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I do have the one kid with him. It was when we started trying for a second one that the trouble started.

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Ugh, yeah, dealing with the legal side is horrid. I’m learning to expect pretty much any emotion when I’m moving it along. I’m just about to file my divorce – so far I’ve had anger (was shaking with it), uncontrollable crying, a weird set of physical sensations, elation and a very strange feeling that I’m not in my body. Can’t wait for it to be done with.

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Sorry, mixed up mum, I think it’s that self esteem again. You need to set clear boundaries with your clients. I cannot imagine any line of work where walking in to a premises that is also someone’s home is acceptable. Confused is right about introducing a policy and keeping the door locked.

I’m also self employed and less than 3 months in. I’ve just explained I’m facing “Considerably challenging personal circumstances”. Beyond that they don’t need to know.

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As the others say – you are not an idiot. If it was easy to avoid these men, this site wouldn’t exist. I consider myself very intelligent, however my last three relationships:

1) guy who’s going to leave his partner (except of course he doesn’t and strings me along for a very long time)

2) guy who likes to push and place hands on throat when arguing. Final straw – he punched me in the face when he was drunk

3) two weeks after number 2, my husband. Much more subtle this time – all emotional stuff. So many red flag, but I married him and had his baby.

Yeah, so I’m super intelligent (really, I am), but I keep very bad company.

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Hi Confused

I have so much admiration for you. What you have been through makes my jaw drop. I’m not surprised you feel low in energy. I’ve been through such a tiny amount of abuse compared to yours, so I’m not surprised you feel this way.

I feel guilt – guilt I did something that made him behave as he did, guilt that I let it happen, guilt that my daughter doesn’t have her Dad living with her, guilt that…. and it goes on and on.

I have really shit days where I spend most of my time in bed – as long as that’s not every day I let it go – I’m very tired, I don’t sleep well and the anxiety flashes are exhausting. I tell myself that I’ve built a blanket fort from which I will plan my attack for an awesome productive day tomorrow.

Be kind to yourself – you have faced something unimaginable and you are doing brilliantly.

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Oh bless you, mixed up mum. If you don’t mind, I’m going to firmly take you in hand and give you some nurturing advice. If it’s too bossy, tell me to f*** off.

1) Fun, free and independent activities

You need to find a way to enjoy yourself that doesn’t involve others or spending money. That’s going to seem tough I know. Grab a piece of paper so you can make a list. Then as you get ideas, write them down. Take a look at the things you already have:

Is there a favourite DVD you haven’t watched in a while?

Favourite book you’d like to read again?

An abandoned creative hobby you haven’t had time to do recently?

Are there some favourite nail polishes stashed in a draw somewhere?

Make a list of all the things you’d enjoy doing.

2) Date yourself – not as weird as it sounds, I promise!

Part of improving your self esteem is having a better relationship with yourself. As silly as this sounds, date yourself. I know as a single mum you won’t feel like you have the time. Thing is, if an absolute Adonis was to ask you on a date, I bet you’d find the time then. I know I would :-). Part of the reason for that is that you’d value him enough to carve the time out – time to do that for yourself. Plan a date with yourself. Use your list of fun, free and independent things to do for ideas.

3) About that birthday

Did your friends blow you out just the once? If they did, then it could just be an unfortunate set of circumstances and there is no evidence to suggest they’ll do it again.

If they keep doing this, then know this is about them, not you. I don’t ever treat my friends like that. Take a moment to pretend they are sitting in front of you, and thank them for showing you that you deserve better friends.

Otherwise. tell your friends you want a nice girly night in, and make sure they know it’s your birthday. If they accept the invite, then tell them how much you are looking forward to it. This way you are placing value on yourself and making your expectation clear. It could well be that the way you asked last time didn’t make it clear – if you have low self esteem that can happen sometimes.

If they do let you down, then carry on with your girly night in and enjoy one of your from, free and independent activitreally

4) Relationships

I’m really sorry, the others are right. I’m in the same boat, and I really need to take my own advice with this one. You really aren’t in a position to properly assess whether someone really is right for you.

