AIBU to still feel unsafe and want to tell someone?

[Puffinsandcoffee]

My husband has done some things to me /around me in recent years that weren't great. Nothing really terrible - not hitting or SA - but stuff that has made me definitely a bit scared of him.

It's been well over a year since he's done anything like that.

I just have two questions I thought maybe someone on here would have experience of this stuff and could answer.

One is, when did you find that you felt safe and comfortable around your husband again? Is it normal that I don't? Every time he swears or slams a door or something I get scared, and then scared he'll notice I'm scared, because he would get annoyed by that because he just wants us to move on from the stuff that happened. The world cup is stressing me out because he keeps jolting out of his chair and shouting and swearing at the TV!

The other question is, is it really vindictive that I want to tell someone in real life? I obviously won't. He'd be so hurt and really angry, because it's such an injustice to who he is in general. But there was total secrecy in my family about my dad's additions and abuses and I think because of that, having to not tell anyone about the stuff my husband has done is making me feel worse, like as if it's all happening again even though it's not.

Just to pre-empt some stuff that might come up

• I have posted about this stuff before. I spoke to Women's Aid because of replies. I don't mind my other posts being referred to but please don't "catch me out" with stuff from them. Mumsnet is the only place I can have these "conversations" and I'm not trying to be defensive or in denial or anything like that.
• I am getting therapy for cPTSD which I have from other stuff mostly childhood stuff.
• I haven't gone into detail about what he did because I don't think it's relevant but I will if it is.
• I won't be leaving him. I can't even if I wanted to but I don't want to.

I didn't put a poll as it's not really an either/ or but just - is this all normal and will pass, or am I damaging my relationship by not moving on from it?

I don't think there's any need, or point, in you continuing to try to explain your view of marriage or women's status etc - all that can happen is that people are going to explain why "you're wrong", when you're just explaining how it is, not why it is. It just makes you feel attacked and it's pointless anyway.

Basically you feel you'd lose status if you left him. And that's probably true. But if we can go back to your original question, is there any way for you (your body, no matter what your mind says) to stop seeing him as a threat to you.

Maybe the biggest problem is that a lot of people are actually telling you that you're underestimating what a threat he might be to you. Because he's not playing by the rules you think he is. So please don't discount that possibility.

However, it occurs to me that maybe that might not be the case, if you can use your family to make it clear to him that he can't behave like that to you. Not necessarily by bringing them into it directly, but by making him understand that if they realise he's making you so unhappy and fearful, and possibly harming your children's happiness too, that your brother/friends/uncles etc would be very angry with him. I'm sure he's terrified of their anger - and that's why he's so determined you should keep this quiet.

Is there any way you could (potentially) describe the situation to them in a way that would show them that this is a genuine thing, and not just a man who goes a bit over the top when provoked?

Thank you for this. I think it's kind of hit home a bit tbh. Esp the bit @Emilesgran highlighted. It's made me feel pretty uneasy and upset tbh, which I recognise is probably what everyone here thinks I should be feeling.

Well, I can certainly see how she'd be an authority on the topic of "how to cope with absorbing male abuse, doing your best to shield the kids from it, doing everything yourself when the kids' father isn't around to help or even provide financially, accepting that it's always your job to pick up the pieces when men behave appallingly" and so on. But is that something anyone should actually want to become expert in? Perhaps a better lesson would be something like "Don't keep having kids with a criminal. In fact, don't live with him. Leave him."? Sorry, but the wisdom of your ancestors just doesn't sound all that wise to me. What have you learnt from her? To tolerate men that treat you like shit? What have her children learnt? The sons, that they can do what they want, up to and including serious crime, and women will clear up their mess? The daughters, that this is their lot in life and they just have to put up with it? No offence to your aunt, but have the lessons you learnt from her actually done you any good? Like I said before, the supposed status and authority are a con trick. It's something you're told to keep you in your place and then do your bit to keep the next generation in theirs. If you can just stop caring about the "status", you can reject the whole damn thing. The group won't want you to, though. I mean, if women stop believing that women who are married have some sort of superiority to women who aren't, they might stop devoting their lives to serving men. And then where would we be?

He's not afraid of their anger at all. They wouldn't feel any. Their view would be that this is is between me and him, unless I come to actual bodily harm, which - I know lots of people think it's a possibility, but in 20 years, he's never hurt me except accidentally (yes, definitely accidentally). That list I posted from the NSPCC website someone linked - he hasn't done any of that stuff.

He wants it kept private because he doesn't want to lose the idea/ image of himself as a good person, which he is. He has no fear at all of retribution from my family, other than their moral outrage. Since he thinks very highly or our moral systems and integrity to those, this is a big deal for him.

But you're right - I think I've misread him in line with rules/ norms of a culture he's not from, and that's probably a misreading that hugely minimises how bad some of this all is. He is definitely somewhat intimidating to other men, though not the men in my family, but not projecting any "hard man" image because of his own background. Not at all. Yeah. I think this has kind of got through to me...

Oh, well said!

Not ‘uneasy and upset’. Far more awake and determined than that.

Who said he abused her?

Re 'having kids with a criminal', he was in prison for acts of honour that happened to be against the law. But I think we're coming up against the limits of mutual comprehensibility here.

What we have all learnt from her, and him, and many others, is that some things are more important than personal freedom or individual rights or self-expression. Some things are worth giving up freedom for. Which I think - to suggest an example you might have some sympathy for - some of the Pankhursts would have agreed with? Nelson Mandela too for that matter.

Oh don't. I responded far more politely than I wanted to to that post. Giving you both the benefit of the doubt, you may not realise just how wildly offensive it was.

