What is this situation, and how do i practically and emotionally get out of it? (long, possibly triggering)

[notsurehowigottothispoint]

Sorry, this is extremely long and i'm so worried about posting. It has been therapeutic to put it down in words though, and thank you so much if you get to the end.

I am a very long time lurker and occasional poster but have NC for this post. There is so much to say.. I guess I will start with what happened this weekend just gone and fill in from there to give a more detailed picture of the situation I have found myself in. This has been going on, on and off, for four, nearly five years.

On Friday I went away with ‘him’, for 2 nights at a b&b to “spend some time together”. We’re not ‘together’ and haven’t been for years as it has been really on and off, he is nice for a bit then does something awful and I am hurt and back away then he swears he’s changed…god it’s such a cliché.

Anyway, we went for a pub meal, I had one glass of wine, we went back to the hotel and I changed into pyjamas and got into bed. I kissed him, said I had enjoyed spending time with him and that I was shattered, turned over and went to sleep, drowsy with it being late- when I am tired its almost like a physical shutdown, I just crash out and can be asleep within a minute of my head hitting the pillow.

I was aware of him sort of trying it on as I drifted off, and said no, leave me alone, he stopped and I was able to get to sleep. Woke up I don’t know how long afterwards with a sharp pain as he was pushing his penis into me. I exclaimed ow! , said stop!, and he muttered sorry, I put my hand over myself ( my vagina) and must have fallen back into sleep.

Woken again by him pulling my shorts down and trying to touch and push his fingers into my vagina and bum (I’m sorry for TMI but don’t know how else to explain it). I pushed his hands off and said stop it, but he kept going back, wouldn’t stop, I was so tired. I crawled out of bed onto the floor to get away from him and he was like, look, I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone, get back into bed. This happened once more and he got angry and said fine I’ll fucking sleep on the floor.

Around 4am I woke up and my bits were on fire, I had to get up and hold a cold wet towel on them in the bathroom. He moaned that I was waking him up (he was on the floor with spare blankets).

The next morning I was still sore and he was acting all nice as pie talking about what we were going to do that day. I was in the shower and sort of had a bit of a panic, as I was sexually abused and raped by older boys when I was 13 and as I got older and in my mind I was in the shower trying to soothe my sore bits and feeling about 13.
He was in the room between the bathroom and the door to get out and I felt a bit panicky.
No one knows this, but he knows something happened like that in my past. I told him I was having a bit of a panic and he was like “Why??”

I came out of the shower and told him I wasn’t happy about how he’d acted last night. I explained how sore I was. He said “I’ve already said I’m sorry, what more do you want me to do?”. I said that he has said sorry so many times before that it has lost meaning for me. I am sick of him always thinking he can take what he wants from me. He went completely mental saying oh are you calling me a rapist then?? I said no, but it wasn’t exactly consent if I was asleep is it? He said “ that’s it, here we go I’m such a bastard” etc etc. I asked him to take me home and he got really angry and drove dangerously and aggressively.
I have been in this situation so many times I have lost count. It feels normal. Since then I’ve had the usual messages ranging from I’m sorry, I’ll change, to “we’re obviously sexually incompatible” and “you just can’t handle my desire”.

History part: (I will try and be as concise as possible, as I say this has been going on for years and a lot has happened)

*10 months after I broke up with DS(now 6)’ dad, I was asked out for a drink by ‘him’. Had known of him and met him a few times over previous 5 yrs as had mutual friends. Friends actively encouraged me to meet with him. Went out and looking back he tried it on first night we met but I rebuffed him as I just personally can’t do sexual things with people I don’t know and care for.

*We started dating and 4 months in at his Bday drinks he got really drunk and this girl he knows was all over him, touching his chest, he ignored me all night despite me trying to join conversation, I went out to beer garden for less than 15 mins while a friend smoked and he went mental and got angry cause I’d apparently “fucked off”. I thought I’d better take him home, we stopped for food and this girl popped up and they were literally touching each others faces for about 40 mins while I stood there with a cold pizza and only stopped when I got in a taxi to leave.
Next day all apologies and swore he’d not have contact with her – FF to him leaving his fb message open on my laptop where he was asking her when she was next free for a drink. Lied to my face, then sorry. (Sounds so teenage, no?)

*The whole time he has accused me of sleeping with my son’s dad because I put myself out to facilitate contact and promote his relationship with DS.

*Accuses me of sleeping with male friend I’ve known since I was 17.

