Can a marriage ever survive dv ??

[fairycakesandsprinkles]

Have posted on here before about DH.
We hadn't been together very long before getting married and me falling pregnant and since we had DS I noticed a change in him which I didn't like very much.
He starting becoming aggressive and it escalated within a very short period of time, coming to a head when he punched me when I had our baby son in my arms
This was the first time he had done anything like that and it shocked me to the core.
I moved out of our house the same night and everyone has told me not to look back but I can't help thinking about him all the time.
I know it might sound crazy but he knows that he made a huge mistake and is very remorseful.
He has been to see his GP and been referred for anger management.
He sends me texts telling me he loves me and he hopes that one day I can forgive him and we can be a family again.
I go round there several times a week to take DS and I can feel us getting closer.
I am wondering if a marriage can ever survive something like this?
Can someone really change or am I a complete fool for still believing in him?

I'm just going to repost something and then I'm going to bed. This is not a one off, fairy. I have never been with a man who ever lifted a finger against me and I wouldn't ever stay with one who did. I deserve more than that and so does my child.

This is what I posted earlier:

In the three months since your son was born, your husband has:

• not allowed you to speak to or see your mum
• told you he's angry because you're not having sex as much
• told you that you're a failure for stopping breastfeeding
• told you not to pick up your crying baby
• physically held you down so you cannot go to your crying baby
• raped you
• smashed a cup against the wall because you forgot he was going out drinking
• punched you while you hold your baby in your arms.

Things have gone downhill very, very rapidly.

fairycakes I know you are hurting at the moment, and you desperately want for all of this horribleness to go away. You are probably also hoping that someone will come along with a more positive spin on the outlook for your marriage. You are only human.

But the fact that everyone has the same opinion is very important. Very often there are threads on here where the opinion is divided about what the OP should do. But I am afraid that yours is a clearcut case. We can't all be wrong?

With reference to this comment:

'Im sure if you all came on here and posted only the negative things about your DP/DH everyone would think they were idiots too and tell you to leave.'

I disagree. Yes there are cases when an OP tells of her DH being an idiot, and some people tell her to leave him, whilst others believe that their problems can be resolved.

Not when there is violence involved and not when the DP is controlling and emotionally abusive as well. Please be honest - things are not fine 99% of the time are they? Not when he was telling your Mum not to come round without asking you, not when he was telling you off for giving up on breastfeeding, not when he was physically preventing you from going to your baby. All of those things are incredibly controlling and mean and you don't have to live with them. And he won't change love.

Fairycake, if you actually read the posts properly, you'll see many have been here, done that, and have a very experienced view to give you.

Noce men do not thump you when holding your child, this is not love. I really do hope you realise this before he really hurts one of you.

Nice*

I'm sorry fairycakes but this isn't one mistake. I've read your threads and I am truly concerned about your Hs behaviour and what might happen if you do go back to him.

You need to look honestly at the list in the post by humptydidit on Thu 10-Mar-11 21:10:09, and see if you recognise any of the situations. I personally recognise a lot of these from what you have said.

I can see you just want things back to how they were, and your dream of your perfect family life. I don't think it's achievable with this man. Some things I picked up from your first thread in addition to what LB says above are that he didn't apologise when he threw a cup at the wall, but then again he never did apologise for anything, and that there was a lot more behaviour you haven't shared which indicates this is more deep-routed.

Please talk to a friend or your mum, or a professional as others have advised.

Fairy - as my Counsellor said to me 2 weeks ago when I saw her.

If the things that he had done to you had been done to you by a stranger instead, what would you think?

Would you think that this was a person that was damaged, abusive, controlling??

Just because this was done by a person who you know, trusted and love does this mean that the damage done was any less?

I know you are hurting right now, and I feel that the more that we say "no, dont do it" the more you are going to dig your heels in and think "but it's different for me"

It might be, but I would put money on it that it's not.

