...and need a bit of reassurance.
Just had a card arrive by post from an ex which has freaked me out.
Backstory: met him in 2000, at that time he was in a mental health hospital, under a section. (OK, bells should have rang, I know, I know, but what can I say? He's very manipulative and I'd been a single mum for 13 years, and there was immediate chemistry, so I got sucked in, please don't judge me for that, I know what a fool I was.) Started dating Feb 2001.
He was due to be released from hospital a few months after but only on the condition he had an address to go to. He was desperate, as he had no friends other than others in mental health institutions (he'd been in hospital/secure units for 3 years) and didn't get on with his adoptive parents so I said he could stay with me for a couple of months 'til he got a flat. His CPN was meant to be arranging housing association for him. All was lovely until then.
He was a terrible, terrible man, controlling, violent, a liar, it turned out he was actually engaged to another woman who was still in a secure unit. I hit the roof over that and said he was taking the P out of both of us so he did then end it with her. But then he made me virtually a prisoner in my own home because if we went out, if he thought another man so much as looked at me, even though I walked everywhere with my eyes on the floor so that I couldn't accidentally look at a man, and kept telling how much I loved him and wasn't interested in other men, I'd get a damn good kicking when we got home. He'd suggest we'd go out for a night, and tell me what to wear, something he said he liked me in, then he'd spend all night yelling at me that I looked like a whore (I didn't, I'm a size 16 ffs!) and that I was coming on to men dressed 'like that'. And again, there'd be a kicking waiting for me when we got home. I dreaded coming back to my own home most days. The kids had to walk on eggshells too else..guess what...yes, more violence (to me, and never in front of them, thank god.) There were a couple of male nurses where I worked and god forbid he found out one had been on the same shift as me, it would, of course, mean I'd been sleeping with him. And so on. You get the picture. Women would phone up my house to arrange dates with him (he apparently told them he was living with his sister because someone had once thought we were siblings as we looked a little similar) and one of his friends would often phone me and threaten to kill both me and my kids if I didn't cooperate (ie be a better g/f).
Like many women in that kind of situation, he told me everything was my fault so many times that I believed him and thought if I stopped doing stuff that was wrong, he'd be nicer to me. It didn't happen, of course.
Things finally came to a head after about 9 months of this when we had one incident of unprotected sex (oh yes, he used to hit me during sex, forgot that bit) and I got pregnant. He went mental, first accusing me of sleeping around, but then after accepting it was his, he said he wanted nothing to do with it and I was to tell no-one about the baby's existence, ever. I explained that I would have to tell people, at least schools and health visitors etc, and that no way would I keep a child of mine locked in the house for ever like a dirty secret. He stormed off and I had the presence of mind to not let him back in that time, and actually stick to it. So that was, thankfully, that.
I miscarried at 12 weeks, which I was devastated about at the time as, crazy as it sounds, I still loved him...but now I can see that it was a blessing in disguise.