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

a lot of kids have dads who get angry and I don’t believe it automatically means he is dangerous to them

Having a parent who occasionally becomes a bit angry about certain things their children do that are wrong (rudeness, hitting other children, being mean etc.) and who display their anger in appropriate ways is not dangerous for children. Having a parent who often becomes extremely angry about normal childhood behaviours and displays this in intimidating and aggressive ways is very damaging indeed, as people have described upthread.

You are floundering now and repeatedly changing the focus of your attempts to make this all be OK somehow - he's said he'll stop, he hasn't stopped but I can cope with it, I can't cope with it but I don't care about myself any more, he doesn't abuse the children, OK he does abuse the children but it's not all the time, he does abuse the children but lots of men do that (no they don't, by the way), he makes them cry by vacuuming aggressively but that's not damaging for them at all... You know deep down that all of these things are bullshit which is why you are frantically hopping between them, you can't even convince yourself of any of them for very long.

"but please understand I only really come on here to seek support and so I only talk about the ‘worst bits’ and majority of the time they feel a lot of love and happiness from him*

The "worst bits" of your relationship are criminal. Actually illegal behaviour including coercive control, financial abuse and rape. The worst bits of my husband's behaviour are a (usually inconveniently timed) hyperfocus on tasks that could really be done tomorrow and an inability to wipe a work surface thoroughly (he does wash up beautifully though). Nothing the police would be interested in. Nothing that makes our children cry.

The environment your children are being forced to live in and the behaviours they are witnessing are not normal. They are harmful. You can stop this harm to them by leaving and disclosing his abuse to the authorities. You can help your children heal and show them what life should really be like and give them a home that is safe and peaceful and secure and predictable and reliable and calm. But only if you leave. Currently you are continuing to make them live in close proximity to a man who rapes their mother when they are nearby and makes them cry by vacuuming.

I think something is off if you can’t disclose anything to your parents Poet. I don’t believe you are truly being honest with your therapist either. I just feel desperately sad for you.

I dont think so either.

its highly suspect and highly unlikely that multiple therapists would advise couples therapy.

I suspect there is a large amount of dressing down and leaving details out

Poet, you absorb arguments and how to deal as a kid. You really do, and your kids are. When my parents argued, which wasn't often, but was very loud when they did they separated themselves after it. So I learned to do that rather than confront. Thing is, they had a massive house and could be on different floors until they calmed down. In my 20s, I ended up wandering the streets at silly o clock as I didn't have that space inside. I was lucky but I so easily could not have been. But that was the solution I knew, remove yourself.

I dread to think what your kids are subliminally absorbing.

I learned that it didnt matter what your own wants and needs were, there would be alot of shouting and you wouldf NEVER get your own way, so you might as well not bother, just keep quiet.
My sister, who was there longer, had more input from a raging father, and used to fight back has been in therapy and medicated for 34 years, heavily so for 20, and has attempted suicide several times. My father was clinically unwell, he was not a bad man, he was actually a very very good man, carrying his own dreadful trauma, but that didnt stop it affecting us. Its been a life sentence for both her and him. The stress on my mother is palpable.

Yes, carrying your own trauma and thinking it's not affecting others is definitely a thing. Which is what Poet is doing.

My grandad, who i never met as he died the year before I was born, fought in Burma in ww2. My dad was born in 47. His dad never spoke of it. But he screamed in the night, my dad remembers that, but has only spoken of it once. We don't push it. My uncle is more open about what a difficult father he was, not for want of trying, but because he was carrying so much in his head.

As you are, Poet, as a mum to your kids, your kids will pick up on it like my dad and uncle did. They may not know the details, but they won't see this as a happy home when they look back, trust me.

Both dad and my uncle, who i adore, are not easy men themselves, although both have veered far from overt masculinity, and i see why.

Don't pass this trauma down to your kids. Please.

I'm on holiday and I saw this poster in the ladies loo and it reminded me of you OP.

This is your life.