Please can you stop saying he raped me, it's horrible.
He didn't rape me.
We were having sex and he didn't want to stop and I didn't make him. That's all.
I consented, he didn't force himself on me

fairy you say
"Im sure if you all came on here and posted only the negative things about your DP/DH everyone would think they were idiots too and tell you to leave."
The point is sweetheart that lots of us have discussed our situations on here and we were told to leave. We are all passionate about this subject because we care about you (and all other victims of dv). It's not because we are all man haters determined to get you away from him.
Can't remember who suggested it, but try to make a list of the things he did which you didn't like big and small. I found that even after a week of being away from my exh I "forgot" some of the things that happened. Not because they were insignificant, I guess it's part of the healing process to put things behind you and move on. Then every time I questioned whether to go back or not, I read the list to remember exactly what it was like.
Please just give yourself time.
Have you got a minute to look at this. It is from the freedom programme which is recommended by womens aid. It shows 2 very different men and what they are like. Have a look and be honest, can you identify your h is this poster?

I'm not sure if you realise that most abusers follow very similar patterns and characteristics, although as individual people they might be very different. That's why so many of us identify with what you are describing, because it's so similar to what we have experienced.. and because it's so typical, we feel confident to predict what will probably happen.
Please take a look.

Fairy, I know it's harsh but this will end one of two ways unless you stop denying.

He will really hurt you. I could follow your story word for word, infact I said many things you did. He smashed my face in whilst trying to suffocate me, that was my lightbulb moment. I could have been killed by this "charming man".

Or someone you know reports it and SS, start to deal with it for you.

Fairy, after my H assaulted me he said to me 'how could I do this to you?'

I read his rambling diarys and notes after he passed away which stated a very different attitude to the above - it said 'why did she make me hit her?'

In the future, I guarantee, you will be glad you left

"Is it not possible for him to have made a mistake (bloody huge one I know but that's all it is) and to actually love his wife and son?"

which mistake are we talking about here exactly?
the punch? the affair?

'How could I have let it get that bad??
Why couldn't I have made DH happy then none of this would have happened.'

Ah now, come on Fairycakes -- he didn't hit you because you lost control of him. He didn't hit you because he wasn't happy. He didn't hit you because he was losing his temper.

He hit you because he was using his 'temper'.

This may seem very blunt, but you are not special to him. If you were, then he would not have hit you, end of. You are not special enough to him to make him 'happy' or to prevent him hitting you again.

You are lovely, you are young, you are a caring mother but he doesn't want any of that. He wants a punchbag. That is what he saw in you. A punchbag crossed with some magic being who could give him 150% of their attention all the time, or so he fondly imagined. Someone to adore him warts and all and never have any needs or opinions of her own. Then along came the baby and he couldn't cope with the reality that you are not there 150% for him all the time. He does not care about you at all. He cares only about what you can do for him, and what you can do for him is not at all what you think you can offer. You want to give love he doesn't want that. He wants someone to vent his frustrations, insecurities, immaturity and self-loathing onto, to project all his own failings onto, and to eventually destroy.

'I just want my family back and for all this to be over, it's making me ill.'
-- Please grieve the dream you had of a nice family life with this man. Go through the sadness of that grief. It's like losing a relative you were very fond of. If you won't go through the sadness of grief for the marriage, you may well go through the grief for the son SS will remove, or the grief of seeing him turn out like his dad, or the grief of turning into a shell of your former self, staying home instead of going out with bruises showing.

I'm not in denial.

I know he did a bad thing but I don't think that automatically makes someone a bad person.

I don't see how removing my son from that environment and refusing to move back in with him makes me a bad mum. Neither is wanting to work things out and my son to grow up with two parents around.

Humpty - It was me that advised making the list, because you know what Fairy, it fucking works. The little things they say to you, the little things you do.

I had a light bulb moment the other week. I didnt realise that when XP held me down from going to DD when she was crying was a form of abuse.

Just like you don't seem to realise that if your "d"P carried on having consenseual sex with you when you decided you didnt want it anymore, is.....rape. Just like when I had consensual sex with XP and he did things I didnt want to do and stopped him by pushing him off me, was rape. Its shit, it happened.

