Finding My Way Back to My Children
Getting out of the Nightmare didn't mean getting my old life back.
I think maybe a little part of me thought it would.
Not consciously.
I didn't expect everybody to be standing outside my house with balloons and a banner saying:
WELCOME BACK FROM THE FUCKING NIGHTMARE.
But once he was arrested, once my family finally knew what had actually been happening behind that front door, I suppose I hoped some things might start falling back into place.
My children.
My grandchildren.
My sister.
Dad.
My family.
The people who had been my life before the Nightmare managed to shrink my entire world down to him.
Except life doesn't work like that.
You can disappear into something terrible for months.
When you finally come back?
Everybody else has been living too.
And five weeks later, I'm still trying to find my place in all of it.
Before the Nightmare
I've got two grandchildren.
And yes, obviously I'm biased.
But they are honestly the cutest, sweetest little things.
My oldest daughter is their mum, and before I started working, I used to have them all the time.
They were part of my normal life.
My house.
My days.
My routine.
Then I started working, so naturally I couldn't have them quite as much.
But work wasn't the only reason.
My husband didn't want me keeping them as often as I wanted to.
He would moan about coming home and them being there.
And when you've spent years living with somebody who moans about something enough?
Sometimes you start changing what you do simply because you can't be arsed with the argument.
So I didn't get to have my grandchildren as much as I would have liked.
And that's something I look back on differently now.
Especially because after I left the marital home?
Something rather strange happened.
Suddenly, Grandad of the Year
My husband seemed to transform.
The man who'd moaned about coming home and finding the grandchildren there suddenly became...
Grandad of the fucking Year.
Keeping them overnight.
Taking them out.
Spoiling them.
Doing all the things that apparently hadn't been particularly appealing when I was still living there.
Funny that.
Maybe things changed for him.
Maybe his relationship with the grandchildren changed once I left.
Maybe there are things I don't know.
I can't tell you why he changed because I'm not inside his head.
I can only tell you what I experienced.
When I was there?
He'd moan about them being there.
After I left?
Suddenly he couldn't seem to do enough for them.
And yes.
I find that strange.
But while he was becoming this new version of Grandad?
I was disappearing further and further from my grandchildren's lives.
Because by then?
I had the Nightmare to deal with.
My World Became Him
That's one of the things I'm beginning to understand about what happened to me.
The Nightmare didn't just hurt me physically.
He didn't just strangle me.
Put me in baths.
Monitor me through cameras.
Track me.
Check my phone.
Make me prove where I was.
Make me prove who I was with.
Make me prove I was alone.
He took something else from me.
Time.
Time with my children.
Time with my grandchildren.
Time with my family.
Ordinary time.
The sort of time you don't even realise is precious until somebody takes it away from you.
When you're living under that level of control, there isn't much room left for anybody else.
Even when my youngest daughter came to stay, the Nightmare could still dominate the day through FaceTime.
Physically, he might not have been sitting in the room.
Mentally?
He was fucking everywhere.
And slowly, the people who had once been the centre of my world ended up further and further away.
Including my grandchildren.
Then I Saw Them Again
After the Nightmare was arrested and my family finally knew what had really been happening?
Eventually, I got to see my grandchildren.
I don't think I can properly explain what that felt like.
After everything...
there they were.
My babies.
These two gorgeous little people who had absolutely nothing to do with any of the adult chaos around them.
And when they saw me?
They both hugged me tight.
Proper hugs.
The kind you feel.
And they told me:
“We missed you.”
Fuck.
That got me.
Because I'd missed them too.
So fucking much.
But children don't understand coercive control.
They don't understand Life360.
They don't understand cameras.
They don't understand why Gran had to send photographs proving where she was.
They don't understand why somebody might be frightened not to answer a FaceTime call.
They don't understand why a person can seemingly disappear while technically still being right there.
They just know:
Gran wasn't there.
And then suddenly?
I was.
“Can I Stay With You?”
My granddaughter wanted to stay with me.
When it was time to take them home?
She cried.
She didn't want to go.
And I promised her:
“You can come and have sleepovers.”
Such a normal thing.
A sleepover at Gran's.
Children making a mess.
Too much food.
Probably staying awake far later than they're supposed to.
Me getting absolutely fuck all sleep.
The sort of thing I once wouldn't have thought twice about.
Now?
It feels massive.
Because I don't want some extraordinary new life.
I want those ordinary things back.
I want my grandchildren running around my house.
I want them knowing they can come to Gran's.
I want to spoil them.
Laugh with them.
Make memories with them.
Be part of their lives.
I want to be their gran again.
Five Weeks
But this is where I have to tell the truth rather than give the story a nice ending it doesn't have yet.
It's been five weeks.
And in those five weeks?
I've spent a few hours with my grandchildren.
That's it.
I haven't seen them since.
And that hurts.
Especially after those hugs.
