Thank you all for your continuing lovely messages...
. They really do keep me going!
I felt the need to post this as I know this has affected a couple of regular posters on here and indeed me! Pinkballoon, I think you need to read this. A poster on another thread where the OP was asking why men walk away from their children used the term "Reproductive Coercion" in relation to how I came to have DS. I hadn't ever heard this term but found this Wiki article :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_coercion
There is mention of this on some of the regional Women's Aid sites too.
I have realised that this is exactly what my husband did to me and the telling thing was the corner he backed me into. I did not want to continue my pregnancy initially and booked a termination as dreadful as that sounds now and not a decision that was taken lightly. Husband went along with this until he had a massive emotional meltdown at the hospital and I couldn't go through with the procedure. As we went home, I made the decision to continue with the pregnancy as I couldn't bear to see him in so much pain. The irony of it. It was at that point he told me that had I gone through with it, he was going to leave me that day. I was utterly shocked but that statement was never mentioned again. That should have made me question everything, shouldn't it?
So, we have DS and he leaves anyway. He then tells me that DS was a "mistake" and "should have been aborted". He made it sound as if I had somehow trapped him into fatherhood and now he needed his freedom as it wasn't for him. Once again, he laid the blame at my door for his failure to be a decent father to our son.
I can look at this now a bit more objectively and think what an absolute foul excuse of a human being he is. The more I have looked into domestic abuse, the counselling I received, my dealings with the police, it is clear that he has been doing this for a very long time and I just didn't realise. Thank GOD he's gone.