*When I bumped into old housemate I haven’t seen for a decade he threw a tantrum cause I was ‘ignoring him and taking the piss’, was rude to said friend and stormed off. When we got home he ranted for FOUR HOURS about how I was taking the piss and I don’t care about him, when I asked him to stop shouting at me he screamed “ This isn’t shouting THIS IS FUUUUUCKING SHOUUUUUTINGGGGG!!!!” Poor kids next door. Then refused to let me leave his house or sleep in a different room to me and slept practically ‘guarding’ me all night on the floor next to the sofa I slept on cause I wouldn’t go to bed with him. Oh and he threw sofa cushions around with such force they snapped his solid wood blinds. Again next day he’s “sorry” and he’ll change.

*Threw strops about me wanting to go to college to get into uni and why won’t I move in and have kids with him. Accused me of sleeping with every male on said college course.

*When I actually got confidence from going to college and met new friends and broke up with him (very carefully) he waged a campaign against me with 100’s of abusive texts a day, emails, letters, and actually standing outside my window and looking into my basement flat where he saw a male friend I was actually telling how scared I was he would do something awful and going completely mental that I’d been “fucking”(ugh) this guy all along and I’m a lying bitch etc etc. I hadn’t, of course.

*Around this time he purposefully got in contact with a girl I had been very close friends with but she had dumped me with no explanation while my son (then 2) was seriously ill in hospital at xmas, and repeatedly slept with her then told me all about it. Why it had to be her I still don’t understand as it was heartbreaking. He told me how they sat there and said I didn’t deserve him.

*Every time I was so hurt I felt I couldn’t take any more and broke up with him, he was so relentless and alternately vicious and horrible about me or telling me what a princess I am, banging on my door, phonecalls etc I am ashamed to say it was just easier to see him.

*Over all these years I have done things like: Had sex with him to get him to stop hurting and pawing/poking/prodding at me. Cried as he had sex with me. Given him hand relief to get him to leave me alone.

*Since I have completed college at distinction, gained a place at an excellent uni and moved cities on my own with DS, he has said things like “I bet you tell everyone at Uni you’re a poor old single mum an no one loves you so that they feel sorry for you”. I’m alternately a bitch, a “fucking little pikey cunt”(?!) and a lovely woman, a princess.

I would like to point out that DS has actually only witnessed one incident where there was low level arguing out of the room and he then called me a bitch in front of him which was unacceptable. The rest has been messages, emails, phonecalls, and when DS has not been there. Everyone thinks he is a good looking charming man. The above are just a few examples of a lot of things that have happened.

Outwardly, I must seem capable, I am bringing up a son, I’m full time at uni on a professional course, I am getting good marks, excellent feedback on placement. Part of me is just indifferent about this whole thing, that I might as well accept I’ll never be free of him, the harassment, the declarations of love, I might as well just have his kids and do what he wants. Why do I go back? I just can’t answer that. Maybe part of me wants to be loved. I feel dismayed that this has taken five years of my life, but part of me feels I probably deserve it.

Reading this back I sound like a spineless victim and I’m ashamed at the reality of it. Please can you be honest with me about what this situation is, and how best, practically and emotionally, to get out of it? I am in another cycle of apologies and promises of change from him at the moment, he is not listening to what I am saying.

Thank you so much for reading.

It's hard to comprehend that, when I really listen to myself.
That belief just isn't there at the moment, I can't find it.
Thank you for replying.

Do you mean why do you still want to message him? Because you want to be loved. Just like we all do. Because you haven't been loved nearly enough. Because you've been so emotionally deprived that even a cockroach like him seemed to give you something good.

Hold on to knowing you won't do it even though you want to. It's a bit like giving up any addiction - you'll still crave it even though you know it's totally self destructive, so you live with the cravings but you just don't do it. And the longer you go without doing it, the less you get the cravings. And also, the greater the benefits you get from not doing it, from doing what's good for you instead.

Re the police - even if you're not ready to press charges at this point, I think they can still do something about the current harassment. That is a separate issue in itself, apart from the rape and the sexual assaults. Can you speak to the same guy you spoke to before and ask him about this? I think that in the first instance they would send someone round to have a word with him. Just letting him know you've involved the police could well be enough to get him to back off, on this level. And you still have your options open re the other issue.

Your DS does indeed sound like a peach! Spoken as the proud owner of a peach of a DS myself and a similar age to yours too. Yes, a real credit to you.

X-post, a more general why, I see... Yes, you were groomed to believe you deserved this shit. If you can't believe in yourself yet, try and focus on what we're all saying and seeing in you. It must be for a reason. Night lovey x

The thing to hang on to right now is this: a decent man would not keep on and on pestering you when you have told him not to contact you and you are ignoring his messages. This is a clear indicator that he is a self-obsessed abusive prick.
And it is fine to inform the police he is harassing you, they will go round and inform him he must stop attempting to contact you or he will be arrested.

