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Maybe I don't even know what it is I'm trying to write : )
But I just need to get this out, what with my wife showing up the other week and having read someone's post here last night I've just been over come with the need to write, I'd put it on my blog which is what I normally do but she reads that I know, she even makes fake accounts and tries to get me to add her as a friend. So it's not going there.
I spent four years with my wife and towards the end, the last year was the worst but even before that it was bad, you just don’t see it at the time, or maybe you do but you see other stuff that makes it bearable .
It didn't start at once or I wouldn't have fallen in love with here and if you met someone like that you would steer well clear, and quite often it's possible to see it happening to acquaintances, I suppose love is blind and all that. But people who suffer from that kind of thing don't show it in the beginning it happens bit by bit as they loose control of their emotions, get more jealous and more out of control until everything you do is some how proof that they were right and you don't love them and just going to the shop is some how evidence that you're having an affair.
In the beginning she was the nicest of people but slowly, bit by bit she changed, became more controlling and more volatile. Till I was trapped in a world of being mindful of everything I did down to the simplest of thing like making a cup of proper filter coffee, which I love, because when she was in a particular mood she would home in on anything that I took pleasure in as she saw it as something out side of her as she demanded all of my attentions.
It all happens so slowly and bit by bit and you don't realise and you actually think sometimes that maybe she is right maybe it is me maybe I should be nicer and it is all my doing, you start to do everything you can to get some of those nice moments but they get fewer and fewer until you are just trapped in a situation you can see no way out of other than trying to minimise your impact on their world for fear of the consequences.
When I was first on my own after having been taken out of the situation there were moments when I thought about going back.
Seems bizarre now.
I was living in this brand new house on this brand new estate that had been found for me between housing, social services and my health visitor as there is no set structure in place for men, there was a women's refuge but for obvious reasons I couldn't go there, so they were at a bit of a loss as to what to do with me, I stayed with my sister for a bit until someone in housing actually rented me their own house : )
Brand new cream carpets and cream walls, and I had two small kids.
I had all the windows closed and locked, the curtains closed and doors locked and I didn't answer the door or phone, I was reluctant to go out to the shops, my sister used to come round every few days and drag me out to do some shopping. I would be peering through the curtains at night time if I heard the smallest of sounds.
It wasn't until I got to know some local people that things got better, my health visitor got me to go to Bernardos as they did a lot with families in the area and I slowly got to know other parents and got invited out to all those things people with kids get to go to, parties and kids stuff and I slowly got better and more confident. I used to get knocked back every time I had to go to court and have to see her and then when contact started even though I got to take the kids into one room and then leave and she was supposed to arrive fifteen minuets latter it was still very difficult for me. Luckily, for me anyway, there is no more contact at the moment.
As a bloke on the receiving end of domestic abuse, physical and mental, it's very difficult to get people to understand, most people can't think, men anyway because they have never experienced it and to them it's all about physical power, which it isn't, I'm sure in a full on physical fight I would have won more times than not with my wife but that's not how it works, not with me anyway. When she used to come at me, arms and legs flaying you are just trying to deflect the blows, if I tried to restrain her she would just go mental and start shouting and screaming and biting and scratching, so I would just be backing off deflecting as much as I could, barricade myself in a room with my foot against the door. All the doors in that house bore the marks of her anger with dents and holes and broken handles. If I did manage to get her on the bed or somewhere and hold her down and endure all that, the biting was the worst as it really hurts, she would eventually calm down after a few minutes, start crying and then fall asleep. When she woke up she wouldn't actually apologise but she would want cuddles and I would end up going to the shop to get her something nice or cooking her something or take here somewhere out, retail therapy! : ) something to make her feel better.
I actually do that with my kids, they do something wrong, I tell them off, and then a little while later after mulling it over in my mind for a bit I go and do something extra nice for them. :/
But anyway, that cycle just went round and round and stuck in the middle of it and dealing with it and all the other things like three jobs and one and then another child, having to deal with her drug dealers and all her catalogue debts, I was just running around without time to think and just getting on with it as best I could. I didn't stop to think about my situation, it wasn't until I was taken out of it and after a few weeks I began to realise just where I'd been and what I'd been living through.
I could probably write reams of this stuff about my experience but my kids have just broken my train of thought with various computer game related problems.
It's sort of all come back in my head after her finding out where we live and showing up the other week but having written all this has somehow made me realise just how that has affected me and at the same time helped.
