To anyone who left a partner because of domestic violence, or it hoping to take that step...

[MmeLindor.]

Please read this moving article by Patrick Stewart and know that you have done so much to protect your children and that no matter how hard it was/is on them right now, they will always always love you for getting out.

Warning, it may well make you cry.

There are certainly a lot of amazing people on MN. I wish it had existed in the early 90s! You all have a huge amount to be proud of.

I got my kids out of an angry violent home where their father drank and took drugs.I didn't have to live like that and neither did my children,like many others i chose a better life.We have peace in our home everyday .

Patience, well done for having the courage to take the hard way, and get out. My mum took the easy route, stayed, and buried her head in the sand and ignored the abuse her husband inflicted on me every day for many years. Your DC's are so very very lucky to have you as their mother. You should be so proud of yourself.

Timefor, I also have a library of books, mine are on childhood abuse and toxic families, I could open a book shop tomorrow! I know you are right about not wasting any more time on thinking about my mother. But she is like a puzzle that I can't let go of until I've solved it. But I don't let it take over my life. I do think about her every now and then, but otherwise I am very much focused on the here and now, and a bit on the future.

I am glad that you're making your life now a very different experience from your childhood. So am I. I feel genuinely happy and content these days. Without the fear that it won't last and suddenly one day it will all turn bad again. I grew up feeling like that because any good days weren't real, they were just the calm before the next storm caused by my dad's rages.

Wrt confronting my dad, he at least seems to have a slightly better grasp on reality than my mother. Although the most he has said is that he regrets the past. At least he's not in compete denial like my mother. But it's too little too late for me. There's nothing either of them could say now that would make any difference. I would never take the risk of letting them back into my life again. My life is free of toxic people and I intend to keep it that way.

And timefor, thankyou so much for your kind and positive words. It feels so good to hear that instead of the usual put downs I've had for most of my life.

Thankyou Jasmine,it is a,gift for your kids as well as yourself.Didnt realise how bad it was til he left.He left because he knew I wouldnt accept it anymore and he didnt want to get help any time i complained i got throttled .I loved him so much but its 2 yrs since we split and i dont miss him.I dont take any shit from anyone these days,all the self entitled crap i put up with.He doesnt see his kids anymore,he doesnt work and has a 22yo gf ,half his age.He left 20 mins of abusive voicemails in the summer,i took it to the police,they arrested him ,he got a warning.Nobody calls me a Fucking c&nt ,anymore.He even said i just had to get over the fact he was never coming back.Once i stopped laughing i took my phone to the police

Patience, well done. He sounds very very toxic. Stay away. And good on you for reporting him to the police. If you can get him locked up so much the better.

I am also trying not to take any cr*p from anyone, but it's a bit of a learning curve for me. I'm so used to just taking all the rubbish being thrown at me in silence. It's taking me some time to find my voice and speak out for myself. But I'm getting there. The biggest step was walking away from my parents. I've never looked back.

jasmine I can relate to your need to solve the puzzle, I am just the same but I'm the same about everything, I think I just have that sort of personality. It's a bit unfair of me to try and talk you out of solving the puzzle and into moving on but that's because I know how painful and frustrating it has been for me and I would so love for you to be spared years of that. I am in a good place now, I don't feel the same need to have answers and I would so love for you to be in the same place. Reading your most recent posts I see that you are and you have no idea how much that pleases me. Your posts tell me the kind of person you are and I know that you are a lovely woman who deserves to be happy and free of the nightmare that was your childhood. You were unfortunate having those people as your parents but your own children are very lucky to have you, you have taken an appalling experience and you have turned it into a positive, you should be very proud of yourself

I'm pleased that your dad regrets the past but I'm also pleased that you choose to leave him in the past. Life is so wonderful when it is free of toxic people.

Patience Well done you! You have done so very well too. I am just loving these stories of women who are standing up for themselves and not allowing any further abuse. I don't take any crap these days either, one strike and you are out! I don't bite my tongue, I don't keep quiet in order to make someone else feel better, if something isn't right I speak out. I love the new me, I just wish I hadn't discovered the new me at the age of 47, it would have come in very handy some years back!

