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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

What made you finally end it?

43 replies

goongetgone · 20/03/2011 17:26

What was your tipping point. The day it ended what happened?

My ex threw me down on the sofa, screaming in my face in front of my dc, who tried to get in the way, he was 6 . I knew I could not let this continue. That ex would not stop after years of drinking and abuse until my kids were ruined by it all. There was nothing left to hang on to, I was not "keeping the family together" any longer, I was in fact actually one of a double act, who was creating a toxic environment for my kids to grow up in.

Still not free of him really, we are split but he is always giving me a hard time but I am stronger than I was.

OP posts:

merrywidow · 20/03/2011 18:36

Well done; I didn't get up the courage, then he passed away. The relief was immense

shimmerysilverglitter · 20/03/2011 18:39

When he pawned all our stuff and said it was ok as he had earned all the money that paid for it. He didn't consider it to be "family" stuff despite having dc, it was his to do what he liked with. More stuff happened and we limped on for a bit as he wouldn't move out but it was over for me then.

textualhealing · 20/03/2011 19:07

I asked him to leave when I realised I couldn't get any lower in terms of my spirit and humiliation. The week it ended, he'd shouted at me in public because I brushed his side when we were in a supermarket. We went out to meet friends for dinner and he spent the night at the bar on his own much to my humiliation and making our friends feel awful and then on the way home, he stopped the car on a dual carriage way and tried to get me to get out and walk home. I had no tears left after the decline in our relations over the preceeding months and I calmly said he had to leave. (not the first time I had asked) This time he agreed. All became clear a couple of week's on. He had been seeing someone else and acted attrociously to get me to end it rather than taking responsibility himself. It was so very painful as he had spent months eroding my confidence and gaslighting. I have recovered, mostly, and I have a good life. He, on the other hand, ended up getting a glass in his face by the lovely, classy lady he left me for!

da55 · 20/03/2011 19:22

years of sexual,mentaly and physical abuse i finally had the courage to kick him out after he tried to sexualy abuse me in frnt of our son.the mental abuse continues but am getting stronger and stronger thanks to mumsnet.

daphaneee · 20/03/2011 19:45

After years of pulling me down (subtly of course), silent treatment that could last for days (even if I wasn't the one who upset him, I wouldn't find that out until he 'decided' he was ready to talk again), getting angry with me for no reason, spitting in my face when he 'thought' I was flirting with his friends, (all in his head) which happened numerous times throughout 15 years. We had a child, and when my DS was 3, for a reason I can't remember now, he spat in my face again, I told him not to do that ever again, and he did, with a smile on his face, I got so angry I beat him on his chest, with the ends of my fists, not actually hard, still not proud of it, but it was the first time I had actually done anything except cry after he'd done that horrible, humiliating thing. I looked up to see my 3 year old sitting on top of the stairs watching us. Absolutely horrific! The following evening, he got angry again shouting at me and being generally nasty, while I was putting on my DS night time nappy. I asked him to stop, please not do this in front of DS, to which he shouted "so why don't you just fuck off". My DS (3) stood up and said, "you fuck off dada"! It's not the first time he'd told me to fuck off by any means, but it was the last, the next morning, we did just that! Best thing I've ever done! That was just over a year ago, and I'm a totally different person to what I've been most of my adult life!

WillIEverBeASizeTen · 20/03/2011 20:17

Seeing an email he wrote to his SIL saying "*** finds it difficult being a single parent, I think she wishes I was rich!" That did it for me...(lots more to add to that, but you get my drift)

magickcat · 20/03/2011 20:22

Daphanee oh bless your little one... Op and all of you good for you for getting out...

My final straw was when my ex-h decided to wind himself up whilst driving, screaming 'shut the fuck up' in my face and speeding, until trying to take a roundabout too fast... then crashed the new car given to us by his parents into a concrete barrrier.

He then continued to scream at me while trying to get the car off the road, threw my bag into a huge puddle (it was chucking it down) and carried on until I got a lift out of there. I went to work while he got his parents to come and get him and the car and by the time I got home he had rewritten history and managed to blame me for wrecking the car, despite not even being driving. Which was gaslighting, as I have learnt recently from MN.

It still took a few months to actually leave but that was the moment I realised that he could have killed us both and that if I didn't get out, the next time he may do.

PeterAndreForPM · 20/03/2011 20:51

when he cried after being caught for the n'th time cheating

I looked at him and thought...you fucking pathetic twat

"on a break" ?

no, I don't think so

I walked away and never spoke to him again (even though he tried every trick in the book to get back into my good books)

iamjustlurking · 20/03/2011 21:17

After years of dealing with his drinking and shite that goes with it. When I returned home from a quick trip to town with my then 3 week old son (my 7 and 5 yr old where at school) to find my house being re-possesed and I was homeless.

But It was the kick up the arse I needed 7 years on I am happier than ever and he still a piss head !