You’ll have definite proof of this if you do have friends that blow you out. Before the first time they did that, you never imagined they would, right?

That guy does sound lovely, but if he’s taking exes back, then it sounds like he’s not in much of a position to start a healthy relationship either.

And consider this – I’m on here because after leaving a physically violent relationship, I fell in love with a friend. He was the sweetest guy I’d ever met. It turns out now that there is plenty of evidence to contradict that last statement. He has been subtly manipulating me for the last 15 years. I’m in a right mess now because of it.

There was no way I should have been in the first relationship because the abuse I received as a child was unresolved. And there was no way I should have ever got into a relationship with my soon to be ex husband, because I had the abuse from the first relationship and the abuse I’d received as a child. My self esteem was on the floor, and it made it impossible for me to see his unacceptable behaviouS for what it is, and not something that I caused – see my post on here from earlier this evening.

So I know, a nice nurturing relationship seems like exactly what you need to heal. I feel that too.

But even if this guy is amazing, imagine being loved by someone because of what they do for you, rather than for simply who you are. Imagine that person placing all the responsibility for their happiness on you. That is what you and I would do to anyone genuine who came into our lives right now.

I hope this helps, mixed up mum

xx

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Hey, that’s brilliant!! Thank you so much for sharing that.

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We need a big list of pleasurable activities that we can pick from when it hits us xx

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Just to add – up to the point I’d described above, I’d not paid a penny. They all offered free initial consultations and I made sure to use them to make sure they perfectly understood.

The only draw back to having one that gets it – they charge a lot more than a therapist – I have the two rates written on a post it note, and I use it to keep me focused when I’m talking to her. She thinks that’s amusing!

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My solicitor is brilliant. I had to talk to a few. This one was right on the money. I walked in, explained he’d left very suddenly, seemed to have little interest in our daughter but then made a big deal about how he will see her for (detail removed by moderator) hours once a fortnight (hope someone else will award his medal for that, I’m done with all that). I said I was shocked because he seemed really nice, and none of this made sense, but anyway I understand I need a divorce so that I can use the courts to sort the money out, because he’d threatened to stop giving me money.

I told her I was in an extremely vulnerable financial situation, and I couldn’t quite understand how I got there because I’m very intelligent and well qualified, so I wanted to work but there always seemed to be a reason why I shouldn’t.

She squeezed my hand, gave me a funny looking wheel of da behaviours, and said she was going to get me a drink, take a look at that whilst she was gone.

This was actually the nicest way anyone has ever broached that subject with me. When she came back I just pointed to the coercive control section. She nodded and then explained the issues I might face divorcing him, because he will behave in a way I might not expect. She gave me so many tips on strategies I could use.

I hired her because she got it. My case is subtle. I have “narcissistic abuse victim syndrome” – basically a fancy way of saying I have a lot of unrelated conditions that are commonly found with people who’ve been abused by someone who’s displaying narcissistic behaviour. But because one of his control mechanisms was to keep me accustomed to a certain lifestyle, I think a couple of solicitors thought “here’s a highly strung spoilt ex wife, bit flaky, isn’t she?” One even told me I was “one of those daft cows” who’ll forgive whatever her husband does.

It really is worth looking around until you find one what gets it without you having to explain it all. They all will have met plenty of women in our shoes – not all do, and as illustrated above some will say things we all know people who understand would never say to us (although I have to admit, I spent (detail removed by moderator)years being a daft cow who said her husband was “wonderful, and oh no, he did that because I…”)

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Blimey he sounds like a delight. Well done for leaving him. Yes, you should see a solicitor. See a few – most offer a free introductory session. It’s amazing how much easier it is to get through this outrageous behaviour from a controlling ex if you have a solicitor who understands your situation.

