Called the police

[Userccjlnhibibljn8]

I finally snapped and called the police this evening, and my husband has been arrested. He was drunk and angry and hit me. It’s been escalating for months. In between feeling heartbroken what do I do next. Someone will be calling me in the morning to discuss next steps, and I assume if I want to take things further. We are married so what do I do? I put most money into the house, and I don’t want to have to be the one who leaves. Has anyone else been here and have advice. My heart can’t quite believe I have done this, but my head says I need to be safe and nothing short of a miracle can take us back to a good place.

I totally understand how you're feeling. A few months after I broke up with my v abusive ex, I was on the bus near to where he lived and had a sudden overwhelming urge to see him. I jumped off the bus (the stop was literally outside his front door) and knocked on his door before I could even think about what I was doing.
Obviously he was surprised to see me and asked what I was doing there and I said I didn't know. I thought seeing him/speaking to him would make me feel better but in reality I felt so much worse afterwards.
He did his usual begging me back/guilt tripping and then in the weeks after, dragged my name through the mud and started stalking me again.

If I could go back and stay on the bus, I would.

You are so strong and you will look back and thank yourself for not giving into these urges.

@IHateLegDay It’s a really weird compulsion. If my husband was at the front door now every cell in my body would say ‘go away, leave me alone’ but equally I wish I could hug him and hold him and take away all the crap of the last few years and change the way our story ended.

Ah well…..the police case is continuing, they are still investigating, but it is clear he is rattled. And strangely that is helping me, at least today….. I’m having morning coffee in bed in one of my favourite places, and trying to think through my feelings, and why I am sad.

1. I’m grieving the lost dream and the very lost person
2. I’m sad about having to deal with life going forward by myself, and being solely responsible for the minutiae of life
3. I still worry about his feelings and his despair
4. I love him and I don’t want him to hate me, but I know that every one of my actions now is causing us to get further apart, and will be driving a dagger into his heart and that is what is making me cry now, because I don’t want him to stop loving me, but I am the one hurting him,

Ok, so this is the first time I have been able to put this into words, points 3 and 4 are it. Putting it out in the open is good, and I know all the sensible, rational words that counter those points…… he was the one who hurt me, he has done this to himself, I have to protect myself…our ‘love’ in the last few years was not love, and I spent far too much of myself trying to seek his approval…..
But the feelings are very much there rational or not.
thank you for listening to my stream of consciousness - I know there are no easy answers, I just have to stay the course.🪷

He's not despairing, he's angry, abusive and violent towards you.

He didn't love you or he wouldn't have been angry, abusive and violent towards you.

You aren't driving a dagger into his heart. He's angry, abusive and violent towards you.

You aren't 'causing us to get further apart'. He's angry, abusive and violent towards you.

You aren't hurting him. He's angry, abusive and violent towards you.

He's just pissed off that you aren't letting him be angry, abusive and violent towards you. You're messing with his belief that he is perfectly entitled to be angry, abusive and violent towards you. That he has the right to hit you, to smash his way into your house to get to you to be more violent and abusive towards you. That you exist on this planet to serve his desire to have a living being to push, slap, punch, scream, shout and batter. Because it's more satisfying to scare and terrorise and criticise and berate and torture a living, breathing, caring person.

For argument's sake, how about if you thought about what it would be like if instead of you he'd been abusing, he'd done all that to one of your dogs? That the way he hit you was how he treated your beloved animals? That he tried to smash his way into the house so he could batter that same dog again and again? Because he enjoyed the sounds of the dog screaming in pain and fear, the feel and satisfaction of his hand knocking a beautiful, soft, warm, furry muzzle or a set of slender and fragile dog ribs? And that the only reason he wouldn't do it would be because dogs have teeth?

I'm being brutal because, in my opinion, your rather flowery language about distance and his hurting is you romanticising an angry, violent and abusive man whose only reason for not hurting your dogs is that it's more pleasurable to do it to a larger mammal. And there's possibly a bit of sexual thrill for him to do it to the same species as him.

@NeverDropYourMooncup I hear what you say, It is a helpful way of re positioning my thoughts. I do go back and read the shit he texted me, and remember the last few weeks to put myself back in the reality. Thank you

You are imagining what he is and what he’s feeling from the perspective of a good person, a healthy person.

But he isn’t those things. He isn’t a good healthy person. He’s a bit rabid.

You have a duty to protect yourself, not a duty to protect him.

He isn’t in a corner desperately sad about what he has done to you, and regretting his mistakes. He’s regretting his life has changed because you have stopped accepting it. He’s regretting he didn’t control himself just a bit better, so you stayed around longer.

He isn’t worrying about you, he’s worrying about the impact on him.

It’s really good that you’ve been able to articulate it. It’s a good step. Well done.

Don’t let us reframing it stop you posting or working it through! You have every right to feel the way you do, whether we think it’s right or not!

Well done Lass!
By the sounds of it you ought to have done this quite a while ago.
Do not be afraid of getting an exclusion order banning him from your home, but DO have a backup plan, someone to contact/flee to, should he ignore it.

That hope that your story will help others is EXACTLY the right thing. As well as potentially helping others, it will also give you more of a sense of purpose and help bolster up your resolve.

