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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Partner has new relationship

356 replies

NuttyNathalie · 25/10/2015 12:46

My DD a couple of months ago accidentally stumbled across evidence her dad was in a relationship with another woman. DD immediately told me and all hell broke loose. We got the number from his phone and I called her. She dodged every question and then hung up. 2 minutes later DP calls me and tells me never to call his "friends" again. I told him we knew about his OW. He was out at the time but immediately drove home to confront me. He told me we had never had a relationship, I was just the mother of his children. He had found someone that accepted he had children and lived as a family unit. He won't ever leave us or move in with her but loves her and is in a relationship with her. I had a complete breakdown. Smashed my hand through a window, had anxiety attacks and lost the will to live. I was at rock bottom and had to go into hospital. Was put on Diazapam. I have 2 DC. 8 and 11. They witnessed the whole thing and I know I'm a terrible mother for letting them see and hear everything. I was just so lost. I went to stay with my parents for a week but the kids wouldn't leave their home and school even though they hate their dad. I realise it's their stability so I moved back. He still is in that relationship with the OW. She knows what happened and I think she was actually glad I had walked out. My partner is very controlling and he owns everything. I have no job and no money. I'm trapped. I recorded him on a tablet when I was doing the school run saying to her on the phone that he wanted the relationship to last between them and to work towards marriage! He told me and the kids he would never leave us. We are a family unit. We come first. It doesn't feel like that. He hardly spends any time at the house. Just sleeps here during the week and stays with her during the weekend. He is her boss. He owns a shop and she works there. She is nearly 20 years younger. 3 years younger than me. We don't have sex since I confronted him but he sometimes comes for cuddles when things are rocky in his new relationship. He tells me he can't have sex with me but wishes he could but the OW is insecure. We are going on a guilt holiday tomorrow booked by him but he will spend all his time texting and talking to her as she is very angry he is taking his "family" on holiday. I want to be angry but I just feel so sad, lonely and lost. My kids both have councilling at school and I'm not on any medication. That made me feel weird. I just want to pretend it's not happening but my mind won't rest. I'm trapped.

OP posts:
goddessofsmallthings · 04/11/2015 16:58

When did he break your nose? How did he come to do it and did you tell any health professional(s) at the time? Is this the only occasion he's been violent towards you?

You say that you give him the child benefit payments that are made to your bank account. How do you do this? Do you draw the money out and give it to him in cash or do you transfer it online into his bank account? What do you imagine would happen if you didn't give him this money?

Does he know that you receive money from your dps each month and what do you spend this money on?

Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 19:02

Mix56 you are right. I am going to get myself mentally and emotionally well again. I want to be stronger. He lives in a hovel willingly because even though he is really pushing the boat out with OW, he is incredibly lazy and getting workmen in requires effort. As for his financial situation, he is extremely comfortable. He has empty properties all over the country. He owns an entire 3 story house that stands empty in a very desirable part of London. It requires effort to sell them. He can't be bothered. All his energy is going to OW for the time being. He broke my nose in Valencia. Just before we were due to fly home we were taking our hire car back and we got into an argument. I smacked the back of his head. He just turned round and punched me twice in the face. Hasn't been violent since. That was about 10 years ago. Yes SS were involved then. They closed the case after a short investigation.
The child benefit I just withdraw cash and give it to him. He would just say I was a thief if I kept it. Not sure what he DO though. Never not given it. He knows my parents give me money. He won't let me spend it on the kids. Although I do because he's hardly ever around to see it. If he does notice something I've bought, he throes it away. He says my parents have brought it because it's their money. I spend it on my toiletries really. Things I need but mainly things for the kids.

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 19:04

Meant throws it away. Sorry for spelling mistake.

OP posts:
goddessofsmallthings · 04/11/2015 19:26

You said you were told you would lose the dc if you left him. Who told you this?

It occurs to me that with the £60 emergency money he left you and your next cb payment of c132 you would have more than enough funds to keep you and the dc going in a refuge until you received the benefits you will be entitled to claim.

Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 19:54

I found a website that offered free domestic abuse legal advice. I called them and told them about my breakdown, his abuse, where we would be moving to. She told me that because I had traumatised the children and had had suicidal thoughts (even though it was due to the antidepressants) also the fact that my brother lives at home with my parents, she told me he would very be able to make an emergency court order to have them returned to him. I have nothing to offer them as stability. He has. She told me to go back and leave properly.

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 20:02

And also I only receive child benefit for one child. P won't let me send off birth certificate for the other one. I'm not entirely sure why. He just says he doesn't trust them to send it back without creasing it.... weird???

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 20:09

It doesn't help that all our passports, birth certificates are in his locked cupboard Sad

OP posts:
mix56 · 04/11/2015 20:17

OK, go in that fucking cupboard & get your paperwork... or tell him the school need the IDs as a new security measure... Get them back..... or send off for new ones, say there was a flood, & all documents lost.

mix56 · 04/11/2015 20:18

Did you tell them he locked you in for FOUR YEARS ?????????

mix56 · 04/11/2015 20:20

tell him your folks want to take you for a w/e to Paris, & you need the documents, then leave them with your Dad

Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 20:30

Mix56 you make it all sound so simple. 1. He would contact the school and demand to know what had happened. 2. SS know I wasn't allowed a key. 3. He doesn't allow me or DC to see my family let alone go on holiday with them.

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 20:35

When he started his control, he went the whole hog. Wrapped me firmly in his clutches.

