My H's 'birthday weekend'

[MindReader]

My H's birthday was on Tuesday.
He is one of those people who say: 'no no don't get me anything' (quite forcefully) but then go up the wall if they don't get a fuss...
We agreed to celebrated this weekend as weeknights v busy.

We have NO money atm so the celebration is extremely modest.
On Sat am we went for lunch at Asda (told you we were broke!). It was hugely busy so I suggested one of us sit with kids and one go and order. I sat as I have a mobility problem. He was furious at having to queue as he expects me to do that. I asked him to order me a burger. When the food came there was nothing for him. He said: 'there was only 1 burger left and I knew you'd make a fuss if I had it' (?). Apparently, there was 'nothing else on the menu' he wanted. So, I asked him if he'd walk around the block to get the cinema tickets for the new release we wanted to take the kids to in case it sold out. Perhaps he might find a sandwich from the chiller that he fancied to munch on the way round?. NO.
So, we eat our lunch and it gets to time to leave so we can get tickets on time and he decides he wants Mac and cheese (for the 1st time in 17 years?). So, we are late and stressed for film. After, he huffs and puffs and is grumpy all evening and stomps off to the spare bed.

This morning I get up and cook a slap up brekkie. He snaps about everything and I ask him what the problem is so he goes up in smoke and stomps off again. Kids and I eat the 'birthday breakfast'. He eventually comes down (after both ds and dd have been up showing him the menu they've made on the pc for him ) and opens kids gifts and mine. Mine is ignored but used (new boots which are not acknowledged but put on). Rest of day is silent treatment (an hour in the car in total silence, anyone?, trip to Garden centre to see Santa in total silence anyone?). He then has another huge huff when I call him down for Roast Beef Dinner (by his request) as he was 'helping dd with hair like YOU asked'. Dinner is also in silence. He then faffs around and as soon as the kids and I are settled watching Frozen he goes to bed.

Apparantly, I am a 'mad witch'.
I am SO tired.

Your kids are already damaged. They treat you the way their dad does.

Staying for them is the worse thing you can do.

Getting out before it is too late to adjust their behaviour otherwise they are just learning to treat the people they love this way.

They will have relationships and kids and your grandchildren will watch your children treat people like shit including you.

Your DC deserve better.

You deserve better.

Speak to a lawyer. Find out where you stand. As you and DC are unwell you may be able to get H out of the house or get it sold so you can have your share.

What an idiot
I also thought you as a family had LOTS going on at weekend - swimming/lunch out/cinema etc etc since having kids I've had to reduce the stuff we do purely to keep things simple if we overschedule then everyone gets stressed. But he was being rude. I would have said off you go do something by yourself for rest of day - better than have him sulking around

The next time he says "I wish I was single" you need to simply say "Granted." And make arrangements for a separation. Or better yet, just start planning it now. You don't deserve this type of treatment.

would you want your daughter married to someone like him?

This is an emotionally abusive man, OP.

I understand that splitting up may seem very scary, but I promise you, it'll be the best thing you ever do. You can't keep walking over eggshells for him - you'll drive yourself into an early grave with the stress, worry and upset he's causing you.

At the moment, your children's understanding of marriage is forming into a very loveless picture where a man can treat a woman like absolute dirt. It isn't healthy. You've already said your children are beginning to mimic his words/actions - that needs to stop. The only way it will stop is to remove them from what appears to be quite a toxic environment that your husband is creating.

Really, OP. He sounds absolutely foul. Please get rid of him.

Ltb

Good Morning.
I've been up half the night thinking about this.

Do I 'believe in divorce' as I married a divorcee?
Well, he told me she'd been ill for all of their marriage and he was more of her carer than her husband and I believed him so I didn't think of it like that?

I grew up without my father around.
It was AWFUL as it was completely mishandled.
My mother was pretty unspeakable and there was no extended family so I was on my own, emotionally, from being very young.
I am terrified of this repeating.
I know that, were this not the case, I would have left long long long ago.
But it is and I cant discount my experience.
Or the fact the children need a father.
I hope I am a decent mother - they do still speak to me about lots of their lives - but I cant be both mother and father to them.
I don't think H will be much of a Dad once we separate (or he will be aggressively Disney - I don't know? but certainly he 'tells tales' on me to his family ALL the time, and they text him back saying how sorry they feel for him- he shows me)
(I'm not likely to get into another relationship to offer them a replacement figure).
There are no uncles or interested grandfathers or even older cousins.
They only have us.
If I 'take away' one of their parents, will they ever forgive me?

My marriage is over and has been for a long time.
ALL I care about is the short medium and long term effects for the kids.
I feel VERY guilty that I didn't leave years ago, so I find it hard to do anything that might upset them at all.
Leaving him WILL upset them, even if it is the 'better' thing in time?

