Staying in a marriage you think might be abusive

DCFC79

The kids go to school right, make friends with some of the other parents. You don't deserve to be treated the way you have.

muddywellies

Other people don't like me.

Polly I refute that - I am hugely supportive of women's aid I just don't know if they can help in my situation - but you're probably right and my posting here will just annoy people. So sorry about that.

Pollycat

muddywellies wrote: »

Other people don't like me.

Polly I refute that - I am hugely supportive of women's aid I just don't know if they can help in my situation - but you're probably right and my posting here will just annoy people. So sorry about that.

Your posting is not annoying people.
It's not annoying me.

You don't seem to be giving Womens Aid a chance to help - and it's that which I find a little frustrating.

It's not about supporting an organisation for what they do - it's about asking what they can do to help you when you clearly need help.
And you just seem to be dismissing possibly the best source of help and support available to you right now.

ecgirl07

muddywellies wrote: »

Other people don't like me.

Polly I refute that - I am hugely supportive of women's aid I just don't know if they can help in my situation - but you're probably right and my posting here will just annoy people. So sorry about that.

Who tells you other people dont like you? Your other half?

Sometimes people forget how hard it is to see the wood for the trees. You might not leave this time, the dynamic might change IF you change. How old are you and how old is your husband?

Pollycat

muddywellies wrote: »

Other people don't like me.

That's just something your husband has been drumming into you for years.

Have you tried to make friends with other parents?
Has anyone actually shunned all your efforts at making friends?

pigpen

muddywellies wrote: »

Other people don't like me.

Polly I refute that - I am hugely supportive of women's aid I just don't know if they can help in my situation - but you're probably right and my posting here will just annoy people. So sorry about that.

No.. YOU don't like you so cannot see why anyone else would.. just because the first people you meet are a bit frosty doesn't mean they dislike you.. it means they don't know you.. that takes time! We cannot be liked by everyone and being liked by others starts by liking some aspect of yourself.. what do you like about you??

Re WA... have you asked? If you don't ask you don't get. Ask before saying they cannot help.

What positive things do you get out of this situation?? All I see is 'I can't, I'm worried, I'm scared' .. where is the 'this is good, that makes me happy'

Making excuses for why you cannot do things shows you are not mentally or emotionally ready to just walk away.. get yourself an outside opinion, some counselling, some life outside with other people.. like a college course.. the baby is no excuse they have creches! I've done it! .. you will see how other people live and it is a great eye opener!

thorsoak

Nobody is angry/annoyed at you Muddywellies (love the name btw) - you are frightened, you are looking at a huge chasm and that would scare anyone.

As Pigpen says, you're not ready to take that step yet - but you will be strong enough one day - try and make that day sooner rather than later. Do you want your son to grow up to be like his father??


Keep talking to Womens Aid, make preparations - look up divorce solicitors locally - although Womens Aid will help. Look at all the options that could open up for you - sooner or later you can make the big step.

You've built a big wall around yourself to protect yourself ...now is the time to start putting a gate in that wall xxxxx

Andypandyboy

I think only you can get up the courage to change this situation. I think that if you think about the negative consequences of staying in this relationship for your children then you will be able to find that courage. Most mothers would take a bullet for their children, and I am sure you are no different.

He is that bullet.

He is a bad role model, he is how your son will turn out if you stay, and your situation is what your daughters will face if you stay. You need to stand in front of them and stop the bullet from getting to them.

It is hard for a young mum to make a life outside the home and all the moreso when you have been moulded from a young age to fit the requirements of another. You appear to have been subsumed by this man, he has not saved you, he has caused you harm.

That is not love, it is control and possession, something which is done to an inanimate object not a person, with their own needs and wants.

You may see it as easier now to stay or let him back into your lives, but longterm it will be harder, and hardest most of all on your children. Their expectations of relationships will be skewed and the fallout from that could be huge. You have made the hardest first step by leaving him, gather your courage and look forward. Seek out as much help as you can; school PTA, church, local groups, mum and toddler, all of these places are where friendships are fostered and grow. You will not feel like this forever, everything passes.

I hope you find the strength to remove this man from your lives.

Pixie5740

muddywellies wrote: »

Other people don't like me.

Polly I refute that - I am hugely supportive of women's aid I just don't know if they can help in my situation - but you're probably right and my posting here will just annoy people. So sorry about that.

What prompted you to post here? What is it you are looking for? Advice? Somewhere to vent? Someone to say that it's ok to stay in an abusive marriage? Have you read threads by other posters in similar situations and related to how they must be feeling?

Ultimately what do you want to happen? How do you want your life to be?

candygirl

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Since when is a toaster going on the blink been a good reason for having somebody (who is supposed to love and care for you but assumes they have a right to shove or hit you when they're miffed about something) poisoning your life and that of your children?

