What’s something in your life you need to get rid of??

I can only think of one thing here, would love to say it’s a minor thing but it’s not, it’s bloody huge!! Well to me it’s huge anyway. So other than the obvious, anxiety, I would love to get rid of my fear of my ex, of living the life I want to have because of him. Sounds like more than one thing there doesn’t it, but it’s not. It all links back to him! I can’t go to certain places because I’m scared/worried/anxious (you name it, I’m that emotion – well other than the good ones anyway), the thought that he might be there, that I could see him, that keeps me away from those places. I live in a city but I am confined to only going to certain areas of that city, not because he’s told me I can’t go to them, but because of my fear of him, my worry that he’ll be round the next corner, that he’ll try and come back into our lives if he saw us. I saw him at the local supermarket a few months ago, first time I’ve seen him in about 4 years and I was a mess. He spoke to me as if nothing had happened, as if he has had no lasting effect on me. How dare he!!? How fucking dare he! My children were with me, my daughter (who has the unfortunate luck of having him as her father) was with me. She didn’t recognise him because 5 years ago she told him she didn’t want to see him anymore. I have never left a shop so fast, I chucked all my shopping into the trolley, didn’t pack it into bags, just wanted to get out of there before he was finished. Wanted to get in my car and drive away before he could see what car I drive now, before he could come over and try to come back into our lives. I was shaking, I was trying so hard not to cry as I chucked it all into the boot of the car and on the way home, whilst looking in my rear view mirror to see if he’d seen me leave the carpark, I cried. Thankfully I don’t live too far away from the shop we were in, so didn’t have far to drive in that state but I was a mess and having to try to keep it together in front of your children is bloody hard I can tell you that much. My daughter is old enough to know something was up, she knows bits about what things were like, she was 3 when we split up and vaguely remembers bits, but the main thing she knows is the effect it’s had on me since. She sees that a lot, I never slag him off to her, in front of her etc, but I can not hide the way he makes me, the white knuckles as I follow a sat nav and take a wrong turn, the sharpening of a kitchen knife, you know, the things you should be able to do like a ‘normal’ person. I hate that word, normal!! What even is that!!?

I do go on don’t I, I’ve come away from the point of the post……so what I really would love to get rid of in my life is my ex and the way he makes me feel/still controls me in some ways even after almost 10 years of not being together.

my head is still fucked by my ex

`My ex has effected me in so many ways, none of them good!

I can’t drive a car using a satnav, i turn into an emotional mess, gripping the steering wheel, tears rolling down my cheeks, picking my fingers (which my therapist said is a way of me self harming)

The reason – I’d drive to places i didn’t know, following a satnav, if i got any turn wrong, i’d have him shouting, getting angry, swearing at me. He threatened to throw it out the window once, hit the satnav before, where i thought he was going to smash the windscreen. He stormed off in the middle of somewhere i didn’t know, leaving me, our daughter and a friend, who looked very awkward to have witnessed it, in the end the friend went to find him. All of this has gone towards making me a very nervous driver.

I can’t sharpen a knife without memories rushing back, without shaking.

The reason – there are so many times that he’d sit in that kitchen, sharpening a knife, to ‘kill himself’ he’d push it into his wrist, so i could see it denting his skin, he never meant to do it, just scare me.

I hate/dread confrontation. So many years of being scared of what reaction you could get, not knowing how something would be taken. I used to, and still do, play a conversation out in my head, thinking how the other person will react to how/what i say. If i think it could go wrong, i then think of another way of saying it. Sometimes this could take over 10 minutes. Another thing i would do was count to 10 and then say whatever it was. Sometimes i’d count to 10 maybe 10 or more times. So obviously that never worked.  But it was like a comfort thing, would give me something to think about.

