Pinkpoet support thread (TW for SA)

[PinkPoetAgain1]

Just starting a new thread for those who are following/supporting

I’m all over the place mentally at the moment as I said in my last thread but I’m still listening xx

This situation is bad for kids health as @PetulaGordeno said. It’s also bad for your health. As I was married to my abusive husband for 20 years, after I left I had a golden period of feeling fantastic. Then a myriad of health problems followed, and there are studies to prove leading a stressful and repressive life where you are holding everything so tight can be a cause. My only regret is not leaving earlier - my older dc is damaged by the behaviour and has adopted similar behavior to their dad ( it’s called learned behaviour) . My second dc is younger and less affected. Oh the guilt I feel Poet , I made such a big mistake staying so long. I don’t care about my health issues but the impact of on my older dc kills me inside every day.

OP, if you are reading this, what you need to try to address with your therapist this week is the minimisation you do automatically whenever others reflect, accurately, the things you yourself have said. Your latest posts where you say you feel 'safe and happy' are hard for people to read because just two weeks ago your husband raped you. This weekend he has dominated the household with his moods. You are not safe and happy. Your children are not safe and happy. Even if what you said about 'many children grow up with angry dads' is true, why should you set that bar so low for your children? And again, you are minimising. Your husband is not a loving family man who is occasionally angry, your husband is an abusive, angry man who is occasionally loving. And that is deliberate, it is part of the power and control cycle and the cycle of abuse we talked about months ago.

So this is now the 3rd or possibly 4th therapist (I lost track but IIRC it is at least 3 now) that's suggested couples therapy with a known abuser.

Here is the wheel again OP, https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/power-and-control/ please take a look when you can do so safely. You are not going mad, you are numb from it all. You are dissociative and you've given up but you cannot give up because your children need you to be strong and change things for them. They can't do it themselves.

@ThisIsPinkPoetAgain "I Just feel I’ve got to the stage now where I don’t really care about myself or how I feel "

What about your kids, your innocent kids? Don't get me wrong, you are JUST as innocent as they are, but the difference is they're kids and can't just pack up and leave (yet...be aware that in the future they may well want nothing to do with either of you, you have no idea how much this is impacting them or will impact them in the future).

I'm not judging you for not leaving right now (I think you should, but I'm not judging you because I understand how hard it is), but I'm not going to stop reminding you that it's not just you that deserves a better, happy life - they do too.

You're not listening to the countless people who experienced things like this as children and are telling you how seriously it affected them. I know it's because you don't want to accept you might be contributing to their harm, so you'd rather bury your head in the sand. I really, really hope you don't end up losing your children, whether that's now when they're little, or as teenagers who go completely off the rails because of their childhoods, or adults who partly blame you.

I think you must understand deep down that your marriage is not normal or right, so neither is your home/family.

We all have so much sympathy for you but it is so hard to read the damage that is being done to you and your kids by staying.
Please leave. Nothing could be worse than the life you live at the moment. Your children will be happy without him, honestly.
Find the strength to do it for them.

It doesn’t matter OP how great or how often he puts on his DISNEY DAD persona.

lots of love NEVER takes away from walking on egg shells as a child.

hoovering making them cry??? Whatever next? It’s the atmosphere that he creates while hoovering that does the damage.

if you have openly said to your counsellor that your husband rapes you and threatens too and she has advised couple counselling then she does need reporting. I am a psychotherapist and that is insane. No one is sadly safeguarding your children.

once again CHILDREN LIVING IN THE HOMES WHERE ABUSE IS TAKING PLACE ARE ALSO BEING ABUSED TOO. Period.

Don't apologise Poet People are only bothered out of worry for both you, and the children. I think everyone's comments are well-meant, but sometimes people get frustrated at the sense of inertia, when you and the children are in such an obviously harmful environment.

