first time domestic violence advice wanted

[J4J]

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....

Having just read your post and not any of the others, I felt I needed to post again re: him coming to the house for a visit. I can only go on what happened to me to relate to this, but, When XDP came to the house it was never to see DD, it was to try and talk to me about getting back together, I felt awful to try and tell him to leave the house when I felt that he had taken his time and seen DD.

I always had someone else in the house with me and I never did hmoe visits alone, I felt that the manipulation would be too great and that I wouldn't be strong enough to tell him to leave. In the end I knew I was right, I couldn't and it ended up being my friends who told him to leave, not me.

Meet him in your home if you feel that is what you wish, but make sure there is someone else there with you so that they can reinforce your wishes should it be necessary.

At the moment you have occupation of the house, once you let him over the threshold, almost like a vampire :) ,you have gained him access to the house and it might be more difficult to get him out than you may think, you may even have to take him down the court route and try and get an occupancy order.

Whatever you choose, please keep safe and I'm thinking of you

When I lived in a refuge I went to the Freedom Programme which gave me a lot of insight about why I found it so hard to separate from someone who was a real danger to me.

I think there are a few cases of previously loving non violent men having a sudden change of character due to a brain tumour so it is not ridiculous to want to rule out a serious medical condition.

If a stranger had come up to you in a supermarket and punched you unconscious in front of your children no one would be surprised if you were traumatised, confused and upset. If you can please try to treat yourself kindly and accept help from your family who love you even though, from my experience, that will probably not be easy. xxx

The children did want to see H and so he came today. waterlego stayed with me and he came in the house and got some things and we went for a walk and then he came back had a coffee and left. The first thing he said to me was about trip away in half term. He informed me I'd be getting a cab and that he would pay for the way there and his mum would pay for the return trip. I don't think he must have looked into this as a cab would cost a bomb. I straight away said that I'd already made plans on how i was going to get there which involve my friend driving the family car (I can't drive as have too bad eyesight). He really objected to this and said that he was concerned about no claims bonus. He told me to 'calm down' and we could discuss it later as now he's here to see the kids. I felt annoyed by this as he was the one that brought it up in the first place. He still seems angry about this whole thing. It hurts. He is going to see a consultant psychiatrist on Harley st tomorrow. Can somebody who is controlling in their behaviour change? What is the 'success rate' if there is such a thing? I really want my old H back - feeling safe in his arms and a cosy family unit. This hurts so much. SS came Thursday to see the older two children. Visit went well and Social worker at the end of the visit said she would be closing the case as the chldren seemed happy enough and well looked after.

Why do you want your old h back? He's always been abusive you know, don't you realise this yet?

He still is controlling and angry it would seem.

Telling you to "calm down" after responding to being TOLD what you WILL do next week is not the mindset of a man wanting to change.

EVEN IF he says he'll go to Harley Street (really? will he? surely they're booked up months and months in advance if they're that fantastic...?)

I truly do not believe you should be going on this trip. You will be totally at his mercy, with the children, far from home and any immediate support network.

You are exceptionally vulnerable at the moment; putting yourself at further risk is not safe. Simple as that. He will use that time away to weedle his way further back in to your mind, in to your life. It'll work too, because you're so desperate for the "old" H back.

The totally awful realisation you still need to come to is that the "old" H was a massive mask. A trick. A lure. Who he is now is who he genuinely is. He HAD to be "nice, warm, safe" for you to stay in a relationship with him, to depend on him, to "fall in love" with him.... he then started letting the mask slip, but not enough for you to explicitly notice until the day he knew you were so ground down that you'd struggle to leave. Then he knocked you unconscious.

He was wrong though. You've left.... that's the one thing that's now totally freaked him out and he's trying EVERYthing he knows and more, to get you back.

Tread extremely carefully. My very strong advice is to stay away; have contact in a Centre and go to the Freedom Programme until you can see what has been happening. That may take one or two runs of the FP, by the way, seeing as it's so hard to be honest with ourselves when we wake up to what's been happening.

PLEASE be very, very careful and be honest with yourself. If you go away in half term and he does something, how will you get help and get safe?

