Accepting my relationship was abusive

[BlueBean24]

I’ve just ended my relationship after a violent incident that left me and my young child frightened and distressed.   I know that I need to ensure that we never experience something like that again, but there’s still part of me that think things weren’t really that bad.  I truly don’t believe he’s a bad person, just a very damaged person who is trying his best to be a good Dad and Husband.  I feel like I need to write it all out as I’m sure on paper it looks worse than I want to accept.

 

We met many years ago when we were both quite young.  When we met he was completely broken and vulnerable, he had suffered horrific abuse of every kind from a very young age and I just wanted to scoop him up and help him.  We fell in love quickly and soon moved in together which was when the problems started.   He was reliant on alcohol and weed and he would sometimes become violent when drunk.  He would get paranoid, thinking I was looking at other men to the point that I kept my eves fixed on the ground if we went out together to avoid accidentally looking at someone in passing.  He was very jealous of male colleagues and I quickly learned to to mention any male names.  On one occasion he waited outside my work to watch me working and ensure that I wasn’t using working late as an excuse for an affair.  I don’t know why I stayed with him then, there were times that I had my bags packed, but I never actually left.  He was always devastated and apologetic if he had hurt me, begging for another chance and I think once that line had been crossed once it became much more blurry.

 

Eventually I gave him an ultimatum that he had to stop drinking.  He got help and stopped drinking and the violence stopped.  He would occasionally get insecure but not to the degree he had before and things ticked along quite nicely between us for a number of years.  We had a lot of happy times and even when life was tough he was my best friend, could always make me laugh, it felt like the 2 of us against the world.

 

His mental health had always been poor, he was on treatment for depression and had many suicide attempts (I don’t mean threats, I mean genuine attempts) which I supported him through.  He then became very mentally unwell which resulted in him being sectioned and diagnosed with severe mental illness.  He was started on medication and given a support and it was amazing.  Suddenly I had all the good bits of him all the time, without the more challenging bits.  We realised that he had been unwell at a low level the whole time I had known him and with the right medication and support he thrived.  Life was good, we got married, things were Rosie.

 

They his psychiatrist stopped his medication to see if he still needed it or if it had been a one off episode.  Short answer he did!   He became very unwell which resulted in me being in a scary situation that led to PTSD.  He was put back on medication and his mental health gradually returned to a good place and our lives returned to a good place.  We had our child, he was supportive and caring through the pregnancy and post partum period and proved to be an excellent Dad for the first few months.  He got involved with a new sports club and got new friends who seemed nice.  Then suddenly he stopped coming home regularly, became distant.  Eventually it transpired that he and his new mates had been on a massive drugs binge, resulting in my husband getting hooked on crack!  He’d run up £(number removed by Moderator) debt on our credit cards and almost killed himself, lost his job and was begging me to help him get clean.  It wasn’t easy, he had a few false starts but he did get clean and back to being a loving husband and Dad.  I went back to work, he became a stay at home Dad everything ticked along OK for a while, then his mental health team discharged him as he was “too well” for ongoing input.  It was downhill from then on.  Increasing mood swings, depression, suicide attempts, then his GP altered his medication and he had a major relapse with his mental health.  I took our child and went to stay with family as it wasn’t a safe environment for them to be in.  Eventually the mental health team got involved and sorted the medication and got him stabilised.  I went home with our child and tried to get things back on track, but I don’t feel like they ever got back to the good times.  The mental health team discharged him again quickly and it was all on me to support, but I struggled to support him whilst also working full time and looking after out child.  Our child came first, then my work, he felt neglected, I was exhausted our love life suffered.  We kept on trying, then one of my relatives died and left me some money, he blew the lot on a drugs binge and then told me it was my fault because I’d been talking about using it to get things our child needed rather than spending it on something he wanted (but hadn’t even mentioned to me) He even seemed surprised that I was upset!  He apologised and got off the drugs again, but he then started sporadically drinking and getting into trouble with the police.  He was often verbally abusive to me.  I felt like a parent with a teenager and a young child, rather than his wife.  I would find myself thinking “well with the way he abuses his body he will die young and I can get my life back”  but I was too scared of what he would do if I tried to leave and was also reliant on him for childcare (obviously not when under the influence of anything) and scared of how I could make things work on my own.  Eventually he missed a lot of doses of his medication (he had always been bad at remembering to take it and relied on me to prompt most of the time) became paranoid that I was cheating on him, this resulted in an argument where he hit me.  When I told him that was it things were over between us he said “(quote removed by Moderator)”  we ended up talking things through and he seemed to have calmed down and I though he was OK, then when I was at work (timeframe removed by Moderator) he sent me abusive messages all day, he continued to be verbally abusive when I got home and our child was distressed.  He locked us in the house and took my keys and phone.  My child was begging to leave the house and he agreed I could take her to (location removed by Moderator), but not take my phone, then he followed us to (location removed by Moderator) to check I was going where I said (said he though it was an excuse to meet another man) when we got home he became verbally abusive again, I tried to put our child to bed but he kept coming to have a go at me and waking them up again.  Our child was distressed and shouting at him to go away.  Then he got angry and told us we both had to leave but we couldn’t take anything with us, no phone, money, clothes etc and would never be allowed back. Our child was distraught, but I knew there was no way he would let us leave and would probably become violent if I tried.  (specific details of violence removed by Moderator).  Eventually it was time for me to go to work and he let me do a supervised call to phone in sick, I managed to use a safety phrase we use when lone working to trigger my colleague to send help, and the police arrived and arrested him.

