How on earth can I keep us all safe?

[cherrycrumblecustard]

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

You don't sound patronising :)

I don't know if I will get out. the things I've put up with! I stay because I can't really imagine, or want, another life. This is what I know. I know what to expect and how to deal with it. Like if you've spent years in a difficult job it's no longer difficult because you know what to do. Even though a different job might seem like less work actually it isn't.

I've been looking at trauma bonding and recognise a lot of stuff from that.

No im not, im asking you to read those two sentences and consider logically why they dont make much sense. Imagine someone else wrote them.

It doesnt bother you, but you feel anger towards him when he does it. The reason you feel anger towards him is because it is rape and very very wrong.

No, I feel anger when he tells me I love it when I don't.

So you dont love it, but it doesnt bother you. Nothing about it upsets you? Im just trying to be clear.

When your daughter is older, would you be happy for her to have a similar type of sexual relationship with her partner? Is what he does normal and okay?

Yes, you are looking things up, you are recognising things aren't right. You are further along than you think. When I was in this part of the cycle, my head felt so fuzzy and confused, like I was in an anxious blur. I never thought I would get out, I am still not 100% out as he will not leave our home because he wants to continue his controlling abuse. It's terrifying and, like you, I normalised it. What you say about a job that you know what to do, that's exactly right. It becomes normal and the only reason you know it's not normal is because something in the pit of your stomach doesn't feel right. It is all you know, yes, but we are all still learning. It can be hard to even describe what goes on and why it doesn't feel right. Like the bit about sex bothers you less than whet goes on in your head - because it's severe emotional a use. According to my WA counsellor, even women who are hit say that it's the emotional bit that stings, not the punch. Like me, you almost have no feelings anymore, you are just numb and you can't allow yourself to 'feel' because you might break. But, one day you will feel and you will WANT to feel....I think you already do, but it's so hard to face up to. I thought I would just be this depressed, pathetic, weak idiot for the rest of my life. I felt so unhappy all of the time but I wouldn't let myself face up to why that was. Then, one day, it just happened when I least expected it.

Believe in yourself Cherry. You are a mother, that's not easy, but you love your kids so much. You can do this. You gay hirth, put up with a mother who didn't make you feel great about yourself. Give yourself credit for those things and they will give you strength.

Gave birth even, not gay hirth!

My daughter isn't even 3 yet, don't be so awful

Gay hirth

I just need some time of process stuff.

Just do it in your own time. It will work out.

OP im just trying to get you to imagine someone you love going through what you are going through. He has ruined your self confidence so you dont recognise it in yourself.

Imagine it was a friend instead - how would you feel knowing they were going through it?

tru and focus on the helpful posts and I agree marathon not sprint

Keep reading and start that diary x

Cherry, you are secure in your cosy gilded cage aren't you. Problem is you get raped daily,and that's the price you pay for your " security".

How on earth can I keep us all safe?

If you feel unsafe in your home, then it has to filter down to the dcs, as no matter how loved they are, they are being brought up by a bully and a victim.

It sounds as though you have been controlled and intimidated (and also kind of grateful) throughout your relationship with him, so that is the atmosphere the DCs were born into. So this is their 'normal' already. You are so deep in it, you can hardly see it.

The hope is that you've posted here, and you've done that for a reason.

Some therapy would be a great idea to help change your 'disordered thinking' - but if you are so deep in that you wouldn't be able to organise therapy for fear of your husband, I really don't know what to suggest, sorry.

Thinking of you today cherry, have a lovely day

Cherry, I've been where you are darling (minus the sexual abuse), horrible emotional and psychological battery, the gilded cage, big house, all the trappings...
And the just turned 1 year old.

I'm almost out. But my god it's taken some time and it took a couple of years of me 'knowing and feeling' deep in my gut that I wasn't being treated right before I believed what I was living. Only NOW I accept it wasn't my fault and I wasn't all the things he claimed I was, that I am a good person, a good mother, friend. A decent human being. You are one, he isn't.

My h had some good points also. We had some good times too, but against a horribly abusive backdrop, with me often reverting to my default survival mode where I would appease and preempt his next moves/mood. I was conditioned, as are you. But as so many strong women on this thread have kindly illustrated in their own experiences, it is WRONG, utterly destructive for you and children and NOT a life you have to live.

