My story Part 7 .

 The decision was made that living all cramped up in a small one bedroom flat was obviously the cause of all our problems.....

 So we rented the flat out and moved into somewhere bigger with a garden . Child No1 had just started school which meant in his eyes I had the spare time to possibly have loads of affairs so the solution was simple we of course needed to have another baby and roughly a year later child no2 was born  .

He quickly became totally bored with the responsibilities of being a landlord so the flat was put on the market and quickly sold but the big question was what we should do with the little bit of the small profit we had made from the sale of it ?

 His answer was simple , it should all go into a savings account ( remember I owned 30% of it ) but at the time I obviously didn't have a bank account so he very kindly sorted it all out with his own bank for us . It stayed in there earning a lovely bit of interest until a few years later when the decision was made and it was all spent on buying him a lovely nice new car and my 30% share was never to be seen again  .

  It's now almost the late 90's we had a nice house with a garden and I was now a mum of 2 . He still had those bad days when you didn't know what he could do next or when he would do it  but at least I could now escape from him by being in the garden with the children or at least in another room . In fact sitting in the garden on a hot summers evening with fairy lights glowing is still one of my favourite things .

He'd discovered we could claim a few nice benifits so the forms were all filled in  and sent off then everything of course naturally all went into his bank account and I of course never saw a penny of it .

It was about this time that the " fat , useless and ugly " comments first started to appear and from then on it was said almost daily . He hated the fact that our nice new neighbours liked to have a little chat over the garden fence sometimes and that the elderly lady up the road would ask the favour of me doing a little bit of washing for her , so again the neighbours had their chats during the day and the washing got done whilst he was at work instead and in return she would give me a little bit of money to buy the children some sweeties on the way home from school .

 In fact he hated any form of contact with anyone so we very rarely went out for an evening let alone have anyone come round , even the children as they got older hardly ever had any of their school friends come round to play .

 I'd become quite good at spotting when his moods where about to change but just occasionly like a volcano he would suddenly erupt unexpectedly and I'd get the full force of it . There were still times I thought I was about to get a smack for daring to disagree but looking back now I don't think he was ever brave enough to go ahead with it . 

I know the neighbours heard him a few times kicking off because I would get asked " is everything alright ? " occasionly but I'd do the typical standard cover up pretending everything was just fine ( maybe I was becoming a little bit too good at doing this ) .

  Emotional and mental abuse is a vile thing , it slowly burns away inside the very core of your soul creating unseen bruises and scars . It chips away at your sanity till you begin to seriously wonder is it really is all your fault after all . You start believing just how " fat , useless and ugly " you must be and that it all must be true that even your own family doesn't like you because if they did why didnt they want to visit you ? " . 

 You even learn to cry silent invisible tears over time because they seem to really enjoy seeing you upset so you learn to hide it well . In a weird way they sort of recharge their batteries by creating as much negativity as they possibly can and then when their finished they act like nothing has ever happened which then in turn leads you to question if any of it actually did happen in the first place 🤔 

 Confusing isn't it .

 

   

 

My story Part 6 .

  There were good times and bad times living in that very small one bedroom flat with a young child....

 I have always been extremly grateful when I was growing up that my mum had been a regular visitor to various Jumble Sales and Charity shops back in the 70s because it meant I had inherited her love of bargain hunting so there was never a problem in making sure we always had decent clothes to wear or cheap toy treats ( and to be honest I still do the bargain hunting thing  even now 😊 ) .

During the day time there was some form of relative calmness and normality , it was just  me and child no1 so we were reasonably free to do what ever we wanted to do , we went for nice walks , went to the local park to play or feed the ducks , collected blackberries when they were ripe and did all the other normal mother and young child things to help fill our days  but we always had to make sure we were back in plenty of time to check everything was neat , tidy and dinner was cooked ready for his father when he walked back in through the door after finishing work and God forbid if it was ever late , the variouse accusations that could possibly follow if it wasnt done were simply just not worth it so I played safe . I learnt fast and successfully managed to get it right most of the time but you could garrentee just when I thought I was getting good at it more rules and conditions would get added to his list of complaints or demands so it became a bit of an endless task .

  The evenings and weekends were the times when things could possibly get a little bit more unpredictable. I learnt fairly early on that any friendly chatting to the neighbours was much better off being done during the week when he was at work so he couldn't  see it happen and even though we had a phone it wasn't really worth me using it because I noticed he always checked to see all calls made or recieved when the phone bill arrived so  I left it for others to call me instead ( which were very few and far between ) . 

