Married Life – Breaking My Silence

In the following week I had  to think very carefully of what I was going to say to my husband and I chose my moment. The stress was unbelievable and I couldn’t sleep thinking of it, I felt physically sick every time I laid eyes on him.

My eldest daughter was doing her best to concentrate on her A levels whilst all this was going on and I felt heartily sorry for her, she also began to feel more and more hatred against him, I think my other daughter just tried to block everything out and carry on as normal.

My youngest daughter who was just a toddler started a hair twiddling habit and would pull little bits of hair out, I can only think it was stress related through listening to my partner shouting aggressively.

I began to feel as if I’d let them all down through staying in the relationship for so long and the guilt  overwhelmed me. I had not confided in anyone the full extent of what was going on and so I decided to ring my Mother, whilst trying to explain I just broke down in tears and felt as if a weight had been lifted, I also told my best friend everything and she was very supportive. Neither of them could believe I was talking about the same man, he portrays to be someone completely different to the outside world, a real ‘Jekyll and Hide’ personality.

I  also visited my Doctor as the stress was escalating, she said my blood pressure was high and diagnosed stress related anxiety. I was given some antidepressants and she was very supportive to my predicament, offering advice and some domestic abuse support group contact numbers.

I chose my moment carefully and told him I had seen the texts on his phone, he tried to lie and cover it up, but I had written the lady in questions mobile number down, plus I had done a bit of detective work and found out her name.

Little did he know that I’d sent her a message on Facebook explaining who I was and  that I knew about their plans! I told him I wanted him to leave straightaway and that I wanted a divorce. To my surprise there was no shouting, he just accepted it and did not want to explain why he’d ruined our lives and off he went to work.

Later that night I received a message from the lady I had contacted, she was full of apologies and said she knew nothing about me or my children, he had led her to believe he was single. Just after that I received a frantic phone call from him about my message to this lady, he said to me that I had to message her again saying I had sent the message to the wrong person. I refused completely and it turned out that this girl was only 27 and her father and brother were on the way down to confront him at his workplace.

In the days after the atmosphere was horrendous and we were not conversing at all, he came in one day and informed me he had found a house and would be moving in a couple of weeks, there was no apology or explanation for what he’d put me and his family through, he simply packed up and left one day and didn’t even say goodbye, or that he was leaving and that was up to me to tell them.

When the door finally closed behind him I broke down and cried, not because he had left but because the stress had finally tipped me over the edge, I cried for hours. When both of my daughters arrived back from school they also said they felt relieved that he had gone and we could finally make a fresh start without him.