If you've read this far thanx, I know it's long. Either way it's sometimes good to just let things out, even if no one reads it, just like my blog actually :)
Thanx Alisoncam: ) I was just re reading it for spelling mistakes and then I read your reply and it was making me well up, your reply that is, just a bit mind you, I am a bloke after all and managed to keep it under control when I watched E.T.
I was in flood of tears when I watched Silent Running with my dad, but then I was only fourteen. The last bit when the one little robot is left watering the last plants left to man :( if you've seen it you'll know.
: )
Not seen Silent Running. ET however, what a tearjerker. I don't know if I cried because ET was leaving, or because of the little boy's face. I sob over Lassie, Little House on the Prairie got me on every episode.
In my book, a man who cries is a 'real' man. I have a friend who tells my son, 'boys don't cry'. I loathe that, and constantly tell her off for saying it. Silly woman!
Her coming back has really unsettled you, and that's so obvious in your post. Open your bottle of wine tonight, and raise a glass to yourself and your children.
x
I think I cried for days after watching Silent Running!
When she came back and I read your post I felt the fear for you. I don't think it matters whether male or female, you need to be safe.
I'm glad you post here Bubblegum. I feel privliged to "know" you. I'm glad you that housing, social services and your health visitor acted.
You have amazing courage.
Thanx : )
I like coming here too : )
have been in tears reading your post, does not take much today!
I never realised what you had been through, i think you are a fantastic Dad with lovely values & a good sense of humour. you have needed it by the sound of it!
I must have missed the post about her finding where you were though, can't find it, so not sure of the details but can imagine how you must feel. I take it that she is probably not allowed near you by law? I hope you don't get any problems.
I am not surprised it has brought it all back, it brings back the feelings we felt when we are reminded by seeing someone or something happens. you must have felt panic.
As has already been said you are greatly valued on here, we all love hearing your story's. :)
Pansy x
That was so well written. When men say they suffer domestic violence i have got to admit I thought how! But what Bubblebum has said about how he probably would have always won a physical fight but he didnt want it to come to that and how he had to just restrain her and how she reacted, made me realise my views were really old fashioned just based on the fact that men are stronger than women.
Your kids are really lucky to have a dad like you. Good luck.
You're a total star, Bubblegum. But I knew that already anyway 
I agree with dawnellen: your description of the violence and how it would happen is very powerful and has also helped me understand a lot more about physical abuse of a man by a woman. Thank you for posting it.
It sounds as if her reappearance the other week has triggered memories which have made you realise the full extent of what you had to go through. So on one hand it could make you feel sad/down, on the other you can feel pretty good about yourself for getting to where you are now, and with two such lovely children to your credit. You're doing a brilliant job.
Thanx again chaps : )
Domestic abuse isn't all about physical violence, if someone is continually putting you down and undermining you all the time in everything you do and telling you you're basically crap, enough of that and you start to believe it, and feel grateful for the fact that they want to be with you cos no one else would and my wife is a stunningly attractive woman. I used to think why does someone this beautiful want to be with me, I know know it's because I put up with her violence and irrational behaviour and was nice to her despite. I was besotted with her. It's all about, at least with my wife anyway being in control and making you feel as worthless as they possible can because ultimately they don't want you to leave, violence was always at the end of an escalating list.
But besides that my wife is equally as strong as me, not broader but taller and quite capable of hurting me.
There were no knives in our house, that was the first thing she used to always go for and start waving about. I had one sharp knife that I had hidden for if I really needed to cut something like Sunday roast or something, it was just inconvenient to get it, it was wedged down the back of the cooker. I used to have to cut stuff with normal table knives :) Tomatoes were the thing I remember most, making a sandwich was a pain, dunno if anyone has ever tried to cut a tomato with a normal table knife, I remember doing it in Uni too, in crap student accommodation where there was little if no cutlery, it's messy and infective and you end up with large chunks of jagged edged tomatoes, and you get maybe three slices per tomato and a big massive sandwich..
Strange the things that stick in your mind.
One friend of mine at the time towards the end said to me.. she needs you more than you need her but I didn't see that.
later and thanx again chaps : )
Strangely enough I remember when I first moved in on my own and went shopping for stuff and got a knife, a nice expensive proper twenty something quid kitchen knife and standing in the kitchen back at home wondering where to put it. : )
I've still got it and still sharpen it and it can cut tomatoes into slices about three millimetres thick :)
xxx
Bubblegum, I do not know much about you as I am new here, but just from reading this post, I truely believe you are an amazing person to have pulled yourself, and your kids, through all of that. They're so lucky to have you. I hope when times get hard or if your ex wife decides to try and make things difficult for you again, that you can remember how far you've come. You stood up for yourself and your children and have made their lives safe and better too, and you fought through it, you didnt give up or run away. Times may have been tough but in the end you pulled yourself out the otherside. The only men I have ever had in my life have run away when the going gets tough, and you have not had it easy! Lots of admiration for you!