A lot of individuals, over a really long period of time, doing the same horrible things to me, they can't all be wrong can they? It must be me.

NO! Nonononono

The earlier ones taught you how to behave as if you deserved this, the later ones learned how to recognize people who behaved that way. Not your fault, not even the real you, just the role you were taught to play.

But you know better now! You are on the other side! Every one of them was lying to you! You have the truth now. It isnt you.

You are doing so well. You should be immensely proud of yourself. Your little boy sounds lovely and he's very lucky to have such a great Mum.

It isn't you. It really isn't. You've been conditioned. The longer you are away from this evil man the more self esteem you will gain. You will start to get an understanding of who you are as a person.Not what other people tell you you are.

It is still a sick truism that women are all too often "pleasers" . I don't understand the social/cognitive mechanics of how we get programmed to endlessly forgive, heal, fix, accept, endure, embrace and all that jazz. Maybe it's genetic too. I could tie myself in knots for a lifetime or two trying to figure out the "how" and that's not even getting to the exploiters' side of it. Predators hunt for decent souls like you.

What matters is that you get rid of them from your life

You are a lovely woman, notsure and you have been horribly unlucky that your Light has been found by the nutters of the world.

None of this is your fault

Please don't give in to that desire to reply to him. Remember that he's done and said all this many, many times before. So he thinks if he just keeps the pressure up, you will cave. You'd probably then have a lovely reunion for a few days and then he'd be back to his normal bastard self.

You don't need to tell him anything else. You've actually told him more than once not to contact you because not replying to anything he sends you is constantly reinforcing your message to him to leave you alone.

So continue to ignore. He doesn't want to come back because he loves you, but because he loves controlling you. And yes, we all want love - which can make us pick the wrong people often. I always pick people who have no interest in me at all (which reflects my childhood). It's a dead end picking people who don't really love you, or say they do but then treat you badly.

Keep coming back here, keep telling us what is going on. He will stop, eventually.

Thank you all so much. I am hanging on in there.
Mixed morning so far, took DS to new breakfast club - he seemed ok. What I really wanted to do was go 'Nope, you're coming back home with me, we're going to get into bed with hot chocolates and watch our geeky geology series and cuddle'. But off he went, and so did I.
I've got to go into uni later, absolutely dreading it.
Kind of angry this morning, i'm so pissed off about that woman yesterday, its got right up my nose - part of me wants to tell her how sour, critical, racist, sexist, downright fucking miserable she is!!
I am on, so that's probably why I've got a touch of the rage.
More messages this morning which have pissed me off from him. After 4.5 yrs he needs closure apparently. For both of us and his mental state.
WHAT?
He's not listening, he's never listened, and where was his concern for MY mental state when I was on the floor sobbing my heart out, begging him just to end me rather than keep on and on with the ranting, the shouting the anger, the aggression, the accusations, the complete assassination of everything about me.

I remember that feeling, the complete loss of any hope, of complete desolation, that he will never stop, that he would eat me up from the inside out like swallowing acid. Of actually wanting him to do it. Crawling to the sink to get his razor and sobbing that I would do it for him because to slowly kill me with emotional pain would be far worse than just slitting my wrists right there.
I know I wasn't rational at that point, but he pushed me so far that I was desperate. All I am doing to his mental state right now is not replying to a text message. I'm not deliberately taking his life away, destroying him.

DS kept me from doing anything stupid like escaping him via suicide. he was at his dads that night I was at 'his' and I begged him. But at times he was the only reason for staying alive.

I told the counsellor lady how i felt, when we both went. How if it weren't for my son i felt killing myself was the only way to escape from 'him'. She said that's pretty extreme, did i seriously feel that way? I said yes, definitely.
She looked at him, i looked at him and he smiled.

I remember that feeling, the complete loss of any hope, of complete desolation, that he will never stop, that he would eat me up from the inside out like swallowing acid.

That sounds awful, and desolate and appalling. In a way it's good that it's in your mind to stop you succumbing to his pleading.

"Closure" is a nonsense. I blame American tv shows. Nobody really gets closure - you just get dumped and deal with it. If he doesn't bloody know why you've dumped him, I'd be very surprised.

God, that last line is chilling. He smiled because you felt that killing yourself was the only way out? Chilling, cold, horrible.

Can you ring your provider and get them to block the number at least?

Annarose i think i can, but there are a few numbers he's texting me from, i'm not sure that would stop him getting through.

