zdt's Journal

today i am anxious.  last night i made myself make the most of my last night home alone with the children - he comes back from his holiday with his mates today. 

i realise i allowed myself maybe 5 minutes to remember my own ambitions and even shared that with a member here and now i have caught myself - what are you thinking!  you idiot, you cannot do that, you have not sorted your own life out yet.  stupid.

i have also spent time grieving my dad, again.  and i realise i have pushed him out of my head for a few months now, i cant let him in because i grieve so.  its been 18 months since i lost him, after being his 'rock' and everything i did to find out about his illness and things he could do... it turned out i was fighting the illness but he was not.  i didnt twig.  i wish he had been honest and told me he had no intention of fighting, he was just going along with it, going through some of the motions to keep me happy i suppose.  he had other plans.  anyway, i cannot think of him but this weekend i had so many reminders i was forced to and the tears came again, and again.

and yes, its not me its him who needs to change.  or does he?  if he is happy with how he is who am i to say he should change.  i just need to accept the person he is simply is not the one i want in a husband nor a father to my precious children.  he is the classic jekyll and hyde.  except he has more 'faces' than just two.  to the rest of the world he is the salt of the earth type, dependable, sensible, safe, funny, one of the boys, a flirt, chatty and sociable... the list goes on.  he is educated (a double first degree no less) runs his own business successfully and so on.  he has lots of hobbies (none of which include us) and is always active and on the go.  but, it has always been 'his' money he earns, and because he pays for everything these days what he says goes.  yet in our early days together, i was working full time, had 2 babies, looked after our horses and put him through university!  i can honestly say i didnt even begrudge doing it, i was proud of him.  i have never received back from him one iota of support.  being told i was just a heffer wanting to calve down for the rest of my life when i said i wanted another baby... i should have known where it was going to go.  he used to drink, and drive, and come home and be threatening... 7 years ago one night was hideous and i spent it on the stairs with a childs baseball bat incase he came upstairs, protecting my babies... i said then i wanted a divorce.  why the hell didnt i go through with it then?  stupid.

anyway i am rambling.  it has all been said and written many times before.

whether it was me clinging on to hope, or not wanting to admit my mistake (marrying him in the first place) or just wanting to believe things could get better... he could change... i dont know but i have allowed it to carry on.  he has become a lot more subtle in doing what he does - the books he skimmed must have given him that much information as to how to hide it.  he pulles the crazy card on me alot too.  so much i actually ask others if i am or not.  they are fed up with me, they cant believe i fall for it time after time.

here is the bottom line - he has money, he has a life, he has hobbies, he has lots of possessions and all of that is nothing to do with us.  he keeps it that way.  i am kept out of finances, the business and the rest of his life.  he has a wife and children (he never wanted any but he has them all the same) and a home.  albeit a dreadful home since i am a 'rubbish wife' who cannot even take care of a house/keep it clean etc.  his children amazingly enough are all clever things.  my eldest got straight level 5s in ks2 sats, she is a wonderful ballerina, and she is fantastic at singing/acting and has in her first year at secondary school been in cabaret nights, got to the finals in a talent show and has just landed a part in a play - the only girl in her year to get one and she won first prize in the bath literary festival story writing competition.  my second daughter was writing at level 2 in her first year at school, has already gotten to level 5 and is only 10, is gifted and talented not only academically but also competes in gymnastics and now is about to in trampoline and is an astonishingly good street jazz dancer and she can sing too. both girls compete on their ponies too.  my youngest, my son, has not really gone for academia but he is competing at gymnastics, plays the drums, and is so quick witted its scary.  and he is only 7...  so, as far as looking at my children go i must have gotten something right.

so why do i want to mess this all up?

like he has said - most women would kill for all i have.

well, things have changed.

once i realised what he is (abuser and controller and obessive) and i named the beast as it were the cat was out of the bag.

things like all the nasty things he has said and done to me over the years will never leave me anyway but now i had an explanation.

and he said he wanted to change.

not at first of course, and only really after i went to a solicitor...

and the promises he has made to facilitate that have all been broken.

things like only going 3 times on the course he got on (a 40 week course) - he said it was no good for him he was not like the others there...

reading the books and talking to me about them (to prove he was reading them) lasted what - in all maybe a week.

his idea to get me involved in the business so he would not resent me so much... nope, nothing came of it time and again

moving his horse - which was kept at full livery- to be with us and the childrens ponies - not kept at full livery more DIY so we could use this as a way to be a family... nope - he hates it, hates having to lift a finger, hates the whole thing or as he put it 'serves him no benefit at all' and 'why should i be mucking out its alright for you you are used to it'.

