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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

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Original poster

How on earth can I keep us all safe?

994 replies

cherrycrumblecustard · 14/12/2016 16:00

I was going to make this post about "my friend" but honestly, I think I just need to be open about me.

How do you cope? When you live with someone who

will hit (not hard and not enough to bruise but will hityou and also shove, thump things near you and so on)
won't take no for an answer for sex, pulls your pants down as you pull them up, insists, ejaculates when you don't want them to and have asked/begged/pleaded not to
controls EVERYTHING

I need out, but I am TERRIFIED of leaving my children, our children, with him

OP posts:
LuluLovesFruitcakes · 19/12/2016 11:12

Are they blind and deaf?

LuluLovesFruitcakes · 19/12/2016 11:13

If not, then they will know.

Even if they were, they'd still pick up on atmosphere.

How do you feel when he tells you what to wear?

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 11:14

No, but they don't sit in our bedroom and listen to him telling me off.

It's hard enough to talk about this without people deciding things are happening which aren't.

OP posts:
alphabook · 19/12/2016 11:16

We know because we have lived it. It's just not possible to live in a house with that level of tension and control and not pick up on it. Children see and hear things when they go to bed and you think they're asleep. Children experience that undercurrent of anxiety that maybe they can't quite verbalise or explain, but it's always there. It has a far more damaging effect than I think you realise.

If you left then in time you would get back so many things you don't have now because he doesn't let you have it. Friends, a better job, access to your money (which you probably only see as his money at the moment.) You feel that he is all you have because that's the prison he has put you in.

LuluLovesFruitcakes · 19/12/2016 11:17

How do you feel when he tells you what to and what not to wear?

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 11:18

That doesn't bother me, LuLu honestly. Half the time I deliberately wear stuff I know he hates to annoy him.

OP posts:
LuluLovesFruitcakes · 19/12/2016 11:19

And that's a healthy atmosphere?

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 11:21

I can only say, I honestly feel the children are happy and loved and safe. Whether I am or not is another matter, but I don't matter, in this context anyway. Which is why leaving is agonising as I would be doing it purely for selfish reasons.

OP posts:
alphabook · 19/12/2016 11:24

This is my morning routine: DH and I laugh, smile, joke, chat about things, he'll make me a cup of tea, kisses me with love. Unless you are an Oscar winning actress I really don't believe your interactions with your husband in front of the children are as normal, relaxed and happy as you believe they are.

alphabook · 19/12/2016 11:28

Can you say with 100% certainty that the dynamic between you and your husband doesn't affect them? Can you say that it will never affect them as they get older and even more aware of things?

Can you risk the consequences to your children's emotional wellbeing that others in this thread have described after growing up in similar households?

I'm not expecting you to give me an answer, but I hope you think about it.

Foxsox · 19/12/2016 11:33

I felt physically sick reading your initial post.
Go back and read it!!
Stop making excuses for him
Keep you and your children safe.
You doubt yourself because he makes you doubt yourself
You are not in control, he is!
That's WRONG!

What has to happen before you see what is happening in your home.

Please, for the sake of your children and their future, get help, get out!
He rapes you and you are making excuses for him, please don't. This isn't your fault, AT ALL.
WA will help you.

What would you tell your best friend if she sat you down and told you what you have told us?
Would you say
"Oh but it's ok, the kids don't see and he's a good dad (which we all know he isn't) he's ok really"

No, no you wouldn't say that, because no one 'good' would rape their partner.
You would tell her what we have told you.
Get help

Please please get help.

Lweji · 19/12/2016 11:43

He is stricter than me but definitely not abusive. Not to them.

Actually, are you sure you can tell for certain?

What does he do when he's stricter? What words does he use?

RestlessTraveller · 19/12/2016 11:45

Morning Cherry how did you get on with the checklist?

Pollyanna9 · 19/12/2016 11:46

You see Cherry you seem to be justifying staying because it's only you being affected and therefore you can justify not making a break for it. But it isn't just you being affected, the children are being too.

