Can I send this to my alcoholic ex, or put it on facebook?

[Uppatea]

This time on boxing day last year I found the empty 2 litre bottle of cider under your desk in the study. I had wondered why you kept going in there at regular intervals on Christmas day. You had given up drinking for the second time that year. I thought.

This time on boxing day last year daughter no 1 had chicken pox. At 3 pm you said you were just popping out for a quick walk. It was blowing a gale and pouring down. It got to bedtime you still weren't home. You didn't answer my texts or calls. I did bedtime for 3 year old and sick 5 year old by myself, after looking after them all day.

I finally got a chance to get out and look for you asking my mum to babysit. I went to our local first. I could see you through the window, pint in hand, holding court to a near empty pub. Standing under the clock on the wall.

I went in and asked you quietly - not drawing attention or shouting - to come home as our daughter was ill. Which you already knew of course. I drove up the hill and parked so we could talk. I pointed out that your behaviour was massively unfair on both me and the girls. I had not known where you were and you had been gone for hours leaving me to do everything. As usual.

I was so angry and upset that, for the first time in 7 years, I called you a selfish entitled twat. You claimed to have just lost track of time and you stormed self righteously off down the road straight back to the pub.

You came home at 4 am, falling into furniture, crashing into doors and reeking of booze. You woke me up and started shouting at me. You spat in my face as you yelled at me that I was crazy. You had scared me before but this time I was terrified. There was nothing human left in your eyes. Just reptilian instinct. I told you I was frightened of you and that I was going to phone the police. You grabbed my phone out of my hand, threw it across the room in the darkness and laughed at me. What was I going to say to them you jeered at me. That my husband was in his own house and had drunk a few beers? You shoved me back into the bed and my leg bashed against the chair.

I limped downstairs. My mother was staying in the spare room, our 2 girls were asleep - I hoped. I sat on the sofa for hours. Wondering what had just happened. Scared to go to sleep. In shock I suppose. You had been verbally and emotionally abusive before. This was the first time you had ever laid a hand in me in anger.

The next morning I was on facebook and you had been tagged in someone's photo. You didn't use facebook then. I looked at it. You were sitting in a room full of people, you were naked from the waist up. I couldn't see your face but I knew it was you. You were my husband after all. The photo had been taken in the early hours of that morning. I finally knew where you'd been all night. That felt pretty damn weird, finding out from facebook.

This time last year a line was crossed. I tolerated your appalling behaviour for years. I always had some reason to explain why it wasn't so bad. My father was physically violent towards my mother and us. I always vowed that it wouldn't be in my life again. This time last year it suddenly was.

I hope you're enjoying your first sober Christmas since I met you. We enjoyed ours without you this year. No waiting for daddy to peel himself off the bed at lunchtime before opening the presents. No watching you get steadily more pissed as the day wears on. No watching you enjoy your holiday with beer and bonhomie while I do all the actual work and childcare.

Merry Christmas soon to be ex husband.

[AmberLeaf]

As hard as I imagine it has been, you have given your children the best ever Christmas gift by ensuring they didn't have to endure that kind of Christmas again. nor to grow up thinking that is normal.

Chin up and well done you.