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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

Success after leaving abusive partner

4 replies

Greysunshine · 29/02/2020 10:24

I’m fairly new here but wanted to share my story to give other hope that feel there’s no way out.

My EXH was horrible, mentally abusive, I was never allowed to do anything. I was so unhappy and stuck. before meeting him I did have a decent job but when we had children I became a SAHM. then i got a job and started making plans to leave once the kids were at school, (i felt deceitful by not telling him but also liberated as was gaining control of my own life again) He wanted the extra money So he could drink more so was happy for a month or so, but once I started gaining confidence and friends after years of not being allowed to do anything he cornered me one day and threatened me unless I left my job, that was the last straw and I packed my bags, kids and animals and left that weekend to go to my parents. I spent 18months, working, saving and letting my hair down (with my parents help with kids) and purchased my own house (something he said I couldn’t do without him). My EXH now hates me because of it but only makes things better knowing the best revenge is to get on with my life. The only problem is that we weren’t divorced and I had to give him some of what I had made in that period as he didn’t save anything (took lots of women out on fancy dates and weekends away)
Still I’m so much better off without him.

Not everyone has the support of parents like I did and I know I was very lucky. There are other options available and I would of rented somewhere as cheap as possible for 3 years to achieve the same goal. I got help with tax credits and saved every penny I could. I purchased a run down property with a mortgage and took a loan to renovate it.
The way I looked at it, if I was strong enough to of done 10 years of abuse then I was strong enough for anything.
I hope my success story inspires others

OP posts:
yellowkangaroo · 29/02/2020 10:35

Congratulations @greysunshine, you're an inspiration.

Lozzerbmc · 29/02/2020 10:57

Well done you - truly inspirational. I’m sure this will help others. Wishing you and your family well Flowers

SalmonOfKnowledge · 29/02/2020 11:04

Good for you! Another one with a similar story here.

People vacillate for years in abusive relationships, afraid that they will regret leaving. That was me. I'd been so successfully gaslighted that I believed that could well end up regretting leaving!

Ha! No. I never regretted it. And you are right OP, without the albatross around my neck that was an abusive coercive relationship, I got where I wanted to go. Not overnight. But slowly, surely, steadily, the decisions I made served my future not his. But nothing is as challenging as surviving that weighed down feeling of life with a controller coercive bully

If you'd told me when I left that one day I'd have a job I liked, my own house, that my kids would be happy and I'd have good relationships with them, be financially independent, healthy, happy, at peace........ I wouldn't have been able to believe it I don't think. I wouldn't have dared hope for that much.

anotherdisaster · 29/02/2020 17:46

Well done OP! Its always great to hear success stories. I too left an abusive relationship of 16 years. I rented somewhere for a year and also managed to buy an old house. I'm slowly renovating it but its MINE and I'm free of him. I'm now dating someone lovely too.
Cheers to us.

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