: )
Hey Bubblegum,
there are just as many warped, malicious women out there as there are warped, malicious men.
Society loves a stereotype. Life is so much easier when we can quickly pigeon-hole people.
Wish I could have wine tonight. I'll settle for whining instead.
night night
Thanx Pheobe and Sadsy and everyone else : )
Sadsy.. in all the time everyone who has had to deal with me and my situation all of them bar one, luckily my CAFCASS officer has initially seen me as the 'bad person' and felt sorry for my wife as she's is very good at that but three months in all of them bar one, one staff member who ran one of the contact centres have finally seen the situation for what it is and realised my wife's true colours.
Not wanting to fall into stereotypes myself, but! the 'industry' can't think of a better word, but from my experience that fits, is run and staffed primarily by women, all bar one in my case and all of them have this set view that women are the grieved part, they walk into the situation with that view and then have to have it 'changed'.. it's been my mission : ) in all fairness having been a single parent for five years I can understand where they are coming from as I too have seen lots of single mothers having to deal with children with no help from their X partners and nothing but trouble from them.
But still it is all very demoralising having to go through the same initial animosity from each new set of people I have had to deal with and animosity is the right word there.
Nasty man stole his wife's children and now he wont let her see them, that sort of thing, when I've gone out of my way to facilitate contact and gone along with all of it despite my reservations.
Because I'm always fighting an uphill struggle and I know that I have to change their view and getting angry and being awkward just plays to their preconceptions. Having two healthy happy children clinging to me usually does the trick : ) again not wanting to fall into stereotypes but women go all doey eyed at that and I've won a few hearts over that way in my struggle : )
That's why when I read your posts sadsy I could see where you were coming from with your CAFCASS lot, they labelled you and went along with your wife's version of the story and CAFCASS have too much power, courts from my experience just go along with what ever they say without question, even when people complain. In fact having never dealt with courts before in my life the whole thing has left me rather jaded, they don't care it's just a job, it's just do one, next, do one and it's peoples lives.
As I've said, I was lucky with my CAFCASS officer she had spent a long time as a drug councillor prior and so saw through my wife very quickly and didn't fall for her poor me story.
later.
Hey bubblegum
Glad you found a place to write your stuff! You don't actually actually say anything negative about anyone, just talked about 'your' experience. So being considerate of yourself, rather than putting someone elses thoughts, feelings or opinions first.
It sounds as though your world was rocked a little off kilter when she showed up in your village, and since then, it has had a knock on effect of you thinking of her, the relationship, pain and upset all over again.
This can be a good thing, because, you have had some time to heal, so when you reflect on the past although it is painful, you are now in a much better place mentally to see the wrong things for what they were.
Have you ever been in touch with Mankind or any other organisation that works with men who have been through similar situations? This type of relationship is not uncommon and many men live through it for years and years, if not forever, because they do not want to be seen as unable to handle it, or their self respect has been completely taken from them and they blame themsleves for their wife's behaviour.
bubblegum, you are a fine man and I pat you on the back for your strength and heroism, for getting those beautiful children to a safe place and protecting their mental health from being completely destroyed. Thanks for sharing stuff with us, I know you don't want sympathy or a shoulder to cry on, but we hear you :)
I think you have a book in you, please keep writing here, maybe we could put all the posts together and get it published!!!
How are you doing this week? How was the weekend?
Thanx anna : )
I'm OK : )
Thanks for being there for me on my despairing day bubblegum. Thank goodness those days are...er...well.....behind me. Right behind me. Gulp.
Hug sy
Hi Bubblegum. Your post brought tears to my eyes. God knows what you've been through, you're amazing Bubblegum, you really are. No one on earth deserves to go through this, and what a nightmare she is. Please don't let her 'turning up' the other week have such an impact on your life now. You and the children are safe, and you have the law on your side. I can imagine how her turning up has kind of turned your life upside down again, ie, looking over your shoulder etc.
It helps to write things down, and you have come so far. Don't look back, carry on being the fab Dad that you are.
Hugs for you and the children.
x