I've tried to say this to you, as have others, as gently as possible, but your children ARE being affected. We don't need to be there because we've already been there and even if at the time we too felt it wasn't affected them, it was.

On interview by CAFCASS my DS revealed he was frightened of his stepdad. He never said a word to me. So he was being affected. Believe me you don't want to experience the long-term guilt and shame and self disgust that those of us have to stayed with a partner who was less than nice at times have experienced, as we have to accept that in doing so, we inflicted damage on our children longer than was ever necessary. And that is without our partners berating or beating out children or even hitting us (less than your DH does to you) - just the low level atmosphere and 'small' abuses are enough to affect them forever.

I'm sorry we can't sugar coat this aspect for you because whilst you may feel you're ok, until you can realise that they're not ok and be protector for them by removing you and them or removing him then they are going to be affected and I'm sorry, really really really sorry OP, but that's just the way it is.

cestlavielife · 19/12/2016 12:04

cheery you do matter.
a lot
you really dont have to sacrifice or martyr yourself on some idea of "for the children" .

why do you think he matters more than you?

"f he looked after them they'd have however long of listening to stories about me from when I was 17, 18, 19. Stupid stuff I did. Things I said about them, things I did to them. All true but taken out of context."

why would he do that?
why would that be good?

so you think that so long as you are there to laugh these stories off or counter them it is ok?
does he not spend any time with them alone now?

thing is cherry, you really dont realize how much this atmosphere affects them til you leave,...and the freedom you and dc enjoy...

when I left my dd would hit her sister or say nasty things and say "oh i couldnt help it" or "but it is true" - because that is what ex said, he always justified.

Grandmamoses · 19/12/2016 12:29

Cherry, whatever you eventually decide to do, the genie is now out of the bottle. You have made it real by writing the words you did in your first post and you will never again be able to dismiss or excuse his behaviour without thinking of all the things you have read here.

Perhaps this will plant a seed that will grow and grow and give you the strength to make the right decision.

Grandmamoses · 19/12/2016 12:53

"Take this morning for instance, he told me to take my trousers off because they didn't suit me. So I did. "

What would have happened if you had said "Actually, I like these trousers and I'm going to wear them."

My DH sometimes says he doesn't like something I'm wearing but he would never demand I take it off. He leaves it up to me.

Pollyanna9 · 19/12/2016 12:55

I think the honest truth of the situation was spelled out in OPs titling of this thread:

How on earth can I keep us ALL safe?

ALL.

That's her and the kids.

Quartz2208 · 19/12/2016 13:16

how do we know? because the effect it is having on you is clear from your posts, how it is effecting you screams out from everything you write so if we can pick up on it they can.

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 13:37

Lweji, he'd say their name sternly and they'd do as they were told. He'd confiscate a toy or something they love and only give it back after a set period. I tend to buckle and say oh, all right then, have it back! To be honest for the most part they are very, very good children. My DD tantrums but she's 2 so ...

Restless it didn't really apply to me, I'm sorry. Thanks for telling me how to find it though.

Pollyanna but that's completely different, that's a stepdad, of course he was scared of him. We are just not a SS family. At all.

Grandma he'd have just told me I looked ridiculous but it was my choice if I wanted people laughing at me all day.

I am not trying to minimise but the more people insist I have terrified withdrawn little things, who are currently shouting/singing a Christmas song and "making Christmas cards" I just know that they are wrong.

OP posts:
myoriginal3 · 19/12/2016 13:40

I bet he's not there though if they're singing.

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 13:41

Yes but they would and do if he was here.

OP posts:
RestlessTraveller · 19/12/2016 13:45

No Cherry you are passing the buck here. It absolute does apply to you. Even with the scant information on here I can see you would come out as high risk. He's sexually, physically, emotionally and financially abusing you.

Have you emailed women's aid?

Original poster
cherrycrumblecustard · 19/12/2016 13:47

No, I can't. Emails aren't safe. And no, it didn't apply to me, it was men hitting women, throwing them down the stairs and so on.

OP posts:
myoriginal3 · 19/12/2016 13:48

Why did you post op?

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