Going forward, while looking back

Free,

I just read your second post. Your honesty is courageous and inspiring. You have captured the feelings I have so well, I don’t have any way to improve them.

It’s funny, but just this afternoon I talked to my son (he’s 8) about meeting you.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on the computer lately. I know you must feel bored that I am not with you.”

He said yes. He was disappointed I have been on the computer. I told him that it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with him, but just like he has interests other than me, I have interests other than him.

“I met a new friend. Her name is Free. (It took him a minute to figure that one out) You know how I went through all of this pain with _____? Well, she lives across the world and she went through the same thing.

And guess what? She has a little boy too. Well, he’s older now, but he was little like you when she met the mean guy. And he has gone through the same pain you have, and today he is okay.

The mean guy broke promises to that little boy. The mean guy made his mom so sad that sometimes she cried a lot. He made her not feel happy and not want to play and want to just be quiet.

He made that little boy’s mom feel like she wasn’t good enough to be his mom. Like she wasn’t a good mom. Do you know why he did that?”

My son answered, “Because she WAS a good mom and he was jealous.”

I am not going to patronize you Free and convince you that you were supermom, because I am right here with you. No supermom here.

Once we were with his family, my son was about 3. We had a difficult time with potty training and it was a stressful time for me.

We were with his family at their estate having a barbeque and my son was playing with the creep’s little nephew.

The creep was in a vicious mood, I could tell, so I was lying low. But my son needed to go to the bathroom and was trying to keep playing and literally holding his butt with his hand to physically hold the bm back.

My son only would use his potty at home and I didn’t have it with me.

I tried to talk him into going there at the party so we wouldn’t have to leave. He kept denying he had to go.

Finally I had to tell him that we had to go, and I could see the urgency for it as he was holding it back with his hand.

So I picked him up, he struggled. I held him under my arm like a football, as I am only about 5 feet tall and he was heavy.

We had about a 100 yards to walk, uphill to the car.

I swept him up and he began to yell that he didn’t want to leave the party.

My creep, who had no idea what was going on, came after me, grabbed my son and began berating me as everyone looked on.

I tried to explain that it was a potty training issue but he just said I was insane. Meanwhile I knew my son had to go to the bathroom.

I kept walking and when the creep got me alone, he punched me with the hand that wasn’t holding my son.

I took my son and put him in the car, as I was closing the door, I heard him tell his father I was nothing but a psycho and I was hurting my son and that’s why my son was crying.

For the rest of the night, do you know what I did? I blamed my son for me getting punched and for us having to leave ‘the party.’

He was 3.

I laid into him and cried and begged my son to never not use the potty again because if he had used it this time, I would never have gotten punched.

I made him responsible for his mother’s assault. Talk about trauma for a child who is learning a difficult new task.

You are not alone. Neither is your son.

I know I talk about Lundy Bancroft alot and his book to help abused women – but he is also an expert on the effects of abuse on children.

I have his book, “Helping your children heal the wounds of witnessing abuse,” right here at my feet. (You should see the piles of books at my feet).

Of anything I have ever read on the effects of my abuse on my son, this book has been so helpful. It has offered me really practical advice on how to help my son while it also shifts the blame and guilt that I have felt back where it belongs – on the creep.

It doesn’t whitewash things, but he does put things into a perspective that has allowed me to understand what happened to me and why I did what I did.

When I was with this creep, I did things that I never, ever would have done or even considered if I wasn’t with him. EVER.

He abused me. He abused my son. No man who loves a child abuses the child’s mother.

Have you seen your creep treat other children this way? I once saw my creep tell his little nephew, “Get away from me, I am sick of looking at your face.”

But then I have also seen him – after he was particularly hurtful to my son – pick up other kids and take them fishing or on outings, probably to prove to himself that he was a great guy.

That way if I ever complained about the way he treated my son, people would say I was crazy, because look at how good he treats other kids.

But the worst thing was that he tried to drive a wedge between me and my son. I resented my son as well.

And I know you understand, I love my son with a love that I never knew was possible. And yet, he made me resent him.

I could see what he was doing, he was beginning to make me choose between him and my son.

If I was with my son, he would refuse to see me. Not outright, but very subtle, saying he wanted a night alone with me, or he missed having a ‘girlfriend.’

Once he told me that it turned him off to see me acting as a mother to my son. That happened when our relationship was only 3 months old, after he took my son and me to his sister’s beach house for three days.

I was elated. He was taking us on vacation. We were a family. I can’t tell you how happy I was.

When we got there, he wouldn’t speak to me. He did not acknowledge I was there. I mean did not speak for three days to me.

There I was with his entire family, my son, and this guy was avoiding me. I just about went out of my mind trying to figure out why I had turned him off, or why he was mad. I had no idea.

Finally, on the day we were leaving, he told me he was going home in his brother-in-law’s car, and we would go home with his sister.

I jumped into the bay and swam the bay. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t because I would look crazy.

When we got home, he told me that he just was having a hard time with the whole ‘kid’ thing and seeing me act like a mother turned him off.

He asked me to give him time to get used to it. At the time, I thought it was reasonable. Especially when so many of my friends made an issue out of him ‘accepting’ my son and told me how hard it was for a man to accept another man’s child.

Well, he never did. At times he seemed to be trying, but it was an act.

