Onit's still on it! Thread 3

[onitlikeacarbonnet]

Hello to anyone who's still here

Links to previous threads.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2658829-Anyone-up-DH-is-leaving-me

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2690159-Anyone-up-DH-is-leaving-me-follow-up-thread-Onits-on-it

I'm carrying on with this as I'm certain I'd be in a much unhappier state without the support I've received here.
This has become my journal of sorts and I hope it's something I can look back on in time to see how far I've come.
I also hope it helps to document the truth of my situation for the future and perhaps, if read by others, will offer help and hope to them too.

Checking in.

I'm totally knackered but need to stay up to get Ds up for a pee at 10. Really want a bath but I think I'll fall asleep if I do.
Weekend away was really good. Lots of alcohol and food and laughs and good company.
I had been a little apprehensive given what happened last year but there was no need.
I do have a confession though. I was pretty drunk last night this morning and I had a cigarette after giving up 10 years ago
Got to bed at 5am this morning and surprisingly ok but sure I'll feel rough tomorrow. Seems as I get older it takes 2 sleeps till hangovers kick in.

Hope you've all had a good weekend too.

Glad you had a great time-just the ticket that!

Forget the cigarette ! You can have one, I bet you didn't even enjoy it.

This could be long but today has been another day of revelation and I need to write it down to process it I think.
I had my counselling appointment today.
It's become a regular thing that afterwards I meet my cousin for a coffee and we have a good chat. Today was no different.
As a bit of background, my cousin is more like a sister. There's less than a years age difference and we spent lots of time together as kids. She had no siblings and my dsis is much older than me.
We have always been close apart from the last few years. I contacted her for the first time in ages after LCB left. We've fallen back into our close relationship easily though we hadn't really discussed the reason for our estrangement before today.
Now we've had this chat it's become apparent that our loss of contact was possibly engineered by LCB.
There's quite a lot involved in the story but it seems that LCB may have lied about arranging a meeting with her which, when she failed to show up or contact me to explain, meant I believed she had deliberately stood my family up. This wasn't the first time as far as I was concerned as she'd also flaked out on attending my ds's birthday party after saying she would help out.
Today o learned that LCB had spoken to her prior to the party and told her she didn't have to come and, even though she wanted to, she felt he made it clear she wasn't needed. I have a foggy memory of this time as I was in the midst of my illness. She told me today that I also told her on the phone not to bother coming but that I sounded disappointed, as if I thought she didn't want to come.
The standing up occurred when we we had a meeting arranged at a place the dc liked. We waited outside in the cold for half an hour and she didn't answer texts asking where she was.
She knew nothing about this arrangement. We both think that LCB told me he'd made this date with the intention of making me so annoyed at my dcousin, that I would stop contacting her. (Especially after she'd neglected to come to my ds's party or give a gift or explain that and her no show.

I'm devastated. And after saying he can't shock me, I'm shocked.
This girl is my closest family. I lost contact with her during an extremely difficult period of my life and, sadly, an even more traumatic period of her life.
As she said today, I want to cave his head in with a brick.
I've spent a lot of today crying in public and watching her cry too. She says she spent years wondering what she'd done wrong for me to cut her off. Thinking that she wasn't good enough to be around my dc.
It appears he manipulated her too. By saying one thing to her then telling me something else.
This must have been a conscious decision. He must've known what he was doing.
I can't believe he stole that time from us
I'm wracked with guilt now that I abandoned her during a time in her life that she needed me more than ever and also when I could've used her support too. It's possible her difficulties were exacerbated by the loss of my support. We've always been there for each other. Apart from those 3 years. Strangely and possibly significantly, the 3 years after my ddad died i.e. when I had no other family support available to me.

I hope that makes sense. I can't quite believe it and I have no proof but neither of us can explain it any other way.

Oh under, how terribly sad.

Sounds like you've both been "through it", such a shame that you each had to do it without the other's support. Now, though, you can help each other to re-evaluate what's happened in both your lives. (I hope that doesn't sound too trite.)

Oh onit..I'm so sad for all that you're discovering about lcb..but also, I'm so unbelievably happy that you have discovered the truth while you can still make a good life for yourself.
You thought you needed him so much but the truth was he held you back. Maybe he realised there wouldn't be much more time left after you began emerging from your fog before you discovered him so he jumped ship?
He's s truly awful person and you are so much better without him.
Don't waste a second more of your life mourning him.