The reason – i would never know how he would take something, would never know what reaction i was going to get out of him. This is a man who threw a remote control towards me because he burnt a yorkshire pudding (never intended on it hitting me, but it landed right next to my head to scare me) confrontation was scary with him so in the end, i just never spoke about things i wasn’t happy with, wanted to talk about etc. This was how i ended up being even more unhappy. Would just take whatever shit was thrown at me. Plus, the last time i did speak about something i felt/thought which was that i didn’t want to be with him anymore, didn’t love him, my life of hell got 10 times worse. So anything that could possibly cause confrontation now, i’m reminded of that last time, which is why i can’t do it. I mainly have to talk to people about my feelings/thoughts in text, even now. Getting better with my partner, but everyone else, it’s still text.

walking up the stairs to my flat, i’m getting better at this, but sometimes i still see him hanging there. So walking up to my own home, i struggle with that sometimes.

The reason – he came to the flats, phoned me and told me i’d see what i had done in the morning. When i finally got the courage to go out of the flat door, i realised he was hanging by the tow rope from the camper van. I thought at first he was messing around, walked down to him very cautiously then realised his lips were blue. His plan had gone wrong! He had scared me so much i had taken longer than he thought to go out and check on him. He was dead! With the help of my sister and her boyfriend at the time, we got him down, saved his life. I will never forget the sound of his breathing when we cut him down.

I had years and years of emotional and mental abuse from this man, sometimes i wish it had been physical instead. The emotional and mental scars, they go so much deeper. Even now, 4 years after breaking up with him, they still jump up and surprise me when i least expect them.  When i finally got the courage to end it, my life got 10 times worse. I didn’t think that was possible. He threatened my life on a daily basis, telling me just how he was going to kill me, even threatening to pour a pot of boiling water over my head, in front of our daughter, who at the time was 3! I was so scared of coming home alone, sometimes that feeling is still there. I walk up the stairs to the flat, looking to see if i can see his feet at the top. If i hear a motorbike nearby, i panic, thinking its him, desperately looking around, hoping its not – it never is! There was one time though, driving along with my partner and daughter and a motorbike behind me, it was him! I was a mess. He knew it was us in the car, instead of going around, stayed right behind in the traffic jam. this was only this year! I rarely go out now, not through choice. Two reason are i like being home with my children and i don’t have many people who i could ask to babysit, but the main reason, if i go out to where ‘friends’ are, there is a chance he will be there too. He stares at me, making me nervous. When i see him, even now, i can’t make eye contact with him. I’ve not been able to since he hung himself. I get nervous, want to cry, shake.

My head is still a mess, i got reminded of just how much today. Confrontation is still something that i really can not do. Don’t think i’ll be able to for quite some time.

I hate that even now he still effects me, still stops me doing things, why should he be able to fuck with my head even now! But he can! I’m so close to being divorced. Some people just didn’t understand why i was so desperate to divorce him, even some family. But then no-one knows just how bad things were for all those years, so why would they understand. I NEED that divorce, I need to feel that I, me, has done that. Because of me, i’m free from him. I’m hoping that once i get it, that i will finally feel free from that monster.

