@tink870 your post breaks my heart, I wish I could pick you and your children up and take you away.
I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, I didn’t realise it at the time. I thought I was mentally unwell, a bad girlfriend, a bad mother. He used to gaslight me; he’d go out on a Friday evening and wouldn’t be back until Sunday afternoon - still drunk. He’d say my friends would approach him on nights out and flirt with him (he wouldn’t name them, just say “that blonde one, I can’t remember her name”. I now know it was because it never happened but he was planting seeds in my mind. I stopped seeing friends. If I went out with friends he’d call me a “slag” or say he’d lock the door if I wasn’t home by 10pm.
When our baby was 5 days old, he screamed at me that I was selfish because I was having a bath and he’d put a frozen pizza in the oven. My breast were sore from trying to breastfeed. He’d criticise the way I dressed her, the way I dressed myself, how I cooked, I was boring in bed, I didn’t have big boobs like his ex, he said if I met anyone else he’d put a hammer on my head. Because I had postnatal depression he’d call me a psycho but wouldn’t let me have antidepressants. I was broken Tinc, just like you. Long story short, I went to a refuge with the children. The abuse became worse - he used my mental health against me and told the social worker that I was too unstable to parent. I couldn’t afford a solicitor so had to represent myself for weeks until Legal aid was awarded, he had a solicitor from the start. No one believed me because he was so charismatic.
But the truth always comes to light. I kept my children safe and stayed in the refuge. He would go out drinking and sleeping around, one night he attacked someone with an axe and that’s when the agencies believed him. They finally asked for his police record and it was horrific - he’s beaten his ex with an ironing board. He was banned from owning a dog but he had one. He’d been in prison for beating someone up with a bat that had nails in.
It was hell but I have come through the other side. I now live in a different area and I’m now working for a Domestic Abuse Service. We don’t see him anymore, even though he was granted contact, it wasn’t enough for him because he couldn’t control me anymore so he just stopped turning up. He doesn’t pay maintenance and I have had to rely on food banks. I rent my house and it’s desperate of decorating. We are always skint after I pay rent and childcare. But I’m alive and safe! He raped me when I was 8 months pregnant. He’s also been having sex with vulnerable women and giving them drugs in exchange. He’s a predator. If I was still there I’d be dead. I wanted to kill myself and my children so we could be safe.
Please get out Tinc, it won’t be easy but you’ll be safe and next Christmas will be wonderful. Google your local DA service and speak to someone for an hour a week over coffee and put a safety plan in place.
Keep an emergency bag of clothes, medication, some money. Somewhere where he won’t know. Make sure you know where your passports and birth certificates are. Try and keep some money aside whilst there are two incomes.
Women are at more risk when they are leaving so don’t tell him that you’re planning this. Don’t tell the children. Yes it will be difficult for the oldest child because of school, but they’ll adapt and they’ll be supported by new school and refuge play workers.
And please be careful that’s he’s not installed tracking devices on your phone seeing as he’s always angry that you’re on it. I’m not tech savvy so I can’t advise on this but hopefully someone else can.