I feel terrible. Yesterday I spent in the company of someone (we’ll call him TM) with whom I have a good relationship, professionally. I have known him for four years and for the most part he is a nice guy and we get along well. He knew a little about my situation but not the full details (particularly about the domestic abuse) but yesterday I told him everything. It just seemed right. We have had personal conversations before, where he has shared information with me. So, I told him about the abuse and some of what I have been coping with over the last three years. He was understandably sympathetic and concerned but then (as men do) he started giving me advice; what to do about this and what to do about that. Most particularly, he knows about the book project and he was particularly concerned about that (this is the project that my estranged husband has misappropriated all the money for and now there is nothing with which to pay for production of the book). I said I was worried about how the whole thing has affected my reputation and TM said: “Oh, yeah, for sure. Your reputation will be in tatters. No way will you ever get anymore work out of those guys and you could have got loads. Without your reputation you’re nothing! You need to sort it out. If I were you I’d borrow the money [£30,000/$50,000] and pay them back!” 

I am sure it was not his intention but it just felt like I was being abused all over again.

By the time I got home, I could barely think straight. I felt so terrible. You see, the book project had been my idea in the business. I started it two years ago; saw an opportunity, put together a proposal as to how it could be fulfilled, got support, funding – everything through sheer determination and hard work. My husband at the time accompanied me to meetings but other than that he did nothing, zilcho! Except, spent the money that the clients put into the pot to pay for the project. We’d assured them it would be ring-fenced and that we would take a fee every now and again with their agreement but that there would always be enough money in the pot to pay for production costs. Of course, looking back, I realize that my husband had no intention of ever doing that. The first thing that went wrong was that we lost our writer for the book. My husband had completely re-written the author/publisher contract that I drafted (and he has no experience of publishing) and came up with something the writer refused to sign. Not only that, but it was enough to put him off working with us and he split. My answer at the time was to mothball the whole thing until we found another writer (we needed someone with an engineering background and they are not easy to come by). My husband, on the other hand, wanted to keep on invoicing the clients (his focus was only ever on getting money) so he refused and instead said that I would have to write the book myself! And, being a serial abuser, he gave me very little room to disagree! So, alongside running the business, doing the lions share of the work by myself (whilst my husband employed admin staff whom he then proceeded to bully and abuse and went off two days a week to attend a university course), running a family home, taking care of all of the domestics and looking after the dog and his brother’s twins every other weekend, I also now had to find the time to write a book (on engineering, about which I know nothing)!

Since we split, I have been trying desperately to rescue this project, although because of what has happened it has slipped several deadlines now. I can feel that most of the clients involved have lost faith in it. They are barely communicating with me. I have found another writer but I refuse to engage him or a graphic designer until I know I can pay them. And until my husband pays me the money or I win the lottery, I can’t. I am not in a position to borrow the money that my learned colleague suggests I should so that I can pay them back. And, yes, he is right – I suspect my reputation is in tatters as far as those clients are concerned. 

And this is what upsets me most. I am such a easy-going, loyal, hard-working person with high moral values and a good sense of right and wrong. I have only ever tried to do the right thing (even if it means losing out myself) and yet here I find myself central to this mess which I did not cause but which even so I am having to clean up. And there is my husband carrying on his life of falsehood, lies, manipulation, ‘doing others in’, and getting away with as much as he can and he appears to be succeeding. 

Another frustrating thing for me is that there appears to be no one person out there who can give me the answers I so desperately need about what practical steps I should take to sort all this out. I have been to see Solicitors but they are limited to giving me legal advice (and even then sometimes is appears to be inadequate), friends and relatives can’t because they have no clue about the very specialist nature of abusive people and how they operate. Advice bureaus can’t help! The best help I have come across is from people who care enough to take the time and trouble to comment here. I have also taken it upon myself to get as clued up as I can through reading online info and books (more about those later – there are some great ones out there) but so far there seems to be nobody who is a specialist in dealing with this sort of thing (and how to respond to the destruction and mess that abusive people cause) and who can sit down with me and listen, and then tell me what I should do legally, morally and practically to end/solve it all so I can move on.

