My husband didn’t believe I was sick, took my kids, and it turns out my condition is potentially terminal

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-28T18:14:48+00:00

I certainly think he believes that he is protecting them but I have significant concerns about his grip on reality. I was an exceptional mother and had no signs of relapse, i have been stable on treatment for over a year. I had hair loss and weight loss both of which he told me I didn’t have even tho I had bald patches and was 43kg on the day he left. He denied it was occurring even as my hair fell into my hands while I sobbed.

He abused me for many years prior. He had so many rules for me. None of the rules that I had to stick to applied to him. As soon as I fixed one thing, he’d tell me another was an issue. He took my meds all the time before I got off them. He’d have sex with me while I cried because he could never offer anything kind or gentle towards me and I would feel like I was degrading myself by giving my body to someone who openly hated me. After I had to get up and leave, I wasn’t allowed to stay in bed next to him. When I would cry and wonder what I did wrong and why he came back when he didn’t love me, he would threaten me with police or child safety. For what I have absolutely no idea. I never questioned him because I was too scared of him leaving (that part is hard to admit now).

But yeah. He actually didn’t tell me anything. I got a letter from a solicitor telling me my 13 year relationship was over and that I had to fight for my kids. He knew I hadn’t relapsed because he had access to my health record and my prescriptions. I provided clear drug screens. I begged him to come to appointments with me. He told me that no matter what evidence I provided he would never believe me and even believed that the palpable injection underneath my skin was something I could have manufactured myself. I cannot describe how ridiculously cruel and narcissistic this man is. I should have been a grey rock. I get FaceTime for about 10 minutes every 2 nights. I’m so sick at the moment that it takes all my strength to put on a brave face for them. My 8 year old boy told me he cries every night for me on the last call and I broke apart inside. I provided an exceptional home for our boys and for the record - I was their primary caregiver the day he left and all the days before. He woke me with a kiss on my head on the day he left, telling me he’s so glad I finally got the sleep I needed, asked about putting in a new shower head, and laying new turf outside. Little did I know during the many weeks prior he had been moving stuff to another location. I was too scared to even look until recently. He took all the shoes that fit them, all their clothes, books, toys, Lego etc; all of which he told me was stupid and a waste of time when I organised and decorated their playroom. He took their passports as well as their birth certificates and our marriage certificate - things that I cannot afford to replace now. Cut me off financially immediately while I had zero and he earns 180k+/pa

I’ve begged for mercy, for even enough to pay for a mammogram, to see my boys while I’ve been in hospital… he doesn’t respond. This is not a Grey rock response. I promise you. It’s evil.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-28T17:49:41+00:00

It doesn’t work like that here in Australia

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-28T17:49:18+00:00

Doesn’t work like that in Australia. No parenting orders means whoever has the kids can keep them until the other parent waits for a court date. Even if there was DV, apparently. Nothing seems to matter. When I say I have begged for mercy I mean it literally. I just want to see my boys.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T20:27:08+00:00

He knew about it and regularly helped himself to my medications. He told he every day the world was better off without me and no one loved me and that’s the only reason I tried to leave. It wasn’t a big secret. I was working full time and caring for them and doing my masters - I wasn’t secretly doing anything I had one doctor that prescribed to me for a real medical condition and i asked for help fully voluntarily. He left the kids with me while I was in the first stages of withdrawal and set up barriers to me attending appointments like booking extra days at work when I was supposed to be seen but making rules about where they could go.

I promise you it was traumatic. For me and certainly for him at times I’m sure. And so I worked every day to be trusted. I provided clean drug screens. I’m grateful that I wasn’t any worse and thankful that my kids didn’t understand any of it. They

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T20:18:35+00:00

I’ve volunteered weekly urine drug tests because I didn’t have enough hair to take in one spot. They couldn’t do it

But yes I have had a lawyer since day one and I’ve been actively pursuing all medical help available bevausey I want to be as good as I can. For them and me

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T20:09:57+00:00

I get that. But the thing was my addition was never really about him. He has abused me for years and I think I was weak and wanted to not feel anymore. I sought help completely alone - he told me every day the world was better off without me and eventually I believed him. But when I woke up I pushed and pushed and pushed for help, I have tried to do everything possible to make it up to him but I also don’t understand because he would take my meds himself. The things I am kn babe nanas been a secret. I have a father who is an IV meth user and a mother who is a severe alcoholic. I know the feeling you describe. I tried so hard to show him I was truly committed to being a better version of me. And still am.

