The crying and the begging....

[Toastandstrawberryjam]

Sorry can't link to previous posts but DH moved out a month ago today. After years of EA I finally saw the light. He wanted it to be temporary and I thought there was a slim chance of that.

He was distraught when he left, crying, pleading. It was torture seeing him like that.

He was like it the first two weeks even in front of the DC. Then he seemed to get better. Tonight he was much worse. Holding onto ME at the front door and crying. He even asked if he could take my jumper with him as it smelled of me and he could take it to bed with him.

I'm not sure if he's genuinely upset or if this is all a big act. He's seeing a counsellor who keeps telling him our marriage is fixable. I don't think this is helping. He's lost a lot of weight in the month, he looks ill and exhausted and I am so sad.

I don't know how to help him deal with this. The only thing he wants is for me to tell him to come back and I just can't do that.

Of course they don't feel comfortable. You know that.
If anything, your children will be damaged by his continuing abuse. And for you allowing it.

These kind of men....do they quickly find somebody else? Because he said tonight he was going to spend the rest of his life loving me and missing me and wanting to be with me. Which frankly scares me. But I'm not sure if he will drop me like a sack of potatoes when he finds someone new. I hope so :)

Some do, yes. Quite a lot in fact. They need a new victim. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he'll let up on you! You need to rely on yourself to cut this off, not him finding someone else.

It's just a case of learning different ways of managing him rather than subservience I guess.

Not that it's my job to manage him!! But ways of shielding myself from his crap.

Yes they do. Tend to rub it in your face but it doesn't mean they're gone for good especially if the newbie is wise to the red flags. So you need to steel yourself. Sometimes when they come back, they come back harder.

Because while he is harassing you he is less likely to move on to nobody else.

You are managing nothing. It's just an illusion of control. But one you are holding on to. Why? While he is still controlling you.

Given the latest revelations about your childhood I think it's pretty fucking amazing how much insight you've gained in a very few weeks. No wonder it's hard to keep the bugger out. You've been trained for this your entire life. Fortunately you are a human being, not a circus dog, and can break out of your conditioning - with your children's welfare as motivation.

Quite right that you don't want to use your children as pawns in a marital dispute (although isn't that what your H is doing at the moment?). There is a happy medium though. Hard-nosed bitch or doormat are not the only options! Nobody here has advised you to stop them seeing their father altogether; nor should you, unless and until they really don't want to or it is proved to be against their interests, which from what you've said does not appear to be the case. What you/they need is properly structured access so they and their dad can spend quality time together. This dropping in at or after their bedtime cannot be good for them (they don't even like it) and it sure as hell isn't good for you. It's really telling that suddenly he has to see them every evening but when he lived with them he couldn't be bothered.

As for you being all he's got: well, whose fault is that? It isn't yours. Take a walk down the street of every major city, where you will observe people sacked out in doorways who truly have nothing. Do you feel responsible for them? I hope you do have some compassion for people in that situation (which could be any of us following bad luck and/or bad choices) and try to do something helpful, like buying a Big Issue or contributing to Shelter. But would you invite them into your home? No. And you don't even know if any of them would abuse the privilege. You do know this man abuses the privilege and abuses you. He is therefore less deserving, not more, of your sympathy. He had it all and he chose to treat it like crap. You do know, you've said it yourself and I'm absolutely sure you're right, that if he had it all again he will very soon start to treat it like crap again, treat you like crap again, stop bothering about the children, because that's what he is missing: minions. (He hasn't even stopped treating you like crap yet actually, even if the words are prettier.)

By the way am I the only person who thinks the sniffing of hair, jumpers etc is at best creepy and at worst kind of unhinged?

I've just caught up Toast.

Another recommendation for a chat with WA here.

Just keep in the front of your mind that your mother, you... You are breaking this line before it reaches your DCs.

I have 3 DDs. I have to break the chain.

