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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Don't think I can stay any longer

62 replies

emmy29 · 21/08/2007 16:30

I've had so much advice from various friends and family that I don't know which way to turn.

I have been unhappy with my DH for a while. We have been together 10 years married for 4 and have four children together. Recently I met someone else who I really like. We just click and you don't meet many people like that in life. Anyway DH found out and life has been pretty much hell for the last 4 weeks.

In my heart I know I shouldn't stay but it is scary leaving. We are arguing constantly and I've told him twice that its over and each time he has overreacted and got really angry which has scared me. He knows that it will take time to sort things out if I am leaving i.e. finding somewhere for me and the kids to live. However the other night I'd had enough and said it was over and he threatened to throw me out as it is "his house". I refused and he said he was leaving I went to get something from the car and he locked me out so I had to smash the back door window to get in. I can't keep going on like this its not fair on the children.

To top it off today I was giving my second son a bath and when he took his clothes off he has a hand print bruise on his back. I asked him how it had happened and my eldest son said that Dad had hit him when I was at work on the weekend. I asked the details and he said that Daddy had hit him really hard on the back and around the head!! I am absolutely in shock. He's always had a bad temper with the kids, but I will not tolerate this. It has just made me want to leave even more.

The problem I've got is he thinks that he is not to blame at all for me wanting to leave he thinks all the blame is on this other man I like. But I would not leave if I wasn't unhappy. I wouldn't leave him for another guy as that's just stupid. I like this other guy but its just highlighted to me all the problems in our marriage and made me realise that we are just so different.

I feel so suffocated by him as he's taken to checking everything I say or do on the computer and checking my phone. He has absolutely no trust left and I cannot live with someone not giving me any tiny bit of privacy which he thinks is his right at the moment.

I'm just sooooooo tired of all the fighting

OP posts:
Original poster
emmy29 · 21/08/2007 17:12

He's 8. My son he hit is only 4. I have twin girls who are 8 months.

OP posts:
Original poster
emmy29 · 21/08/2007 17:20

Sometimes it takes talking about things to make you realise that what you feel is right. Nobody should treat a child like that no matter who. Thank you for your advice. I will be having a talk with him when he gets home about this and tell him that I don't want him near the kids until he has sorted himself out as he is a danger to them. If he refuses to seek help I will contact the authorities and report him. I am going to sort out somewhere to go and get out. You've made me all think straight so thank you.

OP posts:
KaySamuels · 21/08/2007 17:21

Leave.

It's that simple. Show your boys this is unnacceptable behaviour, it is your job to protect them and now you know about this please do that. You have proof of his violence and will receive help with leaving him.

How is your inlaws relationship?

KaySamuels · 21/08/2007 17:22

xposts emmy.

Glad you have had advice that has helped, good luck.

Saturn74 · 21/08/2007 17:22

Keep posting, emmy.
And good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Original poster
emmy29 · 21/08/2007 17:24

My mother in law is a nice person but she sees no wrong in him as all mothers do. I have told her about my concerns with his temper before and she makes up excuses for it which frustrates me and makes me feel like I'm in the wrong. My father in law isn't in the picture much.

I've often raised my concerns with my mum but I always feel like people make excuses for his behaviour and I'm left thinking is is just me? Am I being over the top.

Speaking now has confirmed my feelings that it is not right and that I should acted a long time ago.

OP posts:
Original poster
emmy29 · 21/08/2007 17:26

Got to go now as he'll be home in half an hour and I need to prepare myself. I'm going to be very calm and not accept any excuses as there are none. I will let you know what happens. Thank you once again for getting my head straight. My children are my main priority and that is all I'm concerned about from this day on.

OP posts:
mintchips · 21/08/2007 17:30

Good luck emmy x

warthog · 21/08/2007 19:21

all the best emmy. you are doing the right thing by your children and yourself.

EscapeFrom · 22/08/2007 19:12

What happened then? How did it go?

LaBoheme · 22/08/2007 19:15

how are things emmy?

chocyholic · 22/08/2007 22:50

How are you doing, Emmy? I really feel for you - I'm in a similar position, although my DH is just verbally aggressive to DS. I've put up with it for 12 years, and I really regret not leaving earlier. I just had no one to talk to to tell me that it was really unacceptable. I always managed to persuade myself that I was over reacting. Now I feel that I have let DS down by not protecting him. You can get used to anything, but that doesn;t mean that it;s right. Please let us know how you are doing

madamez · 22/08/2007 22:59

Good luck, hope you have either got away or your horrible H is cooling his heels in a cell somewhere. Don't for a minute think that counselling or pandering to his jealousy or any change in your behaviour will patch things up - this man is an abusive bully and he won't get any better without years of therapy and that's not your problem.

Batteredsausage · 23/08/2007 09:49

So this is it, the Jerry Springer moment.... Jerry, Jerry, Jerry...........

Please feel free to boo, hiss and hurl abuse.

But if you can please put what you may have read about me in this thread and any opinions formed to one side, just for a few moments to read what I have to say.

At the outset I would like to say that I do not agree with violence or abuse in any form, it repulses me totally.

