I live with my partner who I have been with for many years. I have one daughter with him and two other children from my first husband. He gets on with my son but he doesn’t get on with my eldest daughter as she has always disliked the way he treats me.
He has never really put any money into our relationship and for years only given me housekeeping money, and still does. If we argued or I didn’t have sex with him he would say I wasn’t getting any money at all. Every month even now I have to ask him for my housekeeping. I have asked him to set up a standing order to pay the money into my bank so I don’t have to ask each month, but he just ignores my request. I pay all the bills and mortgage and for the food, his money is his money, I don’t even know how much he earns, and he has his payslip sent to his works not his home. He has been unfaithful to me, and has not supported me financially, neither has he supported me with the house whether that be housework or maintenance.
He spends his money on many things and everything is in excess and not moderation.
I have brought up three children and have worked very hard in my career to get where I am in my job, which is a senior post. I have always done the shopping, cooking, the washing (although he constantly reminds me that I do not do the washing the washing machine does) and ironing.
He has also been physically violent towards me, on many occasions, and has always said that I deserved it.
A couple of years ago, he went out for a drink with friends, where they started drinking at lunch time. I wasn’t supposed to be picking him up but he rang me later that evening and asked me to pick him up from a pub. He said he would buy me a drink and to meet him in the pub. As soon as I saw him I could see he had had a lot to drink, and I knew that once he is at this stage he can become unreasonable and argumentative. We went home and I went upstairs to watch the last episode of my favourite TV series but my telly wouldn’t work properly so I asked him if he would have a look at it. What ensued was carnage!
He punched me twice in the face and knocked me out. I rang the police and he was arrested, charged and fined, and received community service. He was upset the next day when he was released and saw what he had done to me. I did feel he was genuinely sorry but I have never forgiven him.
We stayed together and, low and behold, got married on my milestone birthday. Things were great leading up to the surprise wedding and for the six months thereafter, but once again he has slipped back into his normal ways which is to generally ignore me, and just do his own thing, whether that be his hobbies, going out day drinking with his friends or continuing to spend money on himself and not sharing any responsibilities.
Just before Covid-19, he became unwell and was suffering with bad panic attacks. He went to the doctors, and was prescribed antidepressants. I added him to my private health insurance policy at work so he could be fast tracked. He hasn’t rung the number I gave him, and takes the tablets as and when he feels unwell which do not work, but maybe makes him feel better in a psychological way. He has worked from home since March and seems to be enjoying it. Due to the nature of my job, I have continued to go to work and both have been massively tested by the situation we find ourselves in with Covid-19.
A few weeks ago, he went out drinking in the afternoon with his friend. I picked them both up, dropped his friend home then drove to our house. Whilst driving home, my husband started getting argumentative. I knew when I picked him up from the pub, he was drunker than normal. Once we got home, I decided to go next door and see my friend, an elderly neighbour, in order to remove myself from a potentially explosive situation. My husband said he was taking the dogs out. I put a bottle of red wine in my porch which was a mistake as he found it before he took the dogs out and all hell let loose!
He asked me if I was going to see my friend, our elderly neighbour. I said yes I was, he then started screaming in my face saying "No you're not you are staying here; you are not f****** going next door." He said I had planned this and he was not having it. I hadn’t planned anything, in fact I had made us a curry during the day, and I was going to eat this with him then go upstairs a watch a film that evening. I had actually told my daughter about this during the day.
He then tried three times to smash the bottle of red wine on the kitchen floor which he eventually did, and glass went everywhere, he then punched me in the face knocking me out and I fell onto the floor. My nose was pouring with blood and he then grabbed hold of my neck and bashed my head onto the handle of the oven door. He then kicked me in the side twice with his shoes on, and threw a large stainless-steel bin at me twice whilst I was on the floor. I was begging him to stop but he did not.
When he had finished, I asked him to ring my youngest daughter but he just passed me my phone. I couldn’t see to dial her number as he had smashed my glasses, so I asked him to call her. My daughter came with her fiancé and they were both very upset at what they encountered. My daughter was screaming at her father to get out of the house, but all he kept saying was ‘It’s just a little bit of blood!’ Her fiancé wanted to ring the police but my daughter was scared because of what happened last time that he would end up in prison and lose his job. My daughter got my neighbour to take her father to his house until she sorted me out, but when my neighbour saw me he too was very upset. He said that whilst my husband was at his house all he kept saying was that I don’t do anything in the house, that I am jealous of the neighbours and that his father use to hit his mother. My neighbour said he turned everything around and said it was all my fault.
My daughter took me to her house and bathed me and cleaned up my face, she wanted to take me to the hospital but I wouldn’t go.
The next day my husband rang me in the morning but I didn’t answer the phone. He sent me a text saying "sorry", my daughter laughed when she read the message and said "Is that it?"