After them telling me they'd missed me.
After my granddaughter crying because she wanted to stay.
After me promising sleepovers.
I want to keep that promise.
But my relationship with my grandchildren isn't completely separate from everything else.
Because their mum?
Is my oldest daughter.
And right now?
I don't really know where I stand with her.
My First Baby
My relationship with my oldest daughter feels strange.
That's probably the simplest way to put it.
We don't really talk.
There's an awkwardness.
A distance.
Something between us that I don't know how to cross.
And it hurts.
Because this is my first baby.
The daughter this entire blog began with.
The little girl who gave me the best title I'd ever had.
Mum.
I was twenty when I had her.
I mostly raised her myself.
I watched her grow up.
Then she became a mum herself.
She gave me another title.
Gran.
And now?
We barely seem to speak.
That's hard.
Really fucking hard.
She Has Her Hurt Too
I'm trying to understand that knowing what happened to me doesn't automatically erase what my children experienced while it was happening.
My daughter has her own feelings.
Her own memories.
Her own hurt.
She saw her mum disappear into another relationship.
She didn't necessarily know what was happening behind the scenes.
She couldn't see the fear.
She couldn't see what happened after the phone went down.
She couldn't know what not answering that phone could mean for me.
She saw what was visible from the outside.
And from the outside?
Maybe it looked like I'd chosen a man over everybody else.
I know differently.
Now she knows more too.
But knowing why something happened doesn't magically remove the hurt caused while it was happening.
I have to respect that.
But I'm also allowed to admit:
I miss my daughter.
I do.
And I don't know yet how we find our way back to each other.
I hope we do.
My Oldest Son
Then there's my oldest son.
I went to see him for his birthday.
Something completely normal.
Mum going to see her son on his birthday.
He was at the house that had been mine and my husband's home.
Our house.
Some of my belongings are still there.
My dog still lives there.
And I went there because I wanted to see my son for his birthday.
Except my husband wasn't happy that I was there.
So he phoned his son — my stepson — and told him to kick me out of the house.
And there's something incredibly strange about that.
Being told to leave the home you once shared with your husband.
A home where some of your things are still sitting.
Where your dog still lives.
When all you'd actually gone there to do was see your son on his birthday.
I wasn't there looking for a fight.
I wasn't there to cause trouble.
I'd gone to see my boy.
And somehow even something as ordinary as that became another situation.
Another reminder that although I'd escaped the Nightmare, I hadn't simply stepped back into the life I'd had before him.
That life had changed too.
The house wasn't my home anymore.
My husband was living his life.
My children were living theirs.
And I was having to work out where I fitted into all of it now.
My Youngest Son
Then there's my youngest son.
And this part makes me smile.
Because he doesn't make some big dramatic thing out of coming to see me.
He just...
appears.
Sometimes with his mates.
The door goes and suddenly there's my son.
Then apparently I've acquired several additional sons for the afternoon because his mates have appeared too.
And I fucking love it.
I love hearing them.
I love people coming into the house.
I love the noise.
The randomness.
The normality.
After months of living in a house where every sound could make me tense?
There's something lovely about hearing the door and discovering it's just my boy arriving with his mates.
No appointment.
No emotional reunion.
No:
Mum, shall we discuss our trauma?
Just:
Mum's house.
Somewhere he can turn up.
Somewhere he can bring his friends.
Somewhere he feels comfortable enough to just walk through the door.
He probably doesn't realise how much that means to me.
But it does.
My Youngest Daughter
My youngest daughter is still living with me.
And after everything that's happened?
Having her there means a lot.
She's the one I sat down and told myself what the Nightmare had actually been doing to me.
The one who cried.
The one who blamed herself.
The one who thought maybe if she'd stayed with me more, things would have been different.
And I had to tell her:
No.
None of that was her responsibility.
She's my daughter.
She was never supposed to protect me.
And now she's here.
Living with me.
She speaks to her dad every day.
I know that.
And?
I don't question it.
Because it's none of my business.
That's Her Dad
Whatever happened between me and my husband is between the adults.
That's still her dad.
If she wants to speak to him every day?
She speaks to him every day.
I don't ask:
What did he say?
What did you tell him?
Did he mention me?
What were you talking about?
No.
I've just come out of a relationship where somebody wanted to know everything.
Every message.
Every phone call.
Every person.
Every location.
Every conversation.
I'm not recreating that for my daughter.
She's allowed a relationship with her dad that doesn't involve me.
She doesn't have to report back.
She doesn't have to choose sides.
She doesn't have to prove anything.
She's allowed to love both of her parents.
Even if her parents aren't together anymore.
I Don't Want Them Choosing
That's something I'm really conscious of now.
I don't want this turning into:
Mum versus Dad.
Choose.
Pick a side.
Who's right?
Who's wrong?
Who are you loyal to?
They're our children.
Not referees.