OP posts:
mix56 · 04/11/2015 20:38

"SS know you weren't allowed a key ??" what does that mean ? they don't look at all the petty rules in every family.
You got the key the other day, you get it again, & go thru his fucking cupboard, Sod him if he gets violent, call the police.
Your passport is your personal property, you are entitled to ask for child benefit, & your 2 children came out of YOUR body. He is basically ostracising you from all freedom,all choices, you are his prisoner. He doesn't let you see your family, well just defy him, if he gets violent, call the police.

springydaffs · 04/11/2015 20:38

If he won't let her claim ChB and throws away anything she buys with her parents money, he's hardly going to let her go to Paris.

Anyway. Going to a refuge seems to be the best option at the moment. You'd also have all the support inc legal under one roof as it were.

I can quite see how you and the kids have become the three musketeers bcs you've been living in a colony with him as the cult leader totally controlling, taking possession of, every cell of your body. But the fact is you are not three the musketeers, you are the mother and they are the kids. He has controlled you on such a deep level you may have lost sight of that, the roles of you three becoming somehow flattened out, on an equal footing. But that's not how it is in reality: you are their mother, the adult in this, they are the children and don't get to take on the role of adult decisions.

springydaffs · 04/11/2015 20:48

I simply don't understand why ss did not move in with all the red flags going on throughout. They sound like something out of the 70s, before knowledge and info about domestic abuse. You have been severely abused, kept as a possession, where he actively blocks even a hint of your autonomy eg not allowing you to claim CB. Not weird but precisely what he intends, to keep you totally powerless on every possible front.

moggiek · 04/11/2015 20:50

Exactly the point I was making up thread ...

springydaffs · 04/11/2015 21:00

In a rather more shaming way I felt moggie. Op doesn't need that now.

Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 21:05

I really appreciate everything everyone is telling me. I will get out of this. I will. I've taken on board all of your suggestions and I am working on all of them. I have recognised all that us wrong and I will get us out!

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 21:08

I was just telling you some of the things he has done to us. Alot of it has stopped since he started seeing OW.

OP posts:
Original poster
NuttyNathalie · 04/11/2015 21:11

You are all someone I can tell my secrets to. Because that's what they are.

OP posts:
cestlavielife · 04/11/2015 21:19

Go tell someone. Go speak to the school safeguarding officer. Go speak to ss. They can help you. You can get copies off all birth certs easily so just do it.

goddessofsmallthings · 04/11/2015 21:54

I'm somewhat bemused by the fact that you've had possession of the key to the kingdom downstairs toilet/storage room since you've been posting here but didn't think to retrieve your passports/birth certs/other documents. What type of lock is on the door?

How did you come to acquire a passport for your ds without his birth certificate being returned folded "creased"? In any event, this site tells you how to claim child benefit and how to buy another birth certificate if necessary and there'll be no need for him to know that you've claimed for ds. www.gov.uk/child-benefit/how-to-claim

Given that, following your breakdown, you were staying with your dps while the dc remained with him in London, you were properly informed to return and leave properly by which I take it that you were advised to apply to Women's Aid for a refuge placement for you and the dc where, as I've said upthread, you will receive all the help you need to apply for benefits, social housing and, most importantly, defend any legal proceedings he may institute with regard to a childcare arrangements order*.

For obvious reasons Women's Aid won't be place you and the dc in a refuge near your current home, but there's no reason why you can't ask to be placed near your dps and, indeed, to make application for social housing within a short distance of their home. In common with numerous other resources/services in the capital, WA are overburdened by demand and overstretched staffwise and I see no reason to suppose that you have cause for complaint because you were informed that there is a 12 month waiting list for counselling but that they were on hand to help if you needed a refuge placement.

How long were you in hospital and did you stay on a pysch ward or were you admitted to a mental hospital/unit? Was the 'trauma to the dc' caused by them witnessing you putting your hand through a window, or were they receiving counselling before this incident? Who cared for the dc during the time you were away?

Fwiw, albeit that it is a form of control, I don't see withholding a key to the front door as akin to being held prisoner as you went out and about with him but, presumably, did not want to go out on your own in case he wasn't at home when you returned.

*formerly residence orders.

springydaffs · 04/11/2015 22:05

Great post goddess. Withholding a key does effectively keep her a prisoner, recognised in law I think? Along with all the other blatant control.

The downstairs bog storeroom is stacked waist high with documents. Given that the repulsive leprechaun is in the house when op gets the key, she doesn't have time to sort through it.

NameChange30 · 04/11/2015 22:39

This thread is like a horror story Sad
OP I think you just need to get you and your children out of there. Everything else can be sorted after you've escaped.

mix56 I think you live in a parallel universe where every abused woman can call the police the minute her partner gets violent (and he doesn't stop her getting near the phone) and the police get there before he manages to cause her any time... I think you need to read up about domestic violence before giving any more advice.

goddessofsmallthings · 04/11/2015 22:39

A prisoner is someone who's deprived of personal liberty against their will or who has been sentenced to a custodial term by a court of law. In withholding the doorkey for 4 years the OP became subject to his control in that she could only gain access to the house when he was at home, but it appears she was free to walk out of it or climb out of a ground floor window at any time.

As for the downstairs loo/storage facility, there's a number of 'how to' guides online which may assist the OP in gaining access if she can't purloin the key again. I assume that, as the controlling twunt sleeps with the key in his pillowcase, going through waist high piles of crap paper may prove enlightening as well as enabling the OP to retrieve her own and the dcs passports, but this isn't necessary as these documents can be replaced albeit at a cost.