Its been 10 months since we left our home and a lot has happened. 3 months in refuge, hating almost every minute. Persecuted by other residents and driven to self harming. Then we got out. We got our new home and started making a life for ourselves. No more shadow of him, or that is the way it was meant to be ... he delivered our things, my sister convinced me to let him bring them saying that it would be easier and cheaper if he did it than if i tried to hide our location. I mean why would we need to do a silly thing like that?? ERM... because he will know where we are, all the time we were in refuge I told him we were in Chelmsford to cover us. Now he knows where we are. Social Services are back on our case and we are having regular safety inspections from the health visiting team. I used to go to my grandmas every weekend, we would go on a saturday and stay until the sunday evening. She would call him on the Friday to let him know that we were coming and then when I went to my uncles to help with his van conversion she would let him in. He hadnt done anything wrong after all, just been a bit heavy handed with the kids ....
Yeah dragging a 9 year old up the stairs by her scalp cos she was refusing to shower, thats being heavy handed! Walking a 6 year old with your hands around his neck, thats heavy handed! How about smacking a 3 year old everytime she poo's herself? is that just being heavy handed??
I have never EVER said i was abused by him ... in fact i have it in my head that he did these things because i was abusive to him! I spent all his money, I never did the cleaning, I have mental health issues and I bugged him for sex. I kept him poor and made him work while I sat on my lazy fat arse doing nothing.
But then lets look at the facts, I had no job and serious mental health issues, my income was the child tax credits (approx £50 per week) and the child benefit payments (£190 per month). That comes to a grand total of £390 per month ... for food, clothing for all 5 of us, kids school extras like packed lunches (x 2 per day) and trips, school uniforms, packed lunches (x2 per night) for him, holidays, outings and trips during school breaks and even for a while nursery fees.
We went for a meal which I paid half for and I asked him to bring along a record of his wages per week and his outgoing (the money he spends on bills etc.) I sat with him and over our meal we worked through the finances. It came to £100 per week less than what he made. So I put it to him, we should split this 50/50 that way he had spending money and I could make up the deficit in my finances, he wasn't keen. I changed it to 40 for me 60 to him and he agreed.
He made me ask for the money every week, and he wouldn't give it to me in cash I had to use his bank card (officially committing fraud) to get the money out, oh yeah and get him some cash out at the same time. He kept track of it every time I used his card and I couldn't sneak a fiver out of his wallet without having to account for every penny and it being approved by him.
During the day we were to be quiet. He would be disturbed by talking in the lounge while he slept. He would go to bed at around midday and expect me to wake him for his dinner when we had ours. THat left me with a bit of a problem ... have dinner too early he wouldnt have had enough sleep, too late and the kids wouldnt get their sleep. So in the end we would eat about 6.30pm, which left no time to bath the kids or read them stories before bed. Yes they could have stayed up later, but then they would have been sleepier at school and nursery. I was already in trouble for them being grubby, couldn't put any more spot light on us for them being sleepy. The social services were called in by the school in 2012/13 I had been taken off my medication so they could change it... I had to be off it for a month to make sure it was out of my system and then it would take 2 weeks to get the new meds in my system before they started working. I WAS IN HELL!!!
The report from social services later told me the wording used by the school was that my children presented as "dirty, grubby little things" I hit the roof at this remark and when around the school showing as many parents as I could just what the head thought of my kids! Yeah they were grubby and sometimes (usually) unwashed but for someone in authority to call them "things" that was my grievance. It caused uproar in the playground that she could have worded it like that. And when later I heard that they had been seen by Social Services without my knowledge I was distraught.
Food in their teeth and they looked like they had been rolling in mud ... yeah it was just after lunch and knowing my boy he had been rolling in mud and enjoying it immensely ! My kids played outside, they loved being out with friends in the air and you could often see them in the street without coats, them having been discarded in the front garden as soon as they left the house. I loved the fact that they could go out and play. For one it meant they weren't messing up the house, or their rooms or making too much noise and disturbing him.
But now we are here we don't need to be quiet and its lovely (sometimes) to have the kids screaming at each other and shouting in excitement and happiness. We sit here this evening with Chinese from the take away, I thought we would go and eat it in the park, unfortunately it was closed because Storm Katie has knocked a lot of branches loose and its a safety issue. But the kids understood and we sit here now eating as much as we can, leaving what we don't like or don't want. I even ordered the house special rice not knowing what it was like because if I don't eat it there are no comments about food waste.
The children argue and my youngest has started to speak in the last ten months, she is almost talking like a normal 4 year old - almost, and yes I do sometimes have to tell her to shut up, when I'm struggling but we talk more to each other than we ever did.
I'm going to leave this blog here but this isn't the end of our story it isn't the beginning of the end of the story but it is the end of the beginning and there are plenty more chapters to come ... this one is almost over. 2 months and counting to the anniversary of our leaving, who knows how things will change in that time.
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