I feel like I have lost something!

Woke up this morning feeling quite empty; still the first thing to enter my head was Carl. Seems like life has little direction today but life goes on, it has to, with my  5 children and my 7 month old nephew needing my attention I tried not to dwell on things that could have been, maybe even should have been.

Mine & Carl's love for our respective children and the feelings felt for each others meant that we had to take the decision that neither of us could cope with the guilt of the prospect of hurting our children in all of this.

Not going into detail about the situation as I want to respect Carl's privacy; circumstances beyond my control and due to the control of his ex-girlfriend we were no longer free to pursue a relationship 100%.

Carl felt guilty because he was treating me like a secret and I felt guilty for wanting his time and knowing that I could be jeopardising a relationship with the girls. That was just no basis for a relationship to continue.

Carl gave me one of his shirts to wear in bed and last night I still wore it, my feelings for him haven't changed but I know we can't be. I know I have to let go and just cherish the short time we had together. Take away the feeling that I was loved and special; but our love for our children is overwhelming.

Carl was there for me the day I was in court for the contact hearing; the day I broke down and fell to pieces. He reached out his hand and helped me up all from the end of a mobile phone. He was there again at the end of a phone the first time I had to hand my children over to their father after 3 months without contact, helping me through the agonising hours waiting for my children to return safely to me.

So much of my life is about my children and the overwhelming need to protect them. Sadly the one person that I need to protect them from most is the other person who should love them unconditionally, their father.

Some people may have picked up on the fact that I call him father not dad and there is a reason for this. Anyone can be a father but it takes a loving, caring man to be a dad. Everything in his life has to be about him, even the children.

Now some people reading this next bit may question what the problem is, but unless you have been in an abusive relationship you will not understand how it makes you feel.

Other than arranged contact, I don't speak to their father other than via email. I can't, as any verbal communication is used as a form of control, intimidation or violation of me.

He has a court undertaking and various solicitors letters setting out that there is to be no verbal communication other than at handover of the children, in respect of the children. He phones the children once a week on a saturday evening. I forgot to switch their mobile phone on (as he has been banned from phoning my house and my mobile) so he phoned the house phone. As soon as I heard his voice I said that I had omitted to put their phone on and would do so now and then put the phone down. He then rang the house phone again asking to speak to the children saying that he had got cut off, when in fact I had put the phone down, he then asked to speak to the children and I said that their phone was now on and he then got abusive because I wouldn't let him speak to them on the house phone.

He rang their mobile and spoke to the children. My eldest explained that my 10 yo daughter wasn't here. She had written an email explaining this, but had saved it to draft as it wouldn't send this morning and then forgot to resend it. He then asked my 3 yo daughter to put mummy on the telephone and I just can't do it, I can't speak to him. I let my guard down last week and ended up with a lot of bad language and threats, I cannot take the chance of getting any more abuse.

As I wouldn't speak to him, he sent me a threatening email instead. I just feel violated every time he abuses me. He is no longer my husband but will always be their father and as such will always have a way to abuse me.

I am a strong person in every other way but unless I totally shut him out I have no way of protecting myself from the abuse. I know he will never change and that I need to find a way to deal with the abuse, the only other alternative is to take him back to court for breech of both the non-mol undertaking and the contact order which he has flouted.

This would go one of 2 ways; he will either be fined or given a prison sentence or the full application for the non-molestation order will be accepted and I will have to go to court and give evidence against him. I have already seen his statement in his defence and it is written by a well educated solicitor working on behalf of his client.

Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse on the whole are very clever (at least in the way they carry out the abuse) and are very convincing, even twisting the evidence to make the victim look like the abuser.

I don't know whether I could handle either of these scenarios or the consequences they would have for my children.

As some of you will know I am attending a course for women either in or having survived abusive relationships. At the moment this is draining me but I know I have to go and face my demons. I need to find the strength from somewhere or the understanding in order to stop this abuse. I know only I can do that as he is not going to change.

Meanwhile, he still controls the children by any means he can, via email, letter, phone or direct contact. My eldest 2 children are already choosing not to go sometimes in favour of other activities they do. But without them ( and yes I know this is wrong) who will protect my babies? He sees them for 12 hours a month yet his presence is felt so much.

My children found a newt in the garden today and took great pleasure in making a little home for it. My sons told their father on the phone and he told them to immediately go and set it free. My children had even researched in a book about its habitat and what it ate. Some people I guess may not see the problem here but it is the little things that others don't notice that over time chip away at you until you don't even notice.

It has been 9 months now since I found the strength to ask him to leave and the abuse I have had over that last 9 months has been hard to take. Domestic Abuse is a scary phenomenom in the fact that people don't see it happening and even when you report it, you are not taken seriously.

Judges tend to shy away from Domestic Abuse in the Family court because it opens up a whole can of worms. They believe that an undertaking where the abuser doesn't have to admit the abuse is the better way to go, the less likely route to cause further trouble. This said, you do then not have the non-molestation order to back you up in a contact case.

Well, I have the next part of my course on Tuesday, the first session on the "Effects on the Children". I know already that this is going to be a hard session for me as I have seen what his abuse has done to my children and even though I ask for help it is not forthcoming.

But how, if I can't stop this abuse, will my children every really be ok?