I went back home and nothing has really been said about what happened. The only thing he’s said is "You know I am sorry, don't you?"
I have told him I am looking at moving out, and he has asked me to wait until his father's house has sold. I’m not sure if that means he is moving out; we’re selling this house or what?
He has now asked me to write down everything I do in the house on a daily basis? I asked why I needed to do that and he said he wanted to see this written down. So, if I do this and it shows that he does more than me, will that justify his actions on the night that he beat me?
I have also written to him, but he hasn’t even acknowledged this. One minute I hate him, the next I go into panic about being on my own at 60 something years old. I am not perfect at all but I have always worked hard and tried to please my family.
I need some guidance and support to stop me being so pathetic and forgiving and weak. Please help me!
Your email tells a very typical story, similar to others who have written to me recently. Like those other people, you’re neither pathetic nor weak. You’ve done the best you could possibly do in the face of domestic abuse.
But as is nearly always the case, like many in similar situations to yours, the repeated abuse gradually wears you down. It wears you down to the point where you come to believe that if you could only do something differently – like get your partner to understand, see your point of view or even just explain why they behave as they do, then something positive would happen. Well (and here’s the very challenging bit) that’s unlikely.
The consistent undermining, emotional and physical abuse over many years are tried and trusted methods used by abusers the world over. A particular favourite technique is to encourage you to think all this is down to you. That if only you got things right or better or towed the party line more efficiently then the abuse will stop.
This often goes hand in hand with the message that really, the abuser is actually doing all this for your own good and that they know you better than you know yourself. These ‘tricks of the trade’, as it were, are all designed to prevent victims from being themselves and feeling able to thrive in what should be healthy, respectful and caring relationships.
It’s also impossible to overestimate the impact domestic abuse has not only on the victim but also on those around them. Children, even when they’re grown up with families of their own, can be a really helpful support to a victim. But they too suffer from seeing a parent being treated so badly and often feel constrained by the exact same rules the abuser has laid down for their victim.
Abusers are not monsters but what they do is monstrous. They’re entirely responsible for their actions. No one makes them do it no matter what they might tell you otherwise. Although there may be many reasons why your husband chooses to behave as he does, none of them excuse the behaviours you so eloquently describe.
When you’re undermined, fearful and consistently told you’re worthless, it's hard to get your head round having any independence. Even where a relationship has simply run its course, with no domestic abuse of any kind, when you’ve been with someone for many years, the thought of starting over can feel very daunting and obviously needs careful consideration. Taking a big step at any stage in life is always difficult if we feel unconfident and afraid of what might happen and how we’d manage. Why would it be otherwise?
One of the key points about coercive controllers is that whilst they bully, undermine and hurt their victims, they’re usually desperately fearful that their victim might get away. This is why so many women are killed or seriously injured by their partner at the point of leaving the relationship or post doing so. I’m always concerned to hear about situations where the victim of the kinds of behaviours you’re experiencing is talking with others in an attempt to boost their confidence so that they can either confront their abuser, leave the relationship or both. This is because abusers can usually spot increases in confidence in their victim a mile off and to maintain what they’ve usually put a great deal of effort into securing, they ‘up the ante’ as it were. This is often done by increasing ‘rules’ and becoming more threatening and controlling. This is why it’s so important to seek professional support to help you think about your options and how you can become safer.
There’s lots of organisations that support victims of domestic abuse. If you make contact, they're not going to tell you to leave him ‘right now’ or to involve people like the police, unless you want them to. What they will do though, is help you think through your options and what you may want to consider to help you be safer. You’re already thinking about moving out and they can help you to think about the best way of doing that. But having worked with many people over the years, I know how scary it can feel to involve external agencies or the police. That’s understandable, but domestic abuse thrives in silent, scared and dark places with the victim feeling they can’t tell anyone what’s happening. It's what abusers rely on. So, sometimes just having a conversation with someone whose job it is to properly support others to become safer can be the very first step to feeling able to make the decisions that are right for you.
So, in conclusion, you want to move out and he’s asked you to wait until other things have happened. I suggest that you’re wary about that request and focus on making links with those who can help and that should include financial and legal advice too. It sounds like you’ve made a decision and if that’s the case then getting help to action it in the safest possible way is paramount.
Oh, and a word on forgiveness. Forgiving him, if that’s what feels right for you is fine and you shouldn’t equate it with being either weak or pathetic as you note above. But if that is what feels right for you, make sure you do it from a healthy distance – your physical and mental health are seriously at risk here so focus on your own welfare, rather than on what might be good for him.
Do you have a question to ask Ammanda?
Ammanda Major is a sex and relationship therapist and our Head of Service Quality and Clinical Practice
If you have a relationship worry you would like some help with send a message to Ammanda.
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