Family and Friends Forum

Hi LostAndTorn

I'm so sorry that you find yourself here, my heart goes out to you. We're here for you.

All of your comments, questions and fears echoed my own at the start of this horrific journey. It's traumatising. Those first few weeks are the worst. The shock is painful, your world is turned upside down.

My journey started 19 months ago. I too witnessed his distress, his own trauma and I too tried to support him. But to the detriment of my own feelings. Looking back though i think that is normal. My instinct is to protect and calm troubled waters. Until i hit the anger stage. It is like grief, going through those stages.

I couldn't bear to look at him or converse with him at times.

Over time however, with him proving how remorseful he was, how he started to be proactive in seeking help, I thawed and started to see him again, the person I loved. He then became ill, brain haemorrhage, which changed everything for us. Back to protective mode for me.

Like grief, time through this is a healer. The shock subsides and for me it became about the man, our relationship, his recovery, and ME. Could I see the whole person again, still despise his actions (images) but realised his actions don't define the whole him.

The length of time the investigation takes is awful, it's cruel and compounds all the feelings we suffer.

We're nearly at sentencing. Another stressful hurdle to get over, but end in sight.

As you can see I'm a remainer....i'm at peace with that decision. I've been through tough times and no doubt they'll be more. All i would like to say to you is you will find out that you are stronger than you thought you were at the start of this nightmare. So many lovely ladies on here and we're here to support you along the way. You will find your way, but please do look after yourself too x

All I can add - is whatever decision you make be it to stay or go, neither is a wrong one.

I echo what's been said many times here - at first the mind is in a shocked scramble, try not to sort it out at once or make life changing decisions.

The time scale of this journey is cruelly long, with twists and turns, ups and downs. Let time unfold and see how you feel at each stage. Also time (to a degree) heals. You go on to get back to life, as someone once described it a new life, with scars.

Keep strong / lots of friends here for you x

I've stayed. It's been hard. I asked him to leave the day after the knock; he hasn't lived here since but visits often.



The first weeks are awful and the stages are a lot like grief. Also like grief it can subside for long times and then it will hit you again. Some days it is very present in my thoughts.



He is a good man who has done a bad thing. It does not define him. He has worked hard on everything since the knock. He has shown such contrition and is so very much more damaged than I realised. This is why I have chosen to stay.



Good luck with your journey. Please read the post on surviving the first few days (it's on one of the other threads) and the "World According to the Knock" podcast has lots of advice on the early stages.



Sending you hugs xxx

I've done both leave and remain. I ended things on the day of the knock and he was remanded in custody until sentencing six months later. We had very limited contact during that time but the contact we did have was pretty much me unleashing a lot of anger and him apologising on a loop.
I gave birth in the week of sentencing and if I'm honest I used having a baby to focus on as my way of not dealing with everything else. I supported him as the father of my child and still love him dearly but I wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge my own feelings about our relationship.

Last year we decided that we will start to rebuild our relationship and we're still in the early stages of that now nearly three years on from sentencing. He makes me happy majority of the time and I don't feel like I'm wasting my time if things don't work out because I'm not ready for looking for a relationship elsewhere due to having a toddler and the trust issues I now have. We've discussed things and agreed that if this limbo stage gets too much for either of us then we'll talk things through.
He has done lots of work on himself and I've signed up for more counselling and a course with circles. Ideally I'd like to be a place where our relationship is stable and back on a balanced level as equal partners without him feeling like he can't disagree with me on anything and without my overwhelming urge at times to go absolutely mental at him.

We also have the added complications of my older children not wanting a relationship with him or at least not one where they would be able to live with him in the near future.
I've waffled a lot but it's difficult to cover this journey in one reply. Do what you feel is right for you at the time and remember it's ok to change your mind. If you changed direction in your career and then discovered that actually it's not right for you then you'd look for something more suitable. Obviously a very oversimplified example but we make decisions with the information we have at the time and where we are emotionally and along this journey those things can constantly change xxx

Hi from a mum, not a partner. but I've experienced most of your feelings myself. I can't give any advice about staying or leaving as it's a bit different for us because he will always be our son and theoretically this is no different from troubles he's had growing up where we helped and supported him even when it was clearly his own stupidity and he needed to pay for the consequences.

I really feel for partners who are conflicted about staying or going and all I can suggest from advice on here is to not rush, not neglect yourself in all of this and I think you're the first person that I personally have encountered on here whose partner reported himself which must go in his favour ultimately. He is a brave man. Hang onto the truth that he is also all the good things you have discovered about him over your time together and this new shocking disclosure doesn't negate that despite it swamping everything at the moment. If in the future you discover more things than you're aware of right now (although I'm not implying there will be), you can re-adjust your opinion and decisions then which will of course be a new whammy but you will find the strength to deal with it at the time.

I recently spoke to a friend who is having trauma therapy at the moment mainly about her childhood. Her therapist told her to every day look at her life through a 'window of tolerance' which I thought was such a good description of how to stay as mentally healthy as possible despite stress and trauma going on. She was stuck obsessively trying to understand the past and then worrying about the future but now tries to remain within that window where she won't be overwhelmed and in her case 'go off the rails' with substanc misuse. So I now have days when I know my own window of tolerance is quite wide and I can deal with thinking about stuff that needs thinking about but other days when I feel far more vulnerable and just know my window is quite narrow and I need to act accordingly. For example on those days I don't come on this forum (after 9 months of daily scanning and reading!) It helps!

Big hug to you today xx

I love the idea of ctrl+z for this. And I didn't know that was the shortcut.



Thanks on both counts!



xx