Btw, my message earlier, wasn’t meant to be mean, or overly scary. Been there, kind of.
Except my stbxh abused me with other stuff first and the violence came last, so it was easier to see it for what it was - a sign to get out now.
Mind you, I still didn’t get out quick enough. Have a neck injury that still causes me problems today. I have to live with that. And it’s difficult. I can’t drive because of it, among other things.
It happened 5 YEARS ago.
Took seconds for him to do.
Didn’t even hurt much at the time.
I was too shocked and too busy trying to stand in between him and the bedroom where our baby was sleeping.
Then after I was ashamed of the bruises he left, and covering them up with makeup.
He acted kind of disgusted with me, like it was my fault, my failure somehow that I was bruised. He told me I couldn’t be hurting. That he hadn’t hurt me. That there was nothing wrong. That I was making it up. How could HE hurt ME? I was too big and fat for him to hurt...
Thank God me and my son got away from him. Because he was very very wrong. And he would have carried on those lies until me broke me.
The ‘little’ hit he did that couldn’t possibly have hurt me? He punched me in the neck so hard I flew across the room and hit the back of my head against the wall.
That ‘little’ blow had enough force to knock me out as my head hit the wall, so err, a fuck off massive battering is more like it! My neck whipped backwards then slammed forwards when I hit the wall, which is what’s done the lasting damage, basically like I was in a car crash or something. Fucker. And then the actual punch site as well, mostly my neck but a glancing blow off my jaw, which left it loose, but potentially saved my life. A punch to the neck is quite a good way to kill someone.
He wasn’t aiming to kill me, he’d have been shocked and raging at me no doubt, blaming me for dying because it would have been no fault of course, because who else’s fault would it have been? Not his! Thank god he got my jaw as well, because I can now look back and see that yes, just half a centimetre down and I’d be dead. From one punch. And you could be too.
Human bodies are like that. They’re pretty tough in the normal way if things, in everyday life, but once someone starts battering you once a week, once a fortnight, every time he has a drink... our bodies weren’t made for this. And they break. One squeeze in the wrong place. One thump an inch upwards, downwards. Just that bit harder... and yes, I’m sorry but yes, you could be dead, or paralysed, or horribly disabled... in agony all the time and unable to take care of your little girl...
After I got him out he cane round one last time, and wanted to stay, big sob story, blah blah blah. I was kind of weakening when he told he that he’d been arrested for raping someone!!! And he expected sympathy from me, his wife? Made me realise two things right there on the spot... one: he thought I was a right mug, he could do it say anything and I’d lap it up for a smile and a bit of attention. Ugh. And two: he was trying to spin a story that he hadn’t raped this girl, painting himself as the victim, he’d just had a shag and her boyfriend had come home so she’d lied to get out of it blah blah blah (err, minor point but he’s saying all this to his wife for fucks sake?!), anyway, as he was speaking I was looking at him calling this girl all the names under the sun and I just knew that he’d done it, he had raped her because he’d raped me. Frequently.
And in that moment I just felt truly revolted by him. And sickened. And afraid, in a way I’d never felt afraid before. Even when he was hitting me. And i needed him to be out of my home as quickly as possible. I could feel myself panicking that this monster was in my baby’s home, touching our walks and out floor and breathing our air. And I had to act very nice and very sweet and just like normal to edge him slowly towards the door, and then bam! I double locked that door and he never stepped foot in our space again. Shortly after we moved, and although we’re only close by he doesn’t know our address and school know to call me if he ever turned up out of the blue etc.
But since that day, he’s never had any power over me again. The spell broke.
And it’s so much easier when you’re not battling yourself as well as everything else.
You need to find that point, that moment when you can step away from the brain washing and see him for what he is. For me, it came after being away from him for a few weeks, and working hard at moving on and building a life for me and my son, so I’d felt what that life could be like, calm and gentle and loving, and I’d started to like that life. Then to have him come in, stuck right back in the old crap, and expect me to come to heel like a craven dog, to be ill treated again, and used, well, I saw myself through his eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw. It wasn’t a beautiful love story. We weren’t tortured souls in loved. He thought I was so stupid, such a worthless piece of shit, that he could crap all over and I’d be there licking it up and asking for more... it made me sick, no! I’m better than that, anyone is better than that!
I really hope you can start moving towards your moment, when you see him for what he is, and you for what you are.
And your daughter... you’re going to need to be very brave because, you know, don’t you, that you have to save her?
Although you are the victim, and this man is the evil one here, but somewhere deep inside you, you also have some power. You do have that power to stop it, for your daughter. Because your little girl, she’s the victim too here, and she doesn’t have that power. So she needs her mummy to be really brave and help the both of of you. Because if you don’t do it, she can’t, and she is waiting for you to save her.