I think I'm beginning to realise

[Strugglingwithnc]

Hi all

Its my first post here. I left my ex fiance a few weeks ago after the abuse escalated into physical abuse. I guess, actually, the physical and sexual abuse had been there for a while but because it wasn’t overt violence until recently I kinda excused it.

So I fled into refuge with my daughter and I’m a mess. I broke no contact early on and we’ve been talking over email. He has been promising to change, telling me how much he loves me. I have noticed though that he was still quite manipulative in his emails so I said maybe we shouldn’t speak until he’s completed the perp programme and he flipped. Instead of being a normal person and running from him as fast as I could, I went to see him to talk. I found out he’s started a friendship with a new woman already and he arranged to meet a prostitute but reckons he didn’t go through with it. I’m heartbroken. I think I’m beginning to realise that everything he ever told me was a lie. All those times he said he loves me and doesn’t want anyone else, it was all a lie. I’m so so stupid for having hope for us. Had I just stuck to no contact I might be further along in the healing process by now but I feel right back to square one. Worse. He has been so abusive to me and yet I am still imagining a future with him where there is no abuse and he is the man I thought he was. But it was all a lie.

I am in so much pain again and I know I have to go no contact but I feel like part of me has died. He asked me to give him until the end of the year but everything he says is a lie. I don’t know where I’m going to find the strength to do this.

[Tiffany]

No contact will help. It took me a couple of weeks of identifying the behaviours before I implemented it. I actually found it really helpful in a way because I had everything in writing, so I could see how he was swinging from one tact to another. It played merry hell with my mental health, so if you can skip this then I would, but if you can’t then try and see it as a learning experience. I would also try minimising your responses to purely factual, rather than engaging with the emotional. Emotional reasoning with an abuser is always a “down the rabbit hole” kind of an experience. They never truly accept blame, and they twist everything. I limited myself to messages about practical things that needed to be sorted (finances etc) and didn’t respond to or engage with anything else. I didn’t feel truly free until I had cut all contact though.

In summary, because I think this is a bit rambling. The sooner you go no contact, the sooner you will feel better. If you are in contact, don’t get pulled into emotional arguments. You can’t win them. Just because you broke no contact doesn’t mean you can’t restart it, and you absolutely don’t have to go back to him just because you slipped up on the no contact.

Also, for the record, he sounds awful and dangerous, and you deserve so much better.

[freedomtochoose]

You have done an incredible, amazing achievement going to refuge hon. Well done.
I doubt if there is a single one of us on here who hasn’t broken contact at some point, thinking that it would be okay to try again. Of course we all paid the price, and found out the hard way.

Your mental health is worsening because of this contact. You will find the strength. Reach out to your support worker. Reach out to the women in your refuge.

You need to be very careful with this as you are not only putting yourself at risk, but ultimately potentially the other women in refuge.

It is sunny today. Take what little money you may have and do something nice for yourself. I was in refuge myself with my child. It is what it says on the tin – a refuge. Somewhere where you have the chance to prioritise your recovery. Try a little adult learning course. Artwork? Gardening? anything that might help…

thinking of you. you will get through this time, as many women before you have. I am sitting here with own flat and child off to school so many years later, feeling grateful that non one and nothing is coming in without my wanting them to. No matter what the challenges you face it is better that way.

big virtual hug if you would like (not if you dont)

all best
ftc
x

[Flowerchild]

What Tiffany and Freedom said. No contact. You can’t get better while you’re still sipping the poison!

You say there’s a good man in there. I suspect that good man was in the glasses you were looking through, not in him.

Flower x

[Author]

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