Lois she kept asking him, on occasion, throughout the session, why he kept smiling, he said "because i can see how i'm being painted".

The thing is everything that i said to her, and everything i have said on here is 100% true.
I end up thinking am i going a little bit mad? That maybe it wasn't like that, or i haven't remembered it right or i'm over reacting or i'm just "over emotional" as my mum used to say.

I don't think you are remotely mad. I think it was exactly like that. This man is utterly chilling and takes pleasure in your extreme despair.

You've had some great messages and advice here, momagain absolutely right about conditioning and how it opens you up to people similarly taking advantage. You lose your way and can't see that you have a choice about how you allow people to treat you.

It's not a coincidence that people who end up in abusive relationships often have something similar in their family background that preceded it. It is nothing to do with them as people, everything to do with what they've been taught to expect from relationships.

Keep on keeping on, notsure. Read back your description of your lovely son and what he's learned about relationships from you - kindness, consideration, love, enjoying each other's company, knowing when to spot a draining influence and being assertive. You know this stuff. The trick is for you to now be as good to yourself as you have been to him.

You've remembered right. You're not going mad. It's not you

Thank you SootGremlin and Lois .
I am all over the place at the moment, i don't know where to start.
I also, despite really thinking about it, can't see where to start being 'good to myself'. I just don't know how to do it! That sounds silly, doesn't it!?

Okay, I like a good list, so far i have got :

1. Follow up why WA didn't phone back on Friday. Breathe and phonecall. (worried about wasting their time)
2. Keep on not replying to him. 6 days and counting.
3. Deep breaths and walk through the door into uni lecture this afternoon. Try not to panic or cry! Try to think of something to say if anyone speaks to me ( i hope they don't).

Just checking in, to see how you are doing. You are doing so amazingly well! He is only sorry that his control over you is slipping - you deserve so much better than what you have been on the receiving end of. Ignore, ignore, ignore. He has conditioned you over the years and just by breaking free you are proving how much better you are than him

I know its been said already, but at this stage I would change your number and set up new email addresses. Block him from your social media & even set up a new page that cannot be found via a search. I know that seems as though I am saying that you have to change when he should just respect your decision, but it would give you some head space?

can't see where to start being 'good to myself'

Not silly at all. If you didn't have someone be good to you at a young age, it's a difficult concept to internalise.

I find it really hard to be good to myself, so I try and imagine I am doing it for my five year old self.

No you're not silly at all, it's easy for me to bandy about phrases like be good to yourself, but of course it's not as easy to see how to actually do it!

I suppose it's a case of realising that you deserve the good stuff too, and then it's a long process of trying to change your response to things that happen to you. Changing from "it's my fault, I deserve this" to "it's their problem, I deserve better". I think you are already doing it by saying to this guy you don't need him in your life and you're not going to keep taking the emotional battering that he's singled you out for.

I don't know if you're interested in this type of thing but I found this TED talk about assertiveness and body language interesting. It's not all applicable but it addresses how some people, especially women, physically shrink themselves and how this is in turn affects their view of themselves and how to reverse this. The bit at the end where she says instead of fake it till you make it, fake it until you become it and you no longer can see when the change actually happened is quite inspiring.

lois has a good idea! more succinct than me

Thank you Queen he is blocked from social media ( i rarely use it anyway) and the numbers are blocked on my handset that he has been messaging from.

Lois that's a really good way of doing it. I will try to keep that in my mind.

This may also sound strange, but the piece of paper i wrote down the script for speaking to the police and the details they gave me re womens aid, and consequent WA info has gone missing. Negative creep was in here ( the lounge) yesterday on her own for a while..It was under a pile of papers and my diary hidden from DS.
I have looked everywhere, even gone through the recycling - it's gone.
Completely gone.

It had the direct line for the DV officer i spoke to, loads of info and the number and details from WA...shit it's gone!

Just saw this thread. It definitely is not you. This man sounds similar to my ex, and it is not you it is him. They are cruel and nasty.
Well done for starting your thread!

Just popping in to see how you are today Notsure.
The bit below describing when you went for counselling... You wouldn't have known at the time but I've seen it recommended on here before Not to go to counselling with an abusive partner ( sorry can't remember the ins and outs, am recovering from an op and brain won't engage!)
Someone wiser and more articulate will be able to explain this to you better than I, but my point is, just to confirm to you, this is not your fault and you are not responsible.

Keep being strong. Make those calls. Practice what you're going to say and maybe write some notes too.
As for uni, remember the end goal. Once you're qualified just think what opportunities will be open to you and DS.
Thinking of you my dear