It is impossible to sum up everything in just one blog post. However it can all be found in my blog but what I’m finding particularly difficult and I tend to relive in my mind daily, is the abuse I experienced regarding my abusers infidelity. This isn’t a man who would cheat on odd occasions or cheat and leave because he felt like he fell in love with someone else. This is a man who would lie deceit and have other relationships making out to whoever the poor girl was that they were in fact the chosen one. He lied and cheated to them too. There is something highly destructive vile and cruel about these types of men. They don’t fall in love, they see women as objects. Not caring about who will get hurt in the process, so desperate disgusting and needy.
I used to feel so embarrassed and ashamed by this. What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough? Or good enough? I had blamed myself for gaining weight when I was pregnant. Not getting rid of the weight quick enough, accepted that I was nasty to him at times so I pushed him away. I listened to his excuses about how my infidelity when he was in prison (the first time) messed with his head and much much more. Accepting and justifying his infidelity
Finally a year later after finding out about the first ‘affair’ I was ready to get completely rid. As mentioned I was ready months ago but this time it gave me the strength to make everything final. I needed a court order, no contact is the ONLY way. He’s a vile cruel narcissist and I’ll be damned if he ever disrespects me again.
Without re writing history the cycles were always the same. I suspected, I confronted, he would lie scream and beg till he was blue in the face that I was wrong. Turned it all back round on me, told me I was weird and paranoid. In fact used it as an excuse to go through my phone, all my social media and question me over very innocent situations. So so convincingly told me I was everything to him, his world. How he’s nearly lost me before and over his dead body would he ever risk it again. He swore on his mother’s life, on his baby’s life and in that given moment I doubted myself. He looked me straight in the eye, held me, wouldn’t let me go. Even though my gut and head knew, it was like I was given no choice but to believe him. You can’t doubt a man like this or question him too much, it was too exhausting and it ended in a fight where I would be left bruised, confused and no better off since an argument would only end by me having to tell him I loved him and we were still together. Completely impossible.
The only way to EVER get him to admit was to play detective. Without talking to the girl in question he would just carry on the cycle. Carry on lying, cheating, coming and going as he pleases. Expecting love, affection and sex when he returned and I was anxious, lonely, distraught and TRAPPED!
The first time was the most hurtful, now I look back it was completely so obvious but he controlled me so much my head wasn’t in gear. Acceptance … Also let’s not forget I was pregnant and emotions were everywhere anyway. He disappeared, often days at a time, heavily pregnant and so lonely and ashamed. I couldn’t admit to anyone how much of my pregnancy I did on my own. What an idiot I was for believing in him. Standing by a man in prison. Thinking he would change. There was a whole heap of abuse surrounding that too- that too was of course all in my head until he needed to use it as an excuse. He blamed his drug dealing life (which I never supported until I was desperate for my family) as to why he had to be away at times. I was not allowed to dispute, question or argue it. He ALWAYS had the upper hand and I was ALWAYS the one left crying, broken, devastated and alone.
One time he left me all night with our 4 day old baby after a c-section unable to get out of bed. I called him around 50 times, I was traumatised, devastated and felt completely worthless. It happened a few more times after that, each time begging and promising it wouldn’t happen again! LYING IS ABUSE. He had no intention to never do it again he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere! When I found out he had in fact been cheating I had never ever felt pain like it. The girl was young, she had been fed lies about how we wasn’t together. He had met all her family and she told me he was pretty much living at hers with her grandparents. My life just wasn’t my life, how did I let this happen I thought! My beautiful baby being born into such negative bullshit, a time of my life that should have been so happy was in fact the lowest I have ever ever been. I felt sick at the thought that after my labour , after he showered my just given birth naked body, acting like the proudest dad in the world he went to another girl! Just vile. Obviously after I found out, he lied more, told me she was lying about how involved they were, told me he was glad I found out because he didn’t know how to stop it. Fucking hell the lies he told were incredible. I believed he loved me and he just made a mistake. A man like this are , he would lie about things where the truth isn’t even a problem. So addicted to living a lie, convincing and I am sure he must just must believe his own lies. He didn’t stop abusing there, he then continued to go between us both. I kicked him out so he used her home, laughing with me about how she was just his landlord. Coming back to me promising me he would leave her soon and that he just needed to sort his head out. We would have sex and I would allow him to go back to her. So vulnerable desperate and ashamed. It needs to be goodbye …Narcissists always promise and never deliver. He did that in many many areas of his life. I became used to being cheated on , used to be disrespected, he went back to her one night after he did come back and I just accepted it. He in front of us both this time made out she was lying. I knew she wasn’t, it was him, I had been on the receiving end of that before and I knew how much of a cold lying heartless cheating bastard he was but at least this time it was her being made to look out to be a liar and not me. I wanted her to feel how I felt the times she would ring me saying ‘can I have my man back now’, and I just knew she swallowed all his lies about me being just a bitter baby mum , that we hadn’t had sex for months and oh that I was just intimidated by her. Give me strength!