 

And for some crazy reason I told the police hardly any of the above, I said the bare minimum to give me the space to get out safely, but not get him in too much trouble ((legal detail removed by Moderator)) I didn’t press charges for the same reason.

 

Now I’m with my child staying with family far away.  He’s back on his medication and apologetic and being lovely, but I know I can’t ever risk putting our child through that again.  I’ve told him to move out and he has, so now I’m planning on going back to our home, my job and our lives and trying to make things work as a single parent.  He is saying he is happy to have our child a couple of days a week whilst I work.  I’m planning on reducing my hours at work.  He’s always been a good Dad and our daughter loves him, she says she’s happy for him to look after her again, but then he put her through that and I don’t know if I’m crazy to consider this.  Yet I also think that courts would give him contact anyway.

 

My other option is to stay with family far away, but then I worry that contact would be more difficult and it would be harder to monitor his mental health to safeguard our daughter.  I also worry that would be unfair to both of them as they are close.

 

Anyone who made it that far thanks for letting me waffle on.

[Marmalade]

Bluebean24.
Please believe me when I say the abuse has been bad and the abuse has been against you and your child. He is not a good dad. He is an abusive and dangerous dad. I fully understand that when we are in the midst of a relationship like this we lose all sense of perspective and minimise it. It’s a way to survive as otherwise our brains can’t properly process. Please think what you would say to a friend or colleague if they told you this story. I hope that writing it down has made you see how abnormal and abusive his behaviour is.

This man has serious mental health issues. He has also chosen to lead a path to drug and alcohol addictions. He has spent money for your child on drugs. He has imprisoned you in your home with your child and been violent and abusive in front of her. She must have been so terrified. He has repeatedly made suicide attempts.

From what you write, this man is a danger and abusive to your child. He is absolutely not a good dad. Whether he should have contact, or what sort of contact, is something you could get legal advice on, but unsupervised contact as her main carer whilst you work sounds as though your daughter would be at risk of real harm. In this situation your daughter has to come first. Please seek advice from a solicitor about contact and ask your local DA service for advice and support.  You are so lucky to have got out.
Good luck.

[BlueBean24]

Thank you. Writing it all out I was horrified. I took my wedding ring off afterwards, which was something I’d not felt ready to do before. I spoke with my child about going home last night and she said that she doesn’t want to go home because shes scared. Ive got a lot more thinking to do.

Im finding it hard to reconcile that the man who did this to us with the Dad who sings her to sleep 🙁

[Author]

Posts