Dear DH

[AccordingtoSteve]

It's started so sweetly. I thought you were everything I ever wanted in a man. Vulnerable, yet attentive. Polite and unassuming. You were the antithesis of my ex and I welcomed you into my world with ease and comfort. Thinking all the while you were actually how you portrayed yourself to be.

Then we had words. I cannot remember what happened or why but you were here, staying with me and something was said you took offence to. You then took yourself up to the top of the garden to sulk, for over two hours.

I was bereft. Cried. What was it I had done so wrong to you to make you act this way? I Questioned and interrogated myself, because it was all me and my behaviour that had caused this wasn't it. You told me that.

I should have run here.

The next time. You came to stay, you had written a list of things you thought I had done while we were together that you saw as wrong. It was quite long. I was again devastated. I didn't realise that this was the first chink of my armour being chipped away. Chip away you continued to do and have been ever since.

I should have run here.

For years and months we have stayed together. Our arguments being about your behaviour, yet twisted around to make me think it was mine, after all; I am accusatory and proportioning blame at you where there was none. I don't let you get a word in. I don't let you speak. I get loud and angry. You don't have a voice. I..am..out..of..order.

This is now the reason you don't speak. You are afraid I will accuse and blame. None of this is your fault. I get drunk. I get angry. You are just an innocent in this failing relationship. You have never acted in any way that is wrong.

Now we are here. It's the last post. We are both defensive and angry with each other. I say you have done something and then I get accused of it. You behave like a child and yet I am suddenly the childish one if I pull you up on it.

I try to explain. I am told that I have stated I have done nothing but accuse and make myself seem the better person. According to you, I am stating that I am perfect and you are not. This is not what I feel I have done but I am wracked with guilt and second guessing myself because this is what you have said. I am trying to talk, to sort this out. I am left feeling like crap because I have failed, once again.

My mind is blown now. I second and third guess everything about myself now. I am fucked. I am not whole. I don't thank you.

Thanks Hanith. See? You're lovely :) you deserve to be with a lovely person.

You really can do this.

Ah God, if he's already doing it to her, then get her away from him!! She doesn't need to have that behaviour "normalised" in her life, she could end up being in a relationship with someone similar.

Please please find a way to leave him ASAP before she is any more damaged by his fuck-awful behaviour.

You do need to get some professional advice. Your head is permanently spinning - I know what that is like. The only way you can stop this permanent headf*ck is to get him out of your life. He will still be a nightmare but you don't have to live with it.

He is abusive. You need to do what you can to save yourself. You know he has messed with your head really badly and you need to get yourself out of this for you - but mainly for your DD. You really need to do this FOR HER. Don't think about the guilt. Don't think about what he will blame you for. This is a hostile environment for your child. You need to protect her from it. He is a disgrace.

Take steps to get out before you are so crushed that you do not have the strength to do it. Don't feel ashamed. Get some RL help. Get back in touch with those friends of yours. They won't judge you - they love you and want you to be strong and happy again. He has isolated you from them. Not unusual for an abuser. Stuff the fairytale - lots of people don't get the fairytale - what's important is to recognise the situation you are in and get out with your head held high. No one in their right mind would blame you for getting out of this.

If you have read Lundy Bancroft then you know what you are dealing with. Again, he is the one to blame. Don't feel guilty for this. He has knowingly and callously caused this situation. The guilt is not yours.

p.s. The house is half yours. It's a marital asset. He is not going to be any nicer to you if you settle for less than you have a right to. Have what is yours and don't be guilted into anything less. Get a solicitor who understands abusive men.

This was my first thread: here

I started off so utterly confused and blaming myself.

That was 10 days ago. Now my eyes are open. I have gone through the anxiety and tears and doubt.

Today I told my mum and my best friend. They are relieved and are supporting me. I feel so strong now and resolved. I will be splitting up with him, I am just waiting until I speak to women's aid tomorrow so they advise me the best and safest way to do it.