But yes it is very difficult, I'm very very determined though. I am fortunate that I have friends who know of his fuckwit behaviour and remind me of things he has done. I'm programmed to forgive, forgive, forgive, it's all I've ever done.

The sniffing of my hair makes me feel like a possession. That's actually all I've ever been.

I am glad you are seeing the light. Whether he sees the light or not, if you take legal advice then you can protect yourself that way. I would think in time once he realises he won't be able to see you he won't bother to be much of a father either. It seems like the children won't be overly concerned about that.

toast, can you arrange your emails so that your mother's email goes straight into a separate folder and you don't have to look at them? My god, how screwed up was she, to put a lock on your door instead of throwing your stepfather out. Now to blame you for ruining your children's lives when it's your husband who's managed to get them to state where they don't really want to see him! It takes a LOT for a kid to get to that state. Your mother is away with the rather dark fairies.

You asked if he'll move on and find someone else. No guarentees but almost certainly yes (and he'll give the poor new woman some awful sob story). At a guess he still can't believe you've had the termerity to call time on him. He probably thought he could, and was entitled to, behave as badly as ever he wanted and you'd all have to put up with him.

You are being extraordinarily brave and determined. Wishing you all strength and a shit hot lawyer who won't take any crap.

Dear ExFuckwit

The current arangements for contact are not working and are detrimental to attaining a settled life for the children. Therefore, the children will be available for you to collect from school one day a week, I suggest Wednesday, and should be returned to me at 6pm.

Every other week they will available for you to pick up from school on Friday, to be returned to me at 6pm on Sunday, unless they have been unable to get their homework done and you have been unable to ensure their uniforms and pe kit are washed and shoes polished, in which case they should be returned to me on Sunday at 10am.

All communication should be concerning the children and conducted using email. Any communication concerning other matters should be directed through solicitors.

Yours,
Toast

Get on to the Freedom Programme too.
Phone WA today. Talk it all through with them. Get a recommendation for a shit hot lawyer.

Gird your loins and pretend you're a lion! Fake it til you make it - it actually works!

How much of a bomb would it set off if you sent an email to your mother saying:

"You let stay in the house after he tried to rape me. I do not think you are the best person to advise on how to make children happy.

Don't bother replying, I won't read it."

Standing up to one abusive bully might give you the courage to stand up to another.

I wish I could 'like' the last few posts...

email is good. it means you can say what you want without actually having to do it in person and see first hand the reaction. Also any nasty reply is good for your divorce file.

And you are doing so well in being determined, and KNOWING that if you dont love him then you really shouldnt be expected to stay with him, however much he may weep and wail, and however much your dysfunctional evil mother may think otherwise.

Your instinct and your belief are spot on.

Your biggest hurdle is that you dont know how to create and maintain firm boundaries, or stick up for yourself without feeling guilty and responsible for not subjugating your own happiness for someone else.

In a healthy childhood you would have learned these skills from your mother. You would have had a pattern of a healthy relationship to model for your future, your wellbeing would have been been put ahead of a man who raped you.

The good news is that there are people out there who can help you build those barriers, who can help you turn around your thinking, who can show you where your thought processes are going awry and help you to set them on a healthy path. Recognising the problem and where it stems from is sometimes one of the hardest bits, but you have done that work, DESPITE being in the midst of it all - that shows great strength. Have you considered speaking to rape crisis? You can speak or just email. You could even just send a link to this thread here

I think I still have a problem seeing what he did as rape. I said I didn't want to and he carried on, but I didn't scream or yell. Although the counsellor told him I would have instinctively frozen as DHs actions would have taken me back to being a teenager. When I confronted him afterwards and he said it wasn't a big deal, I just locked it away in a box in my head and I just still can't process it. I need to sort that at some stage. But I just can't tell a solicitor it or somebody like that because I feel like I should have been a better wife.

I think I liked the solicitor yesterday because he saw me as a person who deserved somewhere nice to live and a pension, etc. he didn't look at me like a poor defeated wife who failed at her marriage.