why I want/need my divorce

I can’t believe I’m so close to the end of this nightmare!! Some people have questioned why I’m so desperate for a divorce. I don’t want to be married to a man who made my life hell, who I hate more than I thought was possible. I don’t want him thinking he can still control me. I don’t just want the divorce, I need it!
For years he drained the person I was out of me, I slowly became a shell instead of who I was. People would think I was grumpy, moody etc. They didn’t realise that the reason I seemed that way was because I had years of being in the background, years of being unhappy, years of not being me.
When I got married, did I do it because I was in love? No!! I can easily say that I never loved that man! When I met him, I was just 16. I had this 22 year old telling me he ‘loved’ me within weeks of seeing each other. I was a child, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want this man telling me that and me to say nothing. So I told him I loved him too. Didn’t want to disappoint. Over the years I made myself believe I did love him. Within the first year of being with him (bearing in mind I was just 16/17) I had to go to his local and calm him down as he’d gone mad with a knife, had to phone for an ambulance as he’d taken an overdose. Not secretly, not the way someone who actually wants to commit suicide does, but telling me what he was going to do, then locking himself in a room with me on the outside scared shitless. He had to have his stomach pumped. There were loads of times he’d use a knife, letting me see him pushing it into his wrist, not cutting it, just so I could see that he was pushing it in, hard. I was scared of what he would do next. There was one time, I was maybe 23 by then, he went onto the balcony of the flat, locked the door behind him, telling me he was going to jump. In the end I ended up punching my hand through the glass door to stop him (he was never going to do it, again it was being done for a reaction from me, to scare me) I was so lucky that the glass never cut my wrists. He locked me in a room with him, using a drill and screws to screw it shut. He threw a BB gun at me, hard enough to dent the door. He didn’t throw it at me to hit me, he threw it at me, to miss, but to scare me.
He asked me to marry him within weeks of seeing him. I said yes, doing what I thought I should do, not knowing how to disappoint him by saying no. My wedding day, was it the ‘happiest’ day of my life, no. Far from it. I was nervous but because of the fact I was going to have loads of people watching me. Hate being the centre of attention. I stopped going out with my own friends quite early on. The reason – he’d have to come with me. He’d embarrass me so much! Get drunk, have to be the centre of attention, drawing attention to the group of friends, I hated that. Just wanted him to go, stop being a knob! So it was easier for me not to go out, the start of the fading into the background. (I was still a teenager at that time!)
Anyway, back to my wedding day. I sat and watched cartoons on the day. I didn’t get married til 4pm. I wasn’t excited, just nervous. I was getting married to a man who scared me, who made me someone I’m not. The reason I got married, because it was what the next step was, what was expected of me. My dress, I didn’t like it. I just chose a pattern and his mum made it. The cake, I didn’t like it, just told his sister that yes the idea she had was nice. Didn’t want to disappoint again. Didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, upset them. At the reception, I didn’t see him really. The only photo from that day with me actually smiling, a real smile I mean, is sat talking to a friend, I can’t remember the conversation but I remember seeing the photos and being sad. Knowing that the rest of the photos, it was a pretend smile. It was my wedding day, you’re meant to be so happy on your wedding day.
I carried on with life. My life consisted of work and the pub. We’d be in there Friday night, Saturday all day, Saturday night and quite often Sundays too. Don’t get me wrong, I have met some awesome people, some great friends because of this lifestyle. But being in a pub all weekend, that wasn’t what I wanted. The alternative would be to stay home with a man, who to this day, I don’t think we had a real conversation.
It was that that started making me think that maybe I didn’t love this man. I’d done such a good job over the years in fooling myself, telling myself I must love him. That was the right thing to do after all wasn’t it. To fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. Why wasn’t I feeling the ‘happily ever after’ why couldn’t we just sit and talk, about anything and everything. That’s how it’s meant to be, being in love. Having your best friend, the love of your life. Why wasn’t it like that!! I started realising that Id never loved him, it had never been that way. We just went to the pub, got drunk, went home. In the week, I’d watch tv, he’d play his games, I’d go to bed early just for something to do. We never just sat and talked. This wasn’t what it was meant to be like. Having my daughter, that kept me going. She is amazing, she is everything to me. Finally I had something to do, being a mummy. The best feeling in the world. I was happy to be at home, not go out as much (once a month if that) but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to still go out all the time. We had a child, lifestyles are meant to change as you grow up, things happen and things change. Having a child wasn’t one of those things for him. When I was pregnant, he rarely came to midwife appointments, would never touch my tummy when we were out. When I went into labour, it was 2am when the pain started. I didn’t tell him til 7am after I’d spoken to the midwife. She told me to have a bath, I was just in the early stages. He went out for the whole day pretty much. He did go and buy me a nighty for the hospital and some food for dinner. He came home, cooked food and put a DVD on. By now I was kneeling on the sofa, facing the back of it, in too much pain to eat. I told him we had to go to hospital. He wasn’t happy. He hadn’t finished his dinner or watched the film. We got a taxi. At the hospital, I wasn’t dialated enough yet, so they put us in a room. Was he supportive, helping me, being there for me? No! He sat on the bed, I was kneeling on the floor next to the bed as the pain was easier to bear like that. He put some headphones on, told me to stop swearing so much and then put the tv screen between me and him. So he couldn’t hear me or see me. For years we ‘joked’ about that. It wasn’t funny!! It wasn’t something to joke about. When I was pushing (which ended up being for a couple of hours as she was back to back – not an easy labour) he sat next to me, offering me no words of encouragement, not even holding my hand. When my daughter was born it was amazing, she was perfect! I had to be taken to theatre to be stitched up as I’d torn quite bad. I expected to come back to see him holding her, but no. He wasn’t even sat next to her cot!! My mum came to see me quite soon after having her (I was still in the observation ward, I’d had to have a spinal block to be stitched) he left with her. Told me he was going home to sleep because he was full of cold and hadn’t slept. He left just a few hours after she was born. I found out a while after that he hadn’t gone home, he’d gone to the pub, had got pissed. He didn’t come back that day (I had her at 10.12am) the next day, was he back as soon as he could be? No! It was possibly 11am by the time he showed up! We had a newborn baby ffs!
When she got older, I started writing her a diary, for when she’s older. If was then I realised he rarely done anything with us, with her.
For a couple of years, the reason I stayed with him was for her. I thought that was what was meant to happen, the mum and dad stay together no matter what. I was so unhappy in the marriage by now. It was when I started searching online ‘how to end relationships, how do you know you don’t love someone’ that I realised that was enough! I read somewhere ‘you have one life, don’t waste it’ which is exactly what I was doing. I was spending the life I had unhappy.
I was so scared of telling him I didn’t love him. I had to tell him I didn’t love him anymore but years ago I had realised I never loved him. At first he was sad, then went to ‘kill himself’.  At the start, things were ok, I went to the doctors with him about his anger (he had scared me for so many years, I had finally told him!) it was the same doctor who told me that I had post traumatic stress. I remember sitting there with him, telling the doctor the things he done to scare me, him sitting there listening. The doctor offered him help. A few months after that appointment, I had to go to the doctors for some reason, it was the same doctor. He looked at me, concern in his eyes and asked if I was ok now. He’d remembered that appointment.
I went to the council with him, to help him with finding somewhere to live. It was going well, we were still getting on, which was great for my daughter. Then one day, that changed!