With what you've said about the atmosphere in the house, and your husband's behaviour, its clear the children are feeling a similar constant tension and stress to what you feel, although they won't know why, exactly. This is their normal, just as it is yours, so they may not even realise how stressed and on edge they are – but it comes through with things like them bursting into tears over hoovering.

It's very concerning that the therapist would recommend couple's counselling. Also, it's a concern if she thinks (it's not clear) you can heal from trauma while still experiencing it – you won't be able to heal from what he's done to you over the years until you leave him, either permanently or as a long term separation. Finally, she should be fully aware that he won't change. Perhaps she's trying to somehow highlight his behaviour through his reactions to her suggestions, but it doesn't seem quite right.

It really does sound like you're just dissociated, numb, and have given up on yourself, Poet. He's grinding you down, and I imagine he'll forcibly assault you again soon. But as a mother, you have a responsibility to safeguard your children, and the situation you're currently in is dangerous and toxic – you need to keep trying to work up the nerve to protect them from this by leaving.

I feel so sad for the kids. I used to feel sad for Poet, considering everything she’s been through and being groomed so young, but she has so many more options open to her then a lot of women do, she’s choosing to accept her life. These kids don’t get a choice. They will grow up in a family where rape is normal. Yeah yeah they don’t see it - they absolutely do though. They see the moods, control and groping every day and the older they get the clearer it becomes. Ask how I know.
What happens next for them is they repeat this awful situation in their own adult relationships. The boys abuse and the girls accept daily rapes. And so it goes on. I pray to God this family don’t live near us, it terrifies me my daughter might meet one of these sons.

Where are you finding multiple therapists that suggest couples counselling with this abusive rapist? Something is not adding up here.

He's making your children cry, he's coercive and confronting he's raping you and threatening to rape you, ( but it's ok as he hasn't for a week or so)he's stomping around the house but apparently that's 'ok' as he's not actually telling you to clean up.
Are you ever going to see the damage or just let you and your children suffer (the children especially) for the rest of your lives posting in here and keeping it quiet as its all 'a bit embarrassing'??
It's insane

They aren’t scared of the hoover though are they OP. They’re scared of their dad. He’s scaring them to the point they’re crying.

It’s so far from normal to be frightened of your parent let alone to the point that they can purposefully do household chores in such a menacing way it makes you cry. He’s hoovering angrily, close to them, to purposefully make them upset to punish you and them.

They are being so damaged by living in this environment.

These poor kids 😔

As soon as they are able, your children will choose to have nothing to do with their father.

As for your future relationship with them, there are a number of possibilities.

Best case scenario is you eventually get out and they are devastated that you endured what you did because you thought it was in their interests.

Worst case scenario, they are removed from the household (both of you) because he is abusing them and you can’t protect them.

Perhaps most likely is that as soon as they are able some or all of them have nothing to do with either of you because they are furious you allowed their abuse (as they will see it).

I know this sounds harsh and will be upsetting for Poet, but the reality is they aren’t going to live happily ever after.

I’m another who can’t stand the sound of a vacuum because it takes me back to childhood when mum rage vacuumed around us.

This is affecting your children. I told you before, much earlier, how much my ‘not too bad’ childhood has impacted me.

They are being damaged. They need you to change things.

You can be a clean freak and hoover up with the kids there without it being a tearful, upsetting experience. I know a mum who used to get the toddlers involved with a toy hoover or dustpan and brush and make a game of it.

He has this choice, he has the choice to do it when they're in another room - those are normal things normal parents would do.

He's deliberately deciding to do it like this to express his anger at the kids.

And they understand he's angry at them for being in the same room when it "needs" hoovering.

There's a big difference between dads being angry at the kids because they've done something wrong, and displaying contempt at their existence. They are children.

'and I feel safe enough if not happy all the time'

How can you feel safe when every single time you go to bed / go to sleep that he is likely to rape you

Sure, you're safe enough, he only raped you a fortnight ago and keep having nightmares & trauma responses and fled the home due to a rape threat, but yeah yeah, safe as houses.

