Leave

Petals

Dreaming Tom is leaving to go and live in Cornwall. We have to drive down with him in his car; it will take five hours. Just as we’re about to leave, I see my cousin Erin. I’m supposed to be going around her house tonight but realise I won’t be back in time. She is…

Hearing

For the last year of living with Tom, Rosie would come home from school, go straight to her bedroom and stay there until the next morning, apart from coming down for meals and when Tom was at the pub. She’d stopped being affectionate with me, wore black all the time and just looked so sad…

Exposed

It’s been twenty-five days since I left Tom and tried to get on with my life, clawing my way back up from the pit that I’ve found myself in over the last few years. On the whole, the last twenty-five days have been blissful. No arguing, stress, mess, or criticism. No abuse. Nothing but me…

Overnight

I had a few friends over tonight to celebrate my new beginning with me. It’s the first time that I’ve had friends at my home in four years because I never felt as though I could with Tom. He always made it really clear that the house was his, and permission had to be sought…

After

I’m lying on the floor of an unfamiliar bedroom in a strange house. Despite the absence of the discarded plastic from the new mattress beneath me, the odour still manages to permeate my senses. The cushioning lacks the warmth of contours that can only come from two bodies entwined; it barely softens the harshness of…

Contract

I have signed the contract and picked up the keys to our new home; a house that just me and the children will live in. I’m leaving behind a man I love to the depths of me; a man that I thought would be in my life forever. I’m devastated, but I know it’s the…

Slow

I don’t feel good today. Telling the children has made it all the more real. It seems to be all part of the slow process of leaving. I’m having concerns about how Tom will cope once we’re gone. He’ll be rattling around in a big house on his own; he currently has no work, no…

Worth

I am viewing a house this week that may be ideal for us. I have a few reservations about the area – it’s slightly further away than I wanted to go, which makes it more difficult for the children to easily see their friends – but I know we can work around that. The house…

Denial

Tom seems to be in complete denial that our relationship is coming to an end, which doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me, given that he’s shown me almost nothing but hatred for so long. Yesterday, he invited Abi and her family around for a barbecue. He got the paddling pool out for…

Over

I’ve told Tom that it’s over and that I will be moving out as soon as I can. He keeps trying to hug me, but I brush him off. We haven’t had any physical contact for six months and no longer sleep in the same bed, so why now? I know now that he will…

Choice

Dreaming I am looking through a pile of catalogues, feeling excited by the choices and the chance to buy what I want now that I can. One of the catalogues is unusual in that it is a book of crossdressers with big hands. Tom is with me as I am looking through them. Responding I’m guessing this is about my identity. About how my new life, when I leave Tom, will give me a chance to…

Forward

We were supposed to be clearing the garden today, ready for new turf. It’s a big garden with lots of crap dumped in it, so it was a whole day’s work. I went outside with Annie and started to tidy while Tom sat doing nothing except scrolling through Facebook. Eventually, after I’d dug up and…

Question

The counselling is really making me look at and question every aspect of my life. It’s forcing me to delve deeper than I’ve ever gone before into all areas. Today it was money, namely Tom’s money. I don’t feel that I’m entitled to it, that it’s wrong for me to ask. And then there’s my…

Testing

Dreaming

Investment

I’ve started seeing a psychotherapist. I can’t afford to, but I can’t afford not to. I’m seeing it as an investment in mine and my children’s future. I feel as though I’m going mad. Am I ill? Have I gone insane? Is this all my fault? I need to know. I need someone to give…

Fear

I really can’t take any more of this and will be doing everything in my power to get out in the next few months. I really hope and pray that I have the strength to do so. I’ve put up with his shit for long enough. I am so sick of the mental cruelty. Yet…

Still

Tom and I rarely have sex anymore, but last night we did for the first time in a very, very long time. It wasn’t what I wanted it to be at all, though. It didn’t connect us; in fact, when we’d finished, he said just about the cruellest thing anyone has ever said to me….

Reaquainting

There are many things that people might think are the worst things about the kind of relationship I’m in. Maybe they think it’s the shouting and screaming, or they may believe it’s the actual words that get said. They may see it as the manipulation that’s the hardest thing to bear, or the constant worry…

Lower

Today has been really challenging. I’m tired and stressed, and I can’t see any way out. I have been looking for houses to rent, but there’s nothing in my price range and nothing in the areas I want to live. I had a chat with a solicitor, but it doesn’t sound hopeful. Tom refused to…

Charm

Tom and I disagreed a few days ago; it was over in minutes, and as far as I was concerned, that was that, but that night he got up from the sofa and went up to bed without saying a word to me, something that hasn’t happened for months. I was really upset about that,…

Knowledge

One day last week, Tom woke up in a bit of a mood. The best way for me to deal with his moods is to leave him alone until he snaps out of it. He was working from home, so he spent the next couple of hours on his laptop. I got on and tidied…

Sided

Dreaming I am in my living room. I look to my right and see a brown snake near the door. I’m not sure at first whether it is a snake or a slow worm, but I realise after a while that it has to be a snake as it is too long to be a…

News

Tom returned from yet another weekend away yesterday – his eighth in the past six months, on top of a seven-day skiing holiday, countless nights out, and his usual three evenings a week at the pub. This weekend’s trip was to a family wedding. Annie and I were invited, but not my other children. When…

Trip

Just one month after his last excursion, Tom left for a ten-day skiing holiday this morning. Joining him are his brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephews; uncles, aunts, and cousins. His family. We, his partner, daughter, and step-children, weren’t invited. Again.

Lunch

Tom took us all out for lunch today. While we were there – for no reason that I could find – he started ranting about people in this country all being stupid, especially me, and that his country and everyone who lives there is much better in every way. I asked if it was so…

Cycle

It started again this morning – the name-calling and being nasty to me. This time I snapped. I told him that I couldn’t take much more of it, that I’ve told him before that I hate it, and I asked him why – if he loves me – does he continue to do something that…

Yesterday

Yesterday was one of those days that I’d just like to be able to forget ever happened, yet I know it’s going to be one of those days that stays etched in my memory forever.

Weeks

As I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy, I’m feeling emotional, tired and stressed. I have too much time on my hands. I’m looking back over the last few months, and I’m seeing a picture that I don’t like. In the first weeks of pregnancy, when the tiredness was extreme, I mentioned how exhausted I…