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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To Get Back Together with mt Previously Abusive Ex

323 replies

JustCause · 07/12/2009 17:59

I have namechanged for this because anyone reading the first few lines will probably think I have gone insane. But I am a regular and have posted about the relationship before.
Anyway.
My then DP left me for OW at the beginning of the year. Even though our relationship was barely-there, I thought it would work out. Our DD wasnt even a year old and I was very wrapped up in her and too exasperated/weary of his behaviour to really care about what he thought.
I knew it wouldnt work out with OW and it imploded spectacularly when during one of their fights he hit her twice and she called the police. After initially saying they would work it out, she then changed her mind and told him it was over.
He then contacted me 2 weeks later and told me it was over between them. I agreed to see him and was stunned that after all he'd done I still had feelings for him.
I hadnt expected to.
I hadnt seen him for months which was my doing.
We have a hell of a history so I have my reasons for wanting to give him another chance. He is hugely apologetic and
HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART.
Has agreed to go on a Pat-Craven type course for abusive men. I wouldn't have agreed to us getting back together if he hadnt.

He is now several weeks into the course and attending every week and on time.

He has been a selfish, nasty, dangerous prick at times but I believe this has been a wake-up call for him.
For one thing he has faced three nights in a police cell and for another there have been other consequences. OW has exercised her right to press charges (after initially deciding not to) so that has led to other stuff I dont want to go into here.

I dont know what the future holds, but if there's a chance he wants to change, and does and we are able to be a family again, AIBU for wanting to be back with him?

OP posts:

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:01

vicar

I have read your posts

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:15

Wow. Nobody so weak should have a child.

nighbynight · 10/12/2009 22:22

Vicar, I actually said the exact opposite. I have read your posts about your experience, and like LOM's (who posted from a similar viewpoint), they help put together the picture for the woman. As I said before. Read before shooting, woman!

What is not going to help, is people who havent been damaged by DV lecturing about it from a position of ignorance.

but actually, I am not convinced the OP is genuine anyway. Having been taken in once by a DV troll who sucked a lot of sympathy out of people (it was definitely a troll), I will now give advice from my own experience to try and help people, but I wont get emotionally sucked into any stories.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:25

nigh, so are you saying you can only have an opinion on domestic violence if you have actually been a victim of it ?

nighbynight · 10/12/2009 22:29

you are entitled to your opinion, but if it's just to blame women who are being hit for being weak, then dont expect that you'll help them to see the light.

Such women are not living in the real world, their values are all messed up. Blaming them doesnt help to get the message across - telling them personal experiences, Lundy Bancroft's book, the advice from the poster who works with battered women are far more helpful.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:31

yes, I am entitled to my opinion

and I may not have experienced DV, but I can tell right from wrong

and the OP (if she is real...I agree with you for having doubts) is doing wrong

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:34

nighbynight, i've been there, in a violent abusive relationship, and i stayed because i was trapped and had no money.

The OP has her own place!!! the abusive x comes and goes she says. So, isn't dependent on him. it sounds like her house.

So i'm with anyfucker. i don't get it either. obviously her priorities are fucked up. can we not try to help her reorder her priorities.

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:37

ps, realising that i was hurting my kids with my apathy and weakness was what finally pierced my forcefield of denial.
for ages, i'd thought, who is really happy anyway/. is the notion of happiness a modern one? are we right to expect to be happy? i've made this bed, i just have to lie in it. i've nowhere to go, no money.... etc etc etc

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:41

Maggie, this was my point several pages ago

I understand how women get trapped by fear of-

reprisals/violence (OP's bf is already on remand, one violent outburst he is locked up)
having no money/nowhere to live (OP has her own place, he doesn't live there)
having no support (OP has detailed the array of "services" in place who know about the situation)
losing face (OP's family know the situation)

I could go on and on.

The OP has no more excuses left to justify cultivating a r'ship with this violent, two-timing criminal.

All I see is a selfish woman prepared to put her dd at risk for the empty thrill of "taming" this "difficult" man.

Egotistical in the extreme.

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:44

yes, i hear you, because this woman isn't stupid. i can tell from her posts that she's intelligent, and her posts come across as very calm. I was all over the place when i left my x. i couldn't have posted anything without it being a mad rambling "and he said and I said and she said". I was chaotic, on nauseating emotional roller coaster, financially fucked.... I felt weak and scared of the future, terrified of the future... but the one thing left on earth that seemed worse than the hell i was living in was the prospect of fucking up my dd's life. so i finally finally pulled some balls out of the bag and left.

her knicker wetting and whingeing was all gone within 3 weeks...

