapist who can help you understand and see just how cruelly your ex treated you, and how you leaving was the only thing you could do for your sake, but even more importantly, for your DC sake. I know that it must be so hard for you to have your eldest DC seeming to take the side of your ex, but when they are old enough to know everything, they will hopefully understand more. I think that if you were to decide to return to your ex for the sake of your DC, you should firstly think about the guilt they may feel when they are older, for - in their mind - making you return to such an abusive and nasty life. I can only imagine that if you did return, the adverse reaction it might have on your other DC.

With your parents being so unhelpful (I am trying to be polite here), and all that you have suffered, and are continuing to suffer, I do hope that you will seek some help, whether that be privately, or through your GP. It may take some while to untangle all of your thoughts, and to be able to start thinking clearly again, but if you have someone to talk to who isn't invested in your situation, that will hopefully help a lot.

My ex left me many decades ago for a colleague at work, and one of our children was still a very young baby, but apart from finding out about his affair after our little girl was born, I thought we had an amazingly close relationship, so I was, of course, devastated when he left. If my GP hadn't arranged for me to see a counsellor, I'm not even sure that I would still be here today. So please ask for as much help as possible, because - especially without the support of your parents - you really need to have someone to listen to you, and to help guide you to understand that you made such an incredibly hard decision, but that it was the only one that was best for both you, and your DC.

Also, please come back here as much as you need or want to, because you, OP, are a great example of the reason why we have Mumsnet in the first place! I am so impressed by the stength you have already shown, and that makes me know that both you and your dear children will come successfully and happily through this. It would be brilliant if one day, I read on here, how in the end you are so proud of yourself for how well you managed the so difficult changes in yours, and your dear childrens' lives, and how happy and content you all are now! 🩷 xxx

A lot of women are sold this idea especially by other single or divorced women and by social media. It is thrown around SO EASILY especially on here. Leave the bastard! Divorce him! But in my personal experience where there are children under 18 involved a lot of women regret it and the consequences can be terrible. Financial strain, loneliness, upset children often permanently impacted and the promise of another 'perfect man' never materialising. If it's abusive it is different.

I am facing major pressure right now from a divorced friend, therapists etc to leave my husband after years of neglect, and low level abuse as well as major sexual problems. But a wise old female therapist I saw suggested I may be better off just taking a lover (s) or using a male escort for intimacy or opening the marriage and just making it work as a partnership until the children are older with the understanding that any serious abuse is a deal breaker and I'm out.

In these types of situations where you are already in so deep, and there are also many positive aspects to the marriage, happy children etc than I think sometimes you are better staying until the youngest is 16/17/18 etc and can understand better. You can then also have less financial strain.

Its normal to look back through rose tinted glasses, and start questioning whether things really were as bad as you thought, but you wouldnt have done what you did lightly, remember that.

After the initial, heady 'euphoria' for want of a better word, the relief of escaping comes a feeling that youre not better off - its normal for it to feel worse before it feels better.

As someone who has bern there i recommend therapy first of all, secondly what are you doing to rebuild your life? For me it was about building new, non couple friendships, diversifying my friend group - live music, wellness retreats and gardening became my passions. Tell your best friends how youre feeling, they can remind you of the bad times, and hang in there - youve got this.

I made a wall full of post it notes of all the shit he had done. Helped remind me.

my mum took his side. I was devastated.

it took years for our relationship to get anywhere close to where it was and it’s never really recovered.

I left with my dd after an incident of physical abuse.

my DS was at uni. He continued to have a relationship with his dad but each year his dad demonstrated very clearly who he was and he doesn’t see him much now.

these things take time. You are in the middle of it right now. You have done the right thing, keep going,

I am now out the other side. I have a lovely house of my own and three cats. My dd and DS rarely see my ExH who has moved on - new wife and new kids. We had a lovely Christmas all together.

there are calmer waters on the other side of this. You will get through it.

You have not nuked your life, you have done an incredibly brave thing with what sounds like zero support from your family. Well done, genuinely. You have done the right thing.

On his behaviour - no abuser is 100% bad. If they were then they wouldn't be able to make their victim(s) stay so long. But think of it like this: if you were given a meal and 10% of it was human shit, would you eat the meal? No. So if you are in a relationship and even just 10% of it is unbearably shit, should you stay? Also no.

I say this as a divorced single mum myself, albeit with incredibly supportive family and friends and DD was a baby when we split so she never knew any different.

I am also completely against staying in something "for the kids". Having them watch their father model such toxic abusive behaviour, growing up in a house with rows and silent treatment - it takes its toll. My ex-DH's parents stayed together until his youngest sister was 18 and he is honestly incredibly effed up.

Agreed with all this! And after suffering though all that for presumably many years, it is going to take you a while to recover personally too. Can you access any counselling? Perhaps through work? Or a local womens charity might have a group for survivors of abuse where you could talk in confidence to others who have left abusive relationships, and support each other? Mumsnet is great but some in person solidarity could be really valuable. Sending you hugs!

It will take time to heal and get over living with an abuser. Your parents aren’t really helping making you doubt yourself. Have you had any counselling? Stop torturing yourself.

This …… just keep reminding yourself that the cons far outweighed the pros