I must however defend myself from the accusation that I abuse my children and that as it has been put on this forum that I beat my children, I DO NOT. I have been accused of being (in no order) a rapist, a wife beater, a paedophile through various mediums over the previous few weeks, but to be called a child beater really is hard to take. I feel that I now have to defend myself from some of these accusations.

I admit that I did smack my son, and completley understand how that sounds to you all. I am completely ashamed of myself and have apologised to him for an action that must be very difficult for a four year old to come to terms with. This however, does NOT excuse my behaviour and will be looking for help to stop this happening again. In my defence please please please, do not even begin to imagine (as has been assumed and implied here) that I am a child beater.

As for some of the comments recieved in this thread I agree with most whole heartedly, for the vast vast majority of parents the thought of violence or any form of abuse towards children is truely sickening.

Please read back through the thread I hope that the irony of wishing someone "dead in a ditch" isn't lost on everyone when reading a thread about physically abuse and violence!

Take care of yourselves, and each other. BS

Cue abuse!!

EscapeFrom · 23/08/2007 09:59

Actually, I see no irony in the 'dead in a ditch' comment. I am under no duty to protect someone who has bruised my child. You, however, have a duty to protect your children, and instead you have damaged them. How did your son receive a hand shaped bruise to his back, if you haven't beaten him? whose hand left that bruise there, if it wasn't yours?

Nice how you waited until the wife was neatly out of the way too. Brave.

On another note, does your wife know you are reading her posts? Why are you breaching her privacy in this way? And, I think you should ask yourself, why do you feel the need to?

EscapeFrom · 23/08/2007 10:00

Your contempt shows, by the way, in the way you have likened us to the Jerry Springer audience. Why do you feel contempt for us?

Blu · 23/08/2007 10:02

Well, BatteredSaausage, anyone who hits a 4 year-old, espcially hard enough to leave bruises, and around the head, needs help with parenting, anger and communication. Anyone who really loves thjoier wife and children and wants to create a safe secure loving relationship would seek urgent relationship counselling (through Relate or other) and specific anger management and parenting suport. Which is freely available thhough a range of outlest. MN is a good source of advice on such things.

LaBoheme · 23/08/2007 10:10

poor little boy

newlifenewname · 23/08/2007 10:16

I hate to harp on at people like this but this is classic controlling behaviour and is abuse. Don't let the practicalities get in the way of you getting your son and you in a safe place. You NEED to and your son needs to know you will protect him.

Look at it this way, he just grassed on his daddy. That is a BIG thing for a child to do because no matter how horrid adults can be, they still hate to speak or think badly of parents because they love them. To be quite honest, your son probably told you about the bruise because he was telling you he needs you to do something to make stuff like this stop. And remember that nearly all adult and child victims of abuse say that the emotional stuff is worse than the physical so if your dh is agressive/grumpy/shouty/unkind with your son already this will be taking its toll.

I KNOW it is hard to leave but I think you need to take some decisive action.

KaySamuels · 23/08/2007 10:19

You probabaly daren't post on here anymore due to your H's invasion of your privacy. I think you know what you need to do. Think of your son.

Blu · 23/08/2007 10:23

All the children.
DP saw his father hit his younger sister when he was a child and still feels the guilt a child feels when they are distressed yet helpless. It will be affecting all of them.
Think of that, which ever of you is reading.

EscapeFrom · 23/08/2007 10:30

This is a message to the OP,

If you ever get to come back and read this, think about this.

It doesn't matter what your husband promises, it doesn't matter about how much you love him, or how much the children love him, or how much he loves you.

If you don't do something to show your children you will defend them, they will never trust you to defend them again.

Your little boy has been beaten and bruised. To be bruised by someone is an assault. You have been told about this by your other children. You now have a legal and moral duty to remove your children from the source of abuse.

I know how hard that is, especially if you are in two minds about whether you want to. I KNOW because I had to do it myself ... but think on this.

In 10 years time, can you face a 14 year old boy and answer the question "Why did you keep letting him hit me, Mum? Didn't you care enough about me to stop him?"

The answer is not to quit your job, by the way. I have a suspicion the blame will have been placed on you going to work and leaving him "With four kids who don't listen to a word I say".

His Violence, His Problem, make him own it himself.

Batteredsausage · 23/08/2007 11:10

Escapefrom, I have no contempt for you or anyone on this forum. I think you provide valuable and welcome advice for many people in a variety of circumstances.

If you could point me in the direction of the hand shaped bruise on my sons back it would be most helpful, it certainly wasn't their last night.

Yes my wife knows I have read the posts, I have breached her privacy as I feel the need to defend myself from accussations that have been made about myself in several different forms.

EscapeFrom · 23/08/2007 11:47

So you say that what she is saying about you isn't true? There wasn't a bruise on his back?

Then you have even bigger (IMHO) problems between you.

Regarding privacy ... how did you know what your wife was writing about you without breaching her privacy in the first place?

Batteredsausage · 23/08/2007 12:04

My son has 3 Five pence sized bruises on his back. The smack I refered to was on his bottom. I can't explain the bruising he has but it certainly isn't hand shaped/sized by any stretch.

Regarding privacy.... This is a public forum freely available to anyone who registers. The hosts will know more about you than you think just from your ISP number etc!!

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