I'm sorry Fairy, but you, like I did, have this image of rape being down a back alley by a masked abuser who you dont know. That is the biggest pile of bullshit you will ever hear in your life. You want it to stop and they dont, is.fucking.rape.

I'm sorry, i know im being harsh here, but I dot know how to make you see it any clearer, and im reall worried that you are backing slowly away from this thread and back into his arms.

Fairycakes, words of remorse mean very little to people like this. Anger management courses are a joke.

fairy i'm trying to remember what was on my list... see what i mean, you forget very easily.
The first one that comes to mind is that every time I ate something ex h would make a snorting noise like a pig or make a snidey comment like "don't you think you've had enough". Now in some households that might be a joke, but my ex didn't mean it as a joke. He wanted me to feel fat and to think that I needed to go on a diet etc and to feel unattractive so that he could control me.

Probably that's not a very good example, but the point is that often it's hundreds of tiny little things that add up to one big thing and they are just as important as getting a black eye or a slap.

Nobody has the right to make somebody else feel bad, to chip away at their self esteem and to try to control them. I'll bet you wouldn't treat somebody like that, so why should you be on the recieving end of it. On that link I posted...saw therapist for 6 months once - a few years ago- she told me that i inspired violence in men! here it is again it describes a non abusive person and do you know what, it's not rocket science, it's just a decent person. I'll bet you are just like the non abusive person, you are a decent person and that's who you deserve to share your life with and who your children deserve to grow up with.
Please keep posting

sorry fairy messed up my link here it is again

This was one of the threads I had when I was leaving XP. Admittedly I had got to the point where I had had ENOUGH and any love for him I once had was gone. So leaving was easier. It was still very very hard. I don't know how this compares with your H's behaviour in the relationship, there was no physical violence though. There was one incident where we were having sex and I changed my mind and wanted to stop halfway through but didn't say anything because I didn't think I had any right to, I just pretended I was enjoying it until the end because I didn't want to upset him. (And then I cried, and I can't remember how he reacted. But we never had sex again after that.) That makes me sad now because I now know that I had every right to change my mind and ask him to stop and he would have had no business being angry with me at all.

The hardest break up I ever had though, was with someone I still loved. That was much harder, even though it was a shorter relationship than the break up with XP and there were no children involved. And he hadn't done anything like as bad as your husband - but he was making me unhappy more than he made me happy. I missed him terribly though. If I hadn't been with XP I think I'd have sought him out and taken him back. I used to remember the exact way he'd smile at me or the way he'd laugh nervously as he apologised if he ever accidentally hurt me. (Nothing sinister - turning over in bed and bumping into me etc). I wouldn't go back now though. The reasons we broke up would still stand.

If you read my thread BTW - it's not very long - read a few posts down where I talk about the nice things about XP as well. It makes an interesting contrast. (And weird for me to read back through now)

We don't think you are a bad mum fairy :(

WANTING to work things out is fine. Being realistic is important too. You said yourself you don't want to move back in if things aren't going to work out because it might upset DS. We just want you to be sure you're making the right decision. And that is hard when you are so emotionally involved.

Math; these men will never see reason as they are not reasonable. There is an air of insanity about them and you definately can't reason with insanity.

I live such a different life now to the dreadful tension filled, ridiculous life I had in the company of my H; I share it now with a normal decent man.

Fairy, you are young and you have a whole lifetime ahead of you and take the advice of the women on here who have similar experience.

Fairycakes, if your son has to grow up in a house where his father controls and is violent to his mother then you have to understand that is actually a form of child abuse.

Because of this I think you should rethink pursing keeping the family together at all costs.

I grew up in a DV household, and despite my mother's best efforts to stop me seeing anything, I heard every fight, saw the emotional manipulation and control, saw the broken furniture after fights, lived in an atmosphere of fear and grew up with permanent mental health problems as a result. Just think about whether you want that for your son.

Is it possible to delete this whole thread?
How do I do it?