Recently separated from controlling partner - now I can...

[everythingbackbutyou]

...put glasses in the dishwasher
...go to bed when I please
...leave toys out in the living room overnight
...cut up all kinds of food without 'helpful' input and micromanagement
....allow my children to act like children without fearing they will provoke harsh words
...leave the washing up until later with nobody to ask bitingly what you've been doing all day

What can other people in the same situation do now that they couldn't before?

I too hope my sister will be thinking about all the things she can now do this time next year.

Brush my hair or wear makeup without being accused of having affairs.

Shave legs without it being taken as a signal I'm ready for sex or being accused of doing it for an affair.

Leave the house without being accused of having affairs.

Use a computer without being accused of having online affairs.

Have a job without being accused of having affairs.

Go to sleep in the knowledge that it doesn't matter how turned on my partner is, I am safe going to sleep with him in the house.

Say no to any sexual act right up to and including PIV and know that it will stop instantly.

Buy and eat whatever food I like, as much or as little as I like.

Make meals that consist of more or less than 3 ingredients.

Eat salad.

Answer questions correctly on TV quiz shows.

Vote how I choose and be open about it if I wish.

Say 'I don't agree with that...'

Have plants. Grow herbs. Grow lavender and have a garden full of cottage garden flowers.

Throw away receipts

I had one of these losers at university. After I finally got rid of him I could make friends, talk to my friends, move in with my friends, go out in the evening with them and not have to return to him having a tantrum and drinking himself into oblivion at the thought I may have been in the vicinity of a man. I could visit my family without him, talk to my mum on the phone, go on holiday where I wanted. Walk down the road without him attached to my hand and get a good nights sleep in my single bed without him taking all the room.

@yikesanotherbooboo, if this thread reaches even 1 person and gives them a catalyst to leave (or preferably avoid altogether) an abusive or controlling relationship then I shall be very proud indeed. Some controlling behaviours are so subtle and easy to dismiss when taken individually that there's no wonder so many of us become trapped and unable to label abuse/coercive control for what it is instead of incompatibility/having arguments/reacting to stress at work etc. (I would say I've never actually argued with my stbxh as he made such a sport of shutting me down at every opportunity that I never got to finish any sentences...)

Quite... lots of life to look forward to unencumbered .

Have the energy to focus on my own issues, which has resulted in a career change and promotion!

Seeing my family and friends whenever I want. Speak to them on the phone without him listening in or interrupting the conversation.

Actually listen to my own gut feeling and thoughts on things. Voice my opinion in conversations.

Get a decent night's sleep. At night was his favourite time to start arguments/abuse so I would be too tired and worn down to argue back.

Decorate however I want.

Spend my money on whatever I want.

Eat what I want, when I want. Clean when I want.

Take care of myself by going to the gym, getting haircuts and buying new clothes.

Got my first tattoo!

Look at photos of myself from the last few months and slowly see me looking happier :)

Its only been 4 months since I kicked DH out but life has been so much more relaxing.

Like others on this thread I can now go to bed/get up when I want.
I don't have to have horrible sex I don't want with someone porn obsessed.
I can get a job and go to work.
I can listen to music/watch TV/play on the internet without constant whinging, sulking and comments.
I don't have to watch him spoil yet another christmas.
Most importantly I don't have to worry about the kids behaving like kids and him going mental at them.

I do have to spend yet another christmas day with his family but its early days and its a compromise as MIL has been very supportive.

@TotallyKerplunked, the 'kids behaving like kids' thing was massive for me too. I work with preschoolers, so why would I know what I was talking about when I would point out that the kids were behaving exactly as they are developmentally supposed to...And when he'd finished berating and intimidating them he would then go into a huge sulk if they weren't inclined to give him a hug when he wanted them to, like good little -objects- children. Zero insight into the fact that their reticence was a DIRECT RESULT OF HIS ACTIONS

@everythingbackbutyou I love this thread
@KatzP your sister has read this!!!!!!

I want to...

...Wear what I want to bed
...not have sex when he wants
...not be told what sex I have to have
...eat what the hell I like
...wear clothes without bloody flowers on them
...speak and see my family properly (yes sis I hope you’ll see a lot more of me)
...have my children know their aunt and gp are fun and not nasty like he paints them to be
...not watch football at 4pm every Sunday.
...watch a movie and say that was crap
...sign things without be scared I’m signing my life away (he wants a post nup that I’m refusing to sign)
...not fear the key in the door
...let kids do what they want without asking permission or doing it because dad will get angry or sad
...most importantly BREATHE.

Bought some doc martens and shes my hair pink and blue!
Put my piercings back in, got my CDs out and started to live!

Not be nagged for sex constantly 24 hours a day.
Not having to look at a face that looks like a slapped arse all the time.
Not have someone argue black is white over every single tiny thing.
Being able to enjoy my birthday and not have someone make the day miserable for me every year.

I can make decisions big and small in my own.
I can buy what I want, wear what I want.
I don’t get told how to cook, clean, iron his shirts..... as I never did it properly.
I don’t have to be forced into sex acts I don’t want to do.
I am not afraid of being abused by him.
I won’t be called fat, ugly , stupid and lazy.
That I have a red face and frizzy hair.
I won’t have to put up with him flirting with other women infront of me.
I don’t have to put up with being his unpaid renovating slave anymore, where I was shouted and sworn at everyday.
So many more things.....

