Morning everyone, hope you are all well. You'll notice i am on here less and less, mainly because I feel I am in a good place and managing to move on more. I think quite a few of us are? But I do read all your posts and realise I am very lucky (well, at the moment anyway, I have a feeling it's going to get messy when me and DCs move back to UK and i file for divorce) - my life is very peaceful at the moment.....although I do need to have a bit of a rant, hence the out-of-the-blue post lol.
I've done really well ignoring STBXH. He sent a birthday message as per my last post which I ignored. he then messaged me a couple of days ago to make arrangements to have the kids for 2 weeks, so as communication was to do with the kids, I responded (albeit with yes fine and that's it lol).
Last night I came out of shower and found he had messaged again. It was a link to a BBC article and underneath he wrote "I just hope we haven't done too much damage, well, mostly me". I ignored them but obviosuly was intrigued about the article. I opened it this morning and just read the title and it was about the way parents argue affecting their children.
So, i'm not a perfect parent by any means but i'm expected to carry the blame for the (various) ways i reacted to arguments from a physically/emotionally/verbally abusive husband?? I spent 20 years trying different ways to appease an argument....in the beginning I would argue back and raise my voice (we were together for 6 years before kids BTW)...if i recall the first time i really blew up at him in an argument he tried to strangle me in a lift and bought me flowers the next day to apologise. After that you change tactics and you keep changing tactics to see what works best at just getting them to leave you alone/stop shouting at you/calm down. i've had things thrown at me, doors kicked in, fingers in faces etc etc (see list in one of my previous posts on this thread).....certainly for me by the end i wouldn't even bother arguing (which seemed to make him more wound up) as there was no point. I learned that my opinion wasn't valid, that whatever I said was bullshit and he wasn't listening to what i had to say, it was agree with him and no other choice.
As I said i'm not a perfect parent...there were times I left and stayed in a hotel as it was just too hard to stand there after 2 hours and listen to any more abuse. I feel really bad about that and very guilty for my children, although he has never hurt them but he does shout at them (though not to the same extent as me because they have seen him blow up at me and they know not to "antagonise" him). They have witnessed the shouting, the swearing at me , the throwing things which he says he feels guilty about, but again he says that is down to the both of us......not quite sure how him not being able to control his feelings and reactions is down to me??? So am i to blame for how my arguing affected my kids? Considering arguing was pretty much one way i.e., he would shout, swear etc to get his way and he got it as i just agreed to shut him up, as a person who has come out of an long term abusive relationship, am i as much at fault as he is?
BTW, since he has left there is very little arguing in this house. In fact there is more laughter. Yes me and the kids have our moments of disagreement but since i have been seeing the therapist I am learning to stop and think before communicating with others. yes I have days where I will raise my voice a little, i am human after all, but with most of the stress gone from our lives it is a very rare occasion.
Thanks for reading if you got this far lol x