'I left my abusive husband. Now my son is just as bad as him.'

As told to Anne DeGrey 

This post details domestic abuse. 

I was gutted when I left my marriage after nearly a decade of enduring the most awful emotional abuse. My ex-husband Ryan teased me relentlessly about being overweight. I had put on a little bit of weight after the birth of our second child, His new nickname for me was 'fatty boom-bah' and I just hated it so much. It didn’t matter how many times I told him to stop calling me that name, he kept on doing it.

And yet I learnt to choose my battles and that was one of the more trivial things that he did to me. The best way to describe how Ryan treated me was that he was just plain 'mean'.

If we had a conversation about politics or whatever was making news that day, he’d say, "What would you know?" Prior to having the kids, I was a mortgage broker and I like to think I had very good general knowledge, but Ryan would use my career against me. He’d say, "Stick to the one thing you know about, motherhood and real estate."

He'd talk to me like this in front of my son and daughter. I always worried that my son would end up talking to me the same way and that my daughter would think that this is an acceptable way for husbands to speak to their wives.

Well, thankfully my daughter knows her father’s behaviour is cruel and abnormal. But I was not wrong about my son. He’s become a clone of his father in the worst way.

When I finally left my marriage, my 16-year-old son began talking to me the same way his father had. 

My therapist tells me this is 'learned behaviour'. But then, why doesn’t my daughter speak to me badly too? I feel that it’s a combination of things — that my son inherited more of his father’s genes and now he wants to copy his father’s behaviour. 

It is very traumatic for me to leave my marriage due to constant emotional abuse, only to have the pattern repeated in my son.

Watch: Coercive control is a deliberate pattern of abuse. Post continues after video.

If I put a meal in front of him that he doesn’t like he says, "What’s this shit?" This is exactly what Ryan would say to me if he thought his dinner wasn’t up to scratch. He often accused me of giving him "rabbit food" for dinner and now my son does the same. 

I’m ashamed of myself that I didn’t stand up for myself and say, "How dare you," or "You can cook your own dinner from now on." I was too subservient as Ryan had been my first boyfriend and I didn’t really know any better. He never actually hit me but I was always fearful of him. One moment he’d seem fine, joking around or happily playing the X-box with our son, but then if someone or something pissed him off, he’d snap and take it out on me. 

I knew that the longer I stayed in that marriage, the sooner I would die — of what? A broken heart most likely. He was slowly killing me from the inside out. That’s what it felt like. The man I once loved clearly despised me and there was nothing I could do about it. 

Now I am free but, due to my son mimicking his father, there is no real escape for me. I am broken-hearted that my son treats me badly. I don’t have much money and I mostly shop at op shops — my son recently told me that my clothing makes us look poor and he wishes I wore designer clothing. “My friends mums all look better than you,” he said. 

If I tell him he needs to treat me with great respect, he says "I’m glad Dad left you." It's not true that Ryan left me, I left him. He likes to tell our kids that he left me because I was abusive…and nothing I can say will change his father’s narrative. Clearly my ex is projecting as he knows very well that I left him due to his emotional abuse. Thankfully, my daughter is my rock and always defends me in front of her brother. 

I don’t know what to do with him. Last week when I found a packet of cigarettes in my son’s room, I punished him by telling him he is grounded. Well, that set him off — he yelled at me, calling me a "fat loser" and then thew a glass at me; thankfully it hit the wall but that was a dreadful moment. (Ryan liked to throw things at me to frighten me).

I hope and pray that one day I can be close to my son again, but now he wants to spend more time with his father. So I fear I am losing him to his dad and there’s no doubt that will make his behaviour even worse. I’m really at my wit’s end. 

Feature Image: Canva.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Mamamia is a charity partner of RizeUp Australia, a Queensland-based organisation that helps women and families move on after the devastation of domestic violence. If you would like to support their mission to deliver life-changing and practical support to these families when they need it most, you can donate here.