I couldnt agree with or relate more to enough101. You are waking up and it's terrifying. I can see how you would feel some posters aren't helping, but they are sincerely trying... It's all too much to absorb right now. This cannot be done overnight, next week or even next month. But only when you are ready. Like you, my children weren't in immediate physical danger, but they were being damaged. I also tried to kid myself they weren't. It took some time before I was honest with myself. They had a part time mummy. She was useless when he was around, overpowering her emotions, putting her down... Making her feel she was useless and pointless...

But I fought back, clawed some strength back and have been taking steps to set me free. This includes giving up a very affluent lifestyle. It all means nothing with an empty soul and crushed sense of sense and purpose.

Don't be afraid of anyone on here. And don't disappear. It's very very hard. But you made the first step.

Do feel free to PM me.

Take care

Beautifully said Seeking.

Would it help people to understand a little bit more if I explained that maybe I'm not sure being brought up with just me is good for the children either? Last night was horrible and I wanted to post and I felt like I couldn't as people would say I was being manipulative and after sympathy. Please understand I really, literally CAN'T do anything until the new year anyway.

CHERRy - I don't know you but I think you are a good person as your priority is your children. Therefore in my eyes you are the right person to bring them up. Your DH may give the impression of being a good father and your children are too young to see what is really happening. But by the way your DH treats you, he is not a good person.

I don't think anyone expects you to anything today, tomorrow or next week but you perhaps just need to realize that you can have better life. He can leave the house and pay child support - you and your Children could then remain in the house they know, near their schools and friends.

I wish I knew where you were so I could see you and reassure myself that you are ok.

It took me about 6 months to get out of a relationship like this. And we were not married, had no kids or joint finances/mortgage to complicate matters.

So it takes time.

I felt like a pisstaker the first time I spoke to Women's Aid. It took me all those months to get my head around the fact it was abusive. And it took me a couple of years after it to fully comprehend the full extent of all that had happened.

Keep talking. Keep reading. It's early days and you have a lot to take in even from this thread alone.

Yes cherry i understand what you say about you feel you are not the best thing for the kids? I feel the same too.
Ive read your whole thread 16 pages straight now, im sat in mcdonalds as too scared to go home. I started a thread about ea but i didnt put the tip of the iceberg but ive read every piece of advice given to you and im going to take it for myself.

For a long time i thought i would be worse the kids with just me but after reading the experiences in your post im awake.

Ive been waking up for the last few months and i started challenging him more which is probably the worst thing i could do so its got worse.

Every one of us women abused or not is different and you will come to you own realisation cherry in your own time, i believe you will get there.

Please keep posting and reading and listening as it sinks in.

My kids are with my mother and i dont think ill go home, either way ive accepted today in this last hour that my marriage is over.

I had a plan but this morning i could no longer take it as i lay in bed and he loomed over me shouting at me then i was loud and crazy and shouting, i even shouted in the street as he went out the front door after calling me crazy and telling me repeatedly to calm down.

I questioned constantly that im nkt good enough to look after my children just like you are (yet i do everything alone for them anyway) and i made my 7yo cry blaming her for for playing us against each other which started off the day at 9 am and him shouting at me but that learnt behavoiur on her part and im awful to have shouted at her so i feel even more of a failure.

Then i read the last 16 pages and i thought if im a rubbish mum its because of the situation and im defeated and my coping skills are getting less and less.

Then i read another ones story and i thought fuck this, this is my children, this will be their recollection of their childhood one day.

I also tried to ring womans aid today and didnt get through.

Please keep trying cherry you will leave when you are ready but please make steps to do so.

I wish i had done more before but im doing it now.

So cherry you posted thu
Is post and you were braver than i have ever been to do so as when i post its all been in a round about way and i never detail whats happe ning.

You have done so far and explained rrally well, you have put your side across, please read your post through, you are stronger than you believe.
Goodluck cherry but you are a good mum and the kids will be better off with you.
If you believe nothing else believe that you are a good mum, your kids will be happy once you leave and you will find a way through this.