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This is such a mind f**k isn’t it. My interpretation is that in his eyes I broke and was no longer of any use to him. I have to admit that in the last year I wasn’t as demonstratively affectionate towards him, although I still think most men would have been delighted with my level of attention and flexibility in the bedroom.

He’s telling others I was verbally abusive towards him – he’s referring to a handful on incidents when he was trying to get me diagnosed with a serious mental illness (he succeeded with this), and I’d completely loose my composure, be a ball of hurt and anger, and I’d scream at the top of my lungs “I don’t need medicating for you being an a******”.

On top of coping with his threats to turf me out of the house, cut me off financially and take out daughter, I’m having to get the help of the community mental health team again, because I’m showing signs of being over medicated for depression and under medicated for anxiety. To a large extent, my mental health problems have greatly improved since he’s gone. The anxiety is mentally easy to cope with as I know that the physical sensations I have are not a sign of impending doom, and will pass. My agoraphobia has completely lifted, and only comes back when I know he’s in town. I can now blissfully walk up and down supermarket aisles, even spotted a man I’d flirt with under different circumstances!

My mental health carers initial instincts were that I’d get worse. I have friends who’s mutually beneficial relationships ended, and this early on they were still devastated. It simply isn’t normal to be feeling in some ways better.

I’m worried that I spend too much time fantasising about being in a beautiful, messy and healthy relationship. It does provide relief from what I’m facing now, but I do need to confront my situation and get things in line. Also, sometimes these fantasies coincide with my experiences in the relationship, and then I get flooded with anxiety and grief. Think I’ll bring that one up with my therapist.

As an aside, I can highly recommend a book by Carolynn Hillman called “Recovery if your self esteem: A guide for women”. It gives practical steps – something else I should be focusing on rather than fantasising about being in a relationship.

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Thank you for taking time to read that and for your lovely reply.

It is so painful to admit it happened. Because I’m out of the relationship, it sometimes feels as though life would be easier if the penny never dropped.

I’m starting to see I am blaming myself for not being perfect in the relationship – and we are all perfect in our messy imperfections. So yes, of course I sometimes snapped at him when stressed and things like that. Didn’t mean I deserved to be treated the way he treated me.

Fog is lifting bit by bit.

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Would the school see him separately? When I was the other side of the desk, I did have some kids where I had two appointments – one for Mum, the other with Dad. Just wondering whether that would give you a softer way of saying no.

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Me too. First week I was all like “wow, I can have what I want for dinner, I can watch what I want on TV, I don’t have to drive 50 Mike round trips because he doesn’t like public transport (we have two cars, he is insured on both). My daughter and I ate chocolate for breakfast!!

I’m getting cross with myself now. It’s almost as though I have a version of him in my head. Definitely some kind of rebellion going on here – the house is a tip and I don’t care, and the fridge has food in it that I don’t especially like, but I know he hates. I do need to sort myself out a bit – going to run out of clean pants at this rate. But it is good fun!

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Don’t know what to say really – they become more overt with it once the mask has slipped, don’t they. When your kids are adults I’m sure they will see his behaviour for what it is.

Big hugs xxxxx

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I can’t prove the abuse. And compared with others it’s not that bad, so I do feel like I’m making a terrible fuss saying it is abuse (my therapist and solicitor and working hard with me to change how I see it).

I told the mediator last week about emotional abuse. I think we might have to shuttle it (be in separate rooms). I tried asking for that last time, and he rolled his eyes and said “look what I’ve had to put up with “.

In some ways, a lot of the mental health problems I have seem to very evaporating now he’s gone. In other ways, I’m not coping very well – at the school gates I have lots of people who don’t know telling me he’s having a silly midlife crisis and he’s sure to come back in 6 months. Last time someone said that I got all shaky and hot and kept retching. Now they think I have a sickness bug.

I’m not sure whether I’m feeling frightened now because I believe what he said, or because I know I have to deal with him to get things sorted out.