The second time was Christmas/new year 2016/2017. For this reason I’m suffering bad in the lead up to Christmas. Just as I was feeling around my baby’s birthday in September, reliving all the trauma from the year before. I have never ever been treated the way he treated me last Christmas and I sure as hell will never ever ever be treated like that again. This wasn’t JUST about his cheating but many things but it always ended the same. I found a girls number, she wouldn’t talk to me until my friend spoke to her and yes he had been cheating again. Like what the fuck is wrong with him!! Imagine he called me a snake for finding out, I was jealous, embarrassing and I was meant to be a big woman but just looking dumb in front of young girls. Something very psychotic about someone who can be found out for cheating and then blame you for finding out! Very psychotic indeed. Before finding out I experienced sleepless nights, I’d wake up and he would have disappeared. He would even text me saying ‘on my way home baby all I want is you’ and not fucking come home. Who actually does that!? His response would be ‘something came up.’ I was so trapped, why wouldn’t he just leave me alone. I didn’t beg him this time, ‘just go’ I screamed! Be yourself as an unemployed drug dealing cheat who gets his self worth from sleeping with multiple women! ‘Just GO!’
Before I found out about this 2nd one I confronted him, I have never seen someone so fucking desperate. He was adamant that I was just paranoid because of last time, he had no reason this time and before was just revenge ! Genuinely believing it was his right to cheat since I had too. I had everything turned back round on me, holding me down telling me I was the cheat, telling me I had men in my phone because I was an attention seeking whore. I was going insane! I cut my arm in front of his eyes so desperate for him to stop. I needed to just get him to shut up! It finally ended when he calmed me down, again I had no choice but to believe there was no one else. He left and didn’t come home. The cycle continued. Finding out number 2
This time I was adamant I was not going to get caught up in another love triangle. Of course he carried on the same, begging me, yet telling her I was lying. Despite us both having a conversation , her seeming actually like she was just as sickened by him too and he had even lied about his name, she fell for his lies too. Why wouldn’t she? I did. He’s a professional liar! It was from this time the police became involved, he was initiating sex whilst I had a man fitting my boiler and my 2 children awake (Another thing abusers do – demand sex at inappropriate times) and I was very stern on my no. You can’t say no to an abuser and it escalated so bad, he hid my phone and the shit coming out his mouth was breaking me some more. I needed him out and I messaged my sister on fb. ‘Call the police’. I NEVER thought I could ever call the police on him, EVER! I was desperate !!
We then separated for a while, we were still being intimate though I was just not allowing him to live with me. He manipulated it all. Eventually after lies and bullshit I was willing to give us another shot, he swore on his daughters life that there had been no one else. I obviously found out different. Another poor woman who he actually met when I was pregnant, confronting him with this one initiated the worst violence from him. Same cycle , denying denying denying! Abused for not believing, hit for accusing, turned back round on me for talking to men and having flowers bought for me during our separation. Then when it was confirmed I had my phone smashed, hit some more, and I was literally a prisoner in my own home! This one he called in front of me, told her how he loved me, he was sorry but she didn’t mean anything to him. This didn’t make me feel good I felt sorry for her, he literally doesn’t care about anyone but himself. The events from this meant I went to the police again, I was bruised all over my body which he made a point of kissing each bruise before he left. Told me that it wasn’t him and he was sorry. I had once again got no phone because he completely smashed it and I was so bruised my body felt tired and sore. He could still go on his day though, not caring about how I was feeling. He did 28 days in jail.
When in jail he got to me again. The words he wrote in the letters, manipulation and I just wanted to go on the family holiday that had been booked for a year. It was all my focus was. One holiday for my baby to experience. Upon his release I couldn’t believe the change in him, he was doing a course to actually get some work and he was so calm, loving and the man I always thought he was. Four weeks that lasted and if I’m completely honest that devil in him appeared even on our holiday in May 2017. A Greek security guard from the airport even came up to me and said ‘I’m here if you need me.’ My abuser wouldn’t even give me a euro for some water and made me stand in the que with all the suitcases whilst incredibly hungover and faint. A stranger had to help me move my suitcases whilst he just sat down occasionally glaring at me like he hated me. What had I done wrong? I sobbed.
