My story Part 11.

 Now this is when the fun and excape to freedom really begins ........ 

Like I said in my previouse post my confidence was quickly returning back to me and I was also rapidly coming out of my very long 28 year domestic abusive hibernation . 

One day at the end of January 2015 I decided out of the blue ( although it had all been building up in my mind over time )  I couldn't and wouldn't do it or put up with it anymore so I very calmly took my engagement ring off and informed my abuser they had 1 month to find somewhere else to live or else I'd go to the police and tell them everything including his pathetic and feeble threats about his saying he would  kill me if I ever left him ( In my case I knew it was weak because he was to much of a scardy cat  to do anything like that to me but in some cases it can be very horrifically all to real )  , emotionally abuse had just been classed as a crime now in England ( about time too )  and that I'm sure that they would really love to hear all about him and the not very nice things he we had been doing  . 

This of course wasn't exactly what was expected to come from me and he tried very hard in telling me I was completely wrong and that I was being totally ridiculous .

My answer was that maybe he should try checking it all out when his next online and whilst he was at it check out the possible sentance he could recieve if he was proven to be guilty .

 I think he honestly thought I'd back down within a couple of days , change my mind and stop being so silly and dramatic but I was now a whole lot stronger than I ever used to be and I stuck very firmly to my guns no matter what he tried to say or do to try to convince me otherwise .

Would I of really gone to the police and reported him if he hadn't of gone ?....

I honestly don't know but him thinking I could gave me some sort of super power over him and him just thinking I possibly could was obviously enough for him to decide maybe its was a  wiser decision to go rather than stay . 

 Luckily because of making sure my name had always gone on various paperwork when it came to various homes we had lived in over the years ,  I double checked and yes the place could still be all mine when he left just as long as I could raise the money to keep on living there ( which I did and still do to this day ) . He tried his very best to make things seriously awkward and differcult by asking for half the deposit back and he was promptly told it couldn't be done so he then tried to cancel the tenancy but what he didn't know was that I'd already been there and explained everything to them ( even about the abuse I'd received ) and as far as they were concerned me and the kids were perfectly safe and could all still live there so a new contract was quickly drawn up and only I needed to sign it .

 The ex finally packed all his things after a month or so along with a few other things I later discovered that didn't actually belong to him and he left thinking in his own sweet twisted warpped little mind that being that I was " fat , useless and ugly " I wouldn't possibly stand a chance of doing anything on my own , let alone surviving but I of course knew much much better. 

Because the ex was trying to be what he thought was really clever at the time he  had cancelled the home phone line ( discovered that little supprise when I tried to make a call one day ) but I would just simply borrow the phone at the shop I volunteered at to sort everything out when I needed to and I had a few very raw honest conversations to various people to get the help I needed to start again all on my own  . 

   I honestly completly surprised myself that I had not only gained my freedom  , had gotten the engagement ring promptly sold for for scrap ( asked the children first but they didn't want it either ) but I had also arranged getting help with the rent  , sorted out an energy supplier and arranged all the other things needed to live in the house all by myself  and I had actually got myself a mobile phone contract !! 

 I did go through a brief spell of going to look for something I thought I needed only to discover it had obviously moved house without me but I learnt over time to see it all as " just stuff " and stuff can always be replaced . 

I even got to have my first highly succeful Girls night out in years !!!!!! 🤣

  If your reading all of this and thinking to yourself I couldn't possibly do it then your wrong , all you have to do is be honest and ask for help , there are some amazing people and various groups out there to help and support domestic abuse victims they will guide you at your own pace and catch you when you fall .

 Just because your not physically hit by someone it doesn't mean it doesn't count as  abuse , emotional abuse is just as bad . Male or female its all still abuse . It's not an impossible thing to escape from as I discovered , it isn't always an easy decision to make but personally I feel its one one of the greatest decisions you can ever make in your life . 

If the flowers in the garden can bloom regardless of the weather then so can you and you are free to travel your life's journey whatever way you decide.