Timefor, you sound like such a wise, warm and caring person. The world needs more people like you in it.

I think it has been good for me actually, because of this thread, to really focus on my mother's bizarre behaviour in general, not just her neglect towards me. Because it makes me realise that however it might have looked to me, she could not have been an ok mother to my sisters, because she is just too weird and incapable. I've always felt so upset because it always looked to me as if my mother was a good mother to my sisters and it was only me she didn't love. But I think she is so mentally ill that she could not possibly have been a good mother to my sisters, no matter how things appeared to me, looking at their relationship from the outside as I did. My sisters just cannot see the truth about who our mother really is. They do not or don't want to see the way she lies and manipulates everyone, including them, to get what she wants. They can't see how she also let them down by staying with our dad. She has got them completely believing she is the victim. They cannot see that she is also an abuser and enabler and that they are the victims just like me.

Thank you jasmine, that is such a lovely thing to say.

Once again I can relate to your post. I have three sisters, all younger than me and I haven't had contact with any of them since I broke contact with my mother. I took care of my sisters, cared for them, loved them despite being treated so differently by our mother that I used to think I was adopted. When I stopped contact with our mother my sisters stopped contact with me. I was deeply hurt, still am if I think about it too much but I can understand why they have made the decision they have. Our mother is a very demanding and quite intimidating woman and I can imagine my sisters feeling too scared to upset the proverbial applecart.

I am different to my sisters (and my parents) in that I was the one with the brain, I had ambition, I wanted to make something of my life. My parents accused me of thinking I was someone special, thinking I was above my station when in actual fact I didn't think like that at all. My sisters have all been followers, they just did what was expected of them so I imagine my mother related to them better than she could relate to me. None of them achieved the things I achieved but yet she held all of them in higher esteem than she held me. She never had a nice word or any praise for me no matter what I achieved yet my youngest sister, pregnant at 15, baby born at 16, two more in quick succession and living a life on benefits, gosh, she could do no wrong. I would listen to my mother saying how well she had done while I was the one with the job, the mortgage, the husband and children all born after I married.

It is very hard to understand how they can't see what I can see and if I were to allow myself to think about it it really would upset me that they cut contact with me in favour of her. None of them gain anything from her, she never did Christmas or birthday gifts for her grandchildren, she never babysat, she was a taker not a giver, she was never a happy person, always moaning, complaining, demanding, self entitled, never a pleasure to be around so it is hard to comprehend what my sisters are actually gaining from their relationship with her.

Timefor, we have been living parallel lives! My sisters also cut contact with me when I cut contact with our parents. I was also deeply hurt by that. I was the one who stood up for them when my dad turned on them (not very often), not our mother. I was the one they turned to for help with problems at school/work/boyfriends.

For years I have believed that my mother was a proper mother to my sisters. The truth is she wasn't, but my sisters simply cannot see it. They are so caught up in her manipulation, they can't see the truth. They see her as the victim, they feel sorry for her, they feel responsible for her, as if they were her parents. She had turned their relationship upside down where they look after and protect her instead of the other way around. My sisters cannot see that she should have been looking after and protecting them. They think she has been a brilliant mother because they are completely blind to all her failings and the way she has let us all down by being so weak and cowardly.

And they seem completely blind to her manipulative ways which are so obvious to me. She manipulates and uses them to get what she wants but they can't seem to see it. I think the difference between me and them is that somehow my eyes have always been open, and not blind, even as a child. Maybe that's another reason my mother disliked me, somehow I could see right through her, I wasn't fooled by her acting as the poor innocent victim. I could always see her exactly for what she was and she didn't like me because I probably didn't like her. Although my dad was very abusive, somehow I've still always preferred him to her. Because he is very straightforward. If he hates you he'll tell you to your face and take the consequences. And there's a sort of integrity in that which I respect. Whereas my mother will be nice to your face and then bitch behind your back which I simply cannot abide. It smacks of cowardice that she can't tell me to my face what she really thinks and feels.