it was my idea, and it has not worked.

i also asked him to not do just one of his hobbies - skydiving.  i felt it was dangerous and he is the father of young children.  he started it as something he wanted to try because he was about to turn 40 and i encouraged him - yes go do it!  but he took to it, and eventually lied about going there because he knew i was not comfortable with it but even so, when he went off to spain for a week doing it to get some kind of license he rang saying it was all going wrong and i supported him, gave him a pep talk so that he would succeed.  and he did.  he came home with a dreadful black eye, not from doing that but from getting so drunk he fell over and they took him to hospital... oh and i am wrong, he said so, skydiving is not dangerous at all....

i wanted to do a nursing degree, i got myself an unconditional offer, its something i wanted to do long before i went into teaching but was he supportive - no.  he said it was all wrong, and i would not cope and it would affect us all in a bad way.  in the end i ignored him and said i was going to do it anyway but my dear dad got worse and i spent my time with him instead.  i didnt go.

it was only then he said aww, thats a shame, never mind...

ugh i am rambling again.

oh and was he 'there' for me after dad... like hell he was.  you should be over it by now he said, you are affecting the children he said... he even had a go at me one night about it in that i was behaving in an 'unacceptable' way and this was before we had even had the funeral.

nice.

no whats happened now is that my children are changing.

whilst he has been away they have relaxed and been normal.  in stark contrast to the bitchiness that they have been doing to eachother.  i have heard one say to the other 'dont talk to me like i am an idiot'  'but you are' came the reply... this is what he does, talks to me like an idiot.  now they are doing it.  or when one deliberately used excessive violence to try to hurt the other because they were irritating him... just days after he had been on the receiving end of it from his dad.  or when one through food at me at the dinner table because i said or didnt say the right thing... after seeing me be a doormat now they are doing it to me too.

some one asked me which child i would choose to turn out like me and which one to turn out like him. 

i was horrified, i dont want my children to turn out like either of us.

a bully or a doormat.  some choice.

if i divorce him i wont be his doormat anymore.

he will make things as hard as he can.  he already said he wont be divorced.  he already said i will be left without a penny.  he already said neither i nor the children will ever see him again he will leave the country and i wont get a thing from him.

he runs his own business and makes it look like he earns next to nothing yet outside are his 7 motorbikes, his brand new navara, and inside are so many jackets and coats and they are all 'technical' and cost probably on average £200 each...

never mind his flashy camera, his flashy lap top, all the other 'toys' he has...

yet he earns nothing?

we live on credit cards and yes, most in my name.

all the bills are in my name too.

a few years ago he persuaded me to go to a joint mortgage with him to raise funds to build us an extension... but no of course not, that money has gone.  and no extension.

he claimed he 'told' me what he was going to do with the money... bollocks did he.

and yet he can be remorseful, tearful and full of apology for being like he has been, beg me to give him another chance to change, more promises, more this and more that.

i have heard it all before.

oh he apparently has paid off some of the credit cards with money from the business, and i suppose i should be grateful?  i dont have a life, all my bills are from bloody tescos.

but of course over the years our money problems have all been my fault.

my solicitor said he would have to pay for his children.

she said all he had told me was rubbish.

she was so forthright - i felt such an idiot.

and all the papers got drawn up.

he binned his.

i kept mine, but i have to give her the final go ahead to file them in court.

that was over 3 months ago

and yes he begged me for another chance...

and at first it seemed this time was going to be different...

but no.

it hasnt worked out that way.

he says it is me.

maybe it is.

but i know it has not worked and is not going to.

so all i need to do is make that call to the solicitor and set this thing in motion.

so why cant i?  why have i not done it?

and why am i so nervous of him coming home and me saying that this is what is going to happen and can we please sort this out sensibly?

:(

I used to say I could put up with it - I could endure it and tolerate it as long as it didn’t affect the children.  I used to say they needed a ‘dad’ - they benefited more from what he could provide them in terms of things they can do.  I used to think I could somehow make up for his behaviour by showing them mine.  But now they are modeling his.  Now they are becoming like him.  And now, again, my son has been hurt by him. 

I have wondered if I could cope on my own, and worried so much about how I would manage financially. 

However it has quickly become the case that anything remotely positive about staying married to him is far outweighed by the damage it is causing to me and to them.

He does not see it that way, he says so.  But then again he would do.  And I already know nothing he says is believable.

If we divorce maybe that will be the catalyst for change for him or maybe, as he says, it will be the opposite – he will have no motivation to change at all.  The fact is though, that he has not changed even with the alleged motivation to do so – so it makes no difference.  If he wants to change, for himself, then he will do whether he is married to me or not. 