Once I was actually allowed to get myself a nice little office cleaning job ( I say allowed but it was more a case of him telling me I had to do it  ) so 3 times a week  I got to escape for a couple of hours . The pay wasn't that bad but I of course never got to see or  keep any of it for myself because I was regularly informed there were bills to pay and we were poor so it all had to be handed over. I also had to get my timing just right or else I'd get accusations I was meeting strange men and habing an affair if I dared to be more than 10 minutes late coming back home ( me walking home all by myself in the dark was obviously not a major issue to him )  .  

  As time went by I was begining to understand things a bit better as to why his ex- wife had wanted to leave him taking their child with her and that maybe just maybe he hadn't been 100% truthful  and honest with me about a few things from the begining , perhaps just perhaps she may of actually had perfectly good valid reasons for doing what she had done 🤔 .

 This is when I first started to build a sort of emergency plan of action involving a couple of people I could trust and  call on if neeeded ,  I had even sorted out a temporary place I could go to when I felt brave enough to run away and excape . He was steadily beginning to get more abusive , spiteful and controling by the day and it was also around this time that he first began to look like he could seriously lash out at me any time whilst he was in one of his really bad nasty moods . The belittling comments , the temper tantrums , the evil killer stares and the dramatic big silences had finally begun to really get to me so I picked what I thought was the right moment and told him I couldn't do it any more and had found somewhere else for me and child No1 to go .

There was only one small unforeseen , unplanned problem with my great master plan.....

 He decided to ring my mother playing his favourite abandoned poor me victim card and in return I had a call from her telling me how terribly unfair I was being to him and our child and did I really want to end up a single parent like she once was when i was growing up ? , so yes as you've proberly quessed I ended up feeling guilty and gave up my plan and I stayed putting yet again someone else's needs before my own .

 Maybe I should have followed through with my action plan and not allowed my emotions and guilt to be controlled by him or anyone else . The darkness of being suffercated by putting his wants and demands first were now begining to decend yet again . My planned happy days just weren't meant to be and the dismal life I was living was due to keep on continuing . The cracks in the thin ice I was permanently walking continued to grew every day , the sound of the front door closing became the trigger button to my nervousness. 

To this day I still sometimes think back and wonder what would have happened if I had actually left him at that time and how my life might of have been improved  ?  🤔

My story Part 5 .

 We now need to fast forward a little bit in time ..... 

 He had moved out his old place so his soon to be ex wife could move back in with their little one . Life back at his mums house was alright and I became a regular visitor . Thinking about it now we never really did a great deal back then , there were very few evenings out and weekends were mainly spent watching football or if after I had been paid maybe a trip out somewhere . During this time and after we had been together a couple of years we got engaged whilst on a weekend trip to Paris  ( " me giving you a ring means ownership " ) . Over time we brought his old place off his now ex-wife because she needed to move on and it was apprently going to be cheap .. The paperwork was all sorted  with me only owning 30% because his theory was he earned more and he already sort of owned it anyway ( yes it doesn't make much logical sense to me now either ) , we even had a lovely new landline phone fitted ! ☎️

 The new exciting first home together feeling didn't last long and reality began to start kicking in , I remember thinking as I was peeling potatoes for dinner one night " Mmmm.... I seem to be doing almost everything here and I'm sure its not supposed to be like that 🤔 "  but I told myself I was just being silly and that this is what happens when you become an adult and move away from home . 

  Then I committed the most unintentional , accidental and devastating crime...... I fell pregnant !! 😳 

Notice here that I said it must of been all my fault because obviously that's exactly what must of happened  , I mean its absolutely ridiculous to even possibly consider that it normally takes in most cases  two consenting adults to conceive a baby and that there's a silly little thing called protection to prevent it if needed .  

  He was not a very happy bunny about this little supprise information and I even got asked whose it was . Next came the demand of I of course had to get rid of it because it could ruin his future . I refused to even consider the notion and in return I then received the longest silence I had yet from him , it lasted for 2 whole very long horrible weeks . 

Of course I still had to function as normal as possible pregnant or not ( or as much as I could anyway ) so I'd get up early each morning and then work all day , come home to do the washing , cook dinner , wash up , make sure the place was tidy , make his coffee and then finally manage to sit down to nothing but dark silence or if I was really lucky I'd get a killer cold glare if I dare open my mouth to speak to him ( should add at this point he had just been made redundant so he sat at home all day just watching what ever was on the television and drank coffee all day ) .