Please, give me a chance. Two days ago, I was asking for hope. Now I'm getting my head around the possibility I've been exposing my children to harm since birth, and am married to someone who some people think could kill me.

Not divorcing isn't about losing status. It's about the possibility of losing my sense of myself as a moral person.

I'm not saying I wouldn't ever, or that I see any other divorced person as immoral or divorce as immoral at all. I'm just saying, that's the complexity for me, here: that I owe him so much, that he's a good man, that my behaviour is - for better or worse - looked at/ watched by others as an example, that I have values that invite or require self-sacrifice (I'm not saying any greater good is being upheld by me being scared of my husband, just that suffering and pain and fear often are endured for the greater good, and that's maybe clouding my clarity that, in my marriage, they aren't).

I realise this is just ludicrous to many/ most/ all of you. But that's where I am.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I can see that my reply was unfair as you haven't tried to excuse DV..

I do wonder if the violence between men in the community maybe makes DV more likely? I know you say that violence against female partners is not seen in the same way as violence between men, but I wonder if still, maybe having violence be more accepted in one context makes it easier to seep into others? For comparison, for instance, DV occurs in the Jewish community as in all communities, but maybe rates have been lower than Travellers partly as historically community disputes were settled verbally/legalistically rather than physically?

I do think that your suggestion re social gaslighting sounds very plausible too.

Things which "happen to be against the law" are otherwise known as "crimes". She has thrown away her life on a male criminal. She's a victim of the misogynist culture she was raised in, sure. But she's not something to aspire to, and she's no Pankhurst.

Leaving her alone to cope with six kids because he's not around is abuse. He chose to do that; he chose to commit the crimes.

It's been obvious for a while that most people are assuming I'm an Irish traveller. And I've said that's a good guess. I've also said "IRA, traveller, Peaky Blinder - one of those, let's say". I think I've given people enough information to make an educated guess. And the result isn't a million miles away from what I expected.

Does IRA have a meaning that most of us don't know?

Yeah, absolutely definitely, would be my view: violence in one area of life unfortunately does make it more likely to happen in another area of life, I think. My feeling is that what we're dealing with is probably half the men over a certain age have PTSD (obv no diagnoses, this is just me the armchair psychologist, because as if these men would admit there was anything wrong). But that will lead to very harmful behaviour at home, sometimes, if it's untreated.

How can you be so sure? Do you think Nelson Mandela was just a criminal? Would you not break the law for something you knew to be right, if there was no other route to justice? Why is my auntie no Pankhurst? Is it because you think her cause wasn't important? Why are you the adjudicator of that?

Irish Republican Army

It was suggested by another poster as an alternative to me being a traveller - that my whole family is in the IRA. It's another male-dominated, violent community.

He won’t change, it usually gets worse. It’s a terrible house for children to grow up in and sets such a bad example. Call Women’s Aid again and ask about your nearest refuges.

You deserve to lead a safe, happy and free life. You don’t have to live like this.

You talk a lot about how you owe him.

Does he owe you anything?

Yes. He owes me significant amends for what he's done. And as my husband, owes me financial security, safety, grace, love, respect and deference as the mother of his children.

it doesn't sound you are getting it.

I've also been meaning to say for ages that if people think I'm deep in a fog now, they should have seen me twenty years ago. It's thanks to my husband that I can describe my community in the terms I have, and can recognise my dad as abusive, my family as unusual in the extent of violence and addiction issues we have. I meet friends and have hobbies even when it inconveniences him, and buy myself pretty things that I don't need, because of him.

I'm not saying he consistently gives me these things... Does that maybe show I am getting it? I really am trying.

What I'm thinking of here is a friend who's Moroccan, who explained to me that her marriage problems were more complicated in Europe because she was isolated in a way she wouldn't have been at home in Morocco, that back home if she told her family that her husband was making her unhappy, her father and brothers would take it on themselves to get involved on her side, whereas in Europe, where she has nobody, there's nobody whose role it is to stand up for her.

That strikes me as being the upside of what looks from the outside to be a very misogynistic society (though of course it relies on the woman having a father and brother who care about her happiness) but the point is that in what you would call a "white British" culture (although I'm Irish, but still) it would be unimaginable to expect your brother to put the frighteners on your husband!

So I'm wondering if there's any way that you could use your culture to make sure that you're safe from him. Because I'll bet he would never dare risk their anger with him. They're genuinely hard men - he's only acting out by frightening a woman. Does that make sense?

"He's not afraid of their anger at all."
Well, he definitely is, it's more that: "They wouldn't feel any." Because they don't see him as a threat to you. By their logic, he isn't.

"Their view would be that this is between me and him, unless I come to actual bodily harm"
Right, so this is the thing. I'm trying to see if there's something here that could be useful to you in some way. Because what people here are telling you is that you can't safely assume that to be impossible - at some point he could kill you and run away. Someone from your own community probably wouldn't do that because... well, "men don't do that to women". They don't want to be excluded from their community, for one thing. But in the outside world, men sometimes do kill women.

I don't know, I don't know enough about it. Is there anything that could make them see his behaviour to you as beyond the pale? Other than him attacking you physically?

I think what @godmum56 meant was that you are not getting what you're owed from your husband. He owes you signfiicant amends, which he has no intention of making. He owes you safety, which he does not want to give you, because it's easier and better (in his view) to have a wife that's scared and easy to control. No one who respects you would ever scare you so much that you dissociate. Most people wouldn't do that to someone they hate, never mind someone they love.

You value yourself at such a low level.