Still following Poet and deeply saddened by the latest updates.
You re a good Mum,you know you are,you really need to get a reality check now.
It s very obvious from your latest post that your children are emotionally intelligent and very aware of the hostility this man has for the family.He is actively scaring you and them. You know this.
If this continues much longer they may start to resent you for accepting their fathers behaviour.
Go back to your parents; any excuse, get out with the children and inform your Mum.
Write a note if you can t talk to her about it.
If nursery or school become aware of any of this; SS become involved and you are complicite in all of it.
Your aware; allowing it and doing nothing.
You need to step up now.
Imagine your daughter is an adult and living this life with your grandchildren???
You need to understand everyone's concerns are for you and your children to be safe.
Please listen to all of us.

Please everyone remember that this is a safe space for Poet to vent and reach out - getting angry/frustrated/shaming her about her children is not going to help her - she needs support/advice and gentle persuasion not annoyance. None of us are in her position - this is her life and we are here to help her navigate it and hopefully find the courage to leave but I don't think touch love is the way here! We are all here for you!

Where is the kids safe space?

With their Mum!

But she can't see she's harming them, unintentionally. Nobody can police what comments people make (within reason, of course). Some people probably think too much softly softly is harmful and enabling her, some people probably think pointing out the facts in a tougher way is mean, and most of us are probably in the middle.

If she stops posting, she stops posting, I genuinely don't think anything said here will help her to leave.

I know what you are saying and I probably agree about being in the middle - I just hope she does continue to get some support from the thread and eventually does the right thing for her and the children - and I think we all agree what that is! But she needs to as well!

I don't think we can expect Poet to confront potential harm to her children when she barely accepts the harm to herself. Being raped, controlled and tiptoeing around the man like he's Henry VIII isn't enough for her to recognise properly as unacceptable.

So the kids being taught it's OK to get hit by apples when daddy's in a mood as long as he can make you laugh about it afterwards is barely going to register.

But I think that's why people are emphasising it. As she doesn't seem able to care for herself but does seem to care for her children, so hopefully realising they are being damaged may spur her on. And then she can heal too.

She seems to think she is putting them first by staying with their rapist abusive father, she isn't, and needs to. But she thinks she is, so talking about the kids and the potential impact might help.

Maybe.

I think that the main obstacle to Poet leaving is fundamentally that she’s terrified of his reaction. She’s terrified he will paint her as a madwoman, that he will punish her, continue to control her via the children, perhaps even physically hurt her.

So no amount of us pointing out the huge damage it’s doing to the children living under the same roof as this man will help much unfortunately.

She is terrified living with him and being assaulted, raped and coercively controlled but it’s a terror she is familiar with and has devastatingly come to accept.

I think the idea of a new type of unknown terror (his response to her leaving) is keeping her in the situation she’s in.

I don’t know what the answer is. If she really told her therapist about the most recent threat to rape her, followed by a rape (one in the home of friends where the friends and all the children were only a few rooms away) and she suggested a couple session then she should be struck off.

I think it is easy to tell somebody with 4 children and very, very limited income, to leave.

Another matter is making if financially viable for this person to leave, then to work and to be able to support these 4 children, when they are so little they would need to be in childcare, would be frequently ill and it would be extremely tough to keep a job.
Child maintenance, universal credit and 30 hours free childcare would still not cover it all, unless Poet gets to stay in the family home (where she would anyway not be able to pay the mortgage).
Reality of trying to work full time with 4 small children is absolutely brutal!!
I truly think if Poet would have a job that covers the expenses, a job that takes her out of the house and gives her a sense of achievement and self realisation/self worth, with wraparound childcare organised, she would be long gone...
Or perhaps when all children are at least in reception and it is easier to organise life than, ferrying them all to and from school in one go.
But we are talking here about being a single mother of 4 with no lucrative career to fall back on :(
Poet, I know it must feel like an impossible mountain to climb in many aspects, financial and logistical being a really big one.

There are steps OP would need to take to prepare for a separation but she absolutely does not want that. I agree that she is complicit in the abuse of her children simply because she chooses to allow it, not because she can't do anything about it.