After 15 years of being downtrodden, treated like dirt, made to feel stupid for feeling hurt, I finally see the light. I know you can too. Get away now. X

This is my second thread here where I am getting amazing support and advice on actually leaving.

Mumsnet rocks my world. I'm blown away by the support I've got here. I could not have got to this point without you all.

Holyfeck, that's great that you've told people and are getting away

Oh and I second that he won't be nicer if you settle for less. I walked away with less than half of everything thinking it would be easier, he still whinged and asked for more, and the last I heard from his relatives was that I was a bitch who took him for every penny

sweetheart, what on earth are you doing ?

standing by while treats your daughter so abysmally

he is damaging her...no little girl emerges unscathed from that kind of belittling and power control (voice of experience here)

please, if you can't do this for yourself, do it for her

it's not too late to teach her that no one is allowed to behave like this and still be part of a loving family

I shall save you from the salutary lesson my mother learned by not leaving my father before he ruined her relationship with her daughters

another day, maybe

Oh whatthe... What an arsehole!

How is I can see that for your thread yet can't see my own situation with clarity? I feel pathetic!

I mean save you from having to read it. Too much today, maybe.

AF

AF I swear I will be getting that legal advice tomorrow.

Poppy's post made me run upstairs to the bathroom to sob, please don't take offence poppy, I really do NEED this straight talking and my gorgeous girl really does not deserve this, even if she does not seem to be affected right now I know she is being. It will only get worse for her too.

I feel so relieved now that I have made my decision. Hanith, you can be here with me. Just get past the initial anxiety, anger, fear. And then you will feel liberated.

I can't wait to know what it feels like to be actually free of this man. Obviously I'll always be connected to him because of our son, and I can only hope he will be reasonable about the split. But anything is better than the way it is now.

Hanith, I feel that you are nearly at that point. I hope you are, anyway xx

Hanith, if you split, you need never see him again

you don't even have shared dc and all the ball ache of arranging access etc

imagine...

AF I might be wrong but I suspect it may read a little bit similarly to my relationship with my arsehole father! hugs to you xx

cross posted with you whatthe

I am glad you can the future and it looks much, much brighter than the one you have been living x

I too had an arsehole father.

Anyone notice a pattern?

Let's smash the pattern to smithereens!!

Never mind me, it's too late the relationship with my mother to ever recover

Don't let your attachment to a man wreck the precious one you have with your daughter. It will happen if you keep exposing her to it, I am sorry to say

This is your situation, right now. You have already acknowledged her stepfather messes with her head. How is that ever justified ?

too late for

Yes, you have no ties with him!! Get out of there, like AF says...IMAGINE.

just imagine life without him. You don't need him.

HolyFeck, my first day of freedom I put loud music on and danced around the house like a loon :o

I told my children after Christmas, expecting utter devastation. It didn't come. They knew we weren't happy, they understood and 'got it'. You say you and your daughter have moved before? So it's not new and she has experience of it. You sound lovely and that you will absolutely do your best for her.

I was most worried about my son who is the closest to his father. But I am saving him the most. He is the scapegoat child (my XH is, I am sure, a narcissist) and is constantly put down, sometimes in a jokey way, but always having a dig at.

I read on here today someone said of the end of their relationship it wasn't a thing that broke the back of it, but rather having a back strong enough to carry it through. (Hope you get my point, not sure if I'm clear).

4 years ago my marriage ended. 4 years of being lonely, ignored, unheard, disrespected, told I was too repulsive to have sex with (he hasn't been sexless in that time of course).

I called time on it last October. He moves out in two weeks. I cannot tell you what it is like to breathe again.

btw, my mother is still with my father

I have minimal contact with both of them, although they live only a few miles away. I hate my father but reserve a special degree of contempt for my mother.

they live an insular life...few friends, no family that will give them the time of day. My father drove them all away, one by one. My mother chose him.

that is what you are doing, right now

(and he still treats her like shit)

No, I am not choosing him. Not anymore.

Just sat and had evening meal and he really is being on best behaviour with dd. I can see right through it. In fact I am pissed off he has been getting her on his side for so long now.

I am an idiot!