SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm so sad for you. I recognize so many of the things you are describing, mostly the emotional abuse and throwing everything back on you. It's crushing.

NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!!! NONE!!!

You can find your strength, I know you can. There are so many wise people here who can help show you the way.

stretch has really really good advice for you. One tiny strand at a time. That is how we change.

And I do understand how hard it is to leave and I also understand how you can still love him and feel you need him. That is normal.

You do what you can, and then you rest. Then you do a little bit more, then you rest again. What you wrote about the social workers and lawyers and court battles....ugh! No one is ever ready for that stuff! It is just one day at a time, and most processes move slowly.

Just again, be careful while you are educating yourself and gathering your strength. Don't let him know. I am sure it took me over a year to leave while I worked on figuring out how I was going to support myself and my 4 kids.

Meantime, extend your support circle. Find a way to make friends IRL. Talk to an advocate at a woman's shelter. Get a counselor. None of these things are going to change your life quickly, but they will just add a little extra support and help you be strong when you don't feel strong and you need it.

I didnt read all of this thread but I can relate to much of what Ive read.

I have been apart from my WS/STBX for 2 months now. Never thought I could do it!

I was abused starting 2 weeks b4 I was M.

Big hugs to you. You CAN do this!

I read this.

I went outside, its really hot here today.

And then looked down to read your From: and saw this.

From: hell

(((itsovernow)))

(((itsovernow)))

I have been reading this thread and my heart goes out to you.

I worked at a women's shelter for years, and one thing that we had available was both individual counseling and support groups for women who were not in shelter. During those groups, we had groups running for the children, staffed by children's specialists, whose job wasn't necessarily to get the kids talking but to give mother's peace of mind, knowing the kids were safe and close by while they were in group. Sometimes a staff member or volunteer would be available to watch little ones while moms when to individual counseling or (for those living with us) out of the shelter for appointments, job hunting, etc. I can't speak for shelters around the world or the country, but all of our services were free, and they still are. People working in the field know that women don't always have access to money. you don't need to be physically abused to qualify- the emotional abuse you're dealing with is more than enough! Frankly, I have come to the point of believing that a spouse having an affair, whether physical or "only" emotional, is abusive itself.

There is no way that this is your fault, not even the fact that childbirth changed your body. Here's a different take on that. I am a very small woman, diabetic, and had a typical diabetic mother's baby- huge. She walked out on her own and demanded a drink and smoke (I knew I was in trouble then, but that's another story). The baby blew my skin out plenty, but, as they say in infomercials- but wait, there's more! I was toxemic, and gaining a pound or more each night. I cleared 200 pounds and then some before The Moose Baby finally arrived. When I was thin, my skin hung like the criss-crossed curtains my mother always favored, and my stretch marks had blown-out, varicose veins in them. All over my body (I'm really a very beautiful woman if you like stripes!). But you know what? I am proud of the changes in my body. They are proof of the most important thing I did in my life, and could ever do: I brought a baby into this world. Could you, would you consider this point of view about yourself? The weight, the tum, the marks- they are all service stripes that you earned doing the most important job in the world- giving life.

Please, please think of your beautiful children and ask- is this the kind of man I want my sons to grow up to be? is this the kind of man I want my daughter to marry? Those are the likely outcomes when kids grow up around abuse.

And you dohave skills. You have been raising children, which makes you much more qualified to work in daycare than the high school girls they often hire. And I'll bet you can clean like nobody's business- I see cleaning jobs even in my dinky small town paper. You can cook- schools, camps, nursing homes, assisted living places always need kitchen assistance. You probably have other skills you don't recognize. Some IC's will help you recognize your abilities and interests and help you build on them.

Please, please don't give up, and please keep posting.

God bless you,

Junco

its over, im coming on to check on you. Ive been thinking about you. It is understandable your fears and being afraid of the court battles, etc. Thankfully you do not have to do it all today. One step at a time. I thought another poster put it so beautifully when talking about detangling one strand at a time, and that is exactly what you should do. One step at a time, baby steps. First thing is be selfish-yes its hard as a mom (boy do I know!) but any gift you give yourself to become stronger and happier is a huge gift to your children. Go to counseling and do not have you H come! Tell him the IC is only wanting to speak to you for now. Start doing things for you that will help you rebuild yourself.

You have a lot to be proud of, you brought 5 babies into this world have despite having an abusive husband you are doing wonderfully with them. You love and cherish them and it comes through in every post. Slowly with IC I truly believe you will start to understand things and start to see a path or a light at the end of the tunnel. Its ok to be afraid-heck, we have all been afraid on this board! Remember just one step at a time. Be kind to yourself and believe and know you deserve kindness in your life, love, respect, honor. Your husband isnt doing this, not even sure he is capable. Believe in yourself and keep posting as you have a lot of us out here rooting for you, praying for you, thinking of you and sending strength to you and your children.