OP is just doing what suits her, not what is best for her children and when it's pointed out to her she flounces off the thread.

She has supportive family and an army of women here on mn who can talk her through the separation steps. She just doesn't want that. She wants to stay with him.

And it's (of course) not even what's best for her, it's just the path of least resistance.

I have every sympathy for OP, but it is not impossible to tell her parents, and even report him to the police (advisable imo, in regards to custody issues, and given she has a history of texts where he admits some of his abuses).

People can say it's not easy, but I think of myself as a child, and if I could get up the nerve to confess to experiencing CSA and (as I saw it) blowing my entire family apart, then a grown woman who is responsible for four innocent children can absolutely do it too.

It's a matter of wanting it badly enough, and sadly I think Poet is still too groomed/brainwashed into thinking that she loves her husband and he loves her, instead of seeing it as the abusive dependency that it is, which has no resemblance to real love. I hope that she is able to see through that sooner rather than later, for both the children's sake, and her own.

Being raped and abused is not a loving relationship. Sure, the logistics of leaving are tricky, but once people find out he's a serial rapist, you'll have lots of support and offers of help. People will believe you - you have evidence in the form of text messages and don't be scared to out him if he makes it difficult. You do need to find your self-respect now and stop being sentimental / attached to a fake relationship, you will be perfectly fine on your own. I think this thread has been good for you because you have had some attention which you never get with him - the women here listened to you and understood you. But I don't necessarily think it's helping you now that people can see you are using it for that moral support but no intention to change your / your childrens' lives, and people won't carry on enabling you to cope with this long term.

A close friend of mine moved away and was very isolated, going through something like Poet.
She had and has a very loving family.
At one point her ‘DH’ managed to convince her own father that she had PND and was emotionally abusing…. him!
From how she has told me, she felt that staying with him enabled her to soak up the worst of the abuse. Her children, like Poet’s were very young - two girls and two boys.
The details of some of the abuse is harrowing - she now works supporting victims of DV.
The final attack on her was a brutal physical one - it left her in a wheelchair.
Finally the police were involved as she called 999, her parents drove to get her and her young children.
I think the worry must always be what a man like this will do when left alone with his children or what revenge he will seek with further assaults on the mum, or wider threats against family.
However, the thing that made the difference was the involvement of the police.
Two decades on and the children have zero relationship with the father. My friend was able to marry again several years later, and they see her second DH as their dad.
My friend is so bright, she was so beautiful when we were young (still is) but that first husband saw her as a young trophy.
I think the only way out to save the children here is to involve the police and that is something Poet cannot do.
My friend didn’t have a penny to her name when she left but her parents were brilliant. She had significant injuries so needed help with her DC.
She does talk about degrading he was, and how hard it was to tell the police and her parents. Some of the details stayed with me and they were sickening.
But she puts her experiences to the best use now. However, seeing her in a wheelchair is hard - he took so much from her physically and I know in particular that her sons are still angry. However, with the love and support of her family all four DC have done remarkably well.
I think the removal of their father gave them back their future and allowed them to live in peace.

@PetulaGordeno

What happened to your friend is what ' we ' all fear will happen to PP with his hands around her neck - she will either end up unconscious/brain damaged / paralysed / dead

PP minimises it and said - hand near her neck.

Poet how are you? It’s the Summer holidays so you probably had holiday plans, then it will be school, then Halloween, Christmas, someone’s birthday etc. There is no right time to leave but I honestly think you are going to end up having some kind of breakdown.

I think you should write everything down put in an envelope with copies of important documents and ask your mum to keep it all for you. Not for her to open now, but it’s there if you feel brave enough and you can text her to open it.

Please engage with WA and make a plan.

I’m ok thank you, every thing is going well so far in the summer holidays x
I’m still seeing my therapist and thing are pretty calm at the moment and some happy memories being made which probably Seems a bit silly but it means a lot to me

im still making a note of things but nothing much has happened lately xx

Has there been any more discussion about him coming to a couples counselling session Poet? The suggestion of that from your counsellor was concerning to many of us x