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:45

so the point is,,, this calm rational detached intelligent woman must see what I saw... but she's ignoring it?

nighbynight · 10/12/2009 22:46

I dont really want to disagree about what to say to the OP, because like you, I find the situation described a bit...incredible.

I was also for a while in the situation where I had my own house, and ex came and went as he pleased.
Why would any woman allow this?
The reason was sheer fear - I had to either let him come in as he wanted, or bar him altogether, and then run the risk of him shooting me, putting a bomb under my car, attacking me one dark night, hitting my car, or any of the other things he threatened.

In the end, I ran the risk, and had a few tough times, and had to pay about 3000 euros for damaged property - he got jail for that, and for assaulting me. Fortunately we are in a different country, and he still has outstanding fines, so doesnt want to come back here. Plus the police here are brilliant.

The OP's situation doesnt sound like this at all.

AnyFuckerForAMincePie · 10/12/2009 22:47

I dunno maggie, am not convinced it is real, tbh

MaggieNollaig · 10/12/2009 22:53

well i dont' want to insult her. i just want her to change the locks get a new sim card.... tell him it's over...

there'll be fall out of course, there always is with these guys.

VicarInaTinselTuTu · 11/12/2009 00:08

im afraid it is real. its probably more common than anyone would like to think.

wouldnt mind being proved wrong though.

MaggieNollaig · 11/12/2009 09:15

VicarInaTinselTuTu, I read your other thread, and perhaps I'm 'lucky' in one way that i have not one single solitary gram of affection left for my x.

I tried to leave him after first child and had already 'escaped' adn i went back to him like a fool and had another child! so i know how hard it is to break free mentally.

but by the second time i left, i wouldn't have thrown him a life ring if he were drowning, which makes me sound evil. but at least my friends and family never had to worry i'd go back!

VicarInaTinselTuTu · 12/12/2009 23:29

not evil maggie, just sensible. so glad you got out.

patria · 09/06/2010 18:38

Anyone in an abusive relationship has to think about whether they are there out of pity and compassion -lethal bed fellows or they are in the grip of addiction.

I call some of these addictions until death us do part addictions and in some cases women in my refuge have died.

Yes I have seen both men and women change and come to terms with their own often violent and dysfunctional backgrounds but it takes several years.

Beware the 'I'm sorry game' it can hide under a mask of sanity. People who tolerate violence have severe problems themselves and need help.

Above all you owe it to your children not to marinate them in violence. To read about the damage dome to children's brains in violent homes read Dr. Bruce Perry's work on line and read Prone to Violence on line at benett.com/ptv

jasper · 09/06/2010 19:03

I wonder what happened to OP. It's quite an old thread

messymissy · 09/06/2010 19:11

OMG. Havent read all of this exchange but enough to say Dear Justcause, please please dont take him back. The DVP course is not a cure all, my ex is on one too - and I have checked with them and its not working - in their words - 14 weeks in and he is still blaming you, he is playing games with us!!!!!!!

Just cos your ex is on the course is not reason enough to let him back in your life. There is no guarantee he will take any of their advice on board and even less that he will change. He will learn to play the game, sound sorry and probably enjoy all the attention he will get for self referring. As other posters have said, it takes years of therapy / councelling.

please dont be tempted. If you have already agreed to take him back, find a way soon to tell him - with witnessess that you have changed your mind.

It would be lovely to believe in redemption and that people change, and as a christian this is something i struggle with. But the bottom line is, your decision affects your child too - you do not have the right to bring such a high risk person into her life - even if he is her father.

faithkathy222 · 20/11/2018 07:03

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Andromeida59 · 20/11/2018 08:06

OP, you deserve so much better than this and so does your child.

As someone whose employment is around DV, these courses do not really help offenders stop being abusive. They do, however, allow the abuse to hide in plain sight. There was a Panorama on violent men, it's well worth a watch.

He's likely to be back because his OW chucked him out. You deserve more than to be treated as his plan B.
Now he has left you for an OW, once, he is likely to do it again.
How would you feel about your child witnessing his violence?

Andromeida59 · 20/11/2018 08:07

Just seen that this is a zombie thread!

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