After a few months I mentioned I could feel very small minor possible first baby movements and in his charming and most meaningful caring voice his answer was " good I hope you lose it ! ". My first reaction to this in my very early hormonal pregnant state was to slap him round the face ( yes I know it wasn't the best move to make ) and in return I received a silly little punch on the side of my face with his excuse being I had hit him first ( I say silly and little because it didn't hurt or leave a mark but it's still the one and only time he ever did anything like that to me ) . 

Was it me or was it him who started it and was it right or wrong  ?.....  I'll let you decide the answer to that one .

  Things gradually began to improve over time and he very slowly got used to the idea of being a father again and eventually child No1 was born all safe and sound  . I may of been a little bit innocent about a few things but I honestly seriously thought at the time that as parents we'd both sort of do the new baby thing together but he had other ideas of course .

 In his eyes I was female and the mother so I obviously had to do all the nappy changing and the feeding especially late night feeds because he was male and might have work the next day and all that really annoying crying would only keep him awake . 

He would pose beautifully with babe in arms showing off to various people or if photos were being taken but as soon as the crying began it was my turn again . Money became a bit tight at times ( or so I was led to believe anyway ) but I did manage to successfully convince him after a while and a lot of disagreements that any Child Benifit payments paid to me were for the mother and child and not for his own bank account and personal use .

This was just the beginning of me very slowly becoming submissive and losing my true inner self . Very slowly the person I used to be was melting away bit by bit and I was trying to become a form of the classic 1950s good domestic house wife he wanted me to be ( never did manage to do that ) . I never noticed it happening at the time or even thought to challenged it but instead I just convinced myself I was a mother now and that was how its supposed to be if I wanted my happy ever after in life . 

 I started to become a little annxious waiting for the next time he'd kick off about any random thing and I'd go out of my way to try to think and plan ahead so it couldn't happen ( unfortunately who ever lost at football was totally out of my control ) . 

 Looking back writting this now I can't actually believe I couldn't see what was slowly happening to me or why I let it go on for as long as it did but that's just how good they are I guess and I was about discover that my life was about to upgrade to a new differant level . 

Never once did I think at the time my future would become so lonely and distant and that I would end up feeling I didnt matter in life , my future was about to become not my own and the dark unforgiving clouds were beginning to decend rapidly .

  

 

 

  

My story Part 4 .

 The trips to his place became a regular thing......

 At the time still making sure we were never seen arriving or leaving together . To begin with I didn't really care about that too much because we never really went out anywhere anyway and we liked just getting to know each other better which of course over a couple if months meant the inevitable happened and I had " I love you " whispered in my ear in bed late one night . 

 As time went on I was slowly allowed to be seen with him in public and even got introduced to a couple of his friends ( later discovered he didnt actually have that many ) but I always had to be checked out before we left to make sure that I wasn't " showing to much flesh " or I wasn't wearing too much make-up and the " constructive  helpful criticisms " started to appear ( stupidy unaware what was slowly begining to happen ) .

 I met his mum and the rest of his family who seemed to like me ( should add they still do thankfully ) and his mum would regularly condem his wife for everything she had done to her precious little baby boy , saying to anyone who would listern  how evil she was and nothing of course was her totally innocent sons fault . Perfect example of learnt behaviour there maybe ? 🤔 . 

 Divorce proceedings began and he had to fill in his side of events which of course were totally differant to hers . She dared to suggest that he was actually selfish with his money , how he had purposely cut her off from her friends and family , how he refused to get a landline phone fitted and how he had even held her forcibly against a wall threating her on more than one occasion ( I discovered a lot later on he had done this to his own mother and even tried it unsuccesfully with me a couple of times too ) .

 He of course naturally denied everything saying that she was obviously lying and that hadn't he told me before that she was just nothing but an attention seeker . He looked deeply hurt and offended that anyone would actually believe he was capable of such outrageous behaviour to another fellow human being (oddly enough none of her alleged endless affairs were mentioned by either of them in the divorce papers ) .

 It was around this time I first noticed how his face would seem to become distant , hard and bitterly cold looking with almost despised hatred in his eyes but I just put it all down to the anger he feeling about the situation he was dealing with .

 How could these things being said about him all be possibly true and be the actions of the same man I thought I knew ? I remember discussing this with him one day shortly afterwards whilst we drove to the coast for a nice summers day out ( after I of course had paid for the petrol because apprently it had all been all my idea in the first place ) and he stated yet again that everything she said was a lie and all she ever really wanted was his money .

   Have you noticed the tiny cracks begining to slowly appear in his behaviour towards me yet ? because I couldn't at the time . They were so small and slight that they were hardly noticable at the time ,  like had no idea what I was about to face in my future .