If you're on your own and the washing machine goes on the blink, wash the clothes in the bath. Google 'dishwasher doesn't drain' or 'sink blocked'. If money's a problem, look for a childminder nearby and get another job. That way, when the vacuum cleaner goes 'poufffff' when you switch it on, you mutter some rude words under your breath and order a cheap replacement online. Or you mention it at work and one of your colleagues replies that they've got their old one in the cupboard under the stairs at home from when they replaced it, so they'll bring it in tomorrow and you can have it. Or there's somebody in the office in her 40s who was a single parent herself 20 years ago, she knows how to fix stuff and explains how to do it.



You need a cheap set of tools, glue, WD40 and gaffer tape. Plus a wire coathanger for unblocking things. That solves having to ask a violent, controlling ratbag for help.


A rough approximation of benefits on the Entitled To website tells me that you'll receive the best part of £300 a week (before council tax benefit or housing costs are also paid to you) if you don't work. Plus maintenance. Are you still absolutely certain you can't afford to feed, clothe, top up the electricity/pay the TV licence and buy the odd cheap appliance for three small children and yourself on over £1200 in your pocket every month?


The fact is that you would be able to manage just fine without him. The question is whether you are prepared to try properly. Yes, it's hard, he's made sure you think you can't manage. But whilst it's easier to call him and ask him to make it all go away/get a fuse changed, it gives him another way to control you by making you feel bad. Just think about your eldest trying to put their own clothes on as a toddler. It took ages, they got tangled up, they looked like a circus performer with their choice of outfit, it would have been easier to do it for them. Or feeding themselves - at first, there's more over them and the floor than in their mouth. Much easier to take the spoon and do it for them. But they learn. The food finally gets inside them more often than not (it's rare that chocolate or ice cream misses as frequently as broccoli or baked beans), socks eventually get put on - not always matching ones and sometimes they're inside out - but they're not useless or stupid or incompetent, they're just learning new skills. Ones they wouldn't have learned without you letting them get on with it; and if they got into a tangle, you'd help without telling them they were useless. If you didn't do that, you'd have three children entirely dependent upon you to feed, wind, change, non vocal and unable to walk, talk or play, rather than one baby and two children.



You just need to learn new skills. Those skills will be far better for your children than their seeing Daddy shove Mummy about - some grow up thinking it's normal, some grow up hating the abuser, some grow up hating the victim because they resent having to grow up like that or because the abuser convinced them it was all the victim's fault.

**************************

It won't always be safe and nice and secure and easy - I remember walking into the kitchen to see the washing machine had pumped gallons over the floor. The downstairs neighbour started banging on the door. The kids were squabbling in their bedroom and the cat had been pestering for food after having taken a massive dump on the bathmat whilst I was changing the litter tray. And it was raining. After the initial standing and blinking at my feet, wondering why they felt wet, it was time to do something.

That something was not phoning my ex. It was swearing, opening the door to the neighbour, saying 'I'm sorry, yes I know, it's the washing machine' and dashing back into the kitchen. He followed, helped me turn the watersupply off (as he knew where it was in the flats when I didn't), the kids stopped fighting long enough to look and see what was going on, so they got told to bring the bathtowels as I switched the machine off at the socket.

Once the initial tsunami had stopped, he went home and I cleaned up the flood.

After sitting on the toilet seat for a minute, wondering what on earth I was going to do, I made myself a cup of tea and started looking at what might be wrong with the machine. Turns out it was just the filter/drain pipe had blocked, so I cleared the blockage with a wire coathanger and nervously turned it back on. It drained perfectly. I still have that same machine fifteen years later and it cost me nothing to fix it.

I suspect I had the cleanest kitchen floor in memory by then, I was soaked, tired and had completely forgotten about feeding the cat, who had got one splash on her paws and taken herself off to hide on the top of the wardrobe until it was all over (I knew how she felt), but everything was fixed, other than turning the water supply off for me - I turned it back on - and children bringing towels in and chucking them on the floor in my general direction - I had absolutely no help. (the eldest tells me the remembers seeing me sitting on the floor fixing the machine, which came back to her when at university and the toilet started overflowing from the cistern - her housemates either panicked or ignored it; she fixed it).

That moment, when I pressed the on button and it quietly started to drain as though nothing had happened, was when I realised I was going to be fine.


As you will be.

What a fantastic and realistic post! It takes me back over 20 years to when I was also a single parent, with little money, doing a degree and working at weekends to support me and my DD! If you do leave him, which imo is your only option for a happy life, of course it's not gonna be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is!:)
If you stay, he will chip and chip away at what's left of your self esteem until you break Good luck in making the right decision hun xx:A