My story Part 10 .

  I had succsesfully managed to some how convince my now ex that 3 children of different sexs couldn't possibly share the same bedroom for ever...

 So we moved again to a bigger place . He never really bothered to check the place out properly until the day we actually moved in but as long as the telly worked to watch football I don't think he really cared . 

One of the cats that were never allowed indoors for some reason was moved and left to find its own bearings outside in the new garden but the other one that was part of a birthday present for child No1 had to be unfortunately left behind because he didn't want them both to come ( no reason given just that he didn't want it there ) . 

To his complete and utter delight he discovered that there was a lovely great big hedge about 6ft tall in the front garden which meant no one could possibly see us from the outside , there was even a massive fence in the bottom of the back garden too ( both happily no longer there now ) . 

One thing I'm endlessly grateful for is that I've always made sure that my name was put on any paperwork when ever we moved and it would prove to be a added bonus later on .

  Life went on just as it had before but he was getting even worse over time and the more insecure he felt the worse the tantrums would become  . 

 The sulks got bigger , the temper tantrums increased , the controlling was upgraded and the daily put downs continued . I noticed it was all getting even worse as the kids grew older and he started to talk about a child No4  . I promptly made the decision at this point to make sure he couldn't hide things again and went to my doctors and sorted something out , this decision of course didn't go down well with at all with him as it meant I'd actually dared to do something without his approval or permission and he'd had no control over that part of me anymore . 

  Child No3 started school and I then had what I thought was an incredibly brilliant bright  idea of volunteering at a local charity shop in order to help get myself a reference and work experience for when I finally needed to start working again . I  remember starting and being as nervous as hell due to my severe lack of confidence and I  refused at first to go anywhere near the shop floor to begin with and just wanting to stay in the background sorting donations out but thanks to the great people working there my confidence began to slowly grow and within 4yrs I became not only a key holder but also unofficial deputy manager plus I gained 3 NVQs ( for those who dont know their a form of English qualification ) . 

Not bad for a fat , useless and ugly person I think 😊 !!!!!!. 

He was yet again not particularly happy with what I was doing at this time , how dare I actually have a life he didn't or couldn't control and that didn't revolve entirely around him !!!!! 

He kindly informed me on several occasions that everybody and anybody had NVQs ( he didn't have one for a start ) , who did I think I was pretending I knew what I was doing ?... and did I not know that everyone was laughing at me ? ....

No way was any of this rubbish streaming out of his mouth going to put me off doing what I was doing  , I had discovered I wasn't as stupid as I was being lead to believe and I was actually pretty damn good at what I was doing .

Obviously I must of been having affairs left , right and centre during the daytime I was there ( including one with a gay, deaf twenty year old lad ! ) because " why else would I want to spend so much time there ? " Was his favourite comment but I kept on going even though I knew sometimes I would return  home to the dreaded killer silence and a list of never ending questions .

  As you can tell the worm was now begining to slowly and  successfully turn and I was becoming a much stronger person by the day and my inner strength was rapidly returning , I had begun to start standing my ground and started saying No ! occasionly , he hated every single minute now I was becoming the independent person I used to be . I actually had some friends , I now had my own bank account ( nothing in it but I had one ) and I wasn't keeping quite anymore when he had one of his temper tantrums .

He then started buying himself some new more modern clothes and spending a lot more time going on the Internet  ( I later discovered some of it was on dating web sites )  . He started doing his own washing which was a little strange considering I'd been doing it all for all those years and then oddly buying himself his own hoover ( we already had a  decent working one in the cupboard ) . I think all this was supposed to some how make me feel jealous or something but it all had gave me was the opposite effect . 

I had begun to realise he actually needed me more than I had ever really needed him .  I really didn't care less what he was up to , his apprent quick trips to the nearest supermarket that could take hours ( its barely a five minute walk away ) or his smirk when he was sending someone a message just made me laugh because I knew what he was trying to do and it wasn't going to work on me now  .