 Like I said before , abusers start with the little things and then before you notice your under their complete and total control getting smothered by them and your living life their way.  You go along with it all just to keep the peace and will do everything and anything that can help prevent them going into that massive sulk that can go on for days if not weeks sometimes .

When this does happen the silence can be increibly powerful and painful , their not bothered who notices it either because of course its always all your fault for being unreasonable and over dramatic . 

  

My story Part 3 .

  There I was walking home alone one evening about a week or so after the first meeting....... 

I had just dropped a friend off home on a Sunday night , next came the slightly scary part of walking past a cemetery late at night especially when it was a full moon ( done plenty of times before and always grateful to get to the main road at the top of the hill ) . I was about half way up the hill when a red Ford Cortina drove down , it stopped and then someone called my name.

OMG !! ...It was only the abandoned one from the other night ! 😳

After the initial hello's and how are you doing were over with next came " I knew you'd be out tonight so I thought I'd try to find you ". Like I've mentioned before I was a bit of an idiot for sob story's back then so when I was asked would I like to go back to his place because he felt lonely I of course did the stupid thing and I agreed ( OK maybe not the best idea when it's late at night and your a young female 🤔 ) but being young and what I thought at the time independent it seemed an alright thing to do . 

Now this is where I should have had some suspicions and alarm bells ringing because instead of driving us straight there I was asked would I mind just getting out the car just around the corner from his place so his neighbour's couldn't see us arrive together and I of course agreed to tbe request and found myself on a five minute walk late at night in an area i had never been to before ( yes I know another major red flag moment 🚩🚩🚩 ) .

  His place was a small neat tidy flat with a photo of his young child on the wall . We sat and had a couple of cuppas and chatted about how he'd been poorly treated by his wife , how over dramatic , unfair and attention seeking she was and again more of how he knew she'd been having affairs since they were married .  He of course in his own mind had been the complete perfect husband and had absolutely no idea how or why it all ended in the totally deverstating way that it had .  

I listened to all his horror story's about how he worked really hard whilst she stayed at home with the little one , how she always moaned that she had no communication with her family or friends , that she was always after his hard earned money and not forgetting of course her constant affairs ( how she managed to do all with a young child in tow is anyone's guess ) . He even suggested that his very young child may not even be his because she couldn't be trusted . Each and every story was to a certain point fully believable and all told with a sad face and even sadder eyes so why wouldn't I believe everything I was being told ?

It started getting a bit late and with work for both of us in the morning he drove me back home , again doing the careful not being seen together thing because according to him he might get blamed for having an affair if we were seen together . The only thing exchanged before his departure being my home phone number because he didn't have a phone at his place but he could ring me from work ( remember his wife had said she had no communication with her family ) .

 At the time I thought I'd look forward to him possibly calling me and maybe we'd be able to meet up again or even go out somewhere . Never once did I question at the time why on earth would his wife possibly want to do such  terrible horrendous things after only being married and having his baby in less than two years ( It all happened well before Facebook so couldn't be nosey and check anything out )  ... how completely bloody dumb arse must I of been back then to believe any of it !! 

  This is how it all starts they play with your emotions , they find your soft side and then use it all to their own advantage . They need to come over as the abused and hurt in order to tug at your heart strings before later after a time they slowly slide and slither into their old habits and over time begin to show their true colours but by then it's far too late to make your escape because your all ready wrapped up in the spider Web of lies they've created . You simply just want to keep the peace and enjoy the good times ( yes there were a rare few ) and you avoid arguing and simply stay quite when "egg shell " moments happen because you know you'll only end up crying your river of silent tears and wondering if it really was all your fault as you had been told .

 Why couldn't I see the signs at the begining is yet another question I've never been able to answer because why wouldn't I want to believe what I was being told ? , he looked really sad when he spoke about things and his friend the other night had backed up his story about his wife leaving . The wife certainly wasn't living at his when I visited it and the only sign a young child had once lived there was a small wax crayon left behind a door .

Is it learnt behaviour or just someone who hasn't grown up yet and still insists on  getting away with throwing toddler hissy fits ? I have absolutely no idea but what I do know is that in their own strange unusual mind if it works and if it isn't broken then why fix it ? . 

  All the time that they refuse to see it's wrong , things will never change and so they will keep on exploting others . Nothing is and never will be a narcissists/ abusers fault , they will always play the injured party and it takes an extremly brave person to challenge them about it . Their acting is potentially Oscar winning , they even end up believing all their own rubbish and will deny with a passion and anger that they are possibly being untruthful .