When I say no contact, I actually have to do modified no contact. My nearest family is 100 miles away. His parents is 10 minutes away, and that’s where he goes to have her for the weekend (he’s moved 200 miles away to be with “friends” he’s known for 6 months). I asked him to arrange for one of his parents to collect and drop our daughter off. He said no, he won’t inconvenience them, and I should stop being so melodramatic and think about how our daughter’s best interests.

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Hi Moon

It completely resonates with me you statement about wanting it to work out and have the family unit you always dreamed of. It sounds as though you’ve invested a lot of energy into that dream, and I know it’s hard to let go. Remember, it wasn’t you that caused that unit to not work, it was him and the terrible choices he made in how to behave towards you. What he did to you was horrendous and in no way acceptable under any circumstances. The others are right – you cannot go back and be able to trust him to change his dreadful behaviour.

You have been incredibly brave to leave, and you have set a brilliant example of strength and courage to your daughter. Yes, there is a long road now to recovery and rebuilding your life, but you have started it now, and it is something you will need to go through to be safe, so now is the time to do it. It is the start of a new chapter, and if I was a betting woman I’d bet that when you look back on this time and see that your worst day after you left him was better than your best day of being with him since the abuse started.

Take care, you are an amazing woman to do what you gave done

Xxx

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I keep questioning whether he’s just a really sensitive man who I hurt and then lashed out by withdrawing his love and affection, instead of it being is way of shutting down so that I don’t disagree with him. I ended up just telling my therapist the straight facts. I really trust this therapist, and he said the behaviour was very odd, especially given he resisted therapy to sort out the root issue, most likely the root issue has nothing to do with me.

I also told the therapist I felt bad talking to you ladies, because he hasn’t knocked me about. My therapists response floored me “emotionally, he has knocked you about. You are a wonderful woman, who has occupied so many different roles”. I just broke down and sobbed. He said if that was hard to hear, then it was because I needed to focus more on myself. I keep telling myself I need to leave what I told the therapist with the therapist, and move on to working on the future.

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So sorry to hear about your dad <<<<hug>>>>

There are so many aspects to the bond we had with our exes, and yes of course there are things we’ll miss – afterall if they were constantly bad towards us we wouldn’t be here now, would we? What you said struck a cord – I miss his hugs and some of his supportive words. And yes, this meant I’d bring all my sadness to him, ready to exploit. Like you, I can see my depression was heavily exploited by our exes.

I’m very early in this process, but like you I long to be in a relationship again. I believe it will happen one day, and it will be a healthy and happy relationship if I use this time now to heal and recover my self esteem and even my identity.

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Well done xxx

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I don’t know the background, but I know that feeling. I end up running decisions like this past nearly everyone – they all say “perfectly reasonable, can’t understand why you don’t just do it “. I can’t admit to them it’s because I’m scared he’ll go nuts. Do you know what? Tumbleweed….No response at all.

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Well done for going no contact! I’m coming up to nearly a month of modified no contact (I hsve to talk to him about our daughter and to get him to pay up – but I only use email for finances and text for contact arrangements). I’m finding that’s got a reaction from him, and it’s unpleasant. I suspect yours is doing the same. I’m sure they are doing that to start a dialogue.

Finding that I’m actually having moments when I feel happier than I have in a very long time.. They don’t last for long, but to get them at all is amazing given where I was when he discarded me.

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Thank you, that really helps

He’s done me a favour by leaving, and in such a manner that it prompted the professionals who are helping me to probe into the relationship. So I’ve not had to come to this realisation that it is abuse by staying in the relationship until it got to an intolerable level. Nor have I had to pluck up the courage to leave – this abuse is invisible to the outside world, me leaving would look as though I’ve abandoned a perfect marriage for my own selfish reasons

I never really saw it whilst I was in the relationship. Yes, he did at times really hurt me, but he was always able to give a reason why, and that reason was never him.

Also, everything wrong in our lives was my fault. Now I see it isn’t all my fault – some of it was part my fault, and the rest was no one’s fault, just life.