Massive case of denial.

I don't believe you're telling your therapist the truth.

^I agree with this. My DM also didn’t see the damage that my F was doing to my siblings and me. I’m not talking about the CSA here, which she didn’t know about, but the smacking, gaslighting and emotional abuse. She didn’t recognise any of it as abuse, she heard us laughing at his stories and thought that meant that he was a wonderful father.

It also meant that my DSis and I never confided in her about the CSA.

I agree. Its alarming for 1 to suggest it but this is multiple therapists acting in such a way that its concerning enough to report is not right at all. I would worry these are not qualified, registered therapists because it would be unusual to find one to act this way but finding 3 or 4 is concerning.

I havent read all the updates, but to be honest this is dreadful.

The chopping and changing - showering with love and fancy words makes it all the worse, because it is erratic, unpredictable and confusing. It also means that they likely will start, if they dont already, to feel a responsibility when it all goes wrong, when he is not happy dad. When he is fuming quietly and doing things which make them cry. Its a given that nearly all children blame themselves when their parents divorce, and so often need support to realise that its adult decisions not children's actions - but when his behaviour actually DOES happen because they are doing children things - well how will you explain that away? Not that it actually will surface until later life. That internalisation of taking responsibility and blaming themselves for their fathers behaviour will be damaging them in ways which you cannot even imagine at this point.

My ex only shouted. He raged and yelled and stoprmed out if he didnt get his own way or was asked to be held accountable. He was in no way any kind of the same leaugue as your husband, and alot of the time he would claim that he loved us so much, and would play happy families, but he had no emotional regulator and I needed to make sure that my daughter was not exposed to these rages as normal. Sure she was frightened by him when he behaved like that once we split up, but she was RIGHT to be scared of a grown man raging, and with help the damge that was done was undone and she is very good at spotting the red flags and maintaining boundaries as a result. If I had stayed it would just have been accepted as how life is, and she likely would have continued the pattern down the generations.

Sometimes you just have to do it. You need to make their lives better. If you were single thats your choice, but to allow children to be a part of it, well you are fucking them up. I do not know anyone who has had a parent like that who isnt either in intensive therapy and non contact with their parents, or in a similar relationship.

I also wondered if you were still on the list for the WA therapy? I wondered if you might be able top speak to them about all this.

Poet, you are choosing not to believe people who are telling you this is a problem for your DC.

Stop. It’s one thing to accept it’s an issue but not know how to escape. It’s a totally different thing to deny it’s happening at all.

And your children will be more susceptible to being abused when they are adults too.

You are train8ng them up for the same kind of life that you are having. Is that what you want for them?

Maybe the therapist suggested couples therapy knowing full well the suggestion alone is godawful in order to get OP to unwittingly confront him about him not caring about OPs feelings and wellbeing. She(?), like PPs, is probably struggling to reach OP with the truth and is simply being pragmatic in order to maintain rapport in a situation where keeping channels of communication open is better than making OP stop going.

Pragmatism is one thing, though, malpractice another, and no therapist should ever suggest that to a rape victim.

OP wishes the rapes wouldn't bother her (but they obviously do), what does bother her is his "moods", ie his aggression and strong disregard of his children crying because they feel scared.

Do your children cry when you're hoovering OP?

He obviously uses the hoovering to scare your children so that you "do your job" and spring into action.

It's not that he has a couple weaknesses offset by his disney dad persona and wonderful performance as the family protector and patriarch OP - it's all part of his manipulation of you and the kids to keep you all in line. It's an oppressive system of intermittent reward, not a personality flaw or short-lived stressy situation.

ETA: You may think you would take from your children their great dad, but you would also give them back their mother, one that is no longer abused. And he would still be their dad after a separation, you wouldn't be taking anything from them. A separation could give them back their childhood, though. Doubtful they will look back on theirs with the angry hoovering, walking on eggshells and mother being scared in the mix.