Even if he doesn't do anything, he'll be in the "honeymoon period" section of the Power Wheel to lure you back in. They're all the same. Abusers, that is - they're textbook.

Well he isn't exactly making an effort to behave better towards you is he?

Bringing up a subject, telling you what is happening, completely ignoring your opinion and then telling you to calm down he is here to see the children not discuss this...

Accept this and you are letting him know that there is no need to change his behaviour so he won't.

ss closing the case all ready thats quick took my dd nearly a year

J, please take izzys advice above, just do it, work out the details later.

continue to go to the freedom project.

your husband wants to dictate exactly how you will do things, even after all this, even from afar. I know your afraid, bewildered, sad, grieving for the marriage you thought you had, but it was a facade, it wasnt right, it wasnt normal, it just wasnt. You have been slowly conditioned to accept your lot and be happy with it, but your husband is abusive, as probably is his ice maiden mother.

i realise you are probably quite desperate to regain that sense of normality that you thought you had - but you have to use this as the wake up call - in my experience, men like this do not change with a visit to the gp. im sorry, but they dont.

any changes would likely be short lived, and your DH cannot even manage a short lived change by the sound of it. How dare he dictate the terms of your holiday - really??? do you think he is in a position to do this? no. and yet he is still trying to control, tell you what will and will not happen.

are you sure you are not looking back at your relationship through rose tinted glasses?

i would not commit to anything that he asks/tells you to do. This is your opportunity to use this space you have wisely. Dont mess it up.

I thought he'd agreed to you having the car for the holiday? He is keeping you off balance, by saying one thing - but imposing conditions - and then, out of the blue, changing it.

Why has he decided you have to go by taxi? He has changed the whole thing without consulting you, without notice. You have to put yourself far enough out of his reach that he can't do this sort of thing.

" He still seems angry about this whole thing. It hurts."

This sentence sounds like it's coming from someone who's betrayed their DH and is in the wrong and doesn't know what to do about it.

There are a few things here that need highlighting:

• you are so vulnerable to your H still, and that's obvious every time you have contact with him (based on your posts afterwards), and he is using this to unbalance you (like Jux said)
• you talk about whether someone can change their behaviour after seeing a psychiatrist, and what the success rate is, and in the same sentence as you are telling us how angry he is with you? He's not even trying J4J - not at all. He genuinely thinks that he doesn't need to because you'll stop "all this silly nonsense" and he can still run your life and make your decisions for you.

I agree with the posters who have suggested putting off the holiday - it doesn't seem sensible in light of what is happening. I strongly suspect your H will use the opportunity to place himself back in the home, and then how will you get him out?

The H isn't going on the holiday- J and the children are going without him (hence his concern about the car- he isn 't happy about J's friend driving it)

He has complained about the fact that he booked holiday from work for the trip and 'what am I supposed to do now?' I think J told him it wasn't her problem.

So you have ss involved and your husband knocked you out in front of your children it got to the point your 4 year old was distressed and thought you were dead and you want him anywhere near the family home because?...........

I really feel for you an your children who must me hurting from what they have seen but i wouldnt trust him if i was you

I feel that J is under pressure from various people to 'move on'. It has been suggested that J is letting it drag on and 'prolonging the agony' for everyone. Certain people are urging J to make decisions about the future. I feel they are totally missing the point and being completely unreasonable. Actually, it's almost a sort of collective gas lighting...the gist being that J needs to calm down, that she's overreacting.

One visit to a psychiatrist is not going to change anything.

Unfortunately, your H needs to unlearn and relearn everything he believes in. While his mother, and anyone else from his world, is still in his life, that won't happen, because they are part of the dysfunctional system that supports his fundamental (incorrect) view of the world.

It is for this reason, that the men who have any chance of really "getting it" are the ones who lose EVERYTHING!. Family, friends, work, the lot, as a result of their disgusting beliefs and behaviours.

And watching someone you love, lose everything is horrible, just horrible, and very, very frightening.

But that is what has to happen. He needs to lose you and the children, and his mother and everyone and everything he currently has, before the penny might drop that something about HIM has to change.

It's harsh, but makes sense.

And in the meantime, J has a lot of healing to do, and children to care for. Day at a time.

There is much research to back that up BTW, I'm not just making it up!