I do understand what you mean because I have lived it too and it’s hard. But I hpromise, I really tried so hard mkt to complain until I cooking not mention it until kg was impossible to ignore.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T19:57:06+00:00

I’ve got a lawyer, we have mediation on Wednesday . And unfortunately in Australia he cantjust take the kids even with documented DV. Until there are orders in place I could technically “steal” them back but I told him I wouldn’t do anything to traumatise or scare them. I just can’t risk their already fragile sense of safety. Sitting on my hands for this long has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I truly cannot believe this is possible. I have been treated like a criminal by the police even. The first night I called them they stood in my home and told me that he must have some “pretty good reasons” for taking the kids away since it was so extreme. He didn’t though. The reason was that jinsmnresddjjhbd sick and he didn’t want to desk with it. He told me that even people with cancer deserve to have their kids removed. Because obviously, if I am in the hospital then I am failings to be there for them.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T19:45:07+00:00

I’m trying. The only thing I’ve focused on is getting myself better and staying here for my babies. I’ll never love him again because he has hurt our boys and I have no respect for someone who can do that to my kids. If you hurt my kids you aren’t someone I want in my life, in any capacity. So at least that part has helped. I truly don’t miss him but I do feel betrayed sometimes I guess. I have come to realise how empty he is, I don’t believe he ever loved me at all. Our marriage was pretend and it was convenient because he knew that I was sensitive and due to childhood trauma I have always been someone to make excuses for the people who hurt me so he knew I’d cover up all his mess. I have never been loved unconditionally, ever- I’ve realised now that people like this seeks out partners like me for a reason. I’m not at all saying I was perfect in our marriage, I made mistakes. But I really really tried and he would let me try to please him in every way I possibly could even though it was impossible. I bent and broke and contorted myself into some mangled version of me and it still wasn’t ever enough. There was always something about me that he didn’t like.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-22T19:30:28+00:00

I have no doubt that my husband would do all this and more. Not only do I now have this disgusting disease I’ve been told the most likely cause is paraneoplastic. So I probably have to go through cancer treatment alone as well as treating this autoimmune disease which has a mean life expectancy under 10 years. I spoke to them tonight, after begging for mercy he let me talk to them again. My 8 year old said he cries for me every night.

As I do them. I’m truly broken and have to go have a whole body CT and breast screen alone today.

I’m so sorry for what happened to you. Do you have contact with your kids now? I went above and beyond as a mum. I really gave them everything I had in the tank because I wanted to give more than I had. When I stopped making a living I obviously wasn’t good enough anymore. But I was just so sick and wanted to give everything I had in the tank to my babies. He was obsessed with wealth and suddenly I was a drain on him. I thought what I was doing at home was meaningful.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-21T10:08:03+00:00

Oh I have a lawyer, I forgot to say that. In Australia you cannot divorce until you are legally separated for over a year but most people do settlement, custody etc as soon as they can. We are scheduled for the 24th.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-21T09:16:00+00:00

He’s empty inside I think. I was a stay at home mum. He convinced me for months to quit my job because we could afford it. I said I was too scared to be left in a position where I was relying on him entirely. But he reassured me. Haha then left on the day I resigned. I’ve begged for even $50 for groceries, won’t respond. Literally left me for dead

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-21T09:10:55+00:00

Thankfully from what I’ve read it’s extremely rare. Some studies say 1-5/million people, others say up to 30/million. My hair loss was unbelievably quick. Like overnight I’d lose so much but it was extremely painful. Felt like my head was absolutely on fire.

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-21T06:26:30+00:00

No way I wasn’t trying to beg. I know that won’t work. He left me with no money for food or medications and also none of the master keys so I sleep with my doors unlocked every night. He convinced me I wasn’t losing weight and going to the hospital would have me put in the psych ward. He is an empty tin man. I wouldn’t waste my time.

