To write a letter...

[SOLOisMeredithGrey]

...to my exh1?

Tomorrow would have been our silver wedding anniversary. I don't regret not being with him, not a bit. It's just that all the abuse he put me through and I've never been able to tell him how he made me feel etc. I spent years having bad dreams and being very afraid of him in case he somehow found me.

He beat me, sexually abused me, emotionally abused me ~ the whole kit and caboodle for 6+ years before I found the courage to put an end to it.
Well, through FB of course, I can send him a message can't I?

Would I be unreasonable to do it? I have not seen or heard from him for about 15 years, but it/he niggles me often and I wondered if this might be a way of finally putting it all to rest.

SOLO please don't take this post the wrong way. It is not meant as a personal criticism in any way. Please just read it think about whether it could apply to you and if not forget it.

You say that non of your conselling has worked. Well sometimes counselling doesn't help becuase somewhere deep down we don't actually want it to. Abuse forces us into the role of victim and as a consequence we can blame everything bad in our lives on our abuser even if he/she is well and truly in our past:

I choose the wrong men BECAUSE X abused me
I don't trust men BECAUSE X abused me
and so on.

We blame our bad choices/decision/actions on the abuser so we don't have to accept any responsibility for whats wrong in our lives.
Its a protective mechanism but an unhealthy one.

To move ahead we need to acknowledge our victim status and deciding to change to ourselves into survivors.

I would urge you to keep going with the counselling, try different sorts of counselling (have you tried relate/couples/relationship counselling or someone who specialises in abuse?) until you find the approach and the counsellor that works for you. Its a common misconception that counselling is counselling but there are many different types and the fundamental key to success is finding the approach and the counsellor that 'gets' you.

Keep plugging away at it and acknowlege yourself for the fantastic, strong, attractive survivor that you are.

{{{{SOLO}}}}

Aww! thank you Pheebe. I do get what you say here and I had actually thought I'd broken the cycle when I met Dd's father and 4 years on, I discovered that he too had been abusing my trust.

I can't afford to pay for counselling, so may just have to live with what's going on in my head a while longer. Perhaps I should just avoid men in the future...which seems like a lonely prospect.

Oh no, SOLO. I didn't mean write to make you cry.

You've had a terrible time. It's only natural that you'd want your exh1 to know that you survived and not only have you survived but you've made a new life for yourself.

But it's time to focus on you and what you need to really heal. Talk to your GP. Try again with the counselling. A different counsellor can make all the difference.

I think you're right - avoid relationships for the time being. Prioritise yourself and your mental and emotional well being. And if that means being on your own for a bit, then so be it.

I hope that things go really really well for you.

No, it's fine WW, really. I've lived with this head full of hurt and bad memories for many years now and it's just some of the time, it surfaces and haunts me. I think I wanted him to feel bad for just a minute or two on such a significant day, because if he'd been a good man, we'd surely be celebrating our milestone together tomorrow. He was/is such an insignificant thin, balding, bucked tooth little man that everyone around him thought was wonderful...only a few people actually knew what he was really like. Only I took the brunt of his cruelty though...

We will celebrate with you Solo instead.
Tomorrow can be significant of all the years you didn't have to put up with his shit because you were strong enough to get out.
You did that, and, one step at a time things will get better and you will create the life you want.

SOLO, if he was so horrible to you then you can be rest assured that he is definitely not a happy man. In fact, to be so mean would show that he is damaged and twisted himself.

You could probably never make someone like that see or even care how badly they affected someone else.

You win whatever happens because you're not subjected to his awful ways anymore.

Yes, strong enough to get out and stay out, but not strong enough to get him out of my head it seems. I am deepy scarred by what he did to me. I don't know if I will ever be mended completely.

I don't know if he's happy. I know he's with another woman now though and has been for a while(he was in the local paper a few years ago), I also know that the devil looks after his own, so he's no doubt fine.

If you think about it, I was married in '84, left him(for good)in 1990 and 19 years after leaving him, I'm still affected by him. I have a feeling this is with me for life. I will try to exorcise him from my head, but somehow, I don't think it'll work.

Thank you for your great support here though, I do appreciate it

Write it and BURN IT!
And then go and see a really good NLP counsellor cos they can re-wire your brain for you so that this shit stops bothering you, honestly. It's fantastic!

Thumb, I don't think it'll work. I suppose I want him to suffer. Can't see another NLP(is that what I saw before?)counsellor as no money. I'd love to get the bad crap out of my head though.

but the point is, my love, that he WON'T suffer - in fact the only thing you could write to him that would make him suffer is to say how fantastic your life is and always has been since he left, how leaving him was just the best thing ever and you have the most wonderful partner now who is a REAL man and makes you realise what a miserable excuse of a worm your ex really was... and since you can't do all that with any truth, it won't ring true and he will just think "sad woman".

Your pain is not his pain and never will be - he couldn't have done what he did to you if it hurt him.

I don't know if you saw an NLP counsellor before, you'll need to be more specific about what the therapy was like and I wouldn't ask you to do that on an open forum.

Morning Solo - so, today is the day you start changing your life!
Have you spoken to your GP about counselling on the NHS? I really think it is important to tackle this issue as it is eating so up so much.
Per Thumb's email below, you would probably know if you had had Neuro Linguistic Programming before but have a look at this explanation: www.nlp-therapy.co.uk/explain-neuro-linguistic-programming.htm
Anything is worth a go!!

I'm glad for you that you've forgiven him. That way you can move on with your life. Sometimes forgiveness is the only way to put our minds at peace.

My father could be an emotional and verbal bully as we were growing up and sometimes even physical, but I don't hold it against him. I've forgiven him. He's a human being with flaws who had a rough childhood himself.

Just to let you all know that the day passed without me sending any e mails to him...thanks for your kind and wise words.

Well done Solo!

So glad Solo - you made the right decision.
Hope you had a lovely day anyway - despite the significance of it. xxx