I knew it was a mistake but I couldn’t help myself. Like watching horror movies or looking through my uncle’s Road Traffic Accident Weekly when I was a kid. I knew I would witness stuff I really ought not to; blood, gore, dismembered bodies, unattached limbs; all of which would add up to nightmares and sleepless nights that stayed with me for days. I would wish I’d gone with my gut instincts and left my curiosity locked away in its innocent little box. I couldn’t help myself back then and today I couldn’t help myself either. Those images seemed so repelling and yet compelling at the same time. Just like the thought I had this morning to drop some stuff in at the office and pick up a document. I knew my estranged husband would be there and I knew it would be wrong to see him. I knew that if I did I would be abused again and left feeling bad. I knew and yet I went. I could have gone after work, collected it when he wasn’t there but I was in town and so I decided to do it then. 

Every inch of my body was screaming “DON’T DO IT! TURN AROUND. DRIVE AWAY!” But I kept on going. I turned into the car park and immediately saw his father’s car (I noticed it there when I drove past a couple of weeks ago). Someone told me his father is “helping him out with work” now that I have gone. Good for him. I have a key but I didn’t use it, I pressed the buzzer instead. He came to the door. I didn’t hang around. I did what I needed to do and prepared to leave but he seemed intent on trying to engage me in conversation. He did his usual trick of being in total denial, behaving as if all this is normal, that nothing is wrong. He was blathering away about trivia, as usual. I pretended to listen. At one point I glanced through to where his father sat at a desk with his back to m. He made no attempt to acknowledge me; the daughter-in-law he and his wife “have tried so hard to love”. I tried not to let it upset me. 

Then I came out with it. I asked my husband where the money is for the book project (we have a publishing contract and were supposed to have ring-fenced the money that the client has paid us to pay for production). He was supposed to have transferred it to my bank account so that I could continue with the project and complete it (he didn’t want to complete it himself – too much like hard work). There is no evidence of the money. My guess is he has spent it. He then started to get all uncomfortable and fidgety, twitching from one foot to the other like he needed to pee or something. He tried to dismiss the question: “I can’t talk about this now. Why don’t we meet up for a coffee or something and we can talk about it then?” I’ve been for coffees with him before, ostensibly to talk about ’stuff’. Trouble is, it never ends up being a two-way conversation. Usually, I listen. He talks, and talks, and talks, excuse after excuse after excuse, avoidance after avoidance after avoidance. These ‘talks’ never do sort anything out. “No thanks.” I said. “There is not point. The book project is yours. You better let them know how and when you intend to complete it.” 

“But I thought you were going to do it!” He retorted in a panic. “We agreed.” There is something you should know here: in my husband’s case (and I think, from what I have read, this is common to many abusive people) when he says “We agreed.” What he means is that he came to me at a time and place of his choosing to “discuss” it. But the discussion typically goes like this: he says: “This is what I have decided. It is what’s best and it is what we are going to do. You’re welcome to give me your opinion as long as you accept that it is a waste of time and your breath in so doing because I have already decided that this is what we are doing and that’s it.” So, when he says “We discussed it.” What he means is that he has tried at some point to dictate to me what is going to happen, I have resisted, he has turned nasty, I have fought back, he has hit out and the ‘discussion’ has ended with me once again giving in to his abuse but never having agreed to what he wants. It shows a blatant lack of consideration for my views and opinions, disinterest in me and disrespect. 

But today, I didn’t get in to a discussion about it. I just walked away having stood my ground and told him that he cannot have it all his own way. I was upset though, like I knew I would be, and angry. He obviously has no intention of paying me the money for the book project – and he feels it is his entitlement to do that. He also was fully expecting me to roll over and play dead, taking on responsibility for the book project and paying for it out of my own money! I could feel very angry that he thinks I am so stupid that I would do that but I don’t because I know that is not what he thinks. What he thinks is that he is entitled to get his own way 100% of the time, crap on people from a great height, throw tantrums like the spoilt kid that he is and that I will let him get away with it and come and clean up his mess once he has finished. Because, let’s face it, that is what his parents have done all his life.

So, I know I must not be tempted – NEVER – be tempted to see him. It is no good for me. No good for my healing and that is all that matters now.

I woke up this morning and for the first time I began to feel like I don’t belong to him anymore. 

