Thank you, thank you, thank you... to everyone who has already contributed to this.
Your kindness when I am so used to the opposite gives me HOPE .
I am still having to go through the appropriate actions and court is coming up for the restraining order.

I have fears, lots of them one of the biggest being I am afraid he will have unsupervised access to my son.
This is a very deep fear for me, as a Mother. I worry he will be triggered and either neglect my son and lock him in his room for hours (as he has done before) or hurt him. Before his drinking was out of control (again) I was trying continuously to get him help. I got him into AA, Therapy (private), Couples Therapy...I put in 10 months of that and gave it my absolute all despite my fears from his prior actions. I thought "well, alcohol is his trigger, he's sober now and we communicate so much better...." No. Given how far he degraded his behavior and things I've learned since (for example he cheated and there was proof in text where he admitted it and acknowledged it was unprotected), after YEARS of accusations that I was just going to "go out and fuck...someone" it turns out, this may have been his guilty conscience. I don't honestly know if he even feels . I have learned that he has had blackouts, he told me he he hit his ex girlfriend but he did it "in self defense" and "she was crazy". That he finally left from "her psychotic ass"...but now I find myself saying...maybe she wasn't. Maybe she called the cops because she had kids (which she did and none of them were related to him), maybe she was TIRED of constantly asking you to be honest, help, stop yelling, or maybe you swung at her often. You did tell me that you knew she was damaged from the beginning...I did ask why you bothered and your answer was simple..."the sex"....so shallow. But now I get it.

In a short period of time I learned that I wasn't the first you victimized, that you were unfaithful, that you had prioritized yourself so far above my son and I that you were constantly buying shit, drinking, reckless...

And then one day you did the unthinkable, you let our son watch his Father choke his Mother...and lay lifeless...

You didn't care that he was scared. You didn't care that he was terrified and needed help, love...to see that you regretted it?

I will never forget waking up. Ever. Because I felt the darkness creeping into my soul...so I believed it was over.

I heard nothing....felt...nothing.

But opening my eyes to see my son nearly purple from the tears...holding him close...trying to run out...trying to get free...but there you were...sitting in the kitchen...as if I wasn't dead in my room and our son had never existed. I could never and will never understand what you were thinking that night...if you were proud...relieved I was gone...if you even considered his feelings to see what you had done...but you never did apologize.
I think we surpassed the apologies...the weight of what HE saw will never leave him or me. I don't even care now about you. I just care that he is safe. I want to give him what you refused to. Support. Love. Intentional loving parenting without fear of violence.

I walk around scared. I have no idea what to expect from the outcome...he's still in the area and I am afraid but I do my best to completely shield my son and show him nothing but positive energy and stability. I tried fixing his father and failed, I tried, but now my SOLE focus is my son. Unquestionably. I do not care about anyone or anything else except his safety. I want to get him the stability I begged you for and you never offered to either of us even when I did whatever I could to support you and YOUR dreams...aspirations...career. You forgot that when we met, I fell in love with a side of you that I don't even know is real now. I went from feeling like you were my soul mate to questioning if you ever loved me or if you just knew because I was sick when we met you knew you could leech off of me (for years) emotionally, financially, and eventually draining me so much I didn't even feel like a whole person anymore.

Your absence in my life is the closest thing to a blessing as I've seen- apart from my son. I don't for once, fear what you're angry with today or if you're drunk and I have to talk you down again...or worse stop you before our son see's the worst in you, or the fear in me. I don't miss you. You made me afraid to leave, until your threats and violence were more than I could handle my son being a witness to.

It's one thing to hurt me, but to not even comfort him...that I will never be able to see past. I can't listen to him cry for 2 minutes without my heart breaking in half even if he just fell off the bed at night after a bad dream. It's barbaric to leave him to think I was dead as if THAT DID NOT MATTER TO HIM. Even if you hate me, and everything I say, call me crazy, whatever...it will never shift how little you cared for our son after you choked his Mother. No effort to console him. No hug or call to the police to get me medical attention...no effort to even wake me...if it hadn't HAPPENED, I wouldn't have been able to comprehend its reality to this day.

I didn't fall for you, I fell for the lie, the lie you show at bars and to new people, the lie that you're a good guy who loved me more than anything. But love? Doesn't equal abuse. In the course of a weeks separation from you I have realized that my constant feelings of fear are subsiding. I am still afraid, of so much to do with you now...but I do not miss you either. Not after what my son saw. I will never believe any "changes" now. You've shown you can play a part for nearly a year and then the mask falls and you break character...I feel as if you defrauded me for a year while I waited for you to repair, heal, grow...and now I'm done.

Thank you to anyone who cannot contribute for sharing this, you will give it the traction it so desperately needs and the help we need.

#Shade