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14 Jun 2010
Kia ora Jude, I have been out of a relationship with my former partner for about four months, he has been serving time in prison. How do I actually leave him? I still have strong feelings of love for him and a sense of forgiveness for what he has put me through. This is a vulnerable time for me and I don't know what to do. Can you help?

Thank you for writing in, it's not easy is it? But you know you are incredibly brave for taking this first step and I want to acknowledge you and congratulate you for that. I know only too well how hard it can be to leave a relationship especially when we believe we are still in love with them. Also with your partner being in prison makes it more difficult because they can appear so vulnerable when they are in there.

May I suggest that the first thing you do is to focus on yourself and do all you can to build you up and strengthen you to a point where you are stronger and more confident and able to make decisions from a clear perspective. There are many agencies all over the country in all locations that offer services to help with exactly this. There are people trained to work in this field who can help you in terms of one on one counselling, or offer programmes which you can attend. Some of these programmes have been developed to build self esteem, educate us around family violence and abusive relationships, teach us techniques to help keep ourselves safe and in general help us understand ourselves more. This is all very important as doing all this can help us work towards having a healthy loving relationship free of abuse because abuse of any kind is totally unacceptable and not one of us deserves that.

Do you know if your partner would be open and willing to explore help in terms of your relationship? There are also services to help couples. It would also be great if your partner did some individual counselling as well and there are programmes out there for our men to help them learn what a healthy loving relationship looks like and how to be in one.

For some of us who have had abuse and dysfunction in our lives, we have grown up not knowing what a healthy loving relationship is all about let alone how to be in one so these services are extremely valuable. If this is the case with your partner, it does not excuse any abusive behaviour because at some point in our lives we must stand up on our own and take responsibility for our own life. So this suggestion would only depend on your partner's attitude. He may be in prison but these services are still available to him in there. What I do know is this, if he comes out and nothing has changed within himself or yourself then things will go back to exactly how they were, if you continue to do what you've always done without seeking help and changes being made the chance of the same thing happening again are very high.

So if you would like to ring our information line on 0800 456 450 you can find out what help is available in your area and start with yourself first and seek support and help then that is progress, you have taken the first step and this is about you - first and foremost.
I wish you all the very best, please know that you are an incredibly important and beautiful person and you deserve to be loved in a kind and gentle and loving way. Please don't settle for any less!!

Jude.

 


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18 Jan 2012
Dear Jude, I am interested to know what exactly constitutes verbal abuse. I have often wondered if my husband is verbally abusive - he says such cruel things (such as saying he doesn't give a f*** about our baby because its mother is such a b****) and says that people say the most hurtful things they can think of when arguing, and his mother agrees that this is normal when arguing. I had never experienced this in previous relationships but my husband tells me I am super sensitive. He swears, shouts and name-calls, but only during an argument. Sometimes, he raises a fist to me, but has never hit me. He did tell me he would never hit a woman but he was going to arrange for someone else to do it for him. Am I being oversensitive when he behaves like this? Should I just 'suck it up'? Thank you, Jude. ... Read the answer

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