I Need Help, Please! - 02/18/13 04:13 PM
This could be long. I will try to make it as short as possible.
I have been in two abusive relationships and the second one I am still in.
When I met the man I am with now, I was still broken over the first abusive relationship.
This relationship has been horrible, to say the least. I have two children with him and he even abused me while I was pregnant.
He has strangled me three times.
I did have a restraining order against him, before I was even pregnant with our second child.
I dropped the order.
I am not certain why I dropped the order, but I feel it had to do with feeling bad that he didn't get to see his son. Plus, I have no support whatsoever.
I had no money because he was (and still is) financially abusive.
I dropped the order and became pregnant with our second child.
Now, I am with him. I am trapped and alone.
I am depressed because all I do all day is watch our children. I don't have the means to take care of them if we were to leave.
The apartment that we're staying in is his and like I said earlier, I don't have any money to get an apartment of my own. My credit is horrible as well.
If I were to leave him, I feel that I would leave our children with him.
He has an apartment, a part time job and is going to school.
I don't believe he would let me have a job, but I have been applying non-stop anyway. No one will hire me because of my past work experience. My resume looks horrible because of the two abusive relationships I have been in. Who would hire someone with huge, seemingly unexplained gaps in their work record? I can't very well put "Oh, I was unconscious here, here and here...in the hospital."
My question is: Should I leave without my children?
The man has only harmed me three times since dropping the order, but realize that he is not a very young man. In my opinion, he's too old to change a behavior that is also looked at by his parents as "not a big deal". He's almost 32.
His parents do not believe in having children out of wedlock and still make me out to be the horrible one for not being married to him even though they know he's been in jail for abusing me.
I'm extremely torn. I know there's help out there for single parents, but it seems like it's not enough. Because I am living with this man, it's required that the Department of Social Services speak to him as well about getting childcare, etc.
I don't want him to know!
Also, there's a huge waiting list for everything anyway.
Standing back, it seems he's the best one to care for our children and I should just leave.
He's a good father, but I fear that if I leave then he will NOT be a good father and he will begin to treat them the way that he does me.
He won't have guaranteed, free care that I provided for our children. He will feel the stress and take it out on them.
I am scared and I honestly don't know what to do.