advice needed

[notabused]

ok.. deep breath.. I need advice please.

Things now do good with DH for a while. Things are stressful in our lives - unemployment, money worries - and we argue.

We have two DC at infant/ junior school.

Everyone who knows DH would say he is an especially gentle, placid, easy going man. They would say he is determined too when they really know him and its about something he really wants. I don't know what they would say about me, but not those things.

He loves our children and I think he loves me.

This evening things came to a head.

There is a small level of violence but mostly he is in denial over it. The worst thing is what he does to the children. he tells them horrible things to hurt me through them. "I am so sorry that you've got such a terrible Mummy" is a common example. Tonight it was "fat cow", "bitch", "she doesn't love me" (I do) and "she makes me want to commit suicide" amongst other things I can't remember now. They also were there when he told me that he was going to take the children away from me. (they weren't even in the room where we were arguing - he called them in and then said it).

I hate it when he hurts the children like this but he has done it several times now, so its not a one-off accident.

Afterwards he is in denial .. he thinks the children have put like or no weight by what they heard, saw and had said to them. But DC1 was crying and I found both of them hiding under the covers in their beds immediately afterwards. I was just starting to try to help them when DH came in. I left him to it because if he was willing, a retraction would be more effective from him than me saying "Daddy didn't mean it". I think he did try to make it better but I know that he doesn't think it was especially harmful in the first place "unless put ideas in their heads".

WE've hardly spoken since. I went to bed at the same time as the DC, which is partly why i am awake now.

I really do not know what to do or where to turn for help. If I tell people we know in RL, it will be the end of our marriage. But my DC mean the world to me and I need to protect them. We've given them good lives so far and they are well brought up... good manners, doing well at school, nice young children. Money worries are a new thing in the family (our business failed in the recession) so we still live well although that is about to end as our savings are nearly gone. Why does DH have to try to do this to them?? He loves them too. They are the one truly good thing we have left!

I'm rambling. Please tell me.. is there a help line number I can call? Someone who can give me advice about what to do?

Even taking the violence out of the picture, what he's doing to those children is bad enough abuse to affect them for a long time.

You already know that this behaviour is wrong, and that he is harming the children. That's good - it's the first step into accepting what is happening and figuring out the way to make it stop by getting away.

Counselling won't work for him. Please try and understand that - he is already aware of what he is doing and knows that it is wrong. He pushing you, testing you to find out where the lines are, and he's found that there aren't any so far.

Please call Women's Aid, as well as look at the website.

I know that people are encouraging you to leave, but you need to know that when you get to that stage, abuse from men can increase. They see you slipping away and their need to control and punish means they will up the violence accordingly.

The fact that he has put his hands around your neck means he is dangerous. No fucking about, the man is actually dangerous. Take his actions seriously. Don't belittle them.

Don't let him know what you are thinking, work out an escape plan - read the part on the site about how to do that. I know it all sounds over the top and dramatic, and not related to the man that you know, but it is and above all, you need to keep safe.

You are most in danger just before you go.

Please talk to WA - they can advise you properly and they know what they are talking about. You can trust them.

notabuesed - ! this is horrendous! You have to get out. he will strangle you for real one of thse days and then wehre will your children end up???? Phone WA and get out. he kows what he is doing - he is fucking with your mind. Get help and get safe.......please

Violent men are in control of their actions. A violent man will only be as violent as he finds acceptable. My ex would never have punched me full in the face, but was OK with slaps and pushes. The fact the OP is being primed for strangulation is sinister IMO. There is no "red mist" involved here.

as many of you know i left my h nearly 2 years ago and was rescued by a fantastic thesurbandryad and taken to a refuge, the hardest thing i have ever done was walk away but this man had destroyed all my self confidence, i was isolated and cried most nights because of sheer hoplessness, the words hurt me and there was physical abuse, sometimes just holding me by my throat and once smacking me in the side of the face with a deoderant can when i found out my dad had just died and i wanted comfort. the time in the refuge changed me, i met some wonderful women and have three close friends from being in there that have helped each other become stronger. the women on mn were amazing and it helped me so much to post, when i moved into our flat, ladies fron mn donated beds and tvs, ladies came round with a kettle and tbags and all alwadys remember that misdee although heavily pregnant and have gone through so much shit in her life and she still helped me. i will try and get mamazon to come on she has been through all this before and is very wise

mitford...stick around won't you

and stay in close contact in RL, who will support you should things go horribly wrong for you

do you have anyone in RL...or have they faded away ?

