Obviously, I've changed my name for this....
I want to pay tribute to all the lovely people on mumsnet who give their time and emotional energy to support other women, and who are willing to share their wisdom and the benefit of their experience.
I escaped a horribly controlling and abusive marriage nearly three years ago. It was mostly the mumsnet relationship board that helped me realise that my experience was not normal. I learned so much here, and I was already making plans to get myself and the children out when my husband finally hit me (in front of the children).
Mumsnet people supported me through the dreadful experience of having to call the police, and gave me valuable advice about non-molestation orders and making risk assessments about the future.
The legal board and the relationship board helped me navigate the minefield of child contact. I also learned how to manage the divorce process with a man who didn't engage at all, and had to be sent every document by a process server.
About a year ago, I met a lovely new man, a single dad with full care of his two very damaged children. He did the most amazing love-bombing, and I was completely taken in, despite everything I learned from the Freedom Programme and from the highly informative women on here. I agreed to marry him, far too quickly, and it was only after he and his children moved in that the most serious red flags started to show.
This new man was so gorgeous and loving to start with, but soon started to isolate me from my family and friends. He said they were bad for me, and that he wanted to protect me from them. He was financially controlling, and also prevented me from working. He could switch from angry and upset to incredibly loving and calm within about a minute. I loved him most sincerely, I still love his children very much, and I still have a lot of sympathy for him because of the dreadful things he has been through in the past, but I quickly realised that I could not commit my life and the lives of my children to this madness. The situation went from dreamily lovely to scarily controlling within a period of about four weeks. It was when I asked him to go that he got really weird.
When I asked him to leave, he refused to go, and I needed the help of real-life friends to get him out in the end. If it wasn't for mumsnet, I honestly think I would have married him before I realised how bad things were going to become.
Thank you all for being so amazing, and for taking the time to help others.
I will recover from this, and I will use my experience to become stronger in the end. My children have had the positive experience of seeing that I will not accept being controlled (although I wish I could have spared them the pain of being convinced by this man and then slowly disillusioned).
May you all stay strong and keep on helping each other.
Bless you all.