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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Any fluent Portuguese speakers? I am desperate for help.

20 replies

mosp · 10/08/2014 19:23

I already have a thread in chat but I thought if I also post here maybe some different people might see.

I need to write a sensitive letter to someone who harmed me 17 years ago. The trouble is that I no longer feel confident in his language.

Can any kind person here help me?

OP posts:

BigArea · 18/08/2014 19:13

My lovely, don't do it. Just found your other thread and will read now

Lweji · 18/08/2014 19:24

You can pm me for help, but I don't think it's a good idea either.

wyrdyBird · 18/08/2014 19:31

Please, don't write the letter. It will hurt you more.
Or write the letter and don't send it, but burn or shred it instead. Perhaps that might help you to start with.
I wish you could talk to an expert counsellor mosp.

Original poster

mosp · 18/08/2014 19:36

Thank you. I have had counselling. It had to end because she moved away. I am still broken. The problem is that I am unmendable.
Lweji. I may pm you. Thank you. I have written what I want to say in English.

OP posts:

wyrdyBird · 18/08/2014 19:54

Even if you feel distress, or have continuing problems, that doesn't mean you cannot ever heal, or go on to feel improvement.

I'm linking to Samaritans in case it might help. You are in control: they won't make you talk about anything you don't want to.
www.samaritans.org

myfriendflickadee · 18/08/2014 20:04

I've posted on your other thread, mosp. I'm sorry, I was a bit tough love...

Please don't say you are unmendable. You're not.

Try to remember what I said about if you're going through hell, keep on going... But if you ask for directions, you'll get out a lot quicker. Please ask someone better qualified than us for help.

Hugs.

Hissy · 18/08/2014 21:34

I'm fluent too.

But writing the letter is for YOU and you only. Sending it won't change anything.

Lweji · 18/08/2014 21:37

I think that you are wishing for yourself the impossible, which is for this thing to disappear.
You can't really ever forget it. IMO the best you can do is to embrace what happened, which is part of the person you are now.
If the counselling you went through didn't really work, you can get another therapist and/or use a different form of therapy that may be better for you.

Having read the other thread, I'd say it's unlikely that sending the letter to this man will change him or lead to him apologising.
But I'll be happy to help you write it.

Original poster

mosp · 18/08/2014 22:03

Thank you both.

I need to psyche myself up to doing this.

I used to be pretty fluent but after the disaster made me leave Portugal early, I finished my degree and then I avoided ever speaking it again. I feel sad I lost it. Yet another thing he wrecked for me :(

Lweje and Hissy - which Portuguese speaking country are you most familiar with? He is caboverdian.

OP posts:

Hissy · 18/08/2014 22:26

He'll be more used to European portuguese, mine is Brazilian, but as it's colonial, it's possibly closer to his.

In any case, written down, it's pretty much the same. I'm in Portugal atm, so have more access to diffences.

As I said on your other thread, you owe him nothing. I've given you a paragraph to tell him to leave you alone, a threat that if he doesn't you'll post exactly what he did to you in plain and clear portuguese on his DW FB page.

He's a coward. He'll run for the hills. He has no power, he did what he did through inferiority not strength.

Nerf · 18/08/2014 22:38

This is such a bad idea I don't know how to begin. I've read your threads. I'm trying to put this kindly and helpfully and I will share with you the fact that if a certain ex came up in the news I would find the force involved and talk to them. So I am not unsympathetic.
This man is not able to give you the peace and healing you need. Either think about a prosecution or cut all means of contact and go back into therapy as a terrible thing from the past. Anything he does wrong now will hurt you even more. You have children, a family. Don't give him now as well.

Lweji · 18/08/2014 22:48

I'm Portuguese in Portugal.

I don't think you need to tell him to leave you alone, as you're the one who made contact first, as I understood it, and you can block him on facebook.

If you do want to say something to him, I'd just tell him that what he did was very wrong, regardless of what his cultural beliefs were, and that he should have gone to jail for it. That you hope that his daughters never have to go through anything similar and that he has learnt to treat women with more respect.
I wouldn't mention how much he hurt you and how much it has affected your life.

Unfortunately in Portugal, it's not possible to prosecute crimes when more than 15 years have passed, or I'd urge you to report him.

Original poster

mosp · 18/08/2014 22:54

I've lost my chance to prosecute? :(
Something else in me just died.
Does it make any difference that he's currently living in NY?

OP posts:

Lweji · 18/08/2014 23:17

I don't know if a crime that happened in another country and by a non-US national could be prosecuted in the US.
Sadly some criminals have escaped justice in Portugal because crimes they were being judged went over the time limit. The maximum is 15 years and that's for the most serious crimes (according to googled information).

But if he lives in the US, presumably he understands English well? (still fine to translate if you need it, though)

Original poster

mosp · 18/08/2014 23:28

He only just moved there, for 5 years. His English is crap. The little communication we had was him mostly typing in P and me in E. Then sometimes for no apparent reason he would use google translate, which then made it undecipherable to me!

OP posts:

Lweji · 18/08/2014 23:30

Is he legal in the US?

Original poster

mosp · 18/08/2014 23:31

No idea. Probably. He is a Uni lecturer and she is a diplomat. He said they are with 'family'. No idea what family that would be though. He is CV through and through.

OP posts:

Finney2 · 18/08/2014 23:34

Mosp my love, I have read your threads over the years. Contacting him is not going to heal any wounds, it's only going to reopen them.

The most constructive thing you can do s go and see your GP or contact your CPN if you're already under their care. I'm worried about you Mosp. You seem so sad and angry. Please take care of yourself xx

Lweji · 19/08/2014 00:03

Indeed, knowing that you can't prosecute now, could help you get closure. You can put that behind you and stop wondering whether to accuse him or not.
He was toxic for you and still is if you allow him.

What type of therapy did you go through? Traditional, Freudian type psychotherapy, sorts may not actually enable to get closure or move on.

lunatuna · 19/08/2014 00:09

Not sure if anything I say is helpful or not so feel free to ignore...

I used to feel something like this. Wanted the man to see what he had done to me. How much he had hurt me. That he nearly crushed me. I saw him carrying on with his life like nothing had happened, like he hadn't done anything wrong. I wanted an apology, to tell his wife, to make him feel the pain I had.

But... I got through it. I spoke to a counsellor about what had happened and that helped a bit. What helped most was being able to see that he did what he did, he knows deep down and will always carry it. I don't have to carry it anymore. It wasn't anything I did. I still remember, but it doesn't have the power it used to.

Maybe this is a stage you go through before you get out the other side and are free to live your life?

I do know that I would deeply regret having told his wife. Surely he has either learnt from you and matured and changed, or she knows what he is like anyway?

It probably doesn't help when you are feeling so angry and want some justice. I do think that he will have to carry the knowledge of what he did to you forever, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

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