A bit scared of ex-what to do?

[Mouseyinmyhousey]

NC for this, I'll try not to make it too long.

I was in an abusive relationship when I was 20. It was pretty horrendous looking back, classic abuse physical and mental abuse, he raped me and sexually assaulted me other times. But I thought that I was totally in love with him, and to the outsider he was a nice guy, charming, funny, lots of friends. Whereas I was probably the quiet, shy, moody one. Noone knew what was going on behind closed doors. We were together for about 4 years on and off. I became pregnant after he stopped some of the abuse for a short time stupidly thinking it might makes things better. Of course it didn't, it only made things 10 times worse and it all escalated.

I ended up fleeing to my parents two days before giving birth. I ended up renting a little house on my own. Ex ended up meeting another woman 4 weeks later. Ex saw our son intermittently whilst we carried on with a sexual relationship and he was also still being physically and sexually violent. Horribly ea, think, threatening to take the baby, threatening me with a knife if I did certain things, whacking me round the head when he thought I'd had another man in the house because my dads car was outside. All the time he was seeing this new woman.

He was never really too bothered with the baby, he said the right things, kept threatening me with court if I didn't let him take the baby for the weekend when he was only a couple of month old, or snatch the baby in the street because it was 'his son' totally ridiculous, but he didn't put any real effort in, would rather go out or spend weekends with new woman in reality, and only seemed to bother when he wanted to have sex with me. He never paid any maintenance and denied paternity when I went to CSA. He never bought ds so much as a nappy. He once got me to pay him £100 so he'd sign the permission for me to change ds name. I basically wanted ds to have my surname and he said he'd give consent if I paid him.

It all sort of came to a head when once I had to call the police, I ended up having a visit from the health visitor who warned me that because there'd been DV and I was still letting him in I wasn't safeguarding ds and was risking SS involvement etc. She was lovely and didn't say it like that but I knew what she meant.

So that was that, I took a stand, changed phone numbers, told ex I'd call the police if he came to the house, got myself a car so that he couldn't get me at the bus stop. And apart from a couple of letters I've never heard from ex since. Ds was 6 months old at the time and he's is 5 now.

Things are going quite well for me now. I'm with someone else, I've got a good job, ds is fantastic and doing so well. Of course lifes not always perfect, I still bear the scars of the past, but it's ok and a million times better than it was with ex in my life.

The problem is that I still live with the fear of ex coming back hanging over my head. I still live in the same house and at any time he could turn my world upside down.

I admit and I'm sure people will tell me I shouldn't be doing this, I have a sneaky look at his girlfriends Facebook. To explain, I'm not technically on Facebook, but I have an empty one which I purely use to have a look now and then. I feel as though I need to do this to find out what's going on and if he's coming back. I know that they're getting married soon and appear happy. But recently she was mentioning them having kids and saying that she's not ready yet, and his sister commented that it would be nice to have a niece or nephew that she was actually allowed to see. It cut quite deep, as I assume that she was referring to ds, although there are several siblings. And I thought how dare she, I know that they all believe ex is innocent and I am in the wrong, but they really all have no idea all that he did or what he was really like with me. It made me feel really vulnerable, he knows I live here, he has a large rather aggressive family, his soon to be wife believes every word he says.

The thoughts of him near ds sickens me, I feel as though he has the power to make my life hell and ruin a lovely little boy with his poison.

I suppose what Im getting at is I'm not sure what I should do, of course he hasn't been in touch for years and may never, but should I look into moving house? It occurs to me that he could be watching me at any time, turn up outside at any time. I love living here. I don't know I just wish that I could escape the past forever.

I think you won't escape the past while you're still looking for news of him via his g/f's FB pages and obsessing about what his sister thinks etc. There are a few courses of action open to you. The most obvious being to drop all contact, look forward rather than backward and put all your energies and efforts into your new life until the old one is ancient history. Another course could be to seek counselling for the traumatic relationship you endured.... there is such a thing as PTSD for people who have been through such severe abuse and you might benefits, say, from something like the Freedom Programme. That might help you realise that the power is entirely in your hands now, not his. You can ruin his life far more easily than he can affect yours.

I don't think it's such a bad idea to have an occasional look on Facebook, bu t try to use this as reassurance rather than to arouse your fears.

it's a relief that he has shown so little interest in ds. Given the long delay and the fact that there is an official record of the abuse, even if he suddenly developed an interest and went to court (and after April he won't get legal aid to do so), he'd only start off with supervised at best.

So there are quite a few hurdles in the way of him suddenly getting access. Don't worry about what his family and gf think and certainly don't challenge them.

The fear might always be with you until ds is much older and able to decide for himself, but to some extent you just have to manage the fear and be realistic. You are in a pretty good position. As cogito says, some form of counselling and/or the Freedom Programme might help.

Thanks both, I haven't had any counselling and it's probably something I'd benefit from.

In terms of Facebook, part of me thinks that I shouldn't look, I know that most people would say I shouldn't, but in a way I feel as though it gives me some power back, his gf is quite vocal and I feel as though it enables me to arm myself with facts such as if they were to move closer to me, if anything were to be said about ds, there is also a possibility that the gf and I could cross paths through work and I feel as though I'm arming myself with some knowledge to avoid certain things. Although I can see how looking might be making me worry too and holding me back.

I avoid going to my town centre alone and eating in certain places, I feel convinced that he's probably been past the house to get a peek at ds at sometime or seen us somewhere when we've been out, although this could be paranoia and part of me needing counselling, sometimes I wonder if I should look into moving so that he doesn't know where we live making it less likely he'd ever turn up wanting to see ds.

"I feel as though I'm arming myself with some knowledge to avoid certain things. "

But, if the effect is to make you feel unsafe, then it's not really working. If you don't care about someone then you have no interest in their statements of movements etc. If you're checking him out then you start thinking he's checking you out.... vicious circle.

"The best revenge is to live well" So hold your head high, go to your town centre, eat where you like, be wherever you want to be. Act like the winner rather than cowering in corners.... and you'll be the winner.