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

I think the issue is that control becomes dangerous because when the person fears losing control they can become unpredictable and irrational.
Yes to this.
That's when my ex lost it the most. When I stopped caring about him and the relationship and told him he could go. Worse even, when I told him that it was over.

And, if you ever tell him it's over, or when you leave, be prepared for the usual script.
Tears
Emotional blackmail
Insults
Cold shoulder
Being overly nice
Threats
Violence
Suicide threats even

Very sage words there Bertie

I mean that ! I can't be areas to paste and note but the loss of co troll analogy is so true and explains why people that seem nice can be so abusive - and tip over the edge I to violence sadly

Excellent couple of recent posts, Bertie.

Thank you for sharing.

I know how ridiculous it must sound when I say that doesn't bother me, but it doesn't. I don't know why. I know it's wrong; I know it should.

Because it's all you've known - this is your normal, it's all you can feel at the minute.
It's also self preservation - you've detached from it

There is a different way to live

It must be getting too much because your here - and that's an amazing step.

There's a multitude of experience and advice from those that know that different way to live - having been there themselves

Making the decision to do something is often harder than the act of carrying it out

Don't look at it as the whole thing as that's scary - break the exit in to bite size, practical, manageable chunks that you can face when you feel ready.

In the worst moments, when it's happening or just after when you're dealing with it - what have you wished for?

Hi OP. I'm not really in a position to give advice but I'll share my recent experience. God, I really hope this isn't discouraging!

I left my husband of nearly 20 years this year. I had a brief period of elation then crashed and it's been up and down since. I feel disappointed not to be some strong new free woman following a new path. I do miss the relationship. We have such a huge shared history, going to gigs of band's we loved that I might never listen to again, holidays, favourite restaurants etc. It felt incredible when I was young that I had found someone who loved me. This Christmas I feel incredibly lonely and for part of it I will be without my children.
I think this is your fear, that it won't be an amazing new life?

But, and this is a big huge but, the unknown has become my comfort. If I had stayed I know what life would have been, the good and bad. But the bad was grinding me down. I was losing myself more and more doing the mental exercises you do to put up with the bad, to reconcile the hurt caused by someone you love. In some ways I'm struggling more since leaving because I'm seeing more of what had really been happening. (And believe me, my DC were not unaffected like I too was convinced).

But although my present isn't easy, now my future could be anything. I don't know what it will be but under the sadness right now I have hope. I know that if I get myself together I might find a life I didn't have before and things I didn't ever expect. I have no one right now but am slowly reconnecting with old friends who are there for me even though not living nearby. I have no job but I look at college courses and think about what I could do. I have a smaller house but it's cosy and my bedroom is a haven (invaded 5am every morning by my beautiful children )

I'm 40, it scares the shit out of me at times that I've left - but when I look ahead it's honestly exciting to know that my next (40?!) years will be a life that I make, that I am in control of.

Spot on Bertie - have never seen it explained so well as you did in that analogy.

Lweji is also right. She's listed very common behaviours that an abusive partner tends to display when faced with losing control over you. Sometimes they do all of those, sometimes they only do a few.

How are you feeling today Cherry?

Excellent post Yoshimi.

God - the sadness of all these clever, lovely brilliant women being controlled by awful men.

Yoshimi, thank you. In many ways it's a relief to read your post as that is the big worry: that I won't have an amazing new life, that I'll have a cold and empty and sad life.

I guess it's my responsibility to try and make sure that doesn't happen!

Bertie, thank you, I do think in a weird way he has always been scared of losing me. At first maybe. When we first met, I was young as I said - still at school. I turned 16 within 2 months of meeting him but I was still 15 when I met him for the first time.

Its so hard to explain. I've typed out this paragraph twice now and deleted as I've realised what I'm saying is wrong. It's just impossible to explain. How can someone make you feel great and awful? How can they make you feel so beautiful but also like no one else would want you? But he has. But maybe he just tapped into feelings that were there all along.

Morning cherry

What an honest post yoshimi

Such strong women on this thread! Including you cherry

How can they make you feel so beautiful but also like no one else would want you? But he has.

That is a thing, actually, although I can't find links to it now.

He tells you that you're beautiful, and that he is the only one who notices it.
Something like: I think you're beautiful even if nobody else thinks so. (when you haven't said that anyone else thinks your're not)
Or: Most people don't like [insert your feature here] but I love it. You're perfect for me.

Lweji, isn't that a form of negging?

Cherry, it's a common feeling - that same person making you feel two opposite things at once. Safe yet scared. Beautiful yet ugly. The best person and the worst. and so on.

In fact, I've only just clicked that now and my abusive relationship ended 13 years ago. It just shows that we really don't see a fraction of it until we are well away and living a normal life.

There will be a turning point where you know there is no going back. Mine wasn't the holes in the doors, my things getting smashed, being thrown out of the house naked, getting strangled, bruised, screamed at, threatened with knives. If you knew how mundane the moment of clarity where I knew I was going to leave was you'd laugh.

For what it's worth, my life is pretty good now I took a full year after leaving to get counselling and work on me. Freedom program didn't exist then I think but I'd say I did a version of it that I cobbled together from different books and from counselling. I'm in a normal relationship with someone who is a calm problem solver. We've a happy family with DC. I'm not perfect and have many flaws but I'm not the horrible or hopeless person he convinced me I that was. In fact, I'm actually quite a nice kind person.

You are not pathetic or weak. To stay this long with someone like this shows someone with endurance. Your only weakness is that you might be too nice forgiving and willing to overlook bad behaviour to focus on the scrap of good in a person. We can help you with that

Yes, that's the word.

