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Reading the stories on this forum has given me food for thought. It’s made me realise all the serious relationships I’ve had have been with abusive men. My first real bf was violent. I met him in college & fell head over heels in love with this bad boy. He first threw me around about a month after we got together. I made excuses & convinced myself I had brought out this bad side in him. After 3 months I was asked to leave college because our fights were becoming a problem. I was only with him for a yr but in that yr he was very abusive. After that I got with the person I’m with now. He was controlling but we were only together for 18months when I found out I was pregnant. His first words when I told him were “I feel like hanging myself”. We spilt up that day. he spent the next 4 months trying to get me to have an abortion. He justified it by saying he never wanted kids. He was out of our lives for a long time. When my daughter was (age removed by moderator) I reconnected with a man I had known for 15 yrs. it was a very full on romance & he moved in with me & my daughter within a month. I didn’t see how controlling he was till I finally kicked him out 4 1/2 yrs later. He would tell me what to wear to go to work etc. About 6 months after we split up my daughter confided in me that he had been physically abusing her for the last 2 yrs of our relationship. I was devastated & looking back all the signs were there. He was a teacher. After i found out I reached out to some of his old colleagues who admitted he had been suspended twice for shaking pupils. He was sacked about a yr into our relationship, at the time he’s said it was coz he was on the sick for back problems but now I wonder if it was for violence towards the kids in his care. He’s no longer a teacher & has moved away. We have zero contact with him. He left me with thousands of pounds worth of debt that took me nearly 4 yrs to pay off. Eventually my daughters father came back into her life & we ended up back together, we moved in with him & he became a monster. He never hit us but was very emotionally abusive. We’re still together but I don’t live with him & will be leaving him when my daughter is more stable. Wha this wrong with me? Why do I end up with these types of men? I was sexually abused by my father when I was 5 but didn’t know it was wrong at the time. I told my mum when I was 8 & all contact was stopped. I haven’t seen my dad since. Do I seek these type of men out on some subconscious level? The realisation that I’ve put my child through all this hell is crippling me. If I hadn’t got back with her father she wouldn’t be being treated for possible bipolar. Have I ruined my daughters chances of healthy relationships in the future? I don’t think I could live seeing her with these types of men.
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Firstly, Moogie, don’t cause yourself pain by feeling guilty. The guilt rests with the abuser. Don’t cause yourself further distress by taking on the weight of his guilt.
We can’t see inside abusers’ heads. We can’t read them 100% or predict their actions; we don’t always know what is them telling the truth or them lying and manipulating. The reason that abusers get away with it is that they are very clever about how they abuse. And them blaming us does brainwash us into thinking we are at fault.
Personally, I think that we can’t get rid of childhood demons until we have talked it out with support or received therapy. We might push those feelings down, but they are there in our subconscious.
I think that previous abuse means that we are often more likely to put up with further abuse. This might be because our self-image is affected, or it could be that the abuse has somehow written is a ‘script’ that we think is unchangeable. It takes a lot of talking, opening up, support and a huge leap of faith to make those big changes, and to write ourselves a new leading role and a new script in a brand new story- to leave behind the old script, where we were the victim and lacking in confidence.
When I did my Freedom course, the leaders gave us a poem about falling into the same puddle two or three times and then finally stepping around it. It’s like that with a use. It’s often only years down the line that we suddenly see clearly that we are being abused. Before then, our judgement was clouded.
Please don’t beat yourself up about something that human beings fall into every single day. The risk of abuse is sadly part of the human condition. Until we speak more openly about abuse and educate young people, the risks will stay the same. I think there still needs to be a massive shift in this whole area, a zero tolerance movement.
I sometimes feel very guilty that I had kids with my abuser, but then I remind myself that I entered the relationship with the purest ofintentions and had no way of knowing how things would work out.
I am sure that your daughter’s father did a very good job of coercing you or making you believe he had changed. They are good liars.
Don’t carry round any guilt ; just put into practice all you have learnt, making sure you make the safest life for you and your daughter from now on. Knowledge is power. Unfortunately, we very often only gain knowledge by experiencing pain. But we can move on from things, armed with our newfound knowledge.
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Thank you serenity. I didn’t realise till I came on this forum that the 3 serious relationships I’ve had were all abusive to varying degrees. I’ve always considered myself a strong person who won’t be pushed around, yet looking back all 3 of these men were in total control of me. It’s a startling revelation that leaves me wondering what I can do to move away from this obvious destructive path I have been on all my adult life. For all the person I’m with now has never hit me or my daughter, he is by far the worse relationship I’ve ever been in. I would rather he had hit me instead of the constant anxiety of waiting for his temper to blow 24/7. It has really damaged my daughter mentally. I feel consumed with guilt for what she had been through. I know I should blame him, but the fact is I blame myself for staying with him too long. We don’t live with him anymore but he still has a hold over us. When I think about the way he was sexually it turns my stomach. I would do whatever he wanted just to stop the rage if I said no. Now we don’t live with him I don’t have to do that anymore. The thought of sleeping with him makes me feel sick. He still goes on & on about how he misses the old me, & still gropes me makes sexual comments constantly but I will not relent. He won’t push too far as he knows he is losing me. So for now he is trying to behave. I don’t know if I could revisit my childhood trauma. It’s so long ago & I don’t know if I could cope digging up the past. I’m only staying with this monster as my daughter is very fragile mentally & is a high suicide risk. She is being treated by camhs & im hoping she will be stable ASAP. Then I will walk away from this toxic relationship.
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Hi Moogie and Welcome
What is the benefit of you being in this toxic relationship doing for your daughter?
Have you done the Freedom Programme? Do you know the effects of abuse on children? Here is a link.
As for the type of men, here is a similar post and my reply:
Everyone has vulnerabilities. It’s the abusers who are very good at exploiting these vulnerabilities either intentionally or unintentionally.
It really a case of sitting down with a DV counsellor and deciphering what your vulnerabilities are that were exploited and how you will protect those vulnerabilities.
I’m dating after over 2 years out from my abusive marriage as recommended by DV organisations (2 years after the last abusive contact). I’m very aloof with the men I date. They are not allowed access to most of my life. They don’t know where I live or work. They don’t know about my childhood trauma or that my husband abused me. They don’t know about my mental health illness like depression or anxiety. I have separate social media phone and email for them.
My vulnerability in picking my husband and allowing his behaviour was that I normalised verbal and emotional abuse from seeing it as a child, I suffered with depression which made me lonely and blamed myself for everything wrong and because I’m responsible and kind and loyal, I took on more than my fair share in the relationship for years!
Now, I know what behaviour is abusive, I learnt how to manage my depression and loneliness (which turned out to be BPD) and I refuse to be responsible and take the blame for another grown adult!
This was a lot of self work. Self help, therapy, support groups and counselling. It is ongoing but I won’t tolerate anyone who tries to undermine my self-integrity when I’ve done nothing wrong to deserve any kind of abuse whatsoever.
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She is very unstable at the moment mentally. She has overdosed (detail removed by Moderator) ago, I just found out (detail removed by Moderator) ago when I found her suicide note. I’m scared if I leave him when she’s like this, that she will od again & succeed this time. So I stay with him for now til she’s more able to cope with me splitting up with him. We no longer live together & he doesn’t have control like he used to, but obviously what she went through has left scars. The psychologist at camhs agrees that if I left now it might trigger her. I’m tortured by guilt for what she has been through & wish I had made different choices. I would love nothing better than to cut him out of my live & only have contact about our daughter, but I don’t think she could deal with that just yet.
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I’ve also never heard of the freedom programme? I was in a refuge but she support worker never offered any type of help like that
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