MindReader... I was thinking about you this morning, wondering how you were getting on.

You know you have to leave him. My mum carried on thinking it was in our best interests to stay with my dad, to keep trying - and she reaped a whole lot of things - in our teenage years - that she wouldn't have, if she'd left when we were younger. He was a destructive and obstructive influence and we would all have been better off.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that leaving will hurt your children more than staying; "Better an end with short-term pain than a pain without end". The younger your children are, the less impact your split will have on them. That's my take on it anyway.

Is there somebody you can speak to in RL to get their view also? The posters on this board are excellent with advice when and if you've made your decision to go... you won't be left without support, there's always somebody here who has been through what you're going through.

Don't let Christmas be a factor either; go through the motions but there's nothing to stop you being ready to leave in the new year. 2015 could be very, very, positively different for you.

Your kids will replicate your marriage in their adult relationships if you don't get out now. Really, Mind, they are being seriously damaged by this horrible, horrible relationship. He is vile beyond words.

I'm on my own, too, and it's hard but preferable to abuse wall to wall - and I don't say that easily. You are perched on a ledge trying to make the best of an utterly wretched situation, one where he enjoys torturing you. Please don't think this isn't damaging the kids because it is.

If you can't do it for you, do it for the kids. Get in touch with Womens Aid - 0808 2000 247 (call between 7pm-7am as the lines are busy during the day): if you can't call then email and they will get back to you. Also, do the Freedom Programme - I have linked to the 'find a course near you' page. You will meet many women who understand and will support you. You will also identify the vile tactics he uses - knowledge is power.

You deserve much, much more than this. Womens Aid will help you with housing and all practical considerations, as well as offering you emotional support. You will find a way - one foot in front of the other

I must say that abuse doesn't have to be physical - you say he 'doesn't bash you about' as though what he is doing isn't as bad. As a survivor of domestic abuse (I wasn't hit), all the women I met who were hit said they'd prefer it any day to the soul-destroying 'invisible' abuse you are facing in your marriage. Womens Aid (and eg FP) are in place precisely for women who are being abused in the way you are in your relationship. The government are planning to make this type of abuse a criminal offence.

Lying -

I like that phrase: better an end with short term pain than a pain without end. I will try to remember that.

Oldest dc is 10. Youngest is 7.
I should have left when they were 4 and 1.
They were VERY attached to me and not very attached to him at all.
They are now less attached to me and more to him and also to their friends.
For complicated reasons I don't want to go into, I'd need to move area.
They will blame me and I don't think I can bear that.
I blame me.
For not going sooner and, having lived in it for 1/2 dc's life, for not having the guts to see it through till they leave home.

I am so tired.

Your children are already been damaged by their parents poor example of a marriage. Do you really want to teach them that yes, this loveless marriage is their "norm", one that they could themselves go onto repeat as adults. They are not going to say "thanks mum" to you for staying within such an awful marriage; they will likely be puzzled and wonder why you put him before them during their childhoods. Do not make this their own legacy.

History can have a nasty habit of repeating itself. Your children are being failed by their father here in similar ways to how you were yourself failed by your mother when you were young. Your DD is already picking up on what her dad is saying and repeating it to you; they are already being emotionally harmed here.

Your children are not emotionally mature enough to realise that they themselves are being manipulated by their dad to his own ends.

They will certainly put the boot into you in particular though when they are adults themselves and find that they cannot form emotionally healthy relationships.

Doing nothing MindReader is not an option now. This will not go away and your life as well as your childrens under his regimen will only get worse.

Womens Aid (and FP) are in place to help and support women in practically tricky situations - you won't be the first who is experiencing abuse in a situation that is not straightforward. They will help and support you in taking the necessary steps to get free.

If their dad were physically poisoning them you'd have to move away from him to save them. This is not that different - the harm to them is incalculable.

Be brave, darling. Just put your tired bod in the way of the relevant services and they will guide you all the way xx

I've realised I explained badly about the film.

H wanted to see it.
He dediced we'd go for his b'day treat.
Told kids.
Then, that morning, told me 'not enough money'.
I said it was not fair to Kids to stop film so I'd pay.
He has a long long history of arranging outings and then trying to cancel them or not coming along at very last minute (his family are similar - his mother once 'uninvited us' on Christmas morning as she had a headache. We were travelling 300m and the kids were small and very very excited. It was unforgivable).
That same morning by chance their friends at swimming said they were going Monday and would we like to join them.
So, problem solved.
But H starts sulking as HE wants to see the film with kids.
So, he says he will pay but kids will have to pay for Monday trip with friends.
(I decided to pay as not down to kids being silly but him).
He then prats around re lunch so we nearly miss it anyway and I end up buying tickets due to us getting there before him as he is still finishing his lunch.

This is what my life is like - endlessly explaining everything to a man child. But he isn't just immature - he is nasty with it.

