you were all comlpetley correct

[thisishowifeel]

why did I not listen to you?

I am due to fly home from Cyprus after a disasterous week. Started out ok, but thern he just started with little negative remarks about EVERYTHING!

last night it culminated with him calliong me a whore, denying that he'd ever been in league with my mother, that I was a bully, a terrible mother etc etc ad nauseum.

I hit him......

and now I feel so very bad. he pushed and pushed until something just went and I just lost it. Security took him and he slept on reception.

I feel like shit and I am now the "abuser". I told him this morning to start divorce proceedings on monday.

Why didn't I listen to you?

don't feel bad - maybe this had to happen so that you knew for sure it is definitely over?

You are not an abuser - you lost it and did something regrettable in an intolerable situation.

Onward and upward now eh?

At least you know for definate, yes onwards and upwards.

YOU aren't the abuser, you reacted... that's all

thisis

But now you know you tried everything.
You did listen.
But you are not the one who is damaged beyond repair.
He is.
Security took him not you.

You know now for certain.
I'm so sorry,this must be really painful.
Please keep posting.
xxx

thisishowifeel,
I'm so sorry for you that things turned out for the worse.

You did listen, you did know and knew, etc.
I think it is just so hard to start with the change, is why time marched on.

It is clear now that the, nay your, start is at hand. It is clearly also to be the start of much better circumstances for you (even if the financial side slides to the pits-)you will feel better across the board.

Stay focused on your plan. What is past is past, let it go and do not respond to his reminders of it.

Take care.

You had to try. You had to see if it was possible the (alleged) therapy was helping. There was only one way to find out, really: to give him a chance. Well, you did that, he blew it, so now your conscience should allow you to move on.

Reminds me of when I snapped and started throwing things at XH. I am so not proud of it, but he drove me so mad - literally, I think, to the point of madness. Sadly it terrified the DCs, who took ages to realise I wasn't "the bad guy". I took myself away for a couple of days and went to a (previously booked) counselling session before coming back. I'm pleased to say I never did it again, even though we lived together perforce for nearly two more years and there were times I should have got a medal for not knifing him. No, you're not alone, and what you did may have been wrong but is also totally understandable.

In a really shocking row with now ex-P where he was pushing and pushing and screaming in my face I hit him.

The shame immediately afterwards is awful. I'm welling up even now about it. Every time we had an argument after that he would jeer in my face 'what are you going to do about it? hit me again?'

Horrendous. Get yourself out of a situation where you do something so madly out of character. It's not you doing it.

Best of luck for now on. [hug]

You are not an abuser.

You are human.

He pushed and pushed and pushed until you reacted.

Good luck for your future. It will be better than this and you will be haappy again.

Dont really know your background but i am rather shocked at the response to you hitting him. If a bloke came on and said 'she kept pushing me and pushing me' and hit her, there would be a right uproar.

Dont really know your background but i am rather shocked at the response to you hitting him. If a bloke came on and said 'she kept pushing me and pushing me' and hit her, there would be a right uproar.

Knickers, it doesn't take much effort to look at Op's earlier threads. If you do then this is more understandable.
Good luck thisishowifeel, freedom beckons.

actually, yeah it does when the search button doesnt work on my phone.

I remember the one time I lost it with recently XP. It was also the moment when I realized I couldn't live with him and co-parent DS post-separation, and that we would have to live apart, pronto. I screamed at the top of my lungs 'Stop picking on me!' over and over again. Afterward he put his face very close to mine and actually snarled 'Don't you ever, EVER speak to me that way again!' and he shook his head and sneered, actually bared his teeth in anger and disgust at me, hinting at untold horrors if I dared to disobey him. I was scared witless of him at that moment but I didn't back away or show it, just repeated 'So are you going to move out or shall I?'.

Sometimes it takes an event like that to really put things into focus for you. I'm not proud of DS witnessing that outburst, but apart from his presence I'd do it all again. These men love to twist things and turn your reaction to their noxious behavior back on you as a sign that you are the one with issues. It's an absolute classic. Goad and provoke and torment, and then stand back and shake their head when you finally lose it, twirling one finger at their temple. I swear they all learn these things at the same school, it is so predictable. Absolutely bloody textbook.

Don't feel bad about what you did, just take the momentum you have and move forward now.

(Click on the username displayed here, you will see her profile and a list of her previous posts).

Finally home now.

He went back to his flat after dropping me and dc's at home, and after getting all his stuff out of the case and bin bagging them....saying that that was what I always made him do, or words to that effect.

The he went, I locked the door, and he came back ranting that I'd won and got everything I wanted, the house, his money etc. I said I had won nothing, it's not a game, and that he NNEDS to go on a perpetrator programme, at the very least, so he drove off like a madman, spinning wheels and throwing up gravel.

I woke up this morning the rheumatoid pain that had flared up over the last few days (unusual in hot places) has vanished. I know the two things are linked. Eggshell stress is uniquely difficult.

I can't live with someone who hates the world, everything in it and most of all me.

The kids have been pulled up for misdemeanors, real or imagined, poor dd told off for mispronouncing certain words....when I said leave her she only a baby still, he said, no she not she has to learn, said that I was not bringing her up properly for letting such things go. Poor ds, got told of for looking in the wrong way.

The holiday place was a "human zoo" full of "punters"......He's not one of them, he says. Actually it was wonderful, so much for the kids, fab food and accomodation, loads for the kids to do. The only thing wrong was that he was there.

