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Relationships

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

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Original poster

My husband assaulted me and had an affair help

25 replies

mima02 · 07/04/2008 13:08

Can anyone help me, My husband has been horid for a year mainly mentally but locking me and our 2 children out of the house on many occassions and frightening us with his temper which culminated in him assaulting me. Then I found out a suspicion I had had for a year was true he had been having an affair. I found out when her husband mailed me to say she had left him for my husband. He is on bail for the assault and cant come near at the moment but can I ever make our marriage work or forgive him or should I walk away. Im so confused I still love him. Anyone experienced this?

OP posts:

foofi · 07/04/2008 13:10

I know it's easy for me to say, as I'm not in your shoes, but how can you contemplate staying with him?

Heated · 07/04/2008 13:12

Why do you love him?

Kewcumber · 07/04/2008 13:13

snap with Heated - what does he do that is worth loving? Are you sure that that you don't love the operson you thought he might be or used to be?

Original poster

mima02 · 07/04/2008 13:14

It used to be good until I had our second baby , Im clinging on to that I suppose.Ive normalised what he does and it never seamed that bad.

OP posts:

OverMyDeadBody · 07/04/2008 13:17

I have to echo the others after reading your post, why do you still love him? Is it really love you feel or just dependance?

I don't think this marriage can ever work. He's not going to change. It certainly sounds like he doesn't love you, locking you and your children out of the house ever is not loving behaviour.

You are better off leaving this relationship now and concentrating on building yourself up and giving yourself more self-respect and self-worth than to want to waste any of your life with this twunt.

fifitinkerbell · 07/04/2008 13:18

From past experience dont go back no matter how much you love him. As I made the mistake of going back & exh ended up hands round my throat at 1 oclock one morning nearly strangling me in front of my 2DS & even threated to chuck DS1 down the stairs as he was ringing the police but lucky for me DS2 called my parents.

So please dont do it as it has taken me nearly 3 years to get my 2DS right & even now DS1(13) is very nervous (wont stop in house on his own, has to have a lock on bedroom door) & wont even have any contact with his father. As exh put us through alot of mental abuse as well just wish i had the courage to leave sooner.

Miggsie · 07/04/2008 13:19

You can forgive him if you wish, but don't stay with him, for your own mental health and that of your DCs.
He does not sound like someone who should be around children, even if he had an affair that is no excuse for terrorising young children.
He sounds like he has serious issues which he needs to resolve.
Don't put yourself in the firing line.

Quattrocento · 07/04/2008 13:23

It sounds totally ludicrous to think about making a marriage work with someone who locks you and DCs out of the house and assaults you. Utterly and totally ludicrous.

Sorry to sound brutal but it just has to be said plainly.

Sending you strength.

nkf · 07/04/2008 13:25

You're not serious are you? The affair is the least of your worries. Use it to get a divorce and fast.
Good luck.

fryalot · 07/04/2008 13:28

mima - I know it is easy for me to say this to you, but you must leave him now, before he gets even worse and seriously hurts you - or hurts your children.

He will not change and become a sweetie.

Heated · 07/04/2008 13:33

I can't see much evidence of love, you see. There's nothing you've described to us to love. And he certainly shows no love for you or the children. In fact the opposite.

Apart from treating you with disrespect and violence, the deliberate cruelty to two innocent children is unforgivable.

Yes, you are right, walk away. You and your dcs deserve a lot better than him.

VictorianSqualor · 07/04/2008 13:35

I always want to bang the head of the OP of these type of threads off a wall a few times and scream at them, because love isn't enough.

I don't care what anyone says love is not enough for a relationship, especially not one-way love, because he doesn't love you, at all.

He might depend on you, or need you or even want you sometimes but he doesn't love you.

I don't mean to be harsh, I've been in an abusive relationship and stayed time and time again wehn I should've left, but that was how the abuse had got to me, it's what they do. They tear you down and knock seven bells out of you (physically or emotionally) until you can't think of anything but staying with them.

Get out now.

I don't know if you have a daughter, but bear in mind everything she sees you put up with she will think is ok. Each time you let him walk all over you, you are in fact telling her it is ok to be treated like that, or your son that it's ok for him to treat women like that.

Good Luck.

hecate · 07/04/2008 13:54

He doesn't love you. Someone who loved you would not intentionally hurt you. I'm sorry. It must be very hard. But you and your husband are adults and make your own choices, however, you have 2 children who are helpless in this. They have no choice but to suffer what you suffer. You have a duty to provide a safe environment for them - they should not have to suffer being locked out of their home. If you cannot act for yourself, then act for your children, who deserve more than to be stuck in this horrible horrible situation.