Check out research by Adam Jukes, and the Respect programmes etc.

SS want to know if Dc are fine now at this moment -clearly with h out of the home they are fine. so from this point of view they dont need to take any more action right now. and can "close" the case. (but it will be on record).

the isues would come if h is let back in the home and there is another incident.

waterlego do you mean that the h and his family and her parents are urging her to move on and forget? it is nice idea for them - but really she should not forget. for Dc sake.

and the fact he is "angry" about it is weird - he beat her up but he is angry over her reaction? hello???

Cestlavielife exactly what i was saying ss dont have concerns as he isnt there but im betting they wouldnt close the case if he came home. Situations like this put children on the at risk register. Ive had experiences with ss through family and friends but not for my own children

waterlego I'm also really concerned about other people pushing J into bad decisions for her at the moment.

It's remarkable, isn't it, that people will do almost anything to maintain the status quo and to "get back to normal".

What J needs to realise that these kind of influences don't have her best interests at heart - there is NO WAY that anyone who was more interest in J's wellbeing than in outward appearances would be telling her that she's overreacting and needs to move on.

This is actually really quite worrying - please, waterlego if you can maintain some objective view here with J, you will be helping her so much. She is so very, very vulnerable at the moment, and the LAST thing she needs is other people trying to normalise (a) her being punched unconscious in front of her children, (b) her children thinking she was dead, (c) her children being manhandled till their clothes torn, and (d) an H who is enrolling family to push his agenda whilst remaning "angry" with the wife he hit.

waterloego sorry, I should've clarified - I know that J's H isn't going on the holiday, but I AM worried that whilst she is away that he will use the opportunity to access the home when she's not there, and once he's back, I'm really not certain how she would get him out when she got back.

Thank you Noway, I see what you mean about the H being able to access the house while J is away, hadn't thought of that.

Thank you also for sharing your concerns re other people putting pressure on J. I agree that the situation should not be normalised or minimised in any way. I am doing my utmost to support J and that includes helping her to feel strong enough to reject others' advice if that 'advice' is of the pressurising kind.

I really can't understand how anyone could expect J to make a decision at this point as to whether the H can come home or whether she starts divorce proceedings. It's been two weeks! He hasn't even got his therapy properly under way. How is J supposed to know whether his treatment is going to be successful at this early stage?

It was suggested to J that her prolonging the situation is unfair on the children. That can't be true either. How can it be better for the children to allow him into the home? A man who they are now unsure of; who did something so terrible to their mum in front of them. I firmly believe she is doing exactly what's right for the children and have told her so.

Regarding getting in the house...
I assume the locks have been changed.
If not, it should be done today.

One time, the last time. I am a firm believer in working it out, but thats shockingly bad.

waterlego I'm so glad J has your support. And of course you're right - this is going to be a long process if J's H is really going to change, and if he genuinely wanted to and genuinely felt remorse, he would walk through fire to make it up to her. Months of therapy would be the least he could do. And of course he shouldn't be in the home with the children he terrified before there's any chance of therapy having time to work.

I am, however, more certain than I am of the sun rising in the East tomorrow that J's H has absolutely no intention of doing what is required to change, and more importantly has absolutely no desire to change who he is.

He's not even PRETENDING to care and change (which some arch manipulators often do to suck their spouses back in) - that speaks volumes.

I know what you're saying about it being far too soon for J to make any decisions, but his current behaviour (to me) is a strong indicator that this marriage isn't salvageable.

A good analogy would be a man who cheated - so often we see relationship threads on here when the woman is desperate to make her marriage work, and is asking for advice on how to do this, when her H has already said he doesn't love her, is in love OW, wants to move out, etc, etc. The advice ALWAYS is that nothing can move forward without the guilty party grovelling for forgiveness, showing extreme remorse, and promising to take every action necessary (Relate, moving out until trust rebuilt).

Considering that J's H is only interested in re-entering this marriage on his terms, and is already displaying anger and is rallying around support for his case shows his total and utter disregard for J and the hurt and damage he's caused her and her children.

waterlego

Have the locks been changed? While J is on vacation, perhaps you or another friend sympathetic to J could house sit so she doesn't come home to her husband in the house.