Not messengers.
Not weapons.
And I'm not pretending I've handled everything perfectly.
I haven't.
I've been angry.
I've been hurt.
I've reacted.
There are probably things I could have done differently.
There are things I wish I'd done differently.
But one thing I know?
I want my relationship with my children to be mine.
Not based on what they think of their dad.
Not based on whether they speak to him.
Not based on whether they agree with me.
Mine.
Mum and child.
That's enough.
I Can't Get the Missing Time Back
That's probably the hardest part of all of this.
I can't rewind.
I can't go back and see my grandchildren during the time I missed.
I can't go back and put my phone down when my youngest daughter was sitting beside me while the Nightmare demanded my attention through FaceTime.
I can't go back and explain to my oldest daughter what was really happening before the relationship between us became so damaged.
I can't stop my youngest son being angry that I didn't tell him.
I can't erase any of it.
And I can't just say:
“But I was being abused.”
and expect those words to magically fix every relationship.
They explain a lot.
They matter.
But my children's feelings matter too.
That's something I'm learning.
Abuse Took More Than Bruises
When people think about an abusive relationship, they think about the obvious things.
Bruises.
Injuries.
Police.
Hospitals.
Maybe the photographs.
Maybe the videos.
Those things are real.
But there's another kind of damage that doesn't photograph particularly well.
Everything you miss while you're surviving.
Birthdays.
Visits.
Conversations.
Grandchildren.
Family dinners.
Ordinary days.
Your son's mates appearing at your door.
Your granddaughter wanting to sleep over.
A phone call with your daughter about absolutely nothing important.
That's the stuff.
The Nightmare didn't just hurt my body.
He took up so much space in my life that there wasn't enough of me left for the people who had been there before him.
And that's one of the things I'm angriest about.
Because bruises fade.
But I can't ask for those months back.
I Was Still Mum
There's something I've noticed writing this blog.
Whenever I write about the Nightmare, the story starts shrinking around him.
What he did.
What he said.
What he accused me of.
The baths.
The strangulations.
The cameras.
Life360.
The women.
The arrest.
And that's exactly what happened when I was living it.
He became the centre of everything.
But outside that house?
I was still Mum.
I was still Gran.
My children were still living their lives.
My grandchildren were still growing.
And I was missing pieces of it.
That's what I don't want this blog to forget.
Because my story isn't only about the men I've loved.
It isn't only about my husband.
And it definitely isn't only about the Nightmare.
It's about me.
And a massive part of me has always been my children.
Five Weeks Isn't Very Long
I have to remind myself of that.
It's been five weeks.
Five weeks since everything exploded into the open.
Five weeks isn't long.
Especially when you're trying to repair relationships that have been damaged over months — sometimes years.
So no.
Everything isn't fixed.
My oldest daughter and I barely talk, and that hurts.
I've only spent a few hours with my grandchildren, and I haven't seen them since.
I went to see my oldest son for his birthday and ended up being told to leave the house by my stepson after my husband phoned him.
My youngest son randomly turns up with his mates, and I love every minute of it.
My youngest daughter is living with me and has her own relationship with her dad.
Dad still hasn't called me.
He hasn't texted.
He hasn't checked whether I'm okay.
My family hasn't magically knitted itself back together.
But?
I'm here.
That's where I have to start.
Mum and Gran
When this blog began, I went back to being eighteen.
Then twenty.
A young woman having her first baby and discovering the best title she'd ever have.
Mum.
Since then?
Men have come and gone.
Relationships have begun and ended.
I've had children.
I've got married.
I've been cheated on.
I've left.
I've gone back.
I've forgiven.
I've loved people who hurt me.
I've lost Mum.
I've become a gran.
And eventually?
I almost lost myself.
But I'm still here.
I'm still Mum.
I'm still Gran.
And maybe right now my life doesn't need to be about finding another person to love me.
Maybe it needs to be about finding my way back to the people I already love.
My children.
My grandchildren.
My family.
And somewhere underneath all of that?
Myself.
I promised my granddaughter a sleepover.
And I intend to keep that promise.
But there was still another part of my old life waiting for me.
Because while the Nightmare had been isolating me from my children and family, things had been happening back home.
And one person in particular had become very comfortable in the space I'd left behind.
The woman I'd once called my friend.
The woman who'd spent months telling me what an arsehole my husband was.
The woman who'd told me I deserved better.
The woman who'd encouraged me to leave my marriage.
The woman who'd encouraged me to go on a date.
The woman who'd told me she was proud of me when I finally moved out.
And yet while I was trapped with the Nightmare?
She was becoming closer to my husband.
The very man she'd spent so much time warning me about.
And when I finally came out of the Nightmare and started looking at what had happened while I'd been gone?
I realised there was a whole other story waiting for me.
Because apparently while one man had been destroying my life...
the people I'd left behind had been busy rearranging it.
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