I wish I could fast forward through the next few months. I know there is no hope, he is a very poorly man.

ok first things first, i disagree that it was ok to hit him as you were pushed.
I would not feel it acceptable for a man and i most certainly do not feel it ok for you to do it just because you are a woman.

I agree that you have been driven to the action by months of emotional and abusive mudlsinging but you should not have placed yourself back in that position.

violance is never acceptable.

That said, i am very glad you are now taking the steps you need to be free from this man.
You are clearly unable to continue a relationship.

The next few months will be hard in many many ways, but if you are used to living on egg shells around him they will also beliberating and free. you will enjoy them just as much as you worry about them.

look forward to your new life and dopnt waste time mouring your old.

I have had a message this morning informing me that my mother is in hospital to have major heart surgery. I amd trying to feel something, but I don't.

Right now would be a good time for an alien abduction.

Come on ,you can do this.
You know now that there is NO WAY for you to be with him again.
He is not going to get better with therapy.
Not so that you could ever put yourself and your dc at any risk of further false hope and awfulness.

You will feel very sad for maybe a long time.

But now you can start moving towards a calm,peaceful future for you and dc.

I'm so sorry about your mother,but it's not surprising that you are numb.Do you have anyone around you can lean on?

Try to cwtch up with the dc and treat yourselves - feed the ducks,maybe; nursery tea? boiled egg and soldiers,cake?

Keep posting,I'll be thinking of you.xx

I will, too

You've been on a long journey, thisis - much further than Cyprus! You've seen the painful truth that your birth family is a bunch of screwed-up nutters, users and abusers. You've acknowledged that your ex was the same, taking advantage of your 'training' to carry on using you as your family did. You trusted someone who understood your pain (now you'll know that's a warning sign!) - because he's cut from the same cloth. You hoped he'd be good to you and you gave him chances. It would have been a miracle if he'd come good, as you have, and now you know that kind of miracle doesn't happen often enough to count on.

You're okay This IS the start of the healthier life you've been aiming towards! Well done!

Nah, you shouldn't have hit out, but we understand why you did. Security took him, not you: that says something, doesn't it?!

Hope you have a relaxing evening - you must be shattered! xx

You know, one of the reasons that I decided to let him come with us was that I had a deep seated belief that I couldn't do it alone. As the week went on, I kept asking myself if I could cope with this or that, and of course I couls have.

Yes Grace I have come a long way, but there's a very, very long way to go.

There is another trip planned in August. In lieu of the kids having birthday parties, ds wanted to go to London, and dd wanted to go to Disney.

He's organised the whole thing.

I have driven to London, and through France before. Maybe I can do it again and not disapoint the kids by cancelling. Maybe I can do that?

I can't believe how far one week can set me back. I had really started to make progress, I have a new website being designed, I have ideas for marketing myself more effectively to earn more money, and now I feel like that blob of jelly again. I got over it in Febraury, I don't think it will take so long to bounce back from this.

He was horrible, about EVERYTHING!

As far as my mother is concerned....I am struggling to care whether she lives or dies. I am struggling with the bewilderment of not caring more. Weird. And possibly caring that the judgment of others for my lack of care will be difficult to deal with. It will OF COURSE be all my fault for causing her stress.

I am sick of fucking melodrama. I played cards with my kids after Sunday lunch. It was fun and peaceful and warm.

Thank you all for keeping me afloat.....again.

Yes you can drive to London (piece of piss) and even Paris.

My god, if you can put up with the treatment he's meted out, you can manage those trips for the children.

Re your mum - you can only feel what you feel. She was the adult and if she hasn't built up love and trust from you, then it's certainly not your fault.

A man hitting a woman is different from a woman hitting a man. In the vast majority of cases, men are stronger. If that wasn't the case, women wouldn't be all the shit they are still in after all the millennia of civilisation. I'll get flamed for that and I do accept that hitting is not ok. But I think you deserve to be kind to yourself.

I have taken off my wedding ring this morning.

I remembered that calling me a whore while we were away is the second time he has used that word recently.

My profile picture on FB was of me sitting on the grass on the side of a hill. It really is innoccuous. He said that "people" had told him that my picture (he won't go on FB, only when he's pretending to be my son, but we caught him and changed the passwords) made me look like a whore.

Well of course they didn't a) NO ONE CARES. b) no one cares.

I have removed all three mutual friends. Wasn't that close to them anyway.

But I HAVE REMOVED THE RING. I would cry a lot and sob loudly but my dc's are here.

your numbness about your mother is, i suspect, less about you not caring but more a case of too much emotion all at once and they have all just cancelled each other out.

Taking the wedding ring off is a massivly significant move. it is such a simple act butit measns so much. To you, personally. I doubt many people would even notice but psychologically it is very big. no wonder you want to cry.

yes of course you can do all the things you had planned to do. you were a perfectly capable woman before your marriage, why would you not be now?

you have allowed the abuse this man has given you to sink in. don't. I want you to take some time and think about all the things he has said about you. then either laugh at them and their ridiculousness or tell yourself exactly why they are simply untrue.

It is the same process that I went through with my mother.

I have started to write down a list of all the things that I think a good husband should be. (same for wife or any partner) The next thing I will do when I finish the list, which is already longer than I expected it to be, is to put a tick next to the words that apply to him.

I will then write a list of all the dreadful things he has said about me. I will burn it, or bury it, or something.

This will take time, and tears. It will show in a very stark way how far apart my expectations and my reality have been.

A husband never calls me a whore in my ideal world, and neither do his friends. If his friends called his wife a whore, my ideal husband would take them to task on that, without prompting.

And that'll do for starters.

it is indeed a very good place to begin.