My mum sent me an email three years ago when I told her I was unhappy. That DH wasn't nice to me or the children. At the time my youngest was 5 and she had made a list one day of what she wanted her new daddy to be like :(

In my mums reply then were such gems as telling me I should make more effort to interest my DH, dress up, be nicer. She said being on my own would be awful, I would lose all my friends. And then, the worst bit, that nobody else would ever want me with children. And if they did I might need to make sacrifices like she did, and she still felt guilty about that sometimes but it had to be done. It was obvious she meant me. That she viewed the sexual abuse and the grooming and the physical abuse as ok so she could stay married. That being single was worse than that even.

So when people ask why didn't I leave before, that's why. Because I was terrified that I would end up doing that to my babies.

If you possibly can you do need to tell the solicitor, toast

could you speak of it as if it happened to someone else? even as if you were telling the story about someone else? it's a way of distancing yourself mentally and it could help you get through it, because this is somethign that really they do need to know about if you can. Or antoher thing that maybe could help is to think that the long term best benefit to the children comes from being able to give the full picture to the solicitor. Whatever works for you and gets you through it.

That aside, putting it in a box is a good strategy until you are ready.

Again I think you are being incredibly strong here. I hope that's not patronising. But given jsut what you have lived with in childhood and in your marriage, you really are doing great.

It doesn't matter which words you use, Toast, because a good solicitor/police officer/WA person/rape crisis person will know that if you say that he continued to have sex with you after you said no that it is rape. Or unconsensual sex (i.e. rape).
And that it is abuse.

Beven lurking as I remember your other thread. Toast, your last post made me well up. I just want to give you a big cuddle, and I don't even know you!
Despite having an appalling mother, who totally failed to protect you, and a highly abusive husband from a very young age, and despite having had no time in your life to actually discover what YOU might want or need, you STILL come accross as being strong, kind, sensible and an absolutely brilliant mum.
Seriously, you daughters are so lucky to have you. You ARE protecting them.
And I know you don't believe a single word from your mother about how awful it is to be single with kids.
It is sooo much better than being with an abuser.
Single mums, ones that dont just latch onto any man that will have them, tend to have really close bonds with their children.
Yes, you will have to get to grips with certain jobs you might not have done before, but if you have put together one flat pack chest of drawers you have put together 100!

Mowing the lawn? Feh. A fiver to a local teenager, job done.
You can wear what you want, drive what car you want, watch what you want on TV, and have friends round whenever you like.
You are free you just need to believe it. Stop letting the knob weasel in your house, stop dancing to his tune. You have always put your kids first, just keep doing that. Listen to your children. They are telling you all you need to know.

Oh bless you - your life story is very sad indeed.
I don't know what to say.
I just want to give you a very UnMN ((((((((((HUG))))))))))

Keep going. Things are falling into place in your mind.
You know your DDs can't be part of yet another cycle of abuse and you are taking control.
Well done!

I need to concentrate on getting angry I think. Rather than this calm facade. I think today I will concentrate on the fact that after I was married I wanted to go to uni. Obviously money would have been tight but I would have been happy doing it part time. I didn't go. Not because of the money but because DH let me believe I wasn't smart enough. He admitted it a few weeks ago. Said he liked me thinking I wasn't very clever so I couldn't be equal to him. He said he was very sorry and I was actually one of the smartest people he knew. It's another thing he wants me to forgive him for. All the years of put downs and telling me I wasn't clever enough to understand x or y.

Fucking hell.

What an utter shit.

If, in the future, circumstances change what will you study, Toast?

And of course that tapped into my mother telling me I was stupid because I did so badly in my exams. Reasons being I would stay home and sleep in the day as I was too scared to sleep at night in case he got in my room. I'm still scared of the dark now.

I trained in the job I do three years ago, it was a battle against him and yet another turning point. Maybe uni one day but for now all that matters is I am not dim.