My story Part 9 .

  I stupidly thought being pregnant with child No3 would be easy just like the other two were but I was wrong big time.......

 I had started to become extremely and unusually for me depressed about the smallest slightest little silliest thing . I clearly remember thinking one day whilst I was sat there in my own that maybe I should just take a nice little stroll up the road to where the motorway bridge was and nobody would notice I'd actually gone or even miss me but I thankfully managed to talk myself out of it ,  still scares the S$#t out of me when I think about it now ( plus I'm not a great fan of heights so I proberly wouldnt have had the nerve to jump anyway ) . 

I can honestly say it was not my best pregnancy , the baby may of been fine but I certainly wasn't . My mind was most deffinatly not my own at this particular time and some of the thoughts I was having were certainly not your normal healthy ones . 

Even the regular scan that every mother to be has at sometime in their pregnancy to check how everything was doing didn't go down that well either , for some strange random reason or other he wasn't speaking to me yet again that day so we left home in total silence and he kept that silence going all the way through it ( God knows what the poor midwife must of thought about it ) , he didn't ask any questions or make any comments but just sat there with a face like a dogs bum watching everything going on and  then it just carried on that way for the rest of the day . Thankfully everything was fine with the baby and no of course I didn't mention having my unusual crazy dark down days to anyone , I just simply kept it all to myself just like I always did . 

This time round I felt the entire pregnancy just slowly dragged by and I had none of the normal nesting instincts that mums to be normally get. How much of what I was feeling at the time was just me being pregnant , his soul destroying emotional abuse or just a combination of recent events I don't know but what I did know was just how much I hated every single minute of it and I promised myself I'd never let myself feel that weird depressive way ever again if I could possibly help it . 

  Baby No3 was born all safe and sound , I was now being supermum dealing with doing school runs , book reading , school homework , looking after the house and trying really hard not to have one of those dark days whilst looking after two young children and a new born baby .

 Surprise , surprise......  he didn't like the fact that I was now giving the children more attention than I was giving him so the big sulks started up again worse than ever and I was now told I was not only Fat , useless and ugly but I was seriously f#£%ing lazy as well .

 Trying to tell a major control abusive freak that he might have to wait a couple weeks after someone gives birth before he could have sex again didn't go down that well at all but he did at least give me a little break from it for a while so I could manage to get some sleep when the baby slept at night . I was still having the random odd down days but I think I was kept too busy to let it really get to me that much and even when I did feel a bit bad there was no point in telling him because he'd only laugh and tell me I had " serious issues " . 

 It was roughly around this time I began to notice that Child No2 could possibly be Dyslexic/discalcular so I had a few words with their school and got all the appropriate tests done and of course my maternal instincts were proved to be right , the ex however knew better of course and decided that it wasn't that at all but just a simple case of them being a bit slow and stupid just like their mother was  (which he kindly let us all know on more than one occasion ) . Such a lovely thing to be told by your own father but that was just the very begining of things directed at the children .

  As you can probly tell he was now becoming even  worse with the spiteful comments , sulks , temper trantrums , controlling and general all round nastyness .  Random objects would now get thrown on the floor as part of his mighty hissy fits because I obviously wasn't understanding correctly whatever it was he was trying to tell me ( basically I wasn't doing as I was told yet again ) and the more frustrated he got the louder he became . The children heard and saw almost everything and would either make an excuse to go to another room or would just sit there quietly pretending they couldn't see or hear anything but I always knew they could . How much they remember of it I will never know but what I do know is they now have their own unique individual versions of PTSD because of it . I count myself incredibly lucky all 3 seem to take after me more than their father and none of them appear to have that need to control the world genetic thing in them .

This chapter of the abuse was the toughest and darkest  , the thoughts in my head weren't my own normal logical ones and every single day was like walking on serious very scarey thinnest of ice . The cracks in the ice were getting even bigger by the day and the thoughts in my head weren't that much  better either .