I don't know. That's not really what he does. I don't feel like I'm very nice looking but he can make me feel that way.

Cherry you are questioning what he has told you, what he has conditioned you to believe, please continue, its an awakening, isnt it?
And to Bertie, Yoshim, Lweji and so many wise women on this post.
Thank you all.

Cherry, you are feeling the way you are supposed to feel right now. At the moment, I am going through a situation where I am being accused of being crazy and being tested for this, just because HE says so. It's so humiliating. I also have to fight for my children because he now says I am a bad mum. This is so hard and I spend time having to prove to myself (and everyone he's told that I am bad) that I am actually a good mum. I must be a good mum, I left the relationship to protect my kids. That doesn't mean that I don't doubt myself all the time, I have been conditioned to think he is right and Its not an easy habit to kick.

The confusion you are feeling is normal, it's part of the process and it's also where he wants you to be. You spend all your energy trying to work out the confusion, that you shouldn't have any head space to think he is wrong. They grind you down and exhaust you so that you don't have time to think.

They forget that women can multi-task, we can think about 2 things at once. Like Yoshimi says, it's not going to be perfect, but nor is the situation right now. Get Christmas out of the way and then you will be able to make a plan. It might takes ages to execute I, but you will feel better once you have the plan and know what your options are.

I might cut my hair. I know it sounds stupid but my hair has always been mid length and highlighted. I like it, but so does he.

Yes, my ex was so afraid of losing me. So, so afraid. That was what the control issues probably boiled down to really. We had not yet been together for 12 hours when he started quizzing me about whether I saw it as a serious relationship, because he was worried I would dump him after a few weeks. I thought it was weird at the time but I just reassured him because he wouldn't stop going on about it and after all, I thought, if I do want to leave I can just leave. Which, um, I couldn't. By the time I realised things were bad I was too far in. And then I got pregnant so I felt like I owed it to DS to try.

Anyway. I think that what happens is that people with an abuser mindset, without necessarily being aware that what they're doing is unusual or even harmful, they don't see relationships or parenthood in the way that other people see these things. They don't see their partner or children as people in their own right, they see them as extensions of themselves, and that's why it's so frightening to them when they catch a glimpse of the reality; that you're a fully fleged person with a mind and hopes and desires of your own. They are afraid of losing you, because they have so tightly crafted this vision of "my wife" "my kids" etc which is all tied up in themselves - but they are also afraid of you thinking too much, having too much contact with people they don't directly approve of, etc. Because everything needs to be under their control where they can be aware of it at all times. Then they know what's happening and they feel safe.

I honestly don't think that most abusers are aware of what they do. I think it's just the way that they see the world and this is one of the hardest things to understand, because you will never be able to convince them that relationships and life work in a different way.

This is why most abusers get very possessive and stalkerish after a break up, but also, one of the most jarring things is the way that, if and when they do move on from a relationship like this, they snap onto the next one alarmingly quickly with seemingly no issues. From the way that they carry on and the increasingly desperate things that they say or do to try and get you to stay you would really truly believe that they would never be the same again but once they have decided that it's not worth it, they drop you, and hone in on the next target which they then begin to treat in exactly the same manner. Because in the end they just need a person to fill that role, and it doesn't actually matter who it is. One of the more little known red flags is insistence on using a pet name like "Love" or "Baby" instead of using your actual name - it can be a marker that they see you as a role (my wife/girlfriend) rather than as a person.

I've read this whole thread over course of this evening, there is so much wise advise from some strong and amazing women. Cherry, you sound so broken and confused :( massive respect to you for taking the first step to talk about this

You said in you earlier posts that he would counter your rape accusations by showing texts from 10 years ago and saying you wanted it. At ANY point you are entitled to change your mind and if he continues that is rape. I've changed my mind when dp is inside me and we stopped and we had a cuddle or something. That doesn't make me a tease, or him some kind of Saint, that is how men who aren't rapists act.

Haven't read the whole thread, just wanted to say that I am going through similar.

After finding out my partner was cheating on me a few days ago I realised how he was controlling me, I thought our relationship was good, I believed everything he said to me, when he raped me the first time he tried to make out it was my fault, that I sent the wrong signals, he promised it wouldn't happen again.

A few days ago ( when I found out he had been meeting over women ) I chucked him out, he threatened suicide and I was advised to report him missing, I chucked all his things outside, left a note on his things and bolted the door. When the police came to question me about him being missing I was asked if he ever assaulted me, I broke down and I told them ' yes he did', the next day when they found my partner I was asked if I wanted to press charges, I got advice from a local domestic violence team and I was advised to press charges to protect my children. 2 days ago I gave a full statement and he was arrested and questioned for 4 accounts of rape and multiple sexual assaults, he has since been released on bale.

I was advised to go to a shelter but I didn't want to go, I spent one night with family and spent last night back at home, I have had all the locks changed but I'm still scared.

I am a mess, I still love him but at the same time I am very angry and scared. I know I have to protect my children and I gave done the right thing but it hasn't been easy.

You need to do the same, you need to be strong and protect your children.

Your post is so sad to read Lovemusic but I am in awe of how strong you have been.

I'm sorry you went through that Lovemusic

I'm not feeling strong at all this morning, I have just had to call 101 as he has contacted my mum during the night which breaches his bale conditions. He's still saying he hasn't done anything wrong, he will be arrested again today. My mental health isn't great and I fear I may have to speak more help today .

Seek