After reading some brave stories put forward by women in similar situations I want to reach out where I won't be judged and hopefully can receive some sound advice.
Be prepared- this is a long one!!
I am in an extremely abusive (non physical) on/off relationship with my son's father. My son has just turned 6 so this has been happening for quite a while.
It started when I fell pregnant, the controlling behaviour, manipulation & emotional abuse. There were spouts of violence when he came back from Afghanistan (he's now left the forces). Every time I tried to leave he made my life absolute hell, the abuse was so much worse that in the end it was just easier to stay (it's still like this). However, when my son was about 2 I plucked up the courage one afternoon and rang the police when he snatched my phone and tried to stop me from going to meet friends (I used the house phone). I phoned the police and explained that by him taking my phone away he's taking a lifeline that I needed and he knew that as well as the arguing and shouting I just wanted him removed from my home.
I then saw a police car turn up so I picked my baby up and walked out, walked up the road away from the flat so I didn't see or hear anything (I felt guilty for ringing the police).
Basically after the police went into the flat they came storming out and running towards me, my baby was snatched from my arms and I was apprehended on the floor with my hands cuffed behind my back. In the 5 or so minutes it took the police to go upstairs he had cut himself with something (to this day I don't know what) and told the police I had had stabbed him with a butter knife!!!
After this I was arrested and strip searched in the police station and my baby was taken and given to the very man I was trying to escape from. I was held in the cells over night, interviewed and released on bail the next day. Absolutely terrifying experience.
After this I felt like there was there was no going back, he had taken my small baby and refused to give him back. He was staying at his parents house (who absolutely believe he is perfect and couldn't put a toe out of place) which was a 5 minute walk from my mums which is where I was staying. I couldn't see my child, cuddle him or anything. Social services absolutely nobody helped me because my son was healthy and happy with his dad. He then began to blackmail me and said that if I got back together with him he would drop the charges and I wouldn't go to prison. He had me convinced this was my fate. We got back together because I couldn't bare not seeing my child any longer but he never dropped the charges. He used it as a bargaining tool to ensure I never left. I was charged and had to go to court, again the whole process was the worst experience of my life.
I was found guilty in a magistrates court despite there being no knife ever found etc. I contested this and took it to crown where they eventually found me not guilty.
Since then I have been terrified of leaving because absolutely nobody believed or could see what was happening despite me having it in black and white. Nobody cared, not the police nobody. Since then I have undertaken a course at college which has got me into university to study social work. I am supposed to start in September but I'm ferried I won't make the 3 years because of his jealous and abusive behaviour. I want me and my son out. He doesn't live with me, he has friends in the same street so even if I don't want to talk to him he is always around. Standing outside my home ensuring I don't have another man here (as if). His abuse continues and I feel trapped. I absolutely refuse to go to police for help and will not ever put myself through that again. Is there anyway I can leave this home? I don't have much money and my mum tries her best but she has younger children to think of and as previously mentioned his whole family live very close to her. It's not an emergency but I just can't live like this anymore 😕 thank you for reading xxx