It's the premeditation.
I've been able to minimise what I've learned because he's only hurt me and, I honestly believed, he'd done it all on a subconscious level.
It made it less scary that I could justify it as being something that he wasn't aware of. That he was damaged as a child and this isn't his fault. That he wouldn't deliberately have done these things and won't hurt my dc.

This is a game changer. He may have been damaged when he was young but if he did this it's something he must've thought about and planned a way to extricate me from my family.
It makes me see that the house move we'd planned where he was adamant we leave this town for another, moving dcs school etc, was possibly another way to isolate me. We'd have gone to a different council area with different school holidays which would limit my contact with my friends/the dcs friends.
It shows how controlling he was and that it was a conscious behaviour.
It's chilled me to realise this.

When I told my counsellor about the messages she called him a psychopath. I have no idea what this makes him.

When I told my counsellor about the messages she called him a psychopath. I have no idea what this makes him

A psychopath.

Yes a psychopath or a sociopath- either way he is a manipulating cold person and you are going to fly without him!

He is not a good person onit. He is no victim.
Lcb has taken everything he's wanted at every opportunity.
Some of us adopt a moral code of how we behave. We expect in our naivety that others we love are doing the same. Unfortunately people like lcb come along and exploit goodness in others for their own gain whilst putting themselves on a pedestal.
The scales have fallen from your eyes gradually as your mind has a self preservation switch that is subconsciously protecting you from that which you maybe can't deal with all at once.
You are awake now.
The important thing for you to do is not allow the bad behaviour of others to change how you behave or who you are. You are so MUCH BETTER.

Now dry off the wet behind your ears and get yourself out into the world even taller & stronger than before x

My counsellor has said my emotional development probably arrested quite young. I didn't have the usual teenage boyfriends where I learned how to chuck and be chucked.
He was my first proper relationship. She told me he'd probably chosen me specifically because of that. I didn't believe it. I thought he actually loved me in the beginning.

He didn't, did he?

I though that I'd created this monster.

You didn't create him onit. He is who he wants to be.
Did he love you? Who knows...is he capable of love?
His love is not a reflection of your worth. In fact quite the opposite. Your ability to love him freely and with trust is not a weakness but an example of your genuine kindness and loving heart, it is to be valued.
Don't regret anything. It won't change the outcome. You have 2 dc and your whole life ahead of you. You are free. ❤

My counsellor has said my emotional development probably arrested quite young. I didn't have the usual teenage boyfriends where I learned how to chuck and be chucked. He was my first proper relationship. She told me he'd probably chosen me specifically because of that. I didn't believe it. I thought he actually loved me in the beginning

He didn't, did he

We are alike in many ways. I was also an innocent when I met my husband. Did your husband love you? Yes. I believe he did, just as I believe my husband also loved me. But was it love in the conventional sense? On that I'm not so sure. So perhaps it's more accurate to say they loved us in their own way and I'm ok with that because I felt very loved for a very long time - just as you were.

I don't regret my life with my husband and Ill never regret it, in fact I said so a few pages ago, but I think it was maybe too much for people who are not long into this journey to comprehend.

Xxx

Ugh. The man is just vile.
Thank goodness you and your cousin have been able to piece this together before it was too late for your relationship.

It's chilling to read onit, but thank goodness you're out of it now. As to whether he loved you - I would think yes, in whatever way he is capable of it, but not in the way he should have done.

Such GOOD news though that you are now back in touch with your cousin.
LCB is your EX, he is out of your emotional & daily life.
Thank God !!! Things can only get better.
Don't look back onit.......

My cousin and I spoke on the phone last night and she said how she'd gone to a friends house after seeing me on Monday and just cried all night about what that bastard had done to us both

I told a friend yesterday and as I spoke her jaw just kept dropping.

I have my good friends over on Friday night and I need to share with them too. One of the once worked for WA (the one who didn't like him much, funnily enough) and I think I might ask her for some info.

I never actually believed he was a "proper" abuser before.
I do now. And I need to be able to acknowledge that and have it acknowledged by others too.