I know that seems strange but it illustrates how much of him I absorbed through his sustained, deliberate, intense campaign of control and ownership. Like I became this sponge, absorbing all the shit he threw at me, cleaning up his mess (literally and figuratively) time and again until I was almost a part of him. His crutch. He needed me to prop him up and I needed his grip on me to get me around his world. 

But now being apart is starting to NOT feel strange. Soon it will feel normal and then I’ll know I have truly got my life back.

The silence is almost as unbearable as the abuse. But then, I must remember that the silence is abuse too. 

I have not heard anything from my husband for days and that is a new tactic for him. He normally sends me at least one email every other day, even if his only excuse is to tell me I have post waiting for me at home. His contact often made me feel uneasy because I never really quite knew what was behind the words but at least it was ‘in the open’. The silence is almost terrifying. It’s like he’s hiding in the bushes, waiting to pounce. I would almost rather be able to see him. At least then I know what he’s up to. And getting the odd email at least gave me some clue as to what he was planning. But the silence………………………….

The business guys that we owe money; they said they would definitely call me yesterday and tell me what is going on. They never did. They didn’t call today either. That is freaking me out. What if he has got to them again? I was talking to a friend about it yesterday, saying how hurt I was that they thought it okay to express to me how they “do not want to get involved” and not return my calls and yet have several meetings with him on his own! I know he will have said stuff to them and lied about me and instead of coming to me and saying “is this true” they have taken him at face value and not even bothered to check out my side. That is not fair, nor is it just and I will not stand for it. I suspect they have got back to him about what I said – which was the truth – and he has got to them again with his charm and his lies. 

It’s awful, this feeling like everyone is talking about me, making judgements about me that will affect my life forever and I am the last person to know anything or to be consulted on anything. Surely, that must be wrong!? The enemy of silence you see. 

Then I keep having these thoughts that someone is going to come knocking on my door and tell me that he is dead, my husband is dead and that fills me with dread too. What would I do? How would I feel? I asked him once if he would kill himself if I left him and he said he didn’t know, which I took at the time to mean he was hedging his bets as to what to say but that he didn’t really mean that he would. I don’t think he’s done yet, with me at least. But I told him (back then) that I would not go to his funeral if he did kill himself. I hope he hasn’t.  

And then I have to take a deep breath and remind myself how far I have come, how brave I have been and that I have done the worst bit, which was to leave and that all this other stuff is just thoughts caused by the trauma I have experienced. The truth is, all there is is silence. That’s all.

One of the things my husband did well when we were together was the isolation thing. He made it extremely difficult for me to maintain contact with my friends, family and indeed anyone he deemed bad for his regime of having total control over me. 

One of the first things I did when I left him was to re-establish that contact and I have had a great time catching up with friends and relatives I have not seen for years. 

Unfortunately, it is slowly dawning on me that his campaign of trying to isolate me is still continuing – even after we are apart. Primarily this is now through business contacts. I have tried to make contact with several since we separated. Not to get them ‘on-side’ or tell tales or sling mud or anything like that but just to continue on with the business relationship. These are suppliers and clients as well as other ‘colleagues’. Each day I am experiencing more and more resistance. Some are not even getting back to me at all, others are acting all cold and distant and still others are being downright obnoxious. 

I feel hurt; like he’s winning the battle. I feel like he’s got to them, told them stuff about me (all lies of course) and got them onside. I know it sounds childish, it’s like this is playground stuff but it really hurts – especially as I have done nothing wrong except take back my own life. Course, I haven’t said anything to them about it. I wouldn’t dream of telling them that that guy they think is so cool is actually a wife beater! I keep it to myself so, of course, if he has said anything and I am ‘withholding’, I guess to them that might be perceived as an admission of guilt on my part. 

More and more each day I am seeing how I have let myself be made unimportant by a lot of people who are basically rude and selfish and then defended them or told them it is okay when their treatment of me has come to light. I know this is something I learned to do at home with my parents. My father saw me as the apple of his eye until I got old enough to start having my own views and opinions (that mostly differed from his – particularly in relationship to equality). He very soon became indifferent towards me and he too was abusive. I remember in a counselling session, many years ago, talking about my father and his treatment of me and having a ‘light bulb’ moment when the counsellor said: “Why do you defend him [my father]?” Up until that point I had not realised that I was even doing it but then I realised that I always defended him when in actual fact I really ought to have reported him to the authorities! 