I think you are right Jasmine because I felt exactly the same, I saw right through my mother too and although I pandered to her for a quiet life (ha!) I found it difficult to respect her, I felt like the mature adult, I had more sense than she did, I was more tolerant than she was, I was a nicer person. Her views and opinions of some issues were vile and so I attempted, but failed, to educate her. She simply resented me. My sisters though went along with everything so I suppose they were her favourites because they were more easily manipulated. I have been on the wrong end of her temper many times so I know how scary and upsetting it is so I do understand why they would want to avoid that.

It's just struck me too that she used illness as a way of manipulation. If all else failed she would become ill. She had a huge medical book and always managed to relate her symptoms to something in that book.

I guess in our situations Jasmine, we were the strong ones, even as children. I also suspect that we were more emotionally intelligent than other members of our family which is why we could see what was happening but our siblings couldn't. I wonder if our mother's felt threatened by us, felt out of their depth when around us, because of their own inadequacies. And there I go again, analysing!

Oh, and I don't think your mother could ever be straight with you, she could never tell you to your face what she really thinks because then you would become the victim, she would be the bad guy. As things stand at the moment you are the bad guy (just as I am) because you are the one who has cut contact, it doesn't matter that you were forced to do that by her treatment of you, that isn't important, what is important to her is that she remains the victim.

My divorce came through today! Four years and a month after marrying him, two years and eight months after sneaking away to a refuge one lunchtime, in a taxi with my belongings in carrier bags and my DD on my lap. It took this long to divorce because he begged me to wait two years and do it by consent, and like a sucker I did, but of course then he refused so I had to take the unreasonable behaviour route in the end anyway.

We have a court order about access. I'm the residential parent, but he has a lot of contact. He keeps trying to get shared legal residence and a 50/50 division of her time between us. He's pursued this aim by making false allegations about my care of DD to police, solicitors, doctors, social workers and random people I've never met. On two occasions I've needed police intervention to get DD back. He tells DD (4) that I'm bad and fat and don't look after her properly and I took her away from him. He has attempted to claim the child benefit and child tax credits, so that my payments have been suspended for months on end while it's sorted out. I constantly worry about whether the contact is in DD's best interests, but so far she maintains that she wants to see him, and I don't see much legal hope for stopping or reducing the contact for now.

However bad it's been, I'm still glad I left. I'm properly present for my DD, because I'm no longer distracted by the constant need to try to keep him in a good mood, which was never possible anyway. I'm so thankful for the ease and playfulness of our relationship now - it was hard to be like that with him around. I can go home, and shut the door, and he can't get in.

Divorce - expensive. Never having to live with the bastard again - priceless!

Nickname - Congratulations It's a huge thing to do but at least your dd will grow up in a much more stable, happy environment. That really is priceless!
I think if anyone in this situation reads this thread and the posts on it, there can be no doubt that leaving is the best thing.

Thanks! clink!

I'll drink to that

Congratulations, NicknameTaken.

Raising a glass of to you tonight.

And to all the other women who have shared their stories. I never thought this would happen when I started this thread.

Timefor
been distracted with trying to buy a house today, but will do the blog post tomorrow (I hope) and contact you then.

Massive congratulations NicknameTaken!!

No problem MmeLindor

Congratulations on your divorce! Cant wait for mine... he is divorcing me on unreasonable behaviour. HA HA very amusing but i dont care. All you women on here are truly amazing. And an inspiration to others. You all seem so kind and caring and deserve to be treated with love and respect!

Well done NicknameTaken. You will be inspirational to others reading this including me waiting for a divorce. I love your comment about being properly present for you dd. I know just what you mean.

I thankfully, did not have Dc's with my very abusive exh. I found it very hard to find the strength to leave him. It isn't easy. It's not a decision you make lightly even without children to consider. It's not something (IMO) that you can blame people for who can't leave. Fear is a massive weight that can stop you doing it.
In my day, the police would not get involved in DV, so there was no help, no support. One of my GP's that I went to with injuries wouldn't write down the true reasons for my injuries 'because you never know who might read it or get hold of it'
So, if you are pondering 'getting out,' do grab all the help you can, because you can...it wasn't always like this. Lots of us had to do it alone.