June 2017 and I started a new job. From this point I KNEW I wanted out. I wasn’t hoping or expecting change. He was bringing me down daily and all I can thank is that I finally saw that. I was spoken to like a child, told what I could wear, blamed for dirty marks found on his clothes and hit when things were not going his way. He used our daughter to control me. He was her primary carer and if things didn’t go his way he would threaten me and say how he couldn’t look after her. I was NOT going to allow him as a reason I couldn’t go to work and so quickly enrolled her in nursery. I was fortunate enough to start seeing that I deserved more just by the Work I was doing, the people I was surrounded by and the friendships I was building. He said that he knew when I got a job I wouldn’t want him anymore, he was losing control. He didn’t like that! That only meant he got more vile, more controlling, and it increasingly became harder to get out of. The charm to harm stuff was chronic. Yes vile but also insanely over the top nice too, for that I convinced myself I wanted him in our baby’s life, that I had to face facts he would always be in my life. I wanted to at least co-parent and told myself that eventually maybe I just wouldn’t care anymore and he’d no longer get to me. I even considered just meeting another man and being the one to ‘cheat’ , but I couldn’t get another man involved in this, he made it very clear what would happen should that be the case. If I had done that that would have been used against me for the rest of my life.
More recently I became suspicious again, it wasn’t as often though. I think it was because I cared a lot lot less. I even begged him to go find someone else, I hoped he had. I did not want him, we had no future together and I couldn’t see one at all. When we was together he was either abusive and rude or overly loving and desperate. Obviously he wouldn’t admit to another woman and he actually spent the majority of the time going over and over how ashamed he felt, how badly he’s treated me, how he was going to spend the rest of his life proving it to me and that he loved me so much. Again the convincing lying, the manipulation, the desperate words of a man scared of losing the ‘love of his life.’ I’m a lot wiser to all this now but I still needed to catch him in the act to get him to admit it. He would kiss my forehead whilst I was falling asleep and whisper how much he loved me yet be sleeping with another woman. He is not sane! I think men like him MUST believe their own shit. Maybe he felt an element of guilt when around me so over compensated. I doubt it though. His shit got more convincing but I got a lot wiser and stronger and that’s all that is to it. His pleasantries no longer made me feel good, mostly just angry and sick. Actions speak louder than words was all I thought of!
It still hurt though. Not for the other girl, I know she means shit to him but the countless times he got so angry with me for doubting. The abuse he gave me for going to Ibiza just 2 weeks prior and can you imagine having a conversation with a man you love on the telephone whilst he has another girl by his side and hear him say ‘stop being weird we haven’t been together for months, this is my new girl now’. So so damaging all to the mother of his child knowing the state he got me in by doing this. I had to deal with that with three different women. Cruel isn’t even the word.
Even this time, as usual at every opportunity he’s had since. he’s begged cried and told me he loved me. He has been so disrespectful about her (of course) and so convinced I would have him back one day. Not this time mate, no way! I have a court order on him, and that is the way I hope it will stay. I am moving so he doesn’t know where I am, and I will be dammed if I listen to any more lies. He has already breached his order by talking to me and in the short time he was breaching he somehow still managed to get inside my head. I believed that he misses me and loves me, even though I know he doesn’t he just hates that his control over me has gone. When I’m in his presence I feel hypnotised it’s fucking MENTAL.
For all these reasons and many many more I will keep it being ‘no contact.’ He won’t be seeing his daughter until he does everything social services asks of him. I gave him plenty of opportunity to be a Dad, co-parent and be involved and he proved time and time again he would let her down just as much as he was me. I do feel worried still that given the opportunity he would get inside my head again. That’s the control he has on me, and that’s what I am working on and making sure I am never ever that girl again.
I feel so grateful that domestic abuse is spoken more of these days, the law got stricter in 2015 and I can only hope more and more continues to be done. I speak to women who have suffered abuse for years. I am proud that I got out when I did. Nearly 2 years was long enough and it would have only got worse. My inbox is ALWAYS open for anyone struggling, unsure on what they are experiencing or needing some extra support. My best support has come from those who understand and get it and I am adamant that I will use my experience to help others.
I have been strong, others can too!
Behind These Bluest Eyes 