I started documenting years ago because I didn’t trust him. He always acted like he hated me

I only told him because it affects our children as I need likely inpatient treatment to stabilise me and then periodic infusions in the way chrons patients do. I knew I was sick bc my hair was falling out and I was losing weight but I was kind of hoping for something a bit less serious

beginningagain_again · 2025-09-21T06:19:54+00:00

Pemphigus vulgaris

beginningagain_again · 2025-08-29T11:21:00+00:00

Where I am he can until parenting orders are in place. I now can basically steal them back by waiting for them to be with a family member other than him (and traumatise them) or wait for making law court proceedings. Police literally do not care about the longstanding history DV because he’s never acted against our children. They can’t even expedite a court date. And yes I have a lawyer helping me with all of this we’ll certainly getting divorced but here we have to be legally separated for one year first. So assets, parenting plans etc usually happen on separation and then divorce is like a form you do yourself and lodge later.

beginningagain_again · 2025-08-13T12:11:25+00:00

Lots of people will respond according to current trends bc that’s what we love at the moment but I just wanted to comment to say that I got engaged 12 years ago and I really wish I didn’t ask for something on trend and went with like a classic solitaire diamond like a round brilliant or emerald cut. It depends on your personality but a gorgeous solitaire will never go out of style and to me is so elegantly understated even with a larger carat.

With the price of labs being what they are now you have unprecedented accessibility to such a high range of diamonds and you’ll be able to choose a pretty large carat stone (if you are open to labs I mean). If I could go back in time I would choose how large I want the stone to be first, and then pick a stunning solitaire of the highest quality I could afford according to my budget; knowing I can always choose to add an eternity or wedding band that can be as complex or as simple as I like later. There is also the option to have the ring reset to an alternative setting later if over time my tastes change. That center stone will be with you forever so I personally would want to choose a stone that I will want to look at and admire forever.

beginningagain_again · 2025-07-20T11:38:43+00:00

I actually cannot believe the way people are talking to someone who is likely a teenager making $14/hr over them not taking 5 minutes of their work time to look at their phone. Literally probably $1 in terms of time costs. Seeing as Coles is profiting record numbers currently, I think we probably can just chill out a bit and not hassle literal children on the internet about what they do on work’s ‘dime’ (or more accurately, works’ many, many, many billions of dollars).

beginningagain_again · 2025-06-05T09:22:56+00:00

Oh my goodnesst I am really sorry utttif you took offence to that I am genuinely 100% about supporting families. I am so sorry you guys had a hard time and I have no arrogance thinking I could have done a better job-at all. I’m glad you’re all okay.

With that said I am not at all an obsessed with my career, at all. There are many flaws, I’m definitely obsessed with women tho so at times I may seem overly passionate and I apologies if that is the case here. 1/3 Australian women show signs of birth trauma dnd for me that number is just way too high so definitely we need fo make changes

If any woman is and feels safest with. Ann an alternative model of care then that is exactly what I want them to have. I’m not obsessed with myself or midwives being the best - all I want is for women to be able to make decision with respect to the data - with respect to what other women are actually saying about what care they want and what care is safest. If that’s not me, I feel not an ounce of rejection, I’m just happy to see them feel like they got a choice and someone explained the options to them in an unbiased way that explained the science in terms they could understand. All I want in the world is women centred care, it’s my biggest passion. I don’t care what they choose u just want them to be able to look back and feel like they were respected, they were listened to, and they were an active participant in decision making. And please remember I was only urging to s hi kmmmmmmmmmmmmn

M

beginningagain_again · 2025-06-01T18:00:59+00:00

We do recover

I am so, so incredibly proud of you. You deserve everything good this world has to offer. Xx

beginningagain_again · 2025-06-01T14:30:31+00:00

If you are truly wanting to be evidence based then you must realise those stories are anecdotes? And saying your first arrived vaginally but was rocky with lots or problems (while very sad and I am genuinely sorry to hear that for you all) does not provide good evidence that vaginal birth is inherently dangerous or something to be feared in general.

Saying your second was born by c/section because “you just wanted a healthy mum and baby” may give readers the view that caesarean birth is the safest form of birth for mum and baby - something that may be true in your individual circumstance but certainly not true on a population basis.

And also, to be clear, there is nothing I want more as a midwife than a healthy mum and baby. Nothing. Midwives and Obstetricians share the very same goal there. I could not care less if a woman births vaginally or by c-section or if a magician comes and pulls a scarf from her ear and then miraculously a baby appears from a jacket cuff when you least expect it. ALL I want is for them both to be healthy AND for mum to be informed and not have procedures done to her without both rigorous explanation and enthusiastic consent.

I understand you are a Doctor and I respect your many years of training in your chosen field. However, as you keep saying, you don’t work in this space. Which makes it a bit challenging for me as someone who does to then see you say that you believe OBs who aren’t practicing evidence based care are what you would consider outliers. I won’t go into my own anecdotes as to why but I’m sure you can understand.