He once said it was not him that needed to change, it was me.  He said that it was me who had the problems with it all therefore maybe it was me who needed to change.  Well maybe he was right.  Maybe I do need to change – into someone who stands up for all she believes in, protects her children from growing up in a damaging environment, models the positive behaviour of being able to do that on her own, who demonstrates by doing so that they and she are ‘worth it’.

All it will take is a phone call to my solicitor to tell her to file the papers in court - just one phone call to initiate the change. 

And then I would be in the middle of coping and adapting to whatever comes next.  Funnily enough one of the things my old employers have always said about me is that I am very good at being adaptable and flexible and I can find ways to overcome problems and find solutions.  So what am I afraid of?

how sad it is that a dear friend recommended this site to me for support.  we both have bi polar and originally met through that.  i say met, we have been online friends for a couple of years now, speak on the phone and swap photos and of course mail each other many times every single day and one day she is going to come visit me when she can find the time and the money to travel over here (she is in the US i am in the UK).  but she has been my absolute rock, without her support i would have gone under many many times.  not due to the bp, due to the abusive/controlling husband i have or both (who knows).

anyway she has joined this site for bp support and suggested i join it for emotional and verbal abuse support.  which i did.

but the sad part is that i started reading some of the topics posted and felt just dreadful.

i have been there, seen it and got the t shirt and instead of being inspired to help others like i would normally do i just wanted to get away and crawl into a hole.

so instead i am journalling.

i write for myself alot anyway, have done for years.

you see its sad because i have already done everything i can do.

i bought the books, Evans in particular was good.  and Ellis.

not just on abuse but on controlling and even on metamessages in communication.

loads of books.

i read them all, made notes and alsorts.

i was stunned as here i was reading my life it seemed.  how could that be?  i always knew my husband was hard work but i didnt realise he was this named thing, an abuser and a controller and that there were others like him out there - so much so that you could get books on it.

i wanted to know more, so i surfed the net.

i found lots of resources to help.  whole sites.  how to cope with an abuser, how to manage it, how to deal with it... and sites on improving communication, your relationship everything.

i shared all of this with him of course and asked he read the books too...

i think it took perhaps 6 months for it to sink in he was never going to do that.

no matter how many promises, he didnt.  the most he did was flip through a few and then claim he knew it all.

in the end, after the abuse escalated (oddly enough this happened after i named it, identified and started using the strategies to stop it in its tracks) i got to the point of finally going to a solicitor.

this at last brought a reaction from him in a positive way.

all sorts of new promises were made and to begin with it seemed he was indeed this time going to honour them.  he even signed up for a 40 week 'perpertrators' course... but he only went 3 times.

but here i am, 3 months later, within a fortnight of him hurting our son, and letting me down big time on one particular occasion.  and of course no book has been seen lately, much less followed.

he is away on holiday with his mates at the moment.

it has taken me 3 days to calm down.  the children have relaxed alot quicker than me, knowing he is not about to walk through the door.

they have not asked about him once.

i have been biting my tongue trying to get to this time, when i knew he would be away, so i could go back to the solicitor and make it all happen, file those papers in court please, the ones you have on file because he convinced me he could change 3 months ago...

and now it is here, i am not ok.

i am not empowered.

i fear for the future.

my friends all tell me i will cope, i will manage.

even one of my children said for goodness sake just divorce him mum why are you so upset about it he makes you so unhappy...

i said before, years before, that i didnt care about my personal happiness, i could put up with all the crap, as long as my children had the best of everything i could give them in terms of hobbies and clubs and sports which they compete in and everything.  he pays for it all of course since i gave up work a few years back with his push to do so.

i used to be a professional working mother.

now its a job to get myself to tescos of a week.

but thats another story - the 'whatever happened to the self esteem' story

but over the past year they have started copying what they see and worse still they have started treating me like the doormat he does.

they are horrid to each other and i hear his words out of their mouths

and like i said, he hurt my boy for the second time and i said after the first time it would never ever happen again, i would not allow it.  i didnt catch him at it either time, quite frankly its just as well as i dont know what i would have done but it would i am quite sure have ended up with me being arrested.

i have read enough to know that unless they change, the abuse and control escalates, it might become less overt, they might find more subtle ways to do it, and he certainly has, but they still show their colours when it matters and he has certainly done that.

he has not changed.

i need to do something for my childrens sake.

so why on earth cant i just do it?

ugh

we have been together for over 17 years, married for 13 of them.

and i can honestly say i cannot remember when we were ever actually happy.