But I’ve spent nearly half my life with this man. For our whole marriage, nearly a decade, I’ve believed I’m a terrible wife with a very understanding and tolerant husband, and nearly every day I’d tell him how lucky I was to have him, and that I loved him very much.

That cognitive dissonance is so hard to overcome. I know he isn’t who I thought he was. But then I wonder if I changed him by being awful.

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Mine looked up the DSM IV criteria for borderline personality disorder, and then tried to convince mental health professionals I have it and should be hospitalised. Luckily they didn’t quite see it that way, and instead they treated me for emotional instability, which was massively helpful because it enabled me to step aside from his attempts to unstabilise me.

Then he did the worst (or in his option the best) discard strategy he could, and you bet I was unstable then. That was less than (removed by moderator) ago. I’ve had to be really strong, because now he doesn’t care about me or our daughter and he wants to get away with giving me as little money as possible, all the while being very charming to our daughter because of course I took her straight off the bargaining table and immediately agreed access with him.

He’s told a lot of people I’m completely mad, and I think he’s managed to get around our mediator. He’s lied about earnings already, but I know that to prove this I need to get a forensic accountant in, and I’m not sure that’s going to make financial sense, especially given that if we get to this point, it will be a very expensive divorce.

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Ah, you do have it within yourself to really love yourself. You don’t have to be super confident – not everyone is. From what you have said, it could well be you have depression. If you tell the GP what you’ve told us about feeling tired and low motivation, they’ll be able to say. The help they can give with that would make the world of difference – just lift you up enough to start making changes to the way you treat yourself. It won’t seem like such an uphill battle.

Hugs xxx

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Hey, who said you had to get brilliant at something to relax yourself?! The tiredness thing could be a catch 22. You seem pretty low, and doing something, no matter how small, that is for you and that you enjoy will start you feeling better. One of the things on your list could be simply to put fresh sheets on the bed, have a nice bath and go to bed early, leaving all electronics downstairs. Have you told a GP how you are feeling?

I understand you need people in your life – most people do. I wonder from what you’ve said about friends whether you need this so much that you’ll tolerate poor treatment, as even that seems better than being alone. Enjoying some of the time you spend alone will make you so much more resilient to other people’s bad behaviour, because you’ll be happier to let them go if you are being treated poorly.

And no no no, you cannot force someone into coming to see you. If they want to, they will. What about saying something like “It’s my birthday on X day, and I’d really like to have a girly night in with friends. Would you like to come?” I’m so sorry about your dad. Of course it’s not disrespectful to do something to mark your birthday, if that’s what you want to do

xx

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One of the reasons you can give for a divorce is that you’ve been separated for two years and you both want a divorce. They call that a “no fault” divorce because you don’t have to say what went wrong with the relationship.

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I wish this forum would notify replies, but hey! I’m with you on the not saying no part. I’m facing that myself right now, and I’m on so much anxiety meds because the idea of not agreeing with him, even in front of a skilled mediator who is aware of the situation, is giving me horrendous panic attacks.

I’m early in this process, but the things I have to say no about will deeply affect our daughter if he gets his way, so I feel like I have no choice. I’m hoping that it’s like a muscle – the first time I do it, it feels like this. But each time I do it, I’m hoping it will get easier.

I don’t know your situation – mine is never a physical threat so I know it’s safe to say no when he’s being a bully.

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Hiya – its what we’re all on here for xxx

Sex is so weird. I came into this marriage “normal” but with a high sex drive – nothing crazy just 4-5 times a week would suit me fine, could get by with 3. After being constantly refused and having denial of sex used to get a point across that he wasn’t prepared to say (so how on earth am I supposed to know what the message is), and not wanting to push him further away so asking permission to masturbate (he never said no, it’s just so embarrassing to ask so rarely did it) I now leave the marriage with fantasies of denial, domination and control, and these fantasies disgust me.

It’s going to take at least a year before I can even consider letting anyone else near me – I want to be happy on my own first. And those fantasies have to go, otherwise I’ll seek out exactly what I had!

xxxxx

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