Kewcumber · 07/04/2008 14:19

I have been through a simialr thought process Hecate and VictorianSqualor ... and when I thought "I love him, could I treat him the way he treats me?" the answer was a resounding NO. It then became very obvious that he didn't love me and at that point the fact that I thought I loved him became completely irrelevant. You can't have any kind of decent long term relationship when only one of you loves the other.

How much do you love your children? Enough to not put them through this for years?

y1n · 17/04/2008 00:13

I'm really sorry to hear what happened. I think at the moment you maybe still haven't totally gotten over the shock of what happened and maybe aren't fully admitting to yourself that your husband is abusive. But please know such behaviour can in no way be attributed to being "your fault". It's not anything you've done or not done. He has got a problem and really, really, if you've made a break, please stay away from him.

MrsMacaroon · 17/04/2008 01:24

walk away

slim22 · 17/04/2008 01:28

run as fast as you can.
think of your children.

micci25 · 17/04/2008 01:30

as a child who grew up in family of violence i speak for kids when i say that staying in this relationship will do them any good! i can remember laying awake at night during my mum and dads arguments and praying that he would hit her again so that i could hear her cry and know that she was still alive!! and if a coward man is capable of hitting a woman he is generally capable of hitting a child!

please dont put your kids through this and leave him now i know that it is hard but i suspect that it is fear that is keeping you with him not love! talk some one at refuge for advise before letting him back home

Mamazon · 17/04/2008 01:50

My childrens father was a very abusive man.
you can of course forgive him and allow him back into your life. I did.
I allowed him home after he was arrested for common assault time and time again.
i took him back after he held a knife to my throat, after he punched me in the face, after he slapped/kicked/ punched/pulled my hair.
I took him back after he punched me in the stomach so hard whilst pregnant i miscarried.
I didn't even leave him after the weekly rapes.
And as disgusted as i am to say it, i didnt even leave him after he knocked my then 18motnth old son off the bed because he was trying to protect me.

It took me 6 years to leave.
My son is now considered (by a TOP child psychaitrist) to have such severe anger and behavioural issues caused by the childhood trauma he experianced that unless he has extensive and intensive therapy and councelling he is a danger to the public, especially women.

As bizaar as this sounds (even to me) i still love my ex. I have been away from him for 3 years, and i hate him...but there is a history between us that will never leave me.

You asked what you should do. I cannot answer that for you. Domestic abuse is a very personal thing. for some women the first case of controling behaviour is enough, for others it takes years.

Don't allow yourself to feel guilty if you feel you are not yet strong nough to leave. you will have people who say you deserve all you get if you dont run away. there will be people with no real experiance of DV who say "if someone hit me i would xyz"
It is very easy to say how you would react if you have never been in that position.

I KNOW its not as simple as that.

You know deep down that your relationship as you would like it is over.
It is up to you whether you attempt to try again. if you do i would take thinsg very slowly. don't allow him to move straight back to your home, make sure he seeks councelling for his anggression.

If you decide against taking him back (i think you know what i and the rest of MN wuold like you to do) then you need to speak to someone about your situation. both financial and practicle.

Womens Aid are fantastic. they will not pressurise you into leaving if you dont want to but they will point you in the direction of the help you need whatever decision you make.

If you would liek to talk off board and give some more details about your circumstances i can be of more help....even if its just some sage advice from someone who has been there and done it all before.

amytheearwaxbanisher · 17/04/2008 02:01

run run away from the bastard please think of your lo`s!do not take him back

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 17/04/2008 07:37

Allowing your children to witness or experience domestic violence is abuse of them. They will be damaged by this situation. The sooner you stop it the better for them. You have no excuse to leave them in this situation, no matter what you might put up with for yourself.

MrsMattie · 17/04/2008 07:42

mima02, re-read your OP. He has assaulted you. He locks you and your kids out of the house. He is having sex with another woman. He doesn't love and he certainly doesn't respect you.

AbbeyA · 17/04/2008 07:49

Walk away-he won't change. You don't have to put up with it, you and your DCs deserve better.

friendlyedjit · 17/04/2008 07:55

If you watched your story played out on a soap opera or listened to another woman on a chat show telling same story- I wonder what you'd be saying? What everyone else here is.
The only happy ending is you taking control and making your life ( and as consequence your children's) happier away from what has been dragging you down and what you have put up with over the last year plus.
It is always terrifying starting again by yourself, but you now have a chance to be in charge, so I'd grab it with both hands.

Mamazon · 18/04/2008 11:31

Hopefully mima is off organising some non olestation orders and changing locks.

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