Get your children and go to your mothers or a refuge.

Only after you have done that, give him his opportunity to change/get help. What you are doing at the moment is planning one last chance for him...don't bother - nothing you can say will get through to him - he is living in a different reality to you.

Your words will not make any difference to him because he truly thinks he is right. Your actions just might make a difference. And even that is not guaranteed.

The image of your children hiding under their covers is heartbreaking.

I feel terrible for you and I know it's not easy just to up and leave. I send you courage, and lots of very non-mn hugs.

Just another voice on your thread, "notabused". Your OP frightened me. You're receiving excellent replies here, especially Saddest who understands how tough it feels to recognise the facts of your own life. I hope you will keep reading, and keep trying to get through to Womens Aid - talking to a specialist, who won't "make a drama out of a crisis", will prove massively helpful for you.

You might be surprised at how much your friends have noticed. They may be scared of showing it.

For those who (smugly?) reckon they've fixed their abusive relationships: You sound just like me, one time way back when. He stopped hitting me after I called the police & left him. He changed his methods of control - subtler and more insidious, the new ones worked as I was unaware of all this stuff. Just before I finally left (during our "amicable" divorce) he came into where I was sleeping and strangled me.

I'm not projecting my experience onto others or 'awfulizing'. Some people really are that weird, and the risks are massive. At least, these days, we can see how it works: Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That?" is a powerful resource; information is strength.

Take it slow if you must, OP. But keep moving. Wishing you all the support you need

I am sorry to respond so infrequently. DH and I are together 24/7 (which is a huge contributing factor to our problems) but it does mean that I have to pick and choose my moments carefully to even look at this page, never mind find time to write.

I hear what you are all saying: call women's aid and leave now or take the consequences and share responsibility for them.

One person said that I'll be thinking that this monster talked about here just doesn't sound like my DH, and they are right, it doesn't.
But I will not defend him!!! he did what he did and it is absolutely unacceptable.

I have told someone in RL about it. A woman whom I respect and admire for her level-headedness and ability to cope with anything: my little sister. She believed me and in itself that helped a lot. She obviously knows DH but doesn't think he is the Mr Wonderful some of my female friends think he is. She says our family cares about him, but me and the children are more important. Its arranged now that i will take the children away at Easter to my mother's without DH in tow (for the first time ever).

I do love DH but for the man he is most of the time, not for whatever made him think that what he did on Thursday night would be ok, ever. he says now that he will try never to do it again and I've told him that if there is a next time, then I will leave with the children and without any contemplation or uncertainty over the damage it will do. If this ever happens again then breaking the children's hearts will be better than bringing them up in an abusive family.

DH vehemently denies it, but his father treats his mother badly and has done since DH was a child. Not violently but in a way that would tick every other box on the women's aid list. I think this is why DH is trying to normalise his behaviour.

I have to go now. he is home

This is a very frightening thread

We have an abused woman here who is not able to act autonomously

She is scared and modifies her behaviour to avoid setting off her physically violent partner

She remains complicit in the associated abuse of her children

A couple of tiny steps taken ? I sincerely hope so. For me, though, it is not nearly enough. The horrible thing is though, were she to make more concrete steps to get herself and her dc out of the situation, it is likely to escalate the abuse.

This will end badly unless Op gets some help in RL...from professional agencies trained to deal with this.

"If this ever happens again then breaking the children's hearts will be better than bringing them up in an abusive family."

I really wouldn't worry about that happening if you decide to leave with the kids.

Their hearts are already broken by his treatmnet of you. See below:

"But DC1 was crying and I found both of them hiding under the covers in their beds immediately afterwards."

Not a way I would want my kids to grow up. I know it's hard to leave, but at the end of the day, the kids didn't ask to be put in this situation, they have no voice, they have no power, they only have you to do what's best for them .... the rest is up to you.

notabused - I'm wondering if you have told him this before? that if he behaves like this, that you will leave, with the children?

What reasons do you think he has to change his behaviour, right now? Does he take you seriously? If he doesn't believe he is doing anything wrong, why would he stop?
It seems that in his mind, it is your fault. You keep pushing him to behave like this. The responsibility doesn't lie with him.

He's already crossed several lines, over a long period of time it would seem, and nothing has happened to him - things just go on as before. He appears to have so little respect for you or the children; it is more likely that he will repeat his behaviour than it is that he will stop.