I am going to try to find a counselor, and that may be harder then I thought. My h came home last night and without a word, gave me a new insurance card. Great. I see a dr. for medication, he may not even take this new insurance.

I need help. When he is always saying I should have just had trust in him and he actually asked me last night, "if you leave, what are you going to do for finances?"

This is what scares me.

Staying active helps preserve your sanity. Contact the insurance, ask if there are restrictions for providers, what the copay is, etc, and see if they can email you info on your policy.

You can ask your doctor for a referral to IC. Say it's urgent, you're dealing with abuse and need help.

Those are two things you can do for yourself today.

Good luck.

WH making you question whether or not you can survive without him is just a continuation of the abuse he's been subjecting you to for years. You have children and are the primary caretaker. What he's probably really worried about is what will he do to make ends meet if you divorce him. I won't lie, divorce sucks for everyone financially. But, he will not have the financial freedom he does now. He will have to pay you alimony and child support. See PM

"if you leave, what are you going to do for finances?"

This is what scares me.

and WH says, "mission accomplished!" he's trying to scare you. he's trying to make you feel worthless and as though you aren't strong enough or good enough to live life without him. he wants you to believe that you are so pathetic like he has the corner on survival instincts and skills. he's never seen a mother when her babies are threatened!!!! he thinks we are weak.

he controls you with fear. he knows what worries you and pushes that button.

wouldn't you be scared about finances anyway, if he hadn't said this? hell yeah - aren't we all at this point? his statement is just him being captain obvious while pushing you down. lots of people have gotten out and found out just how much stronger a person they are than the one who has been making them feel weak all these years. they find out how people should be treated and lose total respect for their former "leader."

i'd be willing to bet that the "voice" of your fear, the one in your head that feeds you doubts and negativity, repeats the same negativity he spouts, the same phrases, words...you might even hear his voice in your fear! you are allowing him to beat you down even when he's not around! he's trained you to do that.

the negative statements are all the things you've heard about yourself, what he's told you, your mother, your father, every bully in your life...but it's not YOU! what do they know? hell, you don't even know yet how awesome you really are.

you are good enough. you are strong enough. weaker people have been where you are and survived...even thrived. if they can you can too! and don't let someone else with selfish motives make you think otherwise. all the negativity that you think is you being realistic is just the voice of fear railing against change...the voice of WH too.

keep on going ((((ion)))))

ETA: fixed lots of meaningful typos... i'm proofing faster than i can read.

[This message edited by stretch13 at 9:55 AM, May 30th (Wednesday)]

When he is always saying I should have just had trust in him and he actually asked me last night, "if you leave, what are you going to do for finances?"

LOL! One could ask HIM the same question. With 5 kids, after he's done paying court-ordered child support every month, he'll be lucky to be living in a van down by the river.

Why does each day seem to be getting harder to get through?

I found a local APRN that does counseling. I'm hoping that switching from a dr to aprn will take care of the medication issue and counseling issues. I haven't called yet, just found her.

It seems that each step is hard. Maybe I'm scared of the what ifs. That seems to be an on-going problem with me. Whats ifs, does she take my insurance, will she even care about my problems, will she switch my medication, all these things keep going through my mind.

[This message edited by itsovernow at 12:35 PM, May 30th (Wednesday)]

The "what-if" will torture you if you let them.

Take this one step at a time. First focus on getting the phone number - check - next make a list of important questions, what time, where located, what insurance, philosophy, etc. - check - next focus on placing the call - check - next focus on going to the appointment.

One step at a time. Prepare, plan and be in control.

Whats ifs, does she take my insurance, will she even care about my problems, will she switch my medication, all these things keep going through my mind.

Like k9 says, one step at a time. What if she doesn't take your insurance? Ok. You will find someone else. What if she doesn't care about your problems? Rare, but if that is the case, you will find someone else. What if she wants to mess with your meds? Then you will tell her you are doing well with the ones you are on (after you listen to what she has to say, because she may see things we don't and she may actually have a point. Go in with an open mind, but don't be afraid to advocate for yourself and what you need.)

The fear is immobilizing you. Once you start taking small steps, you will find that you are getting stronger and stronger and it isn't quite as scary as you thought it was. And don't forget, we are all here helping you with every step!

HE will need to got a second job so he can buy him some beans to eat after paying YOU child support and hopefully alimony on top of it! He is the one that needs to worry about being broke, not you. Please go see a lawyer and know your rights. Some lawyers will do a free consultation for the first visit. If not, the fee is worth the peace of mind you will get and it will shut him up.

I was a lot like you in some ways, and not so much in others.