   

My story Part 8 .

  I've been delaying this part because it's the begining of the serious dark scary stuff (even walking the dog in icey cold rain in mid winter seemed a better alternative)....

 It had got to the point I think that I was almost immune to most of the abuse and just excepted it as the norm .

 It's taken a good few years for me to realise that it was all wrong on so many endless levels and sex even if you've given permission can still be classed as rape if you've been emotionally blackmailed into it ( still getting my head round that one) and this I had to put up with several times a week . 

 The previous stuff has been relatively easy to write but this one is taking a lot longer due to so many thoughts and memories to plough through , put into some sort of order and that in turn means even more questions to to find answers for .

   I think it was the phone call that triggered the next upgrade in the abuse . It was from my mum telling me she had finally been diagnosed with terminal Cancer after being tested for various other things .  This then led to me dividing my time between doing the school run , looking after child No2 and going to see my mum . To show his compasion , care  and support I began to get big sulks thrown my way because he felt I wasn't giving him nearly enough attention ( how dare I put my dying mother before him ! ) . 

 Personally I'd never recommend to anybody to help organise their own mothers wedding and funeral in the same month and it was the begining of an extremely dark lonely period of time for me . 

To be fair he did manage to take a couple of hours off from work to go to the wedding with his lovely new video camera and he took the only recording of the wedding service that later moved house when he moved out and I've never seen it since ( but I did manage to file away the photos taken that day when he wasn't looking ) He did come to the funeral too but I'm sure that was only so he could see who I was speaking to anyone I shouldn't and that there really was one happening on that day .  

 Mum had certainly not been idle whilst she had been ill and she had sorted everything out perfectly on where she wanted everything to go and to who  . Of course the bulk was headed in the direction of my siblings and myself and if you think back I still didn't  have a bank account so all the money went into his and I apparently " only had to ask when I needed some ". 

To this day I still have no idea if I ever I got it all back or if some was siphoned off but I do remember that he was utterly disgusted I never offered him any large sums of it to buy random stuff he wanted and obviously I had to pay for a holiday and Christmas that year because it must of been my turn . 

I think this whole intensely  dismal foggy episode must of been the beginings of me very slowly waking up to the real world  although I didn't see it at the time . I had lost a little bit of weight ( I've never really been overweight anyway) and built up a nice small collection of decent new clothes and this of course wasn't going unnoticed and the comments soon started again about me having affairs. 

Child No2 had started school and he had another one of his perfect solution to all of our problems....... hide my contraceptive pills !! ( he later said he did it as a joke ) . 

  This now raises a really interesting question , if according to him I was frigid and never wanted it how on earth was I ever going to conceive let alone have all those endless affairs ?  The answers easy , you just simply emotionally blackmail the other person into it . You simply make life as uncomfortable, awkward and as differcult as possible , you tighten up the purse strings even more than they were before and then instantly expect to get what you want with no affection , kisses or foreplay and then when you've finished you simply just get to go back downstairs to watch the football leaving the other person to wonder WTF !! had just happened ( can't possibly imagine why I never really wanted it with him , let alone from anyone else ? 🤔 ).  

Another major big mistake made by myself was giving in the first time , once its started it didn't stop in fact it only got worse . I would lay awake most nights dreading the slightest sound on the stairs and listening for when everything downstairs was switched off ( on a really good night the football was still left on so he could still hear it upstairs ! ) , even pretending to be asleep didn't work after a while because I'd only get sworn at and pushed around until I " woke up again ".  

  Somehow I did manage to get pregnant again but that led unfortunately to a very early miscarrage and naturally all the blame fell on me because " I obviously didn't want it in the first place so I deserved it ". A few months later came succes and we were expecting child no3 .

  This time roud I had the most oddest peculier unlike me feelings going on mentally , a sort of being in a fuzzy bubble looking out kind of feeling . I was my normal happy go lucky self to everyone else on the outside but when I was on my own it felt like I was somewhere distant , lost and very very much alone.