Why not make plans anyway? Concrete plans that you can put into practice when you need to?

I know that you're trying hard to get your head around all of this and what it means. But women in abusive relationships so often give these men "just one last chance".
I'm guessing that you are feeling stronger now; as after the blow up - he is being kinder, even loving towards you. Don't be fooled, it's part of the pattern.

I hope you get the chance to ring WA - it would be so helpful for you to talk to someone about this.

theQuibbler - no I have never said this to him before.

I know how all this reads. You've had a brief snap shot of my life but it is not the whole picture. I can't give you the whole picture because it would help identify me and also because it would bore you to tears! I just don't see myself as abused. People (men and women) come to me for help and advice. They see me as someone who is capable even when I don't feel that I can solve some problems. That's what I've been for most of my adult life.

When I posted on Thursday night I was in shock but now I am much more back to my old self. DH should know I mean it, because I've never made empty threats before. If he doesn't believe me this time, then he is crazy.

The first time he hit me, there was nothing I could do about it without losing the children (I can't give you the details to explain why but that was the way it was then.). This is the 2nd time he has laid a hand on me but now I am in a better position.

As to the children, he has done lesser things but on the same scale when they were younger. Again, and for the same reasons, I couldn't do anything then. This is the first era when I can and I will.

I'd like him to understand properly what he has done but I can't get him to acknowledge it fully. HoweverI do know that he understands that I will not tolerate it again. It is up to him whether or not he decides to put me to the test but he isn't stupid even if we have to agree to differ on exactly how reprehensible his behaviour was. If he does hurt me again either directly or via the children then I will doubtless fall to pieces like I did on Thursday and it will be very, very hard, but I will go. I will know that there is no choice.

I really hate what he did. I am angry that he has let me be labelled as an abused woman.

I am sorry, NA, but you are allowing yourself to take on the label of abused woman

not your fault that he has behaved that way...but your fault if you stay and he does it again (and he will)

I might get flamed for that comment, I have done before and probably will again in the future

but I see it as truth

AnyFucker - I am not going to flame you! You are trying to help me, so why would I? But I don't see how you can know that??

I think it very sad that people are often more afraid of the label than of the reality. Thus, it is more important to hide what is going on, so that other people can't call you "abused", than to actually stop being abused. That is so confused and twisted. It's what happens when the mind tries to rationalise an irrational situation; when love and fear get horribly mixed up; when people suffer shame for something that isn't their fault. It's basically what abusers do to you and how they manage to keep doing it. And that, my dear Aunty Fucker, is why you might get flamed. It's not that you're wrong, but that the word "fault" seems very judgemental when the reality is that the victim is paralysed as much by her (or his) conditioning as by the abuser's actions, and that for a while at least, as they see it, they cannot get away. Like being frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car; it's their "fault" they didn't step out of the way, but at the same time, they kind of couldn't help it. Obviously the main fault is the driver's for not stopping! And I do know you'd be the first at the scene to help and you wouldn't go "I told you so", you'd be too busy calling ambulances and doing kindly things with blankets (figuratively speaking). However I also understand why you feel the need to be stern at this point. Sometimes people outside the problem have the clearest perspective.

That's one of the saddest OPs I have read on here, and has brought tears to my eyes.

notabused, your husband is telling your children that you make him want to commit suicide. That is just a mind numbingly terrible, awful thing to say to young children. It is cruel to effectively force two young children to endure seeing their mother being treated like this by their father. That's before you even start on the physical abuse.

Please call women's aid and at elast start a dialogue with them. It's fantastic that you have told your sister, and that she has made you feel validated. The more people you tell, the more real this will seem to you.

know what ? That he will do it again ?

law of averages ?

the fact that you mention two episodes where he has been physically abusive and there have been no consequences

tbh, I think there have been many more, but perhaps more subtle ones that you don't "count"..a bit of pushing, a bit of jostling, a bit of "accidental" heavy-handedness, all designed to see how much you will turn a blind eye to

once a man crosses a line, and can mamnage to physically hurt you, it is very, very serious and pretty much a one-way street

many men could just could not cross that line, and if they did, they would make damn sure it was the first and only time

I didn't mean that you would flame me, NA

I think I may get pounced on by the many women on here who lived with years of physical and mental abuse before they left

because I have always advocated "one strike and you are out" and expressed incomprehension when other women don't act in the same vein

