j4j this is so shocking reading it from the other side of the screen, but I remember the bouts of denial I went through with DH even though he had physically abused me.
The first time he raped me, I thought I'd made it up and that it was all my fault and that it was a figment of my imagination. That I was to blame.
When he put his hands around my throat and made jokes about wanting to kill me and then laugh it off as if it was nothing, I thought he didn't mean it and had a very strange sense of humour.
When he told me that when DD was older if she stepped out of line that he would beat her, I thought it was a product of his upbringing.
When he used to verbally abuse me and call me names, I thought it was again, a strange sense of humour.
Then he started saying that he would kidnap DD, take her back to his country and I would never see him or her again, so I hid her passports and birth certs in my parents house, I knew he could get false ones, so I didn't leave him with her for long. But then, he knew that and that meant he knew I was scared.
He would make it impossible for my friends to visit as he was distant, unattached, rude and non-verbal with them. They stopped visiting and I didn't go out on my own as he would make it so unbearable, wither asking where I was and who I was with or the worst time got so drunk he fell asleep on her floor after drinking half a bottle of whisky. I came home to find that.
Then he raped me again and this time I wasn't so sure anymore I knew it would only get worse and the things is, I had a gut feeling that he would continue on with DD if he gave up on me.
I wondered what kind of cliche I was now stereotyping myself with, being a single mum in a council house with an absent father, but you know what? DDs behaviour started to go downhill, she was tantruming at the age of 15 months with violent headbanging so bad she would have bumps down her forehead for weeks.
I made the decision for him to go and even though it was the toughest decision I have ever had to make, it is the best one I have ever done. I ended up having to bar any contact from him and now he cannot come within 100 metres of us. i dread to think what will happen when she goes to school, will he come and find us again? Will he try and take her? How can I carry on trying to do both parents job. I'm not going to lie, it's fucking hard being a single mum, but her tantrums have stopped, her headbanging has stopped, I gt amazing advice from The Nia Project who explained how abuse starts and works and how pervasive and subtle it all is, how the defense mechanisms work and kick in, how the denial creeps up you as they have put it there in the first place.
Who cares why he hit you? he did it and that is unforgiveable...make the change of whatever fuckingcycle he is reliving and make sure your kids aren't visually/physically/emotionally/mentally affected by wiatching thier mum being treated worse than a piece of shit on a shoe.
You can do this.
You are strong enough.
You have more powers than you can possibly imagine.