Absolutely.you will feel better to talk about it and reassure you that indeed he is a horrible damaged and damaging human being.
And also how well you are doing to get free of him and do it with such aplomb!

I never actually believed he was a "proper" abuser before.
I do now. And I need to be able to acknowledge that and have it acknowledged by others too

The clarity is both shocking and liberating when you allow yourself it. The first time I said it was in counselling and I was so embarrassed, I thought I was being melodramatic but I wasnt. My lady said nothing, she just let me sit there in silence and process it for ages, then when I asked her if I was correct she said yes, you are. Anyway a few days later we were all at home as a family and one of my sons said something to me so I just said in reply - because I was an abused woman son. There was silence but I knew from their faces it was true. I used to tie myself up in bloody knots rationalising doing things that I knew weren't right, there was always an excuse, but the reality is I was an abused wife even though my husband never lifted a finger to me in his life.

And something else I noticed - I was so busy putting my efforts into him that my relationships with all but my dad and two life long friends petered out. I just didnt have the energy for anyone else friendship wise and for a period of 20 years I made no new friends, I had acquaintance's people you'd say hi to at the shops etc, but no new friends in the real sense. I even let my relationship with my sister die a death and I justified it in my head, as did she, (she was married to an abuser as well) but the reality is because we were incapable of rational thought it was easier to let a daft falling out become so huge that until two weeks ago we'd had no contact whatsoever for 12 years. Anyway two weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and contacted her and the outcome is that we message each other every day, speak on the phone once a week, and we're going to go back to the UK together in the summer for a huge family reunion she should have been at last year with me if things had been different. Ive really missed her.

Its amazing what happens when you get out of an emotionally abusive relationship and you get back on your feet.

Oh wow!
Count me in on all of this too
My exh drove a wedge between me and my dad too.
After my dad died my next door neighbor told me, that my dad never liked. My exh.
Nor did her husband.
They were good straight men who probably saw straight through him.

I've now married someone just like my dad straight as a die.
It's good!

We never fell out completely but our relationship was never the same once I'd hooked up with my ex.

So, sorry you've been played like this.
What utter scumbags they are.

Just popping in to wish you a lovely weekend onit (and all)...
Try not to dwell on him and his past actions onit-you'll never fully understand it because you aren't wired up like him fortunately...all you can do is keep moving forwards...

Just wondering how your weekend has been Onit?

Sorry I've been a bit absent.
I'm still processing. I watched a film last night that I haven't watched in years and, while it's a bit of a tearjerker, there was no accounting for the state I was in during and after it.

My friends who were round in Friday didn't seem surprised tbh but I think they're taking better advantage of their 20/20 hindsight because they're not blinded by emotional ties.
More than one of them mentioned how, when we were new friends (new mums) I was always saying "dh says" this and that. Which now seems glaringly obvious but at the time not in the least noteworthy.

I spent the entirety of my second pregnancy in shock. We'd tried for 2 years for dc1 and started trying again (at LCBs insistence) when Ds was 9 months old. And I got pregnant immediately.
They commented on how he'd probably tried to undermine my confidence from the get go. He knew I was anxious with one baby ffs. I hadn't given that much thought till my friend mentioned it.

I'm back to work this week. Ambivalent isn't the word. I'm trying to be positive and thinking I'm one step closer to financial freedom from LCB.

One thing Dd said on Friday which I've just remembered. We were walking past a few flats with to let signs. She asked if they were for sale and I explained about them being rented. She said "like daddy?" And I said yes. I told her our house was ours but that renting means you might have to move more often. Then she says "daddy's going to move in with ow"
That's nice says me. I will pray for it to happen. If he does it will take him out of our town to the city they both work in. And away from me and my dcs and any chance of him being able to demand weeknight sleepovers.
I feel cold and calculating to also be thinking that, if he's trying again for the perfect family or to prove he's the perfect daddy, if she ends up pregnant, he might just fuck off altogether.
I know that would devastate my dc but I'm not sure that hurt would be more damaging than having to be parented even part time by a psychopath and his next victim.

The processing will take some time onit and it doesn't always go at the same pace. You can feel fine for months and then have,out of the blue, an awful few days with it all-in my experience anyway.