I don't think the relevant services will guide me though.

I live in a VERY VERY small village

H is charm personified to all he meets.

No one will believe me and if they do they will blame me for staying so long. I spoke to WA some time ago and the Police came around and he told them how tired he got doing night shifts and they made him stay away for 24 hours and that was that.
He says they will take the children. He says he will say I am an unfit mother. He wont look after them. They'd end up in care. I cant risk that.

The rotten apple did not fall far from his rotten family.

You can get off the merry go around MindReader; you just have to properly decide for your own self that this is what you want to do.

The children need decent male role models and their dad is clearly not one of those.

Womens Aid certainly can and will help you leave this manchild. Oh and I doubt very much he was a carer to his ex wife; she likely divorced him precisely because he did the same to her as he is now doing to you.

I believe you MindReader and so do all these other respondents.

The fact that you live in a very small village (hamlet?) is irrelevant frankly so you are putting obstacles up where there are really none (probably through your own inbuilt conditioning from your mother).

Your H continues to mess with your head. You need proper information from Womens Aid; your fear that they would end up in care is completely without foundation as well as being groundless. You are their primary carer; what makes you think any court would take them away from you?.
Knowledge after all is power.

Practically all abusive men use the threat of taking the children away but its really an empty threat. It is often said purely and simply to keep the mother in check, controlled and wrongfooted. He really does know how to push your buttons and strike at your very being. Do not let him do this to you (and by turn your children) any more.

Most abusive men can also come across as being charm personified to all those in the outside world but its an act and the mask does slip. I would think that one or two people who actually know him and you have their own private suspicions about him.

He won't want your children. That involves work and commitment and love. Not a chance.

Where you live now doesn't matter if you intend to move away.

I never used to 'believe' in divorce. Until I read some of the horrific stories on here and could see what lives some women have had to lead. I lay in bed last night thinking of some of them (you included), wishing I could help make their getaways easier and wanting to push them towards a better (normal) life.

Your children won't be damaged. They will forgive you because instantly, however hard it is, you will all feel happier without that malevolent presence around.

Ring CAB, ring WA. Ring whoever you can to get advice and help. Please do that.

Unfortunately you are kidding yourself if you believe that staying in this awful situation is best for your children.

Your children will no doubt echo their father when they grow up. Is that what you want for your children? Do you want them to treat their partners the way your dh treats you? Because I'm afraid that is all they will know. Because that's all you have shown them.

Don't you think you will be better parents apart?

I can guarantee when you will leave you will look back and think I wish I had done it years ago.

If you do stay then fine but please please do not convince yourself that it's in the interests of your children. Nope it's in the interests of your own beliefs which I'm afraid are misinformed.

This is not an attack. I wish you strength, courage, hope and a happy future.

This man seems to despise you. Can you imagine how that must come over to the children? These nasty dynamics are sewing themselves into your childrens subconscious.

And one day these dynamics will play out in their own adult relationships.

You say the dc will hate you for taking away their father. Do you realise how many children, especially from women on this board have told their mother that they are much happier now and then they start to open up and say 'daddy wasn't very nice to you was he' things along those lines. The women report how their lovely dc have also changed, more happier because they aren't all walking on eggshells.........

Op, hang in there, there's so much excellent advice on this thread. Yes of course in an ideal world a child would have a mother and father parenting equally in their lives. But your children already don't have that, and you haven't even left.

Instead they have the worst possible role model as a father and a husband. That is NOT your fault, it is entirely his. Of course he won't want custody of the children. He likes to threaten you with this, but the sort of person he is probably couldn't care for a pet hamster on his own. He's an emotional zero, he is the child here.

As for showing you the texts from his family, that's just disgusting. They can f**k off and back again. When you've left him you can print out this thread and show it to him. Let me know when, so I can come back and direct a few more shots at him !!

Men like him are two-a-penny. He won't be able to charm WA, the police etc, they've seen it all before. Please speak to WA, just being believed and validated will give you strength.

Nobody on here doubts you, at all. Why would we ? We know men like this exist, we know the script, so do all the agencies who are waiting to help you. I wish I could come round and "rescue" you myself, as I'm sure we all do, but you are the key. Go on, how could it be worse ? Your children will blossom.

You had a shit experience with your local police force n years ago. That's not how it was supposed to go, the police let you down. Unfortunately, police forces vary across the country. However, I can bet that domestic abuse training is better than it was even 2 years ago, a year ago.

Try again. yes, it's hard to get the energy but try WA again. Explain what happened when the police were involved before, explain your fears.

Incidentally, why do you live in an isolated area? Was that his idea? It's certainly a way to isolate a victim and more common than you think. Do you drive?

Hold on, Mind, you CAN get out. There is a way

They will not thank you for 'seeing it through' until they leave home. At all. Someone else has already told you this. Listen.