He made everything so miserable that I had to move out, now he is begging me to come back

[JulieW80]

I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years, I have had to leave before when I felt I just couldn't keep going. I felt stronger then. This time I had to leave, when he got so drunk and called me a fat bitch in front of my 12 year old son.
I have been living at my mums for 2 weeks now and where the anger was keeping me so strong at the beginning, now it's fading. He is sending me presents each day, he is promising that it will all be different if I go back and give him a chance to show him how much he has changed. I'm not fooled but I do love him and strangely I do want to make him feel ok.
I'm so stressed. Can't sleep or function properly.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Block his number/email. Return gifts and letters.

Go no contact completely.

Eventually you will stop thinking about him. This will not happen all the time he keeps pushing himself into your thoughts.

sorry that should be return gifts/letters unopened.

Cut him off. Do not give this poison the oxygen of attention. He was abusive to you in front of your child and no amount of gifts will change his personality.
If you allow him to, he will manipulate your feelings constantly until you do whatever to make him feel better. That is not your job. Detach. Block his number and stop communicating with him.

You probably have the compulsion to make him feel ok because you're afraid of him. He has conditioned you into craving basic decency from him at any cost.

It's all empty words and if he was a nasty tosser before he most likely won't change. He just wants his verbal punchbag back.

He wants you back so that he can continue to abuse you, but you know that. Please don't show your DS, who's at a very impressionable age, that this is how men treat the women they profess to love. YY to returning gifts unopened.

If you've left before, and gone back before, it's even more important that you hold fast to your righteous anger now, and keep your door firmly closed - each time you say no but then yield and say yes, only for the cycle to repeat again, you're sending him a message that this is ok, this is just the 'way things are' and you accept it. Is that really what you want? (NB him changing, and meaning what he says about loving you, and stuff, is not going to happen. Not on the menu.)

No, ditch him & run for the hills. If you cave then you are giving him a very clear message that he can say whatever the fuck he wants to you as long as you get a present or two afterwards.

Its the 2nd time you have had to leave, this time return all his bribery presents & as others have said just go no contact.

You want him to feel OK because you are a decent human being with a conscience. He is not feeling the same towards you, he wants you to go back & shut up about it.

Does your mum support you? Also if you can take some steps towards wherever you want be, your own place for example or claiming the tax credits on a single not joint basis, you will start to feel OK being on your own & probably relieved. Its very empowering, getting your indepedence back

Thank you guys. It is really nice to hear people's advice. My mum is supporting me. She doesn't want me to go back but I just feel so tired like I can't keep fighting against it. But I will cos I know that to go back would be a big mistake.

Thank you all again for your support ??

when he got so drunk and called me a fat bitch in front of my 12 year old son.

Look, your mum doesn't EVER say this shit to you. Because she LOVES you. That's why you've gone to live with her. He can't love you. He TELLS you he hates you and your kid.

What you have to fight now is yourself.
Wanting him to feel better is natural, particularly as he was someone you loved. You still love, despite what he did, which is natural. We can't switch off that easily.
However, keep in mind that he doesn't love you and you deserve better.

He is toxic and he can only ruin your life if you go back.

Forget the presents and all the romantic crap. He should have treated you with respect.

Do not go back - why would you want to get back on that awful treadmill with him again?

You and your DS deserve so much more :)

A good boyfriend would never mistreat his partner in such a way that she feels perpetually got at and miserable.

A fortnight away and he is wheedling his way back into your existence.

He is not a good boyfriend and an appalling character to have in your DS's life.

listen to lweji!

He's shown you what his underlying char is like. He even had a chance to change when you left before. He didn't. He won't. This is what he's like.

Youre in love with half of a picture, but it's not the whole man. The whole man's shown you what he's like - and in front of your 12 year old. He must feel dreadful, hearing you spoken to like that. Awful for a kid to hear their mother dissed like that.

Try and think that what you are feeling now is just biology at work and not love.

Biology makes us forget the pain that went before (think of childbirth!).

Biology makes us remember the good times, no matter how few and far between they were, and hope for more of those scraps.

Your job is to override Mother Nature and remember all of the shit things he said and did to you and your DS to get through this bad patch.

Sticking your head in the sand only works for ostriches.

He will just edit out any negative history so he can keep this connection. He banks on the thin hope that you won't hold him accountable for his earlier actions and and he can get away with acting as if nothing troubling has previously happened.

Your desire to "forgive and forget" might be something you learned in childhood, when you tried to overcome parental criticism or disregard for your feelings and needs, so that you could stay attached. As youngsters we are desperate to stay close to our parents. As adults we can choose our partners and if we have enough self-worth we can challenge them when they don't give us back what we give them.

I am afraid once you are back with him, he will simply pick up where he left off before you walked out. In future you'll hesitate to confront him and that bad behaviour to avoid rocking the boat, because at the back of your mind you'll know you caved in this time, and went back for more. He won't change because why should he, what he does works - bully, grind down, wait a couple of weeks and promise you the earth, then reel you back in.

No, no, no, don't give in now.

Write a list of all the horrible stuff he did, and look at it every time you weaken.

Write another list of all the good things about being away from him - not having to wash his clothes, control over the tv remote - it doesn't necessarily have to be the Big Stuff.

Spend some time fantasizing about your future. What kind of life do you want have, and what steps do you need to take to get there?

Every time you find yourself fretting about how he feels, remind yourself that this is not your responsibility. How do you feel? Stop looking after his feelings at the expense of your own.

Look at your ds, and imagine how you'd feel if he grew up with this example of a relationship, if one day you saw his gf crying because he called her a fat bitch, if she walked away from him with their dc because of it.

Listen to music by women about leaving relationships because they're no good (nothing wrong with a bit of Beyonce - The Best Thing You Never Had, Irreplaceable).

Another thing that helped me - I knew deep down that I'd end up having to leave again, that even if he was good for a while, he'd relapse into his real self. The idea of having to do that horribly difficult feat of leaving - it was easier to stay left the first time.

"it was easier to stay left the first time"

Amen to that.

PLEASE, dear OP, buy Lundy Bancroft's book 'Why Does He Do This? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men'. You will see exactly what your horrid ex is doing ... just wants you back so he can start abusing you all over again.

Honestly, you've done the really hard bit - left. Don't give in now and go back. Leave the present on the doorstep, don't take his calls, messages, and LISTEN to your mother. If you go back, after a brief 'honeymoon period', it'll be same old same old ... you and your child do not deserve this. As for 'wanting to make him feel OK' ... WHY? He didn't give a toss about making you, or your child, feel OK? His horrible behaviour is down to him, and NOT your problem.

Stay strong, OP.

Remember how fucking miserable he made you?

Remember the look on your ds face when he saw him drunkenly call you names?

That is all that twat is capable of.

You really want your ds to look back on his life and only remember how fucking awful this bloke made both of your lives?

You'd chuck his childhood under the bridge for an abusive wanker like this?

And know too that 3yrs is early in an abuser's script. He's barely warmed up.

He'll hit you.

He'll probably hit your son too.

Unless you tell him now, once and for all that it's over and you don't want anything to do with him.

Julie: Ignore him.
Bin the presents.
Delete the texts without reading them.
Don't talk to him.
You don't need to have contact with him at at all.

Please don't go back.

Stay Strong.

Remember when you left him the last time? You went back because he'd learned his lesson and would be a better partner from now on - right? And how did that work out?

There's an old saying that goes "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". Because now you know better, you know pretending to change and then not changing is what he does. And then there's that other saying: the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. You're not mad, you're not a fool - don't keep knocking your head against that brick wall!