I recognise the problem is with him yet I still do find myself blaming myself for my current circumstances and difficulties. We have separated and now have the ordeal of sharing care of our 3 year old daughter 50/50. It is with the changeovers that I get angry and resentful as well as have trouble believing this has all happened to me (us I should say as my daughter has to deal with the loss of her family because of it).

One of the biggest hurdles for me is how he blamed (and still does) blame me for the failure of our relationship. I also struggle as I was a stay at home mum, very isolated and still overcoming the depression caused by the abuse… now I find myself having to re-enter the workforce, still battling depression and anxiety and help my daughter through it emotionally too. All whilst he sits pretty in “our family home” and still has his work etc. i.e. I have so much more to deal with than him and no family support and my friends just don’t understand what I go through, I don’t know how to get through it all on my own and regain my trust in people and self-confidence. I guess the social stigma doesn’t really help people like myself.

Jane, get out… it doesn’t go away and will never change… it just gets worse until you get to a point where you start to think you are going crazy… that’s what he wants you to think so that you can take the blame for everything. I sure hope for your sake that you don’t have any children and can get some good family support so that you can move on… you deserve better and you deserve to be with someone who knows that you do! Love yourself, if you don’t nobody else will. Trust me.

A word to Kristina (above)…. I had 4 children to my abusive ex-husband and now have the great difficulty of raising them alone as I finally managed to get to the point where I finally ‘respected’ myself enough, and finally (gee, it took a looooong time to get to this point: the point where I finally decided to ‘do it’) knew that mentally and emotionally I had had enough….and it was helpful when a colleague told me that if I was not careful I would not be healthy enough ‘in my head’ to parent well for the future if I did not leave……and ..well….it took years of confusion, of often being unable to go to sleep at night for the worry of it all, worry about the kids being parted from their father, and fear that if I parted, whether he could even be trusted to be alone with the children and look after them safely….so I stayed for years longer and was in that same ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ state of what to do re: leaving, as you said….please remember : I do love and rejoice in my kids, but it is very hard to raise them if they have witnessed a lot of abuse….my problems didn’t end when I made the abuser leave, as the children had seen enough and heard enough psychological and verbal abuse over the years directed at me, that even though I’ve ‘rescued and protected’ them and wanted ultimately to keep them loved and safe; I now face a lot of disrespect and abuse from them also (3 are now teenagers) and they sadly learned this from their dad role-modelling it for them during our marriage….also, the children don’t see me as a valuable, special person worthy of love….I do look back now and see the OPTIMAL time to leave the abusive relationship was before I had children….as I have now got to participate with the father of the children and have a connection to him, even though he has left…he still has input and is able to contact me through the fact we both are parents of 4 beautiful children…. I would argue that it is better to move on (it takes sheer guts to do this, but you have it in you) and at some stage become a parent with someone you can TRUST who actually loves you….controlling abusive behaviour is never based on love or respect, only someone is loving to ‘use’ you….. I am privileged to now have met someone who does respect me, but I would have been happy to remain alone and without anyone till the end of my life, as my feeling was one of elation once I stepped away from the abuse and realised I was a lovely person and worthy. I had my last child at 41, so do not fear that your body is losing its fertility too soon…..

The best piece of advice I was given by a counsellor was, “If your teenage daughter was dating someone like your husband/abuser, what would you counsel her to do: to stay or to leave?”… Then you realise that you are special and someone, like your family, loves you, and that’s when I knew I must/should get out of the abusive relationshp.

My best wishes to you, Kristina. Kia kaha. (Gosh, I have written a lot!! Thanks for reading).

I don’t have anything unique to say about his abuse other than it’s the standard litany of harms: He lies to me, hits me, chokes me, bites me, he’s handcuffed me, and neglets me, I’ve had 2 miscarriages in the past year with him and he wants kids, so I feel like I disappoint him. Further, I feel like he’s the only one that will have me because I’m 35 and am getting on the older end of the child-bearring spectrum. I think he’s sensed this fear and insecurity of mine and now he is even meaner to me. So he threatens me, won’t work anything out, etc…. I called the police on him in May, so he’s stopped being physically violent to me (after 8 months of it), but he still threatens to hurt me if I question him on anything or say “the wrong thing”. But, he tells me he loves me and wants to be together, but I think maybe he is trying to get me not to testify so that the case will be dismissed and then he’ll be able to keep his gun rights. And then ditch me. So he leaves me and comes back and yet every single time, no joke, as I try to pick up the pieces and move on; he’s the one who tries to re-establish contact again and tells me he loves me. So I feel I’m damned if I stay and damned if I go.

Sorry for my stream of consciousness writing, I’ve really not been able to talk about this freely.

Thank you for writting that abuse is also a masculine/culture issue. (He even uses that to tell me why it’s OK that he’s mean to me!) What did I do?! I am beautiful, feminine, nuturing, skilled and smart. I have everything! At least I try to remember that. He’s unemployed and is in construction and blames it on me. As for me, I am in a special, beautiful line of work in which I am with young girls every day to inspire them to be the best they can be and to be good and proud of being who they are. I teach them about self-respect and respect for others and how to be teammates and to not let anyone else’s judgement of them render them scared of following what they love and want to be. They look to me as their hero and inspiration! AND meanwhile I’m letting someone hit me, bite me, lie to me, choke me, and never be accountable for it and tell me that I am worthless. And now besides the fact that he still lies, trashes me to his friends with my most intimate secrets and his sexual exploits, threatens to become violent when I question him; he’s taking advantage of my fear that I can’t have my own kids by telling me that his friends and family would like me better if I had kids with him!

It’s all the same result – he’s an abusive jerk and I keep taking it and crying everyday and he tells me I have to take it to be with him. Why are people so mean? How do I get out and have the life I want to have?! I am just so outraged. Thanks for listening.