missing

[Bridget Jones Is Free]

My kids, my home, my garden, my hopes as well, God knows how much hoping I went through.
Not doing well emotionally at all today.

I always try to get through the hurdles of pain. So I focused on work today, I have a fantastic opportunity I “fetched” myself and guess what, it worked!

My kids worry me, hurt me. So I focus on motivation. That’s all i can do for now.

[LittleBritishPhoenix]

Hi BridgetJonesIsFree – I have no words of wisdom but just wanted to show some support and send a virtual hug.

You’re doing so well, and focusing on work and motivation and your own incredible strength will absolutely help you get through the dark days. x*x

[Bridget Jones Is Free]

Thank you for being there with me and for me.

I remember the DV worker in the refuge told me her own story, she chose her words very cautiously. I know why now, because she lost her kids in the process. They got “polluted” by him as she explained her escapes to refuges. By the time she came back the second time, her kids had sided with their dad despite the horrific violence, weapons etc.

The DV worker who supported me on my return from the refuge said ” It’s too late for your kids” and “kids are selfish”. That shocked me, but it has turned out to be the truth.

I wake up each day knowing this now, and last night a friend described to me how she sees my kids…despite wanting to stay kind to me, I understand her descriptions.

Knowing my kids are with him is indeed painful, and the one child of mine who I thought was still the kindest one is now avoiding me. The pain is digging deeper.

But I cant fight that in any other way than by staying true to myself. I cannot change what is polluted. Maybe life will.

But it’s hard watching what goes on…

[older lady]

“its too late for your kids’ undermines everything others work for and towards to recover from abuse of various kinds. There is a viewpoint that seems to propose that the brain is moulded and then set, which undermines the capacity to change and grow which I see we have if we want it. Unless its in the DNA it can be changed. Unless we don’t want to change it, and there are lots of different reasons for that. You say ‘polluted’ which i agree with, domestic abuse is an environmental pollution, it messes up the environment so life has to adapt to survive it, twist and turn, but can grow healthy again with the removal of the pollutant. I remember visiting my first boyfriend’s family. I was sitting in their home waiting for all hell to break loose and when it didn’t I wondered what was wrong with THEM. They really seemed to LIKE each other and showed a good deal of respect for each other. Wow!

[Escaped not free]

BJIF
Just wanted to say well done for keeping going. It’s horrible when things are bad but you have been through so much and good will come. It’s a bad day. It’s gone after today. Keep doing what u are doing because you are doing well. X*x

[White Rose]

Sounds as if Bridget is gaining strength. Well done on working with that opportunity!
Sending hugs – I can’t imagine what its like being without your children. Home and esoecially garden at this time of year I can feel but kids are another level. Remember you were the one who taught them the good qualities they have – it’s just his influence has squashed that side of them for now.
Take care. I’d buy you some daffodils if I could to bring subshine into your day xx

[Serenity]

Hi Bridget,

Your DV worker shouldn’t have said to you that it was ‘too late.’ She was imposing her own situation upon yours, and even if you think that she was being realistic, the fact is that you can’t afford to take on board that pessimism.

She is right that young people can be ‘selfish’ because they are busy trying to build up their own identities at that age, and they don’t have the life experience and maturity to fully understand things yet. Many a time I have heard people say ‘I was always critical of my parents- until I had kids! Your kids have got a lot of growing up to do. However, you can’t allow them to be distrdkecrful.

Your kids are probably grieving the situation too. My parents split up when I was a teenager. People said to me ‘Oh, but you were old enough to have coped by then’ but in fact teenager years brings with it a whole host of different insecurities and worries. Teens want to branch out into the world, but also ‘selfishly’ want to know that they have a stable base, a family home to go back to, but of course they can’t expect you to have carried on living in that atmosphere. You’re not just a mum, you’re a human being.

I would say allow them processing time but don’t allow them to be disrespectful. Focus on developing yourself: that will allow space for them to process things. Although my father was quite abusive at times, I still
Found it very difficult when my parents separated. My mum had invested so much into
Trying to build the ideal family home, and it was dreadful to see it all end so horribly. I think teenagers are actually quite vulnerable emotionally, even if they don’t appear it.

My focussing on developing yourself, you are respecting the time and space they need. I don’t know what your long term plans are regarding the family house, but they might actually feel angry about being left with him, under it all. Will you try to sell the family home?

[Serenity]

Typing errors:

You can’t allow them to be dustespectful

By focussing on developing yourself

[Serenity]

Disrespectful!!!!

[lover of no contact]

I agree with serenity. And I can identify with you and your being affected by and children’s ‘way of surviving’ living with their abusive dad at the moment.

‘Your children’s love for you is as great as their fear of him’. Fear (which he has instilled since the day they were born probably) does terrible things to us. I hate that feeling. Your children have huge fear of not being on the right side of him. They know he is ruthless.

My just adult-children have to keep my abuser happy at the moment otherwise he will not pay their college fees, and he would turn their grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, a whole family system against them, (yes he controls all his side of the family) and my children aren’t ready to cope with that loss and pain at the moment, so they keep him sweet, subconsciously (survival tactic)I think. But serenity is right, we can’t allow them to disrespect us and use the behaviours they have learnt off their abuser fathers on us.

I think you are doing fantastic Bridget. I can’t believe you got yourself away from him. That is a fantastic achievement. Leaving an abuser who have his claws dug deep in us (and who influences others who we are close to against us) is in my opinion one of the hardest things to do in life.

You have broken the cycle of abuse (possibly handed down for generations before you) for your children. You are the first one in generations to have said ‘Stop’ to the dysfunction of abuse. You have given your children such a gift. Of course they don’t see it now. Abusers are cunning, baffling and powerful until you get awareness (this Forum helps with that).

Its early days yet with your children. You are only just out of the ‘cycle of abuse’. As you go from strength to strength they will witness that and remember he is actually going to get worse with his abusive patterns and behaviours and his alcohol addiction and they will not be able to help see that.

I find if I focus on my life, my recovery, my work, my rest/relaxation etc. I am then modelling recovering behaviour for my children.

[older lady]

Solicitors made it very clear to me, many years ago, that I could leave the domestically abusive relationship but my child could not. She has no way of leaving it and if I am not present in any way she carries the full burden of it. What kind of choice is that. Having grown up with an alcohol fuelled, abusive parent I wonder what sort of ‘roles’ your children will be having to play around their father. Sometimes in life, when we just need to survive it, we try to look at it from the point of view that makes it easier to bear. We try to convince ourselves that the abusive dad is a victim and needs us. We don’t want to see that we are trapped. How does it seem to a child that the law allows mum to break free but not them? They, the most vulnerable members of the family, are stuck in the mire because they are voiceless until they reach a certain age that the law respects, by which point they may have a very altered view of ‘normal’ family life.

[Author]

Posts