PeterAndreForPM · 20/03/2011 21:19

yep

my twat is still a sad womaniser 20 years on...going after the young girls

except he is a balding 40 yy old and the young girls think he is a sad laughing stock

shimmerysilverglitter · 20/03/2011 21:19

Sheesh IAJL that really takes the cake! What did you do?

iamjustlurking · 20/03/2011 21:32

phoned my parents !!!.. cried lots (we had been together for 15 years). Luckily I have close family who supported me no end.

I stayed with parents for couple months then moved into rented accomodation. Still waiting to be house permantly.

It has been hard but you know what I have the most amazing DC DD1 15 yrs DD2 12yrs and DS 7yrs. I lost bricks and mortar and "things" he lost far more.

I didn't think of myself as strong as I had been emtionaly beaten for so long but I had to keep going for my children sake. He flits in and out of their lives but I always wanted them to make their own decision eldest chooses not to see him DD2 is going same way DS does not know and different yet.

But I have raised them with no financial help from him and we do ok.

AND I met a lovely man a year ago. Can't see me ever living with someone again but never say never.

merrywidow · 20/03/2011 21:33

my mum was in hospital with a broken ankle when my abusive H got sick and passed away.

The woman in the bed next to her had broken the opposite ankle to my mum.

The woman told my mum that her daughter was married to a man who beat her regularly. One day her daughters H dropped dead of a heart attack.

I thought how weird that was

antlerqueen · 20/03/2011 21:40

freaky, merrywidow

follyfoot · 20/03/2011 21:49

After he broke my arm very badly , I was lying on the floor unable to get up. He rolled me over, took the money I had in my back pocket, then walked out.

Any final bit of pity, love, care, in fact any emotion whatsoever died in that moment he rolled me over.

Lacuna · 20/03/2011 21:52

Mine was the day that we had friends round for Sunday lunch. The first time I'd ever invited people round to our new home. I'd been up all night with ds, and had spent all day cooking. I just wanted us to have a nice day with our friends, like a normal happy family, because mostly we were very far from that.

An hour before they were due to arrive, I asked xh to nip across the road and get an extra bottle of wine. He didn't come back for another two hours, by which time all our guests had arrived. When he did come in, he was shitfaced, and stoned. He'd been sitting in the park drinking the wine I'd asked him to buy. He went straight to bed and didn't come down until everyone had left. I had to make excuses for him all day, said he was ill, but everyone knew what was going on, I think.

When he finally got up, we argued, and it ended in a physical fight, on the stairs. I knew I wanted to kill him and I think he felt the same way about me. I went upstairs and threw up in the bathroom, from the stress of it all, and I remember sitting with my head on the toilet bowl thinking 'My marriage is literally making me sick.' I knew the physical side of the rows was only going to get worse, and I left the next day.

lazarusb · 20/03/2011 21:55

He hit our ds who was 5 at the time. He had split his drink at dinner. Ex hit him hard round the head and it bounced off the window sill. It made me realise that although he had been abusing me for 6 years ds was the next step. I couldn't be responsible for that. We left with a binbag full of clothes the next day.

We never looked back.

ValiumSingleton · 20/03/2011 21:55

a couple of things that were 'the last straw'. He wouldn't even let me choose a saucepan even though I did all the cooking. He took the bed I was sleeping in apart at about midnight with an electric screw driver (because I was in the spare room and that made him mad). There were so many things like that though. I put up with SO much. (He still tells people I left on a selfish whim for 'an easy life' ). True, life is easier now.

BooyHoo · 20/03/2011 21:56

he almost set fire to me at a BBQ infront of our 5 year old and then laughed about it.

ValiumSingleton · 20/03/2011 22:02

god.... booyhoo.

BabyYoureAFirework · 20/03/2011 22:02

I knew my marriage was over when I got told off for making too much noise getting out of the taxi after a night out

The marriage was over for me a while before that, but that's the thing that made me decide.

BooyHoo · 20/03/2011 22:04

even worse valium, we carried on the BBQ and i put on a smiley face infront of my friends. i made the decision that night and told him the next morning when he was sober.

ValiumSingleton · 20/03/2011 22:06

It is funny how it's the small things in the end isn't it? like your xh complaining you were too noisy getting out of a taxi.

After everything I was put through I can't believe that the scales finally fell from my eyes in robert dyas when he wouldn't let me choose a saucepan. I'd said we needed one. I was financially dependent on him, we didn't have a joint account (all classic financially abuse I later discovered). Not even being allowed to choose a saucepan was the final straw, but for some reason, cooking him a haute cuisine dinner night after night and being criticised for it being bland/too fattening/not filling enough/too spicy/too similar to what we had on tuesday...... that I seemed to be able to suck up for years and years.

ValiumSingleton · 20/03/2011 22:08

Booyhoo, i can just totally imagine. That was my life for years. As the OP says, I was complicit in the double act for a long time. WHY was leaving more frightening than staying?!

BooyHoo · 20/03/2011 22:12

but it is the small things that added up equate to the massive loss of control/freedom you have over your own life.

My ex would never have told me i couldn't have male friends, that was too big a statement, and one he knew was unreasonable/possesive/controlling, one he knew outsiders (my friends/family etc) would think was wrong. but he was able to adjust my behaviour in smaller ways so that the cost of having a male friend was to high for me.

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