Carve out your own way but do it.

Sorry for all the typos

flirty I hope you are able to find peace. I just typed out a long post but I don't feel able to share as I feel people will berate me.

I have absolutely no one. It's easy to say I will make friends but I have to be honest here, with things like divorce and bereavement I find people are initially supportive and then life goes on very quickly and you are found standing alone surrounded by crying children missing their dad and you feel very strange in those circumstances.

I can't, and won't, deny in some ways he was a parent-figure to me, maybe that's one of the problems that we've been in a bubble for a while now. You say to yourself things will change and mean it but then life takes over and before you know it six months have gone by and everything's still as it was.

Am I a good person ... I just don't know. As DH is so fond of saying, he saw something in me, but I also saw something in him. I know I have good points, some - most, I hope, have been handed down to my children, but I also know I am lazy, stubborn, have a tendency towards snobbishness and can have quite a fixed worldview, although reading some of these posts I don't know if I'm alone in that.

But in any case if does feel a bit rock and hard place. Leave - whether that's literally leaving or booting him out - and that's a long long time to be on your own. No job or career - and getting one will be nigh on impossible due to childcare constraints and money and a thousand other "ands". Friends - well, the truth is, your friends can only really take you so far. They have your best interests at heart of course but at the end of the day they have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and partners, sons and daughters, colleagues and commitments, of their own. Endless 'would you like to come round on thursday?' Once in a blue moon you might get a yes but it would be a blue moon occasion. And the emptiness of it just grows and eventually you have an eighteen year old who says 'my mum? She's lovely, yes, but she doesn't do much!' (which ironically was my complaint about him when he was a baby; everyone kept saying how lovely he was and I said to DH 'but he doesn't do anything!')

Last night after I was told I wanted sex I took the dog out and I just charged about for a while, I felt I had all this pent up energy. I wouldn't have been able to do that with no DH. Even just a walk outside in the fresh air. I couldn't do it. Because I have no one. And I appreciate on MN there are a lot of us in this situation but in the real world it's actually quite unusual and people don't understand and so they can't help.

Thank you Pollyanna9. I would be here to well into the new year if I listed all he had done (without inflicting a single visible mark. Possibly another few more days listing the 'good times'. What took a while to properly and logically understand was that him being a great provider and having family time together does not, should not and must not mean I had to be treated like a 'bad investment' - what I was often referred to or constantly feel my whole being was a mistake. It's not an overnight event. This kind of abuse is calculated, designed to overpowers us and micro manage our nature to the point that we take on the characteristics of our abusers, even mimic them, as they did us when they were 'grooming' us.

Ah, I could talk at length... Sadly.

Cherry, please do talk more, you have many ears here, and can say whatever you like. Nobody is controlling or manipulating you here. And if it's been mentioned that you come off manipulative, it's only because of a trait you have taken on from him and are very possibly mimicking a certain style - if that makes sense. It's always hard to accurately interpret a written word and it's tone. This thread is one of magnanimous support, even if it has been a bit challenging in parts.

I've a toddler climbing over me so can't even spell check this, let alone preview for grammar and comprehension. Keep talking if you need to is what I am saying.

Flirtygirl I didn't see your post before I posted. I am sending much strength to you. Seems like you have plenty already.

Cherry, I can't type pages as I do t have time right now. But I understand you. It's not black and white and never will be. I too struggled, for a long time trying to put a label on it. Feeling fraudulent and telling myself that I am as bad, I goad him, I chose him, etc. Etc.

I don't think that anymore. If I had posted 2 years ago. I would have been as confused and in denial as you are now.

You are locked in your own head and own emotions, tricking you into feeling things aren't as bad as they seem. Your gut and decimated boundaries are screaming at you. The job he has done on your head and viewpoint is jumping up and down trying to get you to hear otherwise.

I think it would be wise to keep posting, keep listening, and get some reading material. There is a lot in print and online.

Knowledge is power they say. Certainly was for me.

See I just admitted to him I needed some money for DDs nursery and he couldn't have been nicer. So understanding and just laughing a bit. Transferred some straightaway and some on top so 'I don't get in trouble.'