Hi Chau,

I am new to this forum and am going through similar. I split with my partner 6 weeks ago. She is 40, I am 42. In the end, she was violent towards me and I left the house after a violent incident. We have a 3 year old son together and she has another girl aged 16. My son was upset about the row and he was crying when he saw me in distress.

Unlike you, I have deleted her on whatsapp and I do not have any of her social media account details. But like you, my mind wanders. On Sunday, I was thinking about her a lot and if she was out meeting people. In the 7 years I know her, her behaviour has been questionable. There have been 4-5 incidents of violence, A lot of emotional abuse and it has laden me down with guilt. After rows, more often than not I’d be blamed and she would rarely say sorry.

I can’t give you a lot of advice, but I do know how you are feeling and I know it is probably killing you. I’m afraid to go out in case I meet my ex with someone else, or that she might be drunk and say things (she threatened this before). I am listening to everything people are saying to me though about being good to myself, giving myself time and breathing space and moving on. In general I agree with what everyone has written here and their advice is sound. But I need to take that advice myself.

I just want you to know someone else knows how you are feeling and how it is affecting you. Despite some poor treatment, I still love this woman, but I am in counselling trying to work out how or why I love her when she has treated me very poorly at times. Is it self esteem issues on my part? Am I scared of being alone? Maybe. I do crave a family, but what good is that family if she reserves the right to hit people in the house and cause huge upset? (She has hit two of us in the house).

I too am hoping for better days ahead, but for now, it is tough, I am taking it literally one day at a time & I think I will never love like that again. But I thought that way before and I did fall in love again. So fingers crossed.

Hopefully, by posting here, it is helping you.

Sean.