I’m writing this at work as we have no Internet at home, currently. We have been cut off because he hasn’t paid the bill. Damned if I’m going to; I need every penny I can get right now to buy furniture for the new place. It breaks my heart seeing my hard-earned money coming in to the business and seeing him piss it up the wall. I’ve taken action to safeguard what I can but I can’t ring-fence all of it unfortunately until I get my own business bank account set up and I can do that until I have set up my own company and I can’t do that until legally we have separated out our business interests and I can’t do that until I am safely ensconced in my new abode. It’s like I’m in this prison slowly but surely finding my way out but each and every action has to be done just right, timed just right or the whole plan falls to pieces.

I took some boxes over to the new place this morning and for the first time I actually allowed myself to feel at home and begin to get a little excited about being there. I am so looking forward to getting my furniture, choosing pieces that I like and that suit me, my stuff and my house.

So, why don’t I just pack a case and go! Get the hell out of there and leave!?

If only it were that simple! There are things in our marital home that matter to me. I mean, REALLY matter to me and there are things in there that I would like but that don’t matter so much and then there are things in there that I don’t want at all (most of the wedding presents from his friends and family – for example!). I am surreptitiously packing the most important things and taking them over to the new place so that he doesn’t even know they’ve gone. I have to do it this way because I don’t know how he will react when he knows I’m leaving. He has destroyed my stuff before so I have every reason to believe he will try that again. ‘Cause, he will realise at some point when he begins to look around and notices things missing but by then I will have most of it in my new house. There are practical issue too, like the fact that we still work together in the same business and I don’t currently have  a phone at the new place and right now I need to safeguard my business and cannot risk that being disrupted in any way. He has also shown in the past a complete disregard towards business, customer service, even basic human decency that says that if someone is paying you good money to provide them with a service you show appreciation and deliver value for money – you do not abuse them! He has, in past, almost lost me my clients by being his usual, argumentative, rude and mean-spirited self. I’m not willing to risk that. My clients like me. We have been together a long time (longer than I have been with my husband) and that means a lot to me as it does to them. They are vaguely aware of a ’situation’ but they do not know the full extent of it. They like me and are great to me but I imagine they will only tolerate so much. I do not want to give my husband any excuses to ‘ruin me’ as he has threatened to do if I so much as think of leaving. I am also scared that he might physically try to hurt me or follow me to my new home and stalk me but I have Police protection for that and I am hoping (praying) that will be enough of deterrent for him.

So, you see I could just leave. Pack a case and go but it’s better I do it this way; the way I have run my marriage since the abuse began. All relationships need to be managed but when you are living with an abusive person the way you manage the relationship is by always being on your guard, staying one step ahead, never letting your guard down, anticipating their every move and planning for that, just like you would in a game of Chess except this is not a game. What’s at stake is survival and freedom. Even though this is the hardest thing I have ever had to face and it is draining me to the core those two things, above all else, are worth it to me.