No empathy here, you’ve brought this on yourself?!

It’s now 7 months since my husband went to prison.

The children and I have support from my in-laws and my Brother in law, that’s it.

All the other support we have comes from other non offending partners / friends I am in touch with and Children Heard and Seen.

I wonder if I had walked away if things would be different?

I think of those women in Domestic Abuse relationships. They say it takes an average of 6 walk outs before they make that final break and stop going back. Is it only then that they are entitled to support? To empathy from those who love and care about them? Once they ‘wake up?’

That’s my perception and that’s also my perception of being a non offending partner who stays.

I don’t fit others narrative of a ‘victim’ because I am ‘choosing’ this position I am in.

The pain and trauma of the aftermath of my husbands arrest and imprisonment is immense.

Yes he is responsible for his abhorrent online offending behaviour BUT he does not continue to abuse me the way a perpetrator of domestic abuse does.

There is no coercive control, no financial, physical, emotional or sexual abuse towards me or the children. There never was. Yet the aftermath of his offences has turned our whole life upside down.

I am just getting over Covid. I have felt rubbish the past couple of weeks. Yet who cares? Not many I can tell you.

I try not to wollow in self pity but sometimes it’s hard not to.

The children and I have suffered. The children and I are suffering every day, without my husband / their Father by our side in our life.

Things could have been different. My family could have supported us. Many families do. They could have helped to ease some of the pressure of the past 7 months, if not the past 21 since his arrest. Yet they haven’t as they see it as I have ‘chosen’ this path, to stand by a man who has devastated our life.

I wonder what the future will hold. The abandonment by my family has been equal in pain and trauma to what’s happened with my husband. A double whammy if you like.

One day he will be free, one day he will be home with the kids and I were he belongs.

My husband never intended to cause us this level of pain. It breaks his heart the impact it’s hard on the children and I. Yet my family are intentionally hurting us. Intentionally punishing us for a crime none of us committed.