He said to me, my estranged husband and chief abuser in my life: “You’ll take me wont you, to the ship? I’m leaving on the 5th and I need someone to take me. It’ll be great. We can stop for breakfast on the way. You can wave me off.”

He’s going on a cruise. It’s work, he says, but funnily enough they are not paying him. He seems to forget – I HAVE LEFT HIM!

My brother called him a cheeky bastard. My Dad said: “Well, it’s up to you love.” Jesus Pop! I didn’t tell you because I was asking you what I should do! I told you because I thought/hoped you would react like my brother and call him a cheeky bastard. At least then I would have known that you are on my side, that you accept that he is totally and completely unreasonable and his treatment of me totally undeserved. Instead you react as if it’s just a lovers tiff – this whole thing – just a silly argument and much as you don’t like your son-in-law you can see that he shares your view that women should be controlled just like animals and that he, like you, was quite masterful at that. You think I should go back to him don’t you!? You do, I can tell.

Oh why, oh why is it so difficult to get people who supposedly love you, who say they love you, to side with you against this evil?

……..if not in your lives, at least in your hearts. 

It was at Christmas last year that I became galvanised into action to end the abuse in my life. I’d no idea how or when but I was certain last year would be the last Christmas I would spend living in my husband and his family’s controlling and selfish regime. I was sick of compromise, put downs, being sidelined, lied to, diminished – treated like a nobody by a family who were so fearful, cold and constantly defended. 

We’d been at his family’s house all day. Constant chaos and pretence. Let’s pretend we are all having a good time! We’d had lunch, spent hours and hours opening presents like it was some ritual – okay, now you….. Oh, is it my turn……this is for you…….and so on and so on. We all pretended that the abuse was not happening, that it was a silly over-reaction on my part and that it didn’t matter because it was only me anyway and I didn’t really matter as long as I keep him happy and off their hands. We didn’t speak about it because then we can pretend it is not real. 

I had a moment where I left my body, was staring down on this chaotic, pretend family scene, where everyone did and said the right thing through gritted teeth. It was like one of those clever scenes in a film where the central character is pulled along tram lines and it appear like the background is moving. Suddenly everything comes into sharp focus, and I heard this voice (my higher self) say – this is the last time I am going to do this. This is the last time I am going to spend Christmas with this family. I’ve no idea where I will be this time next year but it wont be here. 

My situation is not over yet. I fear it may yet get worse before it gets better. But I am ready. I have built up the resources and healed somewhat so I am ready to do whatever it takes now to free myself from that man. Whatever it takes. This time next year, I will be in an even better place. Like last year, I’ve no idea where, when or how I will get there, I just know I will get there. 

And so will you. Believe me, so will you – all it takes is a starting point.

I’ve stopped self-medicating. It’s been three months since I left my abusive partner and I have been sober this week since Sunday. Sunday was my last drink and it is now Thursday. It’s the first time in three years I have gone for more than one consecutive day without drinking or comfort eating. 

For me to admit I had a drink problem was a shock. I started drinking as soon as I met my husband. He was a heavy drinker and it just became habit that every night we’d crack open the wine with dinner and then he’d pour me and himself a large whisky which I’d take to bed. Having been a light drinker all my adult life, it went from being a habit to a necessity to help me cope with the abuse in my marriage. It got so I HAD to have drink in the house. I never drank more than one bottle of wine (mostly less than that) but I HAD to do it – everyday! Even after I left him, I carried on. I kept telling myself I should stop but I knew at the time I couldn’t. I had to have a drink just to get through. I knew in my heart that there would come a time when it would be okay and I would stop – no problem – and that started last week. This is the first week I have not felt I ‘needed’ to drink. I have not quit completely and I have no intention of so doing but it really feels like I have it under control now and I can choose to do it because I ‘want’ to not because I ‘need’ to.

I’ve been going kinda crazy this week; thinking myself into a spiral of negativism, feeling depressed, getting all wound up and panicky. I’ve been mean to the dog too. I’m aware I’m doing it but at the time I can’t stop myself and then afterwards I feel really bad. 

He’s been kinda restless too, and needy. He doesn’t settle and pads around whining and wanting my attention all the time when I have felt like I’ve had nothing to give. I’ve been resenting him – not least because he’s male (and I have just left an abuser who was male, demanding and needy!). 

He sits and looks at me with this hound-dog expression and I say the most awful things like: “I’m gonna give you away if you keep on whining at me!” and “I loved [my other dog who died's name] more than I love you because SHE was a SHE and not demanding like you!” I say it, knowing that he hasn’t a clue what I am saying so there is no chance of him being emotionally ruined forever because of my harmful words but I also know that, although he may not understand, he picks up the vibes and he knows that I am unsettled and it unsettles him ‘cos he does need me to take care of him. He can’t manage on his own. And he loves me. It makes me sad when I’m so mean to him. 

I also think I resent him because he is now one of the only links I have left with my abuser. I made the mistake of telling my ex that he could have access to the dog once I had left whenever he wished. I did it to stop him kicking off at me. I thought that perhaps if I gave him some hope and a tie he could keep that it would appease him and it did. It worked. But now I have been away from him for three months and I am enjoying my freedom, I resent the fact that I have this tie with him. 

So then after I have been mean I take myself off for a minute or two to clear my head and I come back downstairs and doggie is laying in his bed, all forlorn and sheepish and I go over to him and gather up his face in my hands and kiss him and tell him I’m sorry and explain why mom was mean and give him a biscuit and it’s all okay again. 

I’ve decided to send him on a dog holiday. Not into custody in some flea-ridden kennels but actually away on a dog holiday where he gets to hang out with chums and play and do some fun work and comes back all rejuvenated and trained and happy. Then the both of us will go on a fun training course together where I get to learn to be a GREAT dog master and he gets to enjoy agility, obedience and other stuff and he gets to see that I can be a good owner and we do it together. I’m soooooooo looking forward to it – and if he had conscious thought capacity like we humans – I’m sure he would be too!

In a phone call yesterday my husband declared (in his usual petulant way): “Well, I might as well sue for divorce then, being as there is no hope of a reconciliation”. It has been fully three months since I left him. 

My first thought was thank god! Saves me the bother. But then I started to feel bad and get quite depressed about it. The reason, I guess, is that it just makes it absolutely plain and clear that he never really loved me and still doesn’t. And that makes me sad because with all the charm and gushing affection at the beginning and in recent weeks I believed he did. Seems he never did though, being as he finds it so very easy to dismiss me now that I am no longer prepared to tow the line and no longer any used to him. I have become dispensable – and the sooner the better. He probably already has his next victim in his sights. Poor girl. 

Ah well, good riddance.