  

 

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 . 

My story Part 2 .

 It was early April in 1986.....

 and one of those normal Thursday evenings after a days work type things where as was the norm back then a visit to a local pub was in order so on went the glad rags , blue eye liner, shoulder pads , Heather Shimmer lipstick and our hair was made to go into the classic 80s big hair look .....2 female 19 year olds what could possibly go wrong ?

   

  We'd hadn't been standing there very long and the pub didn't have many people in it because things never really got going in there till the weekend . As we were putting the world straight 2 guys standing by the bar decided to join in with the conversation , both alright looking and both just being nice and friendly . One of them declared straight away he was a happily married man and the other one started telling us his sorrowful heartbreaking  story about how his wife had just left him the day before taking their baby with her  . She'd apparently had constant affairs in the past , only ever wanted him for his money  and he had actually unbelievably once caught another man leaving where they where living ( this part of the story grew slowly and changed over the years ) .

 Apparently he had only come out that night because he felt a little bit down and his friend thought he might need a drink to take his mind off things , looking back now I can't remember him actually showing any sorrowful deep heartbroken regret or just being dumped or abandoned confusion over what had recently happened ( remember it had been only 24 hrs since it had happened ) , and for someone who was so apprently devastated why was he out chatting to random females in a pub ?  Stupidy I never saw it at the time 🤔 .

 The night ended on a happy note and we all said our goodbyes before all heading off our separate ways home . I remember feeling really sorry for the poor abandoned one and thinking how horrible things must of been for him and how dreadful his wife was for doing everything she had done . I spent the next couple of days thinking that it would be nice to find out how he was getting on and would I ever see him again . All this was the exact reactions that were expected from me I think at the time looking back now and its a very good card that all abusers seem to like to play . They need , want and crave your attention and will use any decent excuse in order to get it , in this case playing the neglected abandoned heartbroken soon to be ex husband and unfortunatly for me it worked .

   Little did I know at the time this was just the begining of my constant walking on very thin ice or egg shell future . Playing the victim card is one of the first favourite thing's an abuser loves to use in order to win you over , they want and need you to feel sorry for them , they need you to believe everything about their dramatic story's ( remember they will never tell lies of course 😉 ) , they never tell you the complete truth or at least they will only tell you what they think you should know or want you to hear in order to feel sorry for them and like the big daft softie person I am I fell for it all hook , line and sinker . 

Just like fishing they throw their bait out , they then catch you and reel you in slowly begining to play and control your every move without you even noticing it's happening . They play with your emotions , tease you with non existent possibilities , make all sorts of crazy false promises and then when all else fails they throw a massive major explosive adult temper tantrum striking out either physical emotional pain in your direction and then of course everything will be someone else's fault and never their own . 

Just imagine being constantly blameless for everything thats ever happened in your life and that it all being someone else's fault . ........ no thank you I dont think I ever could ,  how else could you possibly ever learn by your own mistakes in life if you don't take responsibility for them in the first place ?  🤔

Do they care who they hurt or damage along the way ?... No I honestly don't think they do . They only care about getting their own way and they will smash , hit , hurt and attempt to overthrow anything or anyone who dares to have the nerve to get in the way . If at first they don't succeed then they will just simply keep on going untill their unique life gives them what ever it was they wanted but unfortunatly as soon as that happens they will then decide it was all wrong , they dont want it and start all over again wanting something else completely different instead . 

If you unfortunatly find that your caught in the net by an abuser never forget you can always break free from the hook and swim away free again before its too late and you end up being in their eyes " owned ".  Granted it's not always easy but as your reading this I'm living proof that it can be done ,  it can only be done when your good and ready for it to happen and then you will discover that you are more powerful than you ever thought you could be . 

  Taking the conrol back of your own life is the only control that should ever happen to you so try to avoid the abusers of this world who insist on fishing for new victims .