Guilt about abuser

[Kittenjones101]

Does anyone ever feel guilty after leaving someone who hurt you (physically), that they will go on to do this to other people? Because you know it will happen again but to someone else. Do you feel some kind of... almost like responsibility? but that's probably not the right word..

Yes. I did.

Therapy helps you accept that the only person responsible for abuse is the abuser. You were not put on this earth to be a human shield against him for other people.

Yes I did, which is why I always went back. He would decide he would change a few days before or even on my pay day and then ask me to pay his bills, wait till I had no money left then the cycle would start again and I’d be kicked out a week or so after that. Of course I never said no to paying his bills as ‘this time he really would change’ and all my belongings were in his house and he always make it unbearably difficult for me to even get the basics of things I needed to live say to do so I just tried to keep him happy and keep the peace.

I don’t know why I felt guilty, since being a member of mumsnet I never knew there was a word for gas lighting and although I knew I was being abused by him, I didn’t realise to what extent and the different ways he was abusing me. I remember writing a few threads on here, under a different username of course, detailing some things he had done and other users being flabbergasted that this was going on but I had become so use to it, i thought it was what happened in a lot of relationships but not everyone spoke of it.

Thanks fully now I have found the strength to rise above him and all of his abuse and now I am single, living alone with my DC and we are really happy. Having a baby was the turning point for me, I couldn’t let my DC grow up thinking this was normal and treat their own partners in such a way.