Relationships...

This week has been a quiet one. I have managed to avoid talking to him at all despite the fact that he rings to speak to the children twice a day.

The kids and I have settled into a new type of routine. The strangeness of the first two weeks is disapearring and the children are beginning to push the boundries a little more. Testing how far they can take it, how much talking back etc. It is ok though because they are finding a new type of Mum. One which is fair and non screaming but will also enforce manners and respect both by example and reminders. One who uses time out and talking to discuss situations. It will take time...it will take time to change the habits of the past but we will change them, that I am sure of.

I have been up and down this week and although I am sleeping longer I am also sleeping nights filled with dreams and nightmares. One was so real I screamed out in my sleep, scaring my son next to me. I dreamed that my husband had come into the house at night and was watching me sleep. That he stood beside my bed and then reached out as he used to and touched me and said, "Have a good day, I love you" and it terrified me. That he was in the house, that he was there when I was asleep, that he touched me. TERRIFIED. Yet only two weeks ago we were living together. It seems like a lifetime ago.

I went to a friends house today to borrow a book, a very good friend and she invited me and the kids in. We entered a lovely home and she placed lego and toys down for the kids and made me a cup of tea and introduced me to her husband. Before I met him I felt anxious and I was not sure why. I was wary of meeting and speaking to him for a split second. But we exchanged nicities and then chatted together about the movie 'The Help' (I was borrowing the book) and about other things and I watched the way in which my friend and her husband looked at one another and talked to one another and you know I felt privilaged to be there. They genuinely loved each other and cared deeply for one another and it shone through their general conversation. It wasn't stated nor overtly displayed, it was just there...love...comfort in one another....surity of self and each other. It was beautiful. He was also a very lovely person and it took only a few words for me to completely relax in his presence, their presence. But I did reflect later on the way I had initially felt and I was shocked to realise that I was scared of him, purely because he was male. Which seems so ridiculous but I was guarding myself against standoffishness or critisicm even though there was no reason what so ever for me to even think that he would do that. Infact I could have guaranteed due to the way that my friend speaks of her husband that it wouldn't have ever happened and yet the fear was there.

It saddened me beyond recognition that I was scared because the man I had loved with all my heart trod on it and ripped it apart. I remember once saying to him that I could never look at another man after the way he treated me as I would never be able to trust them, this seemed to please him. But it is true. It truly breaks my heart to think that I may never be able to trust another man enough to get to know him on an intimate level. That I am absolutely terrified of even the thought of anyone getting close to me, of putting myself in a position to be yelled at and critisiced again and so cannot even fathom ever being in a relationship once more.

What I am most disheartened by is not the fact that I cannot trust another again. Because I am genuine in my insistance that another man in my life is the very last thing I am thinking about. I need to heal myself and my children before I even think that way, and I also need to address this fear I seem to have developed due to what I have been through.

No, what I am most disheartened by is that I never had a man like my friend does...like all of my friends do. A man who really loved me and treated me well. A man who loved his family and wanted to be with them. A man who cared for me and even liked me, who made me feel safe and loved and valued. I never had that, infact the very opposite and that is what hurts more than anything else in the world. I love that my friends have it, I truly do. I love being in their presence when with their husbands, it is good to see a healthy relationship and helps reiterate to me that mine definitely was not healthy. My best friends husband prayed for me, in my corridor he said a prayer for me and my children and I was touched so incredibly deeply. The friends husband I met today was so incredibly friendly towards me. When in sydney earlier in the year I sat to dinner with another of my best friends and her husband and I was amazed at their family dynamic and how wonderful and calm it was....so much so that I almost cried. It was the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world for my children and I felt such thanks that she had it.

I feel heartbroken for my children...so insanely heartbroken for the fact that they have never had that. I am trying so bloody hard to give that to them now. When they were burping, farting, jumping around on their chairs, eating with mouths open and screaming loudly in conversation during dinner last night I quietly explained to them the right and polite ways to act and eat at the table and they were shocked. It was a change from the screaming they were used to from him...Being told to be quiet, sit still, eat properly, eat all your food, being called a pig when they burped or farted :( it was a giant change and one they appreciated immensely. Infact we talked about it, actually discussed manners and dinner table ettiquette and when we had discussed it all and then the 3 year old did a massive fart at the table we looked at one another and we cracked up laughing! Because it was funny...even if not appropriate.

It is late at night and they are again with their father tonight and I sit in my house alone and all I feel like doing is giving them all a gigantic cuddle! But I cannot. I am so scared that as much as I want to be enough for them, strong enough and give them the love and comfort and security that they deserve..that my friends families get through both their parents...I worry so deeply that I am not big enough, strong enough to give all of that to them alone :( .

And tonight I am pissed off and heartbroken at the fact that I need to....infact....I am going to whine and SCREAM...why me? why am I in this position? why did he treat me this way? why did he find pleasure in putting me down? in complaining about everything I did? Why didn't he give me the life he promised? why does he need to hurt and control me? Why? Why?? Why???

I recently said to a friend that I wouldn't go back and change things all those years ago even if I had the chance because to do so would be to erase the birthes of my three wonderful children. Perhaps bringing them to me was the reason all this happened? maybe it was to teach me how to be stronger? how to parent and teach more empathetically?

I have wondered often over the last few weeks if my friends go home after spending time with me and hug their husbands a little tighter, a little longer?

The only thing I can do is thank God for the wonderful friends that he has brought into my life to help me through this and show me what real love, real relationships are meant to be like.

I also hope that within me alone god has placed enough strength to give my children the loving life they truly deserve. For they are my everything and I hope with all of my being that I can give them the type of childhood memories and love and fun and care that they deserve which can hopefully override the ones of fighting and verbal abuse they have witnessed to this point. :(