Lundy Bancroft

[exhausted2011]

Feel like I need a bloody great highlighter pen, and then throw the thing at DH.
Reading this on the tube, open mouthed. Unbelievable. About 95% is spot on.
I can't help him can I?

I feel there has to be something to help you deal with the guilt of living through it. Of not seeing him for what he was until after he did you the favour of dying.

Thats the thing Exhausted, not quite sure. He died so quick and when I realised he was dying I kept thinking I'm going to be free, free. Sometimes I still can't believe it, because I just didn't know how I was going to get out of the relationship then suddenly I was totally released. sometimes I come on this board and, though this sounds terrible, I wish some of the women going through hell could be freed in the way I was though I never say it.

When I look back I realise that the life I shared with him was actually worse than I thought it was when I lived it. I knew the way he was wasn't about me, it took me three years to work that out though and by then we were married. Pyschologically I lived like that for fifteen years and each day I live now since hes gone I get almost 'drunk' on.

Maybe I will read it

Evening LittleMiss, I'm still here!

no ones predicament is trivial here

This will creep you all out; it happened about four months after H died;

DS had been cosleeping since he was born. I decided it was time for him to sleep on his own and as I hadn't decorated his room yet I moved him into a bed of his own in the bay window in my bedroom. One night I woke suddenly from quite a deep sleep, sat up and looked over to where DS was sleeping. Kneeling on the floor facing DS yet looking towards me was a black shadowy figure of my late H. I didn't feel scared, I just acknowledged in my head it was him and laid back down to sleep. I think I was just hallucinating but it was quite strange.

no ghost stories, I'm on my own here!!!
that is very freaky

goodnight ladies
I have a nice girly lunch tomorrow, will be back at some point over the weekend.x

I've done major hijack here, so wrapped up missed your call Ladypru

I've just re-read whole thread.

Its bloody hard to leave; I never did. However, I made several attempts and I have seen it written here before that a woman in a EA/DV situation will make on average seven attempts before she actually suceeds.

EA is more insiduous that DV though no less trivial and I think it makes it even harder as you can end up thinking there is something wrong with you.

I was scared children would be whisked away abroad; H had also threatened violence and other things.

Exhausted, you know your DH, what do you think he would really try and do if you end it? If my H had been British I would have taken DCs and gone, then used the law.

Interesting Ladypru, you have me awondering.

I love MN....

I can't remember that, but then I post fairly frequently on the EA/DV threads.

Got The Tee Shirt !

will check back tomorrow; is there something you can do tomorrow Ladypru that can avoid him? If not , make a bucket list - ten things you really want to do before you die; it'll focus the mind on something else.

He may do the usual 'drag you down' game just don't play it; its his game not yours.

Sleep well

LadyPru, drive him bonkers, don't let him drag you down. Ignore, Ignore, Ignore! Relentlessly cheerful sends them into panic.

Don't pander, leave him to his own devices and if you can, go out.

Sad thing, I replaced my Venus Fly trap, but even that is sullied as it reminds me of the one he sneakily trashed.

Please help me make sense of this. I can't do this anymore, I can't deal with my xh.

He's twisting everything and making everything all how he wants but he can't see that he's wrong or that he's being unfair or

I don't know 'm crying

Call it Audrey, LMHF, and try to grow it big enough to swallow XH next time he's in the UK. It's your "revenge plant"!

I can absolutely see why something so petty and childish was a big deal to you. It's really beneath contempt.

Listen SAF, you are expecting him to see sense like a rational person but he deliberately isn't receptive. He will twist things, and he will not see your point of view because it doesn't please him to do so. He's not interested in fairness, he's interested in pleasing himself. Don't expect anything better from him because you won't get it. Hold onto what your rights are and how you can make him fulfil them - a solicitor if you can afford it.

It's hard to look at a man who was your lover, best friend (you thought), father of your children, and see a manipulative stranger... but that's who he is I'm afraid. You can't trust the bugger further than you can throw him. So get working on your throwing arm.

He just scanned in and sent me an email detailing a letter which has come in re a hospital appointment for DD1

I phoned him - the attached email said "please see letter which has come in for DD1 at hospital X re her ankle. This is my first day of having the girls on the Easter holidays and since I do not feel there is a problem with DD1's ankle I will not be prepared to take her"

Now, the GP referred her - it's the regional trauma and orthopaedics centre. But obviously the doctor doesn't know as much as XH since he is much more qualified to decide if she needs to be seen.

So, I phoned him and said "look, since you don't want to take her, I do, I think she needs seen so why don't we just swap the easter weeks over and I'll take her and sure that will suit you because you have xxx to go to on the Saturday you were supposed to be having them so I was going to take them for you"

Anyway, basically he then said he would swap the weeks since I was asking for it and it suited me.

But how the fuck does that get turned round to him doing me a favour? I'm taking our daughter to a hospital appointment that the GP feels she needs to go to, plus is means he can go to his event without putting it on to me to keep the girls to enable him to go?

He's a fucking bastard.

Annie, bloody good point!

That was the hardest thing for me to really GET. When he went, the day I took him to the airport and he tried everything he could to play with my mind, to get me back on side and under his spell, I realised just how mad he was.

Right there and then I realised that all those years of begging him just to be nice, not for him to stop being cruel and abusive as was my right, was all a monumental waste of time. He is NOT a normal rational person. He never was, never will be. Only when you are 'out' do you realise that NORMAL people don't treat others the way these men treat us.

Every time I came back to the UK for a holiday, towards the end of me coming back, he'd be nice, he'd listen, talk, be concerned. It was all a ploy to reel me back in, to keep me near. I'd fall for it every time, go back full of hope, I'd even say, Please, don;t let my life go back to how it was, it's soul-destroying... Without fail that flicker of hope was extinguished every time in the 3hrs drive from the Airport.

Sounds tragic, and I suppose it was, but there are moments you laugh at yourself too. Like the last time I went back, I was so reluctant to return to my non-life, I could barely speak to a soul. Flight was called, There was a Bailey's promo stand, and a girl with a tray.

I practically pounced on the tray, swallowed down the beige nectar as she said It's our new Peppermint variety. I'm sure very nice, but not what I was expecting.

My motto since then? Beware the Free Stuff!

My VFT will be forever named Annie... ;-) I adore your posts!

SAF, Keep calm, this is the usual bollocks. It's centred on your DC, for maximum impact.

In incidents such as these, TELL him that you will swap weeks so she can attend the appointment and not miss out anything with him.

Do the DC live with you? From now on, you will do all medical stuff, as he can't be trusted to put the health of his children on high enough priority.

Normal people don't disregard Drs appointments, Normal people want to make SURE DC are OK, so if an appointment is a waste of time, they are grateful for having made sure.

Any more of this abuse, and withholding medical attention IS abuse and you can go to court to remove his access.

The Bastard.

OMG that is so true

NORMAL men don't treat people how we were treated.