Confused, but moving on

[mellybj]

Hello everyone!

I posted my story here a couple of times. I have come to the realization that when you are in a Domestic Violence situation you become confused and manipulated. My husband is on his way to jail next week for a few months. We have been married for almost 2 years and together for 5 years. We have a 3 year old daughter together. The emotional abuse started after we moved in with him in 2010 and then escalated to physical. He put his hands around my neck, kicked our daughter when she threw a toy at him, and the most recent incident was him slapping me in front of our daughter. So, now we are both in counseling. I do have a restraining order against my husband. I am in the house and he lives someplace else. I was think about reconciling with him. Now I have been doing an awful lot of thinking. I realize that when someone puts their hands on you once they will probably do it again. I'm not saying that I don't love my husband because I do and I care about him, but my daughter has to come first. I can't live a life with the fear that if he does get mad at me for something or let alone our daughter, what is he going to do? I do believe people can change. I just think it's going to take years before he does. If he ever does. My daughter deserves better and so do i. It is very scary to start over, but I know that I can. I just have to be a strong woman and do it. I just thought I would share this with everyone and maybe this will be helpful to some people. I understand now more than ever why battered women keeping going back. Its a hard cycle to break and scary too.

[East4]

Congratulations on your courage and strength. You are pushing away from the bottom, the worst is behind you and things can only improve from now on. I cannot agree more with you on keeping a violent partner away from kids. One thing is that children are in immediate danger, second thing is that by being exposed to violence, they learn to tolerate/use it and are at higher risk to become violent/tolerate violence as adults. Well done, keep up the good work!