I have been jumped on for thet view...but not one of those poor ladies ever told me I was wrong for predicting they would be hurt again in these particular cicumstances

only that I didn't understand how hard it is to let go...and that I have to concede

I don't know how hard it is, I really have no idea...but it doesn't stop me from advising women to put themseves and their dc's first

ahead of a man....by a long, long, long way

no one man should be handed the power to fuck up your life and that of your children

that is all

I wish you th best,NA, I really, really do

I just think you don't wish the best for yourself

Annie, we crossposted, but I do really love ya babe x

you are kind in understanding my need to tell people an uncomplicated version of life

I am aware life is soooooooo not uncomplicated...but I really do see this as simple

do not accept abuse, do not rationalise, do not hope he will change

and I am right, I know I am

"fault" is the wrong word

what is the right word ? Taking responsibilty for someone else's abuse of you ?

I dunno

< puts tin hat on >

notabused - labels are just shorthand. And "abused" is an emotive term - if it makes you uncomfortable, and I can understand why it would, then ignore it. I

But that shouldn't stop you looking at the behaviour. Really examining it - that's what important.

What would you say to your sister? If she told you that her partner had put his hands around her neck? What would you tell her if she related the story as it has happened so far to you? Would you suggest that she stayed? Or that she would be best trying to address it, if that's what she wanted, from a position of safety and strength, away from the danger?

You're right, you can only give a snapshot, but whatever the whole story is..
...it still couldn't justify what has happened.

I hope you do, when you are ready, start talking to someone professional (for want of a better word), just for some extra support and insight.

Think of a young adult who is self-harming: maybe with razor blades; perhaps through drug abuse or starvation. Imagine their sibling rackets through life, constantly in trouble with the police and dangerously promiscuous. Eventually - once their lives begin to seem irredeemable - they will find their way into therapy.

The counsellor will pick up a deep sense of insecurity in both children: a sense of mistrust in everything & everybody; a feeling that nothing's worthwhile because everything will break in the end. Each child also feels shameful. They're full of self loathing. The counsellor asks about their family. "Nothing wrong there!" they protest, "Parents still together, very comfortable home, sensible boundaries, etc. I had a good childhood!"

After a little more questioning, the counsellor learns that these two young people grew up in fear of their father's death. It turns out he told them he might commit suicide. As small children, they took the threat seriously and were constantly afraid of making him unhappy. They seem ambivalent towards their mother, often using harshly sexist language about her but speaking protectively of her, as if she were an annoying but weak & fragile creature.

The counsellor helps them to see they blamed their mother for making the father unhappy, but simultaneously thought of her as a victim in need of protection. As little children, then, they felt responsible for both parents' safety. Since they couldn't really guarantee parental safety (it was out of their control), they felt themselves useless. They believe themselves "bad" and that no-one can be trusted. Suppressed anger about the confusion & conflict in their family lives has led them to their predicament.

Do you seriously think you're providing a healthy environment for your kids??

Not that it really changes your point, but the DC don't know what suicide means. (Thank God). They asked me later. Luckily they got distracted and I didn't need to answer. Because they did not understand and other things were happening then which they did understand and were alarmed by (being told that he'd take them away from me), they just forgot about the suicide comment.

Don't think that this is nothing to me. I wish it hadn't happened but I can't make it so. A lot of what you all write makes me very uncomfortable, which are your intentions. Its just this is my one life and I can't live it by the rules I had when I was an idealistic 18 year old... (any man hits me, i leave; any man two-times me, i leave etc).

I know it's not easy to walk out. It took me years and even then it wasn't a walk out, I engineered the situation so he'd have to leave. You can make plans though. Every time he abuses you, think of it as a favour, because it's a step closer to you getting your life back. See him for what he is, feel the hatred building. That's what got me out.
Also, bear in mind that calling the police if he hurts you might be the making of you. I wish I did that, because the police don't fool around anymore

What happened to that idealistic 18 year old?.

You only get one shot at this life and he will destroy you all if you choose ultimately to stay with this man. Infact he's systematically emotionally destroying you all now, he knows what he is doing and it is all done to hurt you. Your children and you are but mere possessions to him, he cares not a jot who he hurts in the process and is happy to take you all down with him.

Is this uncertain walking on eggshells existence really what you want out of life?.

What are you getting out of this relationship now?. No-one benefits from being in an abusive relationship.

"they did understand and were alarmed by (being told that he'd take them away from me), they just forgot about the suicide comment. "

Ohh ... that's okay then