Solo, if you did have DC's and didn't leave, how do you think your DC's would feel if you told them you put them through years of abuse because you didn't have the strength to leave? I absolutely agree it's not easy to leave. But as I have already said, hard does not equal impossible. I DO absolutely blame my mother totally for not leaving, and despise her for her weakness. I have cut all contact with her and intend never to see her again. So yes, you can stay, but there will be a very high price to pay. And not only will you pay the price for staying, but your innocent DC's will pay too, by losing their childhood. How any mother can do that to her children is beyond me. But that is exactly what my own mother did.

Timefor the 3rd paragraph of your post yesterday struck such a loud chord for me. It's incredible how you have described my thoughts exactly. My mother said to me once that I was always one step ahead of her. I have never been quite sure of what she meant. But I think it was a case of her not being able to fool and manipulate me like she could do with my middle sister especially. I think I made her feel uncomfortable because I could see right through her from a very young age and she didn't like me because of that. I think she couldn't cope with my intelligence, because I was always one step ahead of her even though she was the parent and I was the child. My dad however revelled in my intelligence, he loved it because he saw it as a reflection of himself. And he disliked my middle sister because of her lack of intelligence, which is precisely why my mother connected with her so strongly. My dad always said my middle sister took after my mother ie she was needy, lacking in confidence, weak. Whereas I was always confident, independent and strong, all of which made my mother feel inadequate and insecure, and so she rejected me.

Solo, you say you found it hard to leave, but you did leave right? What finally gave you the strength?

And Nicknametaken, Congratulations! and Well Done. You have done the best thing possible, I admire your courage and determination, because it is a very hard and scary thing to do. Well done for giving your DD her childhood back and reclaiming your own life.

jasmine every time I read one of your posts I am so glad that I left. Your posts make me feel I have given my DD the best possible gift I could ever give her.

As for your post relating to intelligence, I always hold back on how I really feel and what I really think because it makes me sound so vain, and I'm not vain, but I always felt I was streets ahead of my parents and my siblings intelligence wise. Well actually, I didn't just feel it, I knew it, I was more intelligent, I could run rings round them. I remember the day I told them I wanted to go to college, crikey, you would think I had told them I had murdered someone. I was verbally ripped into and made to feel totally worthless. Needless to say I didn't go to college, I sat my exams then left school to work. My wage was taken from me and I was given pocket money. So, although I was working I still couldn't afford to live independently, I still had to babysit to make up my wages so I could buy myself clothes and make up etc. Then I was called for that too, because I saved to buy decent clothes from good shops, because I made an effort with myself. All this caused them to think I thought I was above them when that wasn't the case, I just made them feel insecure and inadequate. Such a vile time.

Jasmine, I'm not throwing blame your way for the way you feel about your mum. That's your call. It is though, worth remembering that people that do stay, do so for many reasons. You can pass judgement on anyone you choose to as to why they did or didn't do something as that is your freedom of choice, but it doesn't take the reasons why people do what they do away.

I try not to judge anyone, because you never know what they aren't telling you and what they are hiding for whatever reason. No one knew what I was going through because I was so ashamed.

I found the strength to end it when an old friend said to me 'no one should stay with someone they are unhappy with or that treats you like that.' I kind of had a light bulb moment one night soon after and it was over. Well over after he beat the crap out of me again.

I know that if I hadn't have got out of the marriage, one of us would've murdered the other. I sometimes daydreamed about how I could do it and get away with it. The likelihood is though, that I would've been the one in a body bag, not him.

Should he stay or leave? I am so confused. I am married to a usually loving husband and have 4 small children. 2 days ago he became unusually angry and punched me in the face - I was knocked unconscious. It happened in front of all the children. When I came round my 4 year old daughter was holding me and crying shouting wake up. When I looked at her her first words were 'oh mummy I thought you were dead'. This is out of character for my husband. He was initially in denial and told me to get off the floor and stop pretending. It was not until my dad phoned him at work the following day and told him I was in hospital getting x-rayed that I think he realised what he did. This is a first offence so the police after arresting him when he got back from work released him with a caution. Do I let him stay in the house now. Part of me still loves him very much and another part of me is completely shocked and upset. I am really hurting inside and want things just to be normal. Statistically it may happen again but I'm not sure it will as he is a good man who needs to manage his anger but yet he knocked me out....