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Anonymous:
Hi Lynn, he moved in to the  garden cottage out the back of the pool. He doesn't have akey to the house anymore and we've seperated our finances and I got a pretty good deal and he still supports us exactly the same. I still take care of all the bill paying and his income still goes into a joint account that I manage. I haven't suffered at all financially and my situation is so much better. He's gone to another anger management course voluntarily with a large organisation that is group therapy for men with anger. It was a 12 month course with 16 men in the group who had DVO's on them. He is a different person now to the one who went in. And the group had also has a once a month informal night where spouses and ex-spouses or significant others could attend and meet each other and share and get to know each other and discuss their spouses progress with the moderators. This was so therapeutic that I ended up enrolling in one of their other courses for victims of DV and learning how to recognise and break the cycle of abuse. That was areal turning point in my life. When he was first forced into the 1st program he hated it, and said he didn't belong with those misfits blah blah. After 6 months he started to see himself in others there and saw how he justified his own behaviour. After the first 12 months he started reading other material and now says he thinks this should be a compulsory subject taught to boys in schools. He had to watch video's which showed battered women's corpses, or in intensive care. He was shaken some times and had to journal for every weekly meeting about his anger patterns that week and then go through them at the weekly meeting which went for 4 hours. If he missed 2 meeting in arow he was out and if he didn't journal he was out and if he missed more than  meetings in the 12 months he was out. I still don't want to re-unite with him as husband and wife but I do still love certain aspects of him. He can be very funny. I'm so involved a whole new life though I don't think I'll ever go back. I've experienced this liberation feeling and do I want to risk it. I don't think so.

Guest

Anonymous:
Oh and Lynn another thing that affected him when he went to the anger management course was that in one session they had a visitor who was a guy who had been violent with his wife a lot and he pushed her one time too many and she fell and hit her head on something, a coffee table I think and she died. He did time in jail for her manslaughter. They had a couple of small children who went into foster care while he was in jail. He had a lot of time in jail to think and learn and learnt about anger. He didn't get his kids back automatically when he got out of jail, he had to be able prove to the courts that he'd changed. Meeting this man and hearing his honesty and  what he'd done to the wife he loved and how he'd robbed his children of their mother because he was an emotional incompetent hit my husband hard. This was I think the turning point for him in beginning to take responsibility for his own anger and to stop blaming others. My children are benefitting from his change.

Guest

Anonymous:
It's so wierd to think about the things we have done to keep our families in tact. The deals we've made with ourselves to keep it all going. I wonder why it is so difficult to see the smoke screen?

because its not all bad and there's that huge history of a shared life.

The pressures to stay seem enormous at first.

My h says I am always unhappy and I'll never change too, I smile at that now. its taken me years to see that I am actually a strong loving capable person, and that's what everyone but he and my father see in me.

Good book to read is Patricia Evans The Verbally Abusive Relationship to see how those words get twisted and what 'crazymaking' does to you over time.

I feel no anger towards my h now, we are together for the children who know nothing of our personal problems. There's been other changes and I don't want life to be continual turmoil, but when I feel we can all cope well as a separated family I shall file.

Good luck, even if you aren't ready to leave yet empower yourself with knowledge and self-esteem. Keep telling yourself its your life, they're your choices.

Anonymous:
I hear what you say, thanks, it isn't easy sometimes is it. I remember reading here one lady said she stayed till her kids were grown up because she knew her husabnd would get some type of access and she didn't feel confident about if he had access that he'd treat the kids well, so she stayed till they were older and in the meantime she stayed and acted and lived as a buffer and focussed on her children and creating a good life for them. Then she seperated and and she said she sometimes wonders if she did the right thing and I think the right thing for you her what she did, because she tried to do the very best she could and she did put herself second in my opinion. I'm sort of doing the same thing I suppose. I have control of access my husband has because we live this way, he's stupid enough to leave dirty mags lying around if I didn't get on his case or drive with them in the car under the influence if I didn't have the control I have. It's too late to get his access denied later if he has a car crash and kills one of my kids, or they pick up a dirty mag at a vulnerable age. I'm the one who got into the relationship and had children to him and I'm the one who chose him to be the father of my children. I have a responsibility to protect them and am sure I'm doing a very good job, but it can be better and I keep searching for new and improved ways, till they're older and at early teens they'll probably choose who they want to live with which isn't to far away. I'm not too worried about that because as a person he's trying to be a better father and take more responsibility for his attitudes and actions. But it has been a very hard road, and I'm definitely going to buy that book.

Thanks

Guest

Karin guest:
Hi Lynn and Guest,
First, thank you Guest for remembering me and my plight (the one who stayed). I also see the similarities in yours and Lynn's stories with mine, apart from the bit about the improvements in your H, Guest. Mine just got worse and worse.
Lynn, how old are your children if you don't mind me asking? I ask that because my H was also a caring, loving father while our 3 were small. He would take them to parks and places that they enjoyed and played with them. They all say that they also enjoyed their childhood with him. But, as they each began to mature (around 13-14) and began to exercise some individuality and test their own ideas with him, the problems started. I can't speak for him but my interpretation was that he couldn't handle the threats to his authority, he felt insecure with them not taking his words as gospel and he wasn't at the centre of their universe anymore. Big problem for an N. I had those problems with him as well of course.
We've been apart (officially) now for over a year but it's still not really over yet with a court case looming. He is one of those who tries to control through money. I'm not interested in saving $xxx on capital gains taxes if we sell this and that this financial year blah, blah. I just want it over with.
Good luck to you both, in the end you'll do what's right for yourself and your kids even if you have doubts all along the way.
Cheers, Karin.

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