Regards the police, shocked, but not surprised.

@pickledandpuzzled I love the description ’a bit rabid’ 😃. I’m trying to articulate here how I feel, and how I can form the questions that I have to answer in my mind in order to be able to move on from this. Doing that in front of witnesses seems to be helpful for me. X

I like ‘a bit rabid’ too, because it leaves room to recognise that there may have been a good person there once, but they are now too dangerous to be around. Sad, but inevitable.

Anyway, keep on keeping on.

I read before that recovery from a bad relationship is not unlike recovery from addiction- don’t worry about yesterday, don’t worry about tomorrow, what matters is today. Just get through today. I imagine you can start to plan a bit when there are enough todays under your belt to make this today a bit easier.

I am just posting to say I think you are amazing & strong and to thank you for continuing to update. I fully appreciate this is your real life and we are just reading from our sofas, but so often ladies will post a problem, get lots of replies and then just disappear. Thank you and all best wishes for your future, I look forward to reading your progress

I sense a shift in my emotions today. I returned from a short holiday to a solicitor’s letter. Nothing really bad, but it made me angry at him for doing all this, the pity is leaving my mind. I’m frustrated that my slightly more positive thoughts have been squashed by this and I hardly slept.

I am exhausted at the prospect of the legal slog ahead. I am fortunate to have the resources, but I worked hard for them and I am angry that he is still exerting his control over me, and I have to spend that money for my safety, and emotional welfare when it was all him who created this situation.

There we go. Anger is good. Your energy will shift with your mood. Anger is a bit less enervating than the other difficult emotions.

Have you got a plan?

@pickledandpuzzled I think so. Practically I will set my lawyers off on the divorce process - I haven’t been able to face it up till today. (Still makes me cry, but it is unavoidable). I’ll call them today. Other decisions follow on from that. Emotionally I talk to my therapist about how I feel - have an appointment today
The police process is out of my control other than the personal impact statement. From a conversation last week with the investigating officer he is rattled and it is going to go on for a while yet before I know if he will be charged.

And now i get dressed and go to work and put him in his box for the day. 🌳

I’ve been reading ’why does he do that’ by Lundy Bancroft, it’s not been an easy read. I see so much of my life in there, I feel proud that I did push back and not let him isolate me to the level he could have done, but it reminds me how deeply unhappy I was for a long time. It is still hard to reconcile the 2 people he was to me, and understand how much it was all connected. I’m also recognising the trauma bond, that was (and is) there.

Living through this and staying strong is the hardest thing I have done. 🌼

You are doing so well, stay strong and it will be worth it

You're incredible op! So proud of you for staying strong and happy that you're getting some clarity about the relationship through therapy and the book.
You're going to look back and be so thankful to yourself for all that you're doing now to free yourself.
Sending hugs and a handhold xxxx

What an amazing journey you are on, you've already come so far and all the good is still to come💐

You're doing so well, OP!
Really proud of you.

Think on he has probably been advised by a solicitor that seeking professional help with assist in his Poor Hard Done To facade for when he goes to court.. He is and always be a cunt..
Cunts don't change. You have done amazingly.. And will continue to do so with him out of your life...

Hello – I have no significant updates – just feeling very flat at the moment. I am very tired, emotionally and physically. I imagine the adrenaline is starting to leave my system, and all I feel capable of doing is slumping on the sofa, on a good day with a cup of tea, and a bad day a glass of wine.
Along with everything going on with me, I have very elderly frail parents who, to be honest, I have put to the back of my mind for the last few months. I’m an only child, so I can’t delegate that part of my life. Because of my husband we moved some distance away, so now any trip to seem them involves kennels for the dogs, and at least a full day away. Then a day to be resolutely cheerful and divert too many questions about how I really am ( they have enough worries without me piling in on them) . Not that my husband was any good at it, but just occasionally I felt I got some support and back up when I was struggling with my relationship with my parents. I’m going there on Sunday, a day I really could have done with to just be quiet….. but there will be many days in the future when they won’t be there and so I’m doing it.
It's been a week of domestic issues requiring electricians/plumbers etc, plus trying to work full time and sort the dogs. I know he wouldn’t have helped, and he would have just been another burden, but it still doesn’t stop a bit of my brain being so resentful that he has left me alone to deal with everything.
It helps to write it out, and think of the reality not the hope, so thank you for listening. 🌷

If your dps can afford it outsource the jobs they expect you to do. Dog walker for example.. But surely being honest will gain you some support? Maybe they do know the real him.

I think the dogs belong to the OP.

Hang on in there!

Yes the dogs are mine, and two energetic large dogs don't mix well with 93 year olds...... my parents are more an emotional load, than a practical one, they are well versed in outsourcing jobs, and they don't expect me to do the day to day. (Till we get to the crisis point). They do know the story, I just don't want to burden them with too much of my emotion, as their day to day struggles are difficult enough. I see them every 3 weeks ish as they are about a 4 hour drive from me. It is more that that more or less eats up a weekend, which eats into my recharge time. There isn't much I can do about it, I feel bad enough that I listened to my husband to move this far away from them (Coercive and controllling behavious anyone......) and there isn't a short term fix, other than not seeing them, which I know I will regret more in the long term. I'm being self indulgent I know.