"if you leave, what are you going to do for finances?"

I just estimated child support for you. If your husband makes $40,000 a year he will have to pay you roughly $1326 a month and pay for health insurance for the children.

The state will not take your children away from you. Especially after you relate all of your husband's behavior to a lawyer. Especially with a past assault charge on him.

Now, you will probably have to get a job of some sort, but that can be worked out, believe it or not.

I can tell you a little about me. My first husband hit me, so I left him. We had been together 11 years. I was beyond crushed, didn't get enough counseling, and wound up pregnant with my current husband's child roughly 10 months later.

My (current) husband was always selfish and controlling, but he got worse and worse over time until just before Dday he was having 2 affairs, and drinking and abusing prescription drugs. he never helped with the kids.

I made a lot of bad choices, partly due to my parents just being WEIRD but mostly because I have manic-depression and I needed many years of medication and intense therapy to deal with that.

I would say that on Dday I was tremendously codependent. I actually wanted to run back to my first husband, how awful is that? I wanted to be saved.

What I learned is that you have to be your own hero.

My husband threatened to take my children away from me. The main OW (the 20 year LTA chick) was a two-faced person. I was fortunate enough to have hired her former nanny, who clued me into some of her dark side behavior once she knew we weren't "friends" anymore (and why)

I was pregnant on Dday, and my child was born disabled. I think one of the most frightening things I've ever heard in my life ... I asked nanny if she thought OW would hurt my daughter (OW always wanted a girl but has 3 sons) and nanny replied "It's just not that hard to make the death of a disabled baby look like an accident."

The stakes in keeping OW away from my children were high. She had pulled a knife on me about a year and a half before Dday, so I agreed with nanny's assessement that she was batshit crazy. Nanny also said she'd been beaten by OW, that OW hit her kids and that when my oldest DS had been to OW's house for an emergency sleepover when a younger child was hospitalized OW had locked my DS in a dark room to scream all night to teach him not to be afraid of the dark.

So, just for bonus points I was being abused by both my fWH and his AP.

I would say, in general, that it's largely useless to try to get an abuser to stop. In my case, it was critical, because fWH was trying to harm the children physically even in my presence. Eventually, my counselor called Child Services. I had to deal witht them too, mostly by making it clear that I was 100% prepared to leave and take the kids. BTW -- my husband did NOT hit our child -- I had stopped him that time too -- but he did hold him down and deliberately scare him. It was enough for us to get investigated. Emotional abuse is serious.

Counseling was critical to me. My fWH goes to counseling too. Some resources that helped me were narcissimcured.com (narcissism is not cureable, but you CAN learn techniques to deal with narcissists effectively) co-dependent no more (book by Melody beattie), lovefraud.com, The Verbally Abusive Man (book) and Necessary Endings (book by Henry Cloud). I also got support from my priest (who urged me to leave) and by being honest with some close friends and my family.

I did not expect to stay married -- what I expected was to establish some strong boundaries so that my children would be safe when having visitation with fWH.

It's baby steps. But you need free resources and that's why we are all urging you to contact a women's shelter.

You can call 211 to get information on finding a shelter near you. The 24 hour state domestic violence hotline is 888-774-2900

From the National Domestic Violence Hotline's website:

Am I Being Abused?

How is your relationship?Does your partner:

Embarrass you with put-downs?

Look at you or act in ways that scare you?

Control what you do, who you see or talk to or where you go?

Stop you from seeing your friends or family members?

Take your money or Social Security check, make you ask for money or refuse to give you money?

Make all of the decisions?

Tell you that you’re a bad parent or threaten to take away or hurt your children?

Prevent you from working or attending school?

Act like the abuse is no big deal, it’s your fault, or even deny doing it?

Destroy your property or threaten to kill your pets?

Intimidate you with guns, knives or other weapons?

Shove you, slap you, choke you, or hit you?

Force you to try and drop charges?

Threaten to commit suicide?

Threaten to kill you?

If you answered ‘yes’ to even one of these questions,

you may be in an abusive relationship.

For support and more information please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or at TTY 1-800-787-3224.

Honestly, it was learning that I was having a girl the 4th time that changed everything for me and "woke me up" so to speak. I knew that I did not want my daughter to allow herself to be treated the way my husband was treating me. I discovered the evidence of the affair 12 days after I found out I was pregnant with a girl. I don't want my sons to act like that either.

And of course, her disabiliy made it even more urgent to me that I "break the cycle" so to speak.

You need help. It can't be done alone. It's just too hard.

Not everyone will go for help. I used to correspond with a woman who was being abused on a due date club board for pregnant women about 6 years ago when I was pregnant with my second. A lot of people did what we've done here. Gave her resources. Urged her to get help. She chose not to. Her husband killed her and the (unborn) baby.