He continues to do it now. Even though he is old and in poor health. He still doesn’t care about me all that much and I think because of that I am used to that treatment from others. 

But today I did it differently. I made myself important and I made these people listen. There are these two guys, businessmen, whom our business owes money. My husband has kept promising and promising to pay them and never sticks to his word. Basically, he has been lying to them and spinning them a yarn. Today was ‘D’ day. We had a deadline to pay them back or else they will make us both bankrupt. I had asked my husband what the score was but he refused to tell me; said “I’m certainly not telling you that kind of information!”. I felt terrible. have been on tenterhooks all week worrying about it. I called the guys but couldn’t get hold of them. I had the feeling they were avoiding my calls. And yet I know they have had meetings with him! Is it because I’m a woman I wonder, or because they don’t like me? 

Anyway, today I got angry and thought to myself you’re gonna take my goddamn call you bastards! This is important!! I am important!! I am not being held hostage by my husband one more second, waiting for a letter to arrive from a solicitor by which time it is too late to do anting about it. I didn’t give up, kept calling and calling until eventually the one guy answers my call and says ” Why are you calling me? What is the point?” and I said “The point is you are being lied to and not being given the information you need. I am calling you to tell you the truth and to sort this out – for all of us!” Then I told them everything: how my husband has been lying to them about his businesses and financial affairs, how he has been applying for grants to set up a social enterprise and using the money to pay his bills instead, how he has been continuing to trade a business knowing full well that it is insolvent. and many other things – all of which are true. I got their attention and they listened. They even, at the end of the call, said they appreciated my honesty and co-operation. 

I don’t know what is going to happen now. It may backfire on me, but you know what, my husband forced me to keep it all in for so long. He bullied and coerced and manipulated me into not telling anyone even tough I knew it to be wrong and even got me to lie for him. It felt good today. Just the simple fact of being able to get it off my chest felt really freeing. It’s almost like it doesn’t matter what happens now, I’ve done my bit. 

I do believe that the truth sets you free I really do believe that and today particularly has shown me that. One thing my old dad did used to say to me when I was a kid was that you wont be punished for telling the truth you will be punished for doing something bad. I don’t believe I have done anything bad – except in my husband’s world of course.

I haven’t been here for a while. Didn’t know what to write. I have been feeling all out of sorts: confused, angry, irritated, anxious. All sorts of mixed up emotions. I guess a good description would be that I am “all over the place”. 

By way of background (for those of you who have just stumbled upon this), I have been in an abusive relationship for three years. Married. I didn’t know it was abusive until about a year ago. Up until then I just knew there was something not right but I didn’t know what to call it. I have endured both verbal and physical abuse. The verbal abuse has been for me the worst part. My husband is very clever with words and very good at what he does which is to manipulate and control me. Or at least he was. 

I started planning my escape earlier this year and actually moved out in August since which time I have been having as little contact with him as possible. At first I felt great; relieved, joyful. But just lately I have started to feel other not so nice feelings and it is like I am continually fighting to stop myself falling in to the pit of depression. I am managing to but only just.  

The biggest thing for me now centres around money. My husband and I were in business together and he took charge of the finances. I was happy for him to do so until I realised he was only doing it to control me. He has got us into such a mess that I am now fighting to stop from going under there too. Each day’s news report of the ‘credit cruch’ and ‘another financial crisis’ only adds to my dread. 

I have managed to claw back some control. At least now I am enabled to earn good money but being in and leaving the relationship has cost me dearly – financially as well as mentally, physically and emotionally. I am now stuck as to how to draw a line under it and proceed to a conclusion, an end, completion. 

I am considering divorce but lots of people have told me how much this can cost and knowing my husband as I do and his/our financial position, I am fearful that I will end up with huge legal bills alongside my decree absolute, which I cannot afford. At the same time, what other recourse do I have to try and claw back some of the money I have invested in this damn relationship and the business? If I don’t sue, he gets away with it – yet again – and I am left at rock bottom having to climb my way back up again. If I do sue and for one reason and another I end up with no settlement then……………………you know the story. So, what should I do? Walk away or put up a fight?