One day he stopped wanting it to be calm between us, stopped wanting to try and stay friends for the sake of our daughter.  It was then that my life of hell was kicked up a couple of notches.  I would have daily, sometimes hourly threats for my life, being told exactly how you’re going to be killed, not a good feeling. The police confiscated a cross bow from him as i’d been told by him that i’d have a bolt through my head. He tried pouring boiling water over my head, again i don’t think he’d have done it, was all just to scare me, this was all in front of our 3 year old daughter!! That was what he was like, it was all mental and emotional abuse, years of that can really change a person.  I was driving him to a friends one day, because he had told me to drive him there, on the way, he tried taking the steering wheel out of my hands, to make the car swerve. I was a mess by the time he got out of the car.  He would still come and lay next to me in our bed, i would lay there with my dressing gown on, pyjamas on, and as close to the edge as i could possibly get, as far away from him as i could get. One of those nights i ended up being pinned in to the corner of the room, him looming over me. I slept on the sofa. He came round one night, calm, i let him in, we were talking fine. But actually, the calm was more scary, he went to the kitchen then to the balcony. When he came back in, he was stood funny, hiding part of his body with the door. I had managed to get a chance to text my sister who had been living there at the time, i text her saying he’s here, he’s not being nice. She thankfully phoned the police. I heard the door go, she was there with police with her, i heard a policeman say do you have anything else on you, he had had a knife behind his wrist, that was why he was hiding part of his body. He hung himself in the hallway of the flats one night too, telling me by phone i’d see what i had done in the morning. Again, if someone wants to kill themselves, they don’t do it somewhere that they’ll be found before it works, wont tell someone they’re doing it before hand. I had to save his life that night with the help of my sister and her boyfriend.

So as you can see, i have valid reasons for wanting this divorce, needing this divorce!!