Abusive people are unpredictable. The escalate when you resist, which is why you need help in doing it a safe way. But it's not going to magically go away.

ah, the what-ifs. those are those voices of negativity we are talking about. they'll kill yer nerve for sure. i know them well. but they aren't talking about what's real...they are talking about things you can't know, that you have to discover.

let's go back in time:

what if the man i marry turns out to be an abuser?

what if the man i marry turns out to be a cheater?

what if one day i will come to feel small and worthless in my M?

what if one day i feel too weak to expect any better?

did you ask yourself those questions before you married your WH? and if you had? if you wanted to M, you probably would have answered something like, "i don't know. how can i know? i'll deal with that when or if it happens."

now try on some of these:

what if my WH keeps abusing me and cheating?

what if i look back at the end of my life with regret at giving this M so much of my life?

what if he leaves me someday anyway?

what if this man is the only model my kids ever have for the role of husband?

and what if it really is better out there?

what if we (SI) are right about how strong you are?

what if he realizes he's wrong to think he can keep you and treat you like shit?

what if you look back on these days and feel lucky and grateful that you got out when you did?

all those things are just as possible as the tragedies you are imagining at the end of your what-if sentences.

this is your fear using your brain to trick you. it's anxiety...but it's not real. every part of you is afraid of change so it's fighting back. it's a tough fight. your soul just got smacked and all of you is looking for safety - and as humans, we don't see much safety in the unknown.

stick with us. keep surviving. we will keep sending the strength your way.

m334455, I want to respond a little more to what you wrote because it reminds me a little of me. I have to be quick since h is coming home soon and I don't want to start writing something and not be able to finish it, after all this is my secret website.

I just wanted to assure you he hasn't physically hurt me in 9-10years and he won't hurt the kids. Emotional and mental abuse is really bad too, but he did agree to go for help with me for this. I think he actually agrees with some of the things I've been saying to him about his controlling ways. With all my heart I don't think he would hurt any of us physically.

I'm really having a hard time. I'm waiting on the results of the lab test on the underwear and I feel like I can't cope very well for the past few days.

My mom was just told that she cannot go home because she has vascular dementia. She is crying and I'm sad for her. I know that it is probably best she doesn't live alone but a nursing home is too much. Cleaning out her apartment and finding homes for her cats seem like too much right now, but it has to be done.

I feel desperate, I feel like I'm losing my marriage, my mother, my sister that lives in this state, does not have the time or heart to even care about me, my own pastor doesn't even care. My husband's boss actually called our pastor a couple weeks ago and said that we needed help. This is after I had emailed the church asking for help. The pastor has not called us. I had sent a couple more emails explaining how you are supposed to care for those in your church and I don't feel that anyone cares for our family. I got a nasty email back from him telling him to stop emailing him and if I want to talk with him, my husband and I need to make an appointment to talk with him, but that he would. I guess I take that as a "you are bothering me, but since you won't leave me alone, I'll meet with you, but I really don't care".

I feel like I'm losing everything, even my sanity. I thought about checking myself in a hospital. I feel like I can't function,I'm scared of being alone, losing my kids to my husband, not having a place to live, no food, no one to care, oh and did I mention not having my kids.

The other bimbo will have the life I should have, the contractor husband that will one day make tons of money, the nice house, not this crap hole my husband makes us live in that has 3 bdrooms for 7 people and he doesn't maintain. My frickin washing machine has a hose from the washer to the sink to drain because it overflows, my dishwasher floods the house the tiles are coming up, he doesn't care.

His slut will get everything we should have had. My boys and my long awaited precious daughter.

I'm going to lose it today. I'm sickened.

(((((ion))))))

that is a lot to deal with at once. i completely understand how every little thing has piled up until each one feels like its own mountain on top of another mountain of pressure and decisions, pain and sadness.

keep coming here. i know others will have many words for you. i wanted to jump in and send you my own friday morning hugs. just keep breathing...sometimes we can't get much more out of a day than that. it can still get better, i promise, and he CANT take your kids with him and bimbo. keeping breathing and providing the basics that you can (love) to your kids and no one will take them from you.

hold on, itsovernow...i know it's dark right now, but there will be light ahead. you get little glimpses here around the boards...try to have a grain of hope under all that despair.

i used to ask myself about looming responsibilities, "how am i going to deal with ____ or get through _____?" i would toil and fret for days before. then one day i realized that even though i never "figured out" how to get through or deal with many intimidating things, eventually i would look up and have gotten through it somehow. at some point i was able to catch myself in the worry phase and say to myself, "i have no idea how i will get through it, but i always do, somehow....and not by worrying the most."

sending love and light your way.