He would make me feel like to be with him, I had to abandon my child. He would punish me when I would want to bring my son along to an outing.

I would beg him to do things with my son. Maybe teach him to golf or ski or make a little place for him in his home so he could spend the night sometime.

He would promise and then break the promises, but only by causing some problem that would make me angry and crazy and then he would be justified in breaking the promise to my son because we wouldn’t be speaking.

So not only would he not have to keep his promise, he could blame me for preventing him from keeping it. I was the reason my child was hurt.

I felt like crap. I was hurting my son. Keeping him from this wonderful life with this man and all he could offer. Why couldn’t I control my reactions? Why couldn’t I be a good girl and behave the way he wanted me to?

Only over time was I able to see this pattern. That is what enabled me to get away. I finally could see the pattern in everything he did and what he was doing to me and my son.

On my birthday, I felt very alone this year. My son innocently spent the day playing with a neighbor and I mentioned to the creep that ‘not even my son was with me on my birthday,’ and the next day he used that against me.

That my son thought I was disgusting and couldn’t be with me either, just like everyone else.

It was just getting worse and worse and more and more obvious.

I could go on. It is difficult to go back to these memories. To relive them. I need a break.

I was wondering Free, if you feel it is okay, will you tell your son about my son? Does he have any advice for me on what I should do to make him feel better?

If he wants, maybe he could send him a few lyrics that would help my little guy understand that he is not alone in this, and that it was not his fault.

I read a lot of Alice Miller’s books and I find her work extremely enlightening. Of all of her work, she believes in one fundamental principal: When children are abused, all they need is one person to stick up for them in the most tiny way, and they can survive it intact.

I know, even in your darkest hour, you were that person for your son Free. How do I know? Because I have been you, and for as many times as we have been a shell, we have also hugged our children and apologized to them and bathed them and kept them safe.

Maybe not the way we wanted to, but we did it.

Overprotective is good. I am too. It means we care. That’s all. It is not a bad thing.

I know we are hardest on ourselves, way harder than our abusers were. Because we were not the mothers we WANTED to be. Not the mothers we COULD have been.

But it doesn’t mean we didn’t read them a bedtime story once in a while. Even when we were too tired.

It doesn’t mean we didn’t get them up for school every day. Even when we were heartsick and feeling suicidal.

It doesn’t mean we didn’t sit and try our best to help them with math homework. Even when we felt too incompetent to drive.

Even if you didn’t do all that I’ve said here, you’ve still done other things for your child. But on a scale, your guilt over the things you didn’t do far outweighs what you did.

I know you did loving things for your son. I know you kissed his little feet. I know you put bandaids on his cuts and made him hot chocolate. I know you did. I know you did.

He survived for one reason – because of you. Period.

Okay, it’s late here now, almost midnight.

I had a nice day today talking with you Free. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with me. It is difficult to do, and I will protect it. I hope I have helped you in a tiny way today, but I have a long way to go before I can help the way you do.

Good night. Or should I say good afternoon since it’s probably lunchtime there?

new world – i like the caterpillar thing too, it is written on a magnet that hangs on my fridge.

those poor people on my front porch today didn’t know what hit them….they looked like they were from mayberry and probably would have offered me apple pie. they had no idea what they were walking into.

wini – i know your story well about the turtle and scorpion, i quoted it many times to my creep. once he texted me…’lily, it’s me, not the scorpion…’

i learned the story as the scorpion and the frog though. same moral different animal…

i also came up with a more appropriate ending (I posted it a while back under a book review on amazon)

in my ending….

the turtle gets stung and as he and the scorpion are sinking into the water, the scorpion turns to the turtle and BLAMES the turtle for dying…just to ruin his day and keep him from getting across the river.

oxy – i hope you feel better.

okay – it’s 1:23 a.m. i have to go to bed –

Free –

Playstation – HA. My creep actually took my son to a toy store so my son could stand there and watch him buy himself a $400 playstation. Nice.

We have too much in common. It is almost scary.

and as for dogs – i have one now, but the creep worked and worked and worked against me getting one – but i said screw him, and now i have a wonderful border collie who has rounded out our little family…

i have been very empowered by my walks with him – i am now a pack leader…

your guy wanted to hurt you by hurting your dog and your son…same as me.

anyway, once i had the dog, i asked the creep why he was so unhelpful in helping me get a dog (he has several dogs).

he said that he was against me getting a dog because i would never be able to handle a dog or properly care for one…and…he added that i would pick out a mangey mutt.

then he said that i had proved him wrong on one aspect, i picked out a cool kind of dog, one that he didn’t mind being seen with, one that didn’t embarrass him.

sounds too, like your creep did the final slap in the face to you and left YOU – mine too, saying I didn’t make him happy anymore. There was also wine involved…

i will say it one more time before i go to bed. to get out of this, a person must CHOOSE to have no contact.

At this point, finally, after five years, I can honestly say I don’t miss him. I can honestly know in my heart that if he called right now, I could easily call the police and make a harrassment complaint.

I am done. My heart and my head are in perfect harmony. This is what he was afraid of, and why he would never let me get a break from him. I might start thinking for myself.

okay – i am going to bed!!! my son and my dog are both sleeping in my bed so it will be crowded tonight. i love it!