My Most Successful New Year’s Resolution Was to Leave My Abusive Husband
But your resolve needs to be strong if you want to leave for good.
It was a New Year’s night like any other, until it became the one that would change the course of my life forever.
It was a chilly evening and I was enjoying a glass of wine or two with friends, while my two older girls were out with theirs.
Just when I was starting to relax, my older daughter called to say her sister was lying in the gutter, drunk. She was so concerned that she had also called for an ambulance. She was a very sensible 16-year-old who, over a decade later, is now an emergency room nurse.
It was around 8 in the evening, and our daughters hadn’t even been out long. Maybe the drink she was offered was spiked or laced with something else, or maybe she just wasn’t used to drinking alcohol and drank too much, too fast. We’ll never know.
I couldn’t drive as I’d had a glass of wine, but a friend kindly offered to take me home to my girls.
My husband didn’t want to go with us. His attitude seemed to be that she’d got herself into that state, she could sort herself out.
He’d already washed his hands of his teenage daughters as they no longer did exactly as they were told. Control and obedience were very important to him. That took priority over love and kindness.
By the time I got there the paramedics had arrived. One of them asked me if my daughter could have taken any recreational drugs as she was so “out of it”.
All this time, my husband was still out partying with our friends and didn’t even call to check on our daughter.
I traveled to the nearest hospital and sat with my daughter, holding her hand as they pumped saline into her body and injected her with adrenaline to counter the effects of whatever she had consumed. It was frightening and very lonely, as I held her hand in that emergency department, a cold 31st December that chilled me to the core. The television was burbling in the background as nurses and doctors bustled about, dealing with the various inevitable casualties of the biggest party night in the world.
Riding in an ambulance with your child, while your husband couldn’t care less is pretty sobering.
There were bands playing music, people dancing and looking forward to the new year. As the countdown began to midnight, I distinctly remember thinking that this was the last time I would allow my husband to let me and my family down so badly.
My mind was set, I made my resolution as the year ended and a new one began. I had tried to leave so many times before and gone back for more of the same. This would be the year I would finally leave for good.
Three months later, our marriage ended. Thus began the next chapter in all of our lives. It was not easy, divorce never is. But sadly sometimes it is the best solution.
My ex begged, he pleaded. After years of giving me the silent treatment suddenly he wanted to talk. But I was no longer prepared to listen.
He stalked me via a fake Facebook account, told our friends and my family lies about me. He told his lawyer he wanted me to be left with nothing. All of which simply confirmed that I had done the right thing in leaving him.
The best bit was that I was free to be me again, unleashed from the prison of a destructive relationship. I lost the dead weight around my neck of a man who didn’t care about me.
Over a decade later, I know that it was the hardest decision I ever made and the best New Year’s resolution I ever stuck to. If you’re reading this and you are in a desperate situation, trying to leave an abusive relationship, I want to offer you hope.
If you’re looking to leave your partner, your resolve needs to be strong
It’s easy to believe “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”.
Taking the decision to leave an abusive relationship is scary. Leaping into the unknown can fill you with self-doubt and make you question the wisdom of walking away from a situation that at least gives you familiarity and certainty.
But think about how you feel in those moments when you are hurting and confused by your partner’s behavior. Sit with those feelings for a while. Try not to dilute them by also thinking about the good times. It might have become normal and familiar for you, but this is not what you deserve in life and you can experience freedom from fear and abuse.
This is the one time in life when you are allowed to focus on the negatives. It is imperative that you do in order to get you out of the door when you need to leave.
As soon as you start thinking about how much you love him, or your financial stability or all of the great things he says to you on the good days, it weakens your resolve.
Instead, think about that time he kicked you to the ground when you were pregnant, or that time he held you against the wall by the throat because you accidentally knocked over his Hi-Fi speaker. Good men don’t do that.
Or those times you woke to find he was “exercising his conjugal rights” without waiting for you to reach consciousness. Good men don’t do that.
Remember that time he dropped the baby into your trembling outstretched arms because he was so furious at you for asking him to hand her to you.
Good men don’t do that.
Forget about the many times he brought you a bunch of roses or told you how much he loves you. Most men do that without the abuse as a counter-balance.
You need to have an exit strategy
The UN has guidance on how to identify abuse and how to seek help for yourself or others.
Be aware of the patterns in your partner’s behavior that indicate escalation and protect yourself by being around other people or removing yourself from the situation if possible.
Consider keeping a diary, if you have a good hiding place to keep it. I would write in the early hours of the morning as a way to preserve my sanity and record my thoughts. Memories are fickle, but when the abuse is in writing it’s harder to lie to yourself about the reality of what is happening. I honestly had forgotten about some of the things I have mentioned above, but they really happened and when I read my diary I remember how terrified I was at the time.
When you’re ready to leave, plan on telling your partner that you need to go to the pharmacy or grocery store. Think through several plausible reasons for leaving home at different times of the day in case you need to leave in a hurry. Or just wait until he’s at work or out drinking, pack up and go.
The second time I tried to leave my husband, he took my bank cards out of my wallet and disappeared for 24 hours. I had no idea where he was or what he was doing. He had picked up the vibes that I was planning to leave somehow and knew how to stop me and keep me trapped.
You need to be one step ahead of them. Have a stash of money that they can’t access and don’t know about. This is where trusted friends are vital to your plan.
Some important things to consider:
Your safety is paramount. Make sure you have support in place before you make a move. Speak to a lawyer about your rights and to a women’s shelter if you need to relocate somewhere your partner won’t find you.
Prepare as much as you can, discreetly, so that your partner is unaware of your plan. If possible, try not to run out on the spur of the moment when things are bad, but plan ahead when you are calm and able to think it through.
Speak to friends and family that you trust. Ask if you can leave belongings with them and remove any of your valuables and important documents from your home as soon and as safely as you are able.
Work with them to develop a plan for when you need help. This plan may include agreeing a secret code or multiple code words, sentences, or emojis that would help you communicate more safely with them.
Conclusion
You only have one life on this beautiful planet. If you are not in a happy place, you deserve to be. Don’t become a statistic, strengthen your resolve and choose to be the master of your own destiny.
I know how hard it is to make that decision but make it for your new life, the new you deserves to be safe and free to explore new possibilities for yourself and your children. You don’t need to wait for the next new year to make a resolution to leave your abusive relationship. Follow your exit strategy and walk into the future whenever you are good and ready.
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