No more feeling not good enough.
No more watching him slaver over other women.
No more having to run EVERYTHING past him (because I was a bit crap and couldn't be trusted with anything apparently)
No more having to put up with his batshit family
No more ironing shirts. I no longer own an iron!
No more fucking sport on the telly
Re establishing bonds with my sisters (after they both backed off because he was making passes at one of them)
No more dreading the sound of his car coming home
No more heart-sinking evenings when he wanted to surround himself with sycophantic morons telling him he's wonderful (he's all about the audience)
I can have the peaceful low-key Christmas I want. No more 'have we sent a card to etc' (We?)
No more living in a toxic cloud of doom, knowing he's lying/cheating
FREEDOM! I won't say it hasn't been tough at times. It has. We were married for 27 years, 3 kids. But I'm becoming 'myself' again, something that was lost a long time ago.

Watch a documentary, listen to classical music, not have the TV on at all.

No X-Factor, no Big Brother, no EastEnders, no Fucking Top Fucking Gear.

I'm allowed to have books. In a bookcase(s).

Flowers and plants in the house.

Lamps and fairy lights.

Wear cardigans, flat shoes, sandals and slippers. Or go barefoot indoors.

Decide 'fuck it, I'm not going shopping at 12pm on Christmas Eve for food and presents, I'm staying on the settee listening to R3 and DP can go and pick up anything we haven't got in or it can wait a couple of days'.

Have a meal cooked for me.

Have drinks made and brought to me.

Buy and drink alcohol that I like when I like, rather than have the fridge full of cans of Stella and be told that not drinking was an insult and NORMAL women drink wine with every meal.

Drink gin, whiskey, or cocktails if I feel like it. Or fizzy elderflower and Rose Lemonade.

Have rose, camomile and lavender scented toiletries.

Wear nail varnish.

Have as many piercings as I like.

Not feel scrutinised for the speed at which I eat or that I'm eating in the first place.

Have a bath without somebody marching in to take a shit.

No more shopping as a 'leisure' activity. Every fucking payday without fail, there was something that had to be bought. And always costing hundreds.

No new car every 6-9 months. No car at all, in fact. Because public transport is perfectly adequate and not something to be ashamed of.

No compulsory and completely unaffordable holiday every year.

No pressure to share debts finances.

No being told I'm an embarrassment.

I can remember the first proper shop I did after leaving ex. He was really into healthy eating and liked me skinny so I was rarely 'allowed' biscuits. I remember standing I the biscuit aisle being totally overwhelmed with the choice of all the biscuits I could now have if I wanted. Made me so happy!

I wasn't allowed to eat fish or seafood, @Ohffs66. Not even when he wasn't in the house.

I must have worked my way through an entire ocean's worth of seafood by the end of the first year. Salmon, trout, cod, seabream, squid, cockles, mussels, tuna, mackerel, sashimi, prawns, crab, gurnard, halibut, plaice, herring, sprats, sild, turbot - if it lived in seawater and wasn't a mammal, I tried it.

This thread is really bittersweet.

• have the light on to read a book in bed until whatever time I want.
• eat seafood, and any vegetables I want.
• go to exercise classes as often as I like.
• not have to have my weekends dictated by him and his teenage children.
• live in a clean house and have lots of visitors.
• not be sat up awake until the early hours wondering where he is and who he's drinking with having sex with
• go on holidays to places further away than Spain.
• have male friends.
• not have anyone else spending my money.
• not have anyone embarrassing me when I go out.
• not have to do endless favours for someone else's family.

@MitziK it's weird isn't it...I could list so many other much worse things about the relationship but being able to choose whichever and however many packs of biscuits and feeling quite bewildered just really brought it home for me.

Leave the house without him following me because he is "concerned", go to the toilet without him waiting for me and opening the door because he missed me, have a shower without him

We ordered Chinese last night and my teenage son accidentally ordered the wrong noodles and didn't want to eat it. He was disappointed but with the stbxh there would have been a 15 minute rant about how ungrateful and spoilt he is and how there were children starving in Africa and so on, all on his self appointed moral high ground and then he would have sat down to watch some porn while we were upstairs and I would have felt dreadful. But yesterday I made my son a sandwich instead and said remember not to order that next time. Happy days. It's these exhausting mantrums about anything he perceived to not be the right way to deal with something that we don't ever have to listen to anymore and that's the best pressy ever. Merry Christmas!

Oh and the neverending porn. I definitely won't miss that and the dramatic reenactments he demanded in lieu of actual nice intimate close sex. I much prefer going to bed with a cup of tea and a good book

Enjoy Christmas without a drunk man abusing me. He would start drinking the evening he finished work and continue for the rest of the holiday till the day he went back to work.

Get a dishwasher and a tumble dryer.

Pay my rent without having it stolen or coerced from me.

Come home knowing my TV and other valuables are still there and haven't been pawned for him to go out drinking.

Not have to rehearse over and over how to bring up an issue in the hope of avoiding a fight.

Not go to the bank two days after pay day to find the account wiped out.

Not have the car sold or scrapped because he couldn't be bothered to tax or insure it.

Not go to the gym with my children only to be called into the managers office for a quiet word about non payment of direct debit - he'd cancel it and not tell me.

Loads more.

Walk through the front door without holding my breath
Put my needs into the equation
Parent my children without being told I’m undermining him
Console my children when they are distressed without fear of the silent treatment
Basically not walk on eggshells
Not feel lonely in my own home

I can breathe and just be.