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    • #58741
      Recall
      Participant

      This may be strange but it’s weird how a small thing feels likes such an achievement. I went to the cinema and watched a movie which made me finally be able to look in the mirror and think that I am not tainted because of his actions. I didn’t feel like, for that moment, I wasn’t trying to hide the scars he left or trying to hide myself to disguise myself to go unrecognised to protect myself from attracting that sort of attention again, and I finally realised in that moment that none of this was my fault. What he done to me should never happened and nothing I done caused him to rape me. He made that choice himself and it is never the victims fault. That was/still is the hardest thing for me to truly believe that I didn’t provoke him in some way to hurt me the way he did but that was a decision he made. So why I share this moment, is for everyone and anyone to know that none of their actions are your fault!!

    • #58742
      BakingQueen
      Participant

      So happy to hear of your small victory. It’s horrible what’s happened to you but you are taking the steps to move on and it seems you are taking it one step at a time. Thanks for sharing. X

    • #58749
      Poodlepower
      Participant

      When I was in a relationship with an abusive man I bought into his versions of why he was abusive- I had “goaded” him, so what did I expect? It was “necessary” to “subdue” me to keep us together, I’d got hurt because I was “in the way” as he tried to get past, and simply “it never happened.” I didn’t want to believe I was being abused by the man I loved, who said he loved me too. I even put his behaviour down to “he loves me and is so scared to lose me, he can’t control himself.” But the truth was he COULD have controlled himself. He just chose not to.

      Now I’m not with him I can see the danger I was in and how right I was to leave. It takes distance some times to clear your mind of the confusion and extreme , mixed up emotions that are created by being in an abusive relationship.

      My abuser eventually took his own life after I finally reported him for assault. Well meaning friends say “remember the good times” but that’s what kind of lead me to be with him so long. It actuslly helps more to remember the bad times, to see them for what they were.

    • #58750
      Recall
      Participant

      Thank you BakingQueen, you are right take every small victory we have because to anyone else doesnt understand until you have been at the recieving end of the volatile acts of rape and abuse, and i would never wish anyone to ever be placed in the position i was in.

      Dear PoddlePower,

      Thank you for sharing your story with me. So much of what you shared resided with me because I experience much the same, of making reasons for his actions and think it’s because he loves me that he wants to protect me from everyone else but really I needed protecting from him. But its been (detail removed by moderator) since I found the courage and left him but I have recently found out he is with a new woman and I fear for her, i feel so helpless and worried because if he did even a single thing that he did to me to her, even though I don’t know, I wouldn’t forgive myself 🙁

    • #58755
      Poodlepower
      Participant

      Of course, you are not responsible for his actions but I do understand your fears for this woman. Could you report him to the police for his abuse of you?

      I shied away from this myself many times for fear of how it would damage my partner, scare him…but I needed to see that police involvement would be as a consequence of HIS behaviour. He used to get angry if I shared details of our life together with others, calling it a “betrayal” and telling me I’d “broken his heart” by not keeping things between us two. Clearly he wanted things to be “kept quiet” so he could carry on abusing me.
      Secrecy is how abusers get away with their behaviour. We are manipulated by our care for them into “protecting” them from the consequences of their own actions. We need to report abuse. For ourselves and for everybody else who may come into contact with these men.

      Having said all that, I do appreciate how terrifying reporting can be-sometimes just too terrifying to face x

    • #58777
      Recall
      Participant

      Dear Poodlepower,

      I am worried about speaking out because it was over (Detail removed by moderator) years ago and I’m scared that no one will believe me. The sad thing is that I don’t even think he thought it was abuse because at first I didn’t, it’s only once I seeked help for other issues that they told me that what I described to them is rape and abuse, where as I just believed that it was his entitlement because “I was his and only his” and that he used to say it was the way I would have to show him that “I love him” and that it was way of ensuring I wouldn’t go with other men and “protecting me” from the horrible people in the world.

      I remember speaking to one of my ex friends about it and I was basically was made out to be a liar, that what I said didn’t happen because if it had then I should have just left and they had known him for years and he was never like that (hence why they are an ex friend now). I’m so scared that this rejection will happen again….

    • #58796
      Poodlepower
      Participant

      I’m so sorry if I sounded as if I think reporting is something everyone MUST do, I know it’s never a straightforward matter x

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