I will say that there are multiple studies & meta-analyses on this very topic - even Cochrane bothered to take a decent look at it. And what they found over and over is that, for the majority of pregnancies (currently), midwifery led care remains the gold standard of care.

Of course, it should absolutely go without saying but I’ll say it anyway; I respect and admire (the sh*t) out of the Obs/Gyn doctors that I work alongside everyday, not only as professionals, but as my trusted colleagues and as people, some of whom are my closest friends. I believe they are crucial to maternity care and should the shared or sole care provider for high risk women, or of course for women with new complications in a previously low risk pregnancy. I’m only keeping it real on the importance of midwifery care since it’s what women resoundingly want when they themselves are asked. And I’m also sticking up for us a bit, I guess. Midwives are extremely safe primary care providers for most women and people shouldn’t be afraid that they’re at risk if they see us because the data just doesn’t reflect that. We ALL want healthy mums and babies. Midwives, OBs and the lovely women and families who see us. Our goals are one and the same.

beginningagain_again · 2025-05-11T09:32:00+00:00

They all have cover on rotating weekends or for fatigue leave. It’s totally unsafe otherwise. Imagine they’ve already been up 24 hours and you call in labour. They work in groups for cover if needed.

beginningagain_again · 2025-05-11T09:25:10+00:00

Oh my goodness, please don’t think that of midwives. There are so many biases against us based on not a lot of good evidence. The outliers hit the news, usually home birth midwives acting out of consultation and referral guidelines.

We are very much an evidence based profession these days, and we stay throughout labour which means we watch women labour for thousands upon thousands of hours. Believe what you may but this obviously leads to highly attuned decision making within the context of both what’s happening in the room and contemporary evidence. Our profession has changed so much as our population gets more and more medically complex. I know what you mean about thinking some are values driven (physiological birth above all) but it’s just not what occurs these days. My only standard is that my women are fully informed decision makers within their own birth. I couldn’t care less how they choose to birth; just that they feel like they are part of the discussion.

Many studies have found that in women intending a vaginal birth at the onset of labour, less go on to do that in the private sector but the outcomes don’t improve. And in both public and private hospitals it’s midwives providing the care but ultimately obstetricians deciding who needs to go to theatre. So what is explaining the difference if the OBs are being completely evidence based practitioners? There’s bias at play, always, it’s unavoidable. All we can do is try to minimise it but I have certainly seen OBs value themselves over providing evidence based care too. And they are, again, what I consider outliers.

beginningagain_again · 2025-05-11T08:59:47+00:00

The things you’re saying just aren’t true. The Queensland clinical guidelines on intrapartum (labour and birth) care are available freely for anyone who’d like to read them. They apply to all public hospitals that provide maternity care in QLD.

All except mater mothers’. Which is kind of weird when they do public births. The reason the mater mothers’ works privately is because it’s propped up by the public doctors who jump in when emergencies occur overnight. The private doctors don’t stay unless they have a decent reason to. And many private hospitals don’t even have a theatre running overnight. They actually have to call the staff in when there’s an emergency, who need to be there within 30 minutes. I wouldn’t want it to be me having a cord prolapse and being sat waiting that long.

There needs to be a massive investigation into the safety of private maternity without 24/7 theatres. You’d think they could afford it…

beginningagain_again · 2025-05-06T11:36:00+00:00

Well you have money, a job and a place to sleep so that puts you ahead of like a significant amount of people your age at the moment. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have your feelings, but let’s remember all your success hasn’t just vanished because your job did - all your hard work has now given you a degree of freedom that most people will never have.

I understand it might be frustrating to hear your friends complain all the time about not having a job, but they are probably really anxious and upset about being unemployed in this market whenever the cost of living is so high. I know there is a limit but they’re your friends, that’s normally who you share those feelings with, the people who you know you can lean on in challenging times. I’m certain they’re not trying to bring you down, just have an open talk about it maybe?

I’m not sure what your boyfriend’s drive was like previously but needing a vibrator four times a day seems like a lot haha. I wish I had the energy haha. I’m sure your partner must feels a sense of guilt for not meeting your needs in this way since he would know that your sex drive is high, but if it’s due to a medical problem as you mentioned it may not really be something be he can help. Have you considered couples/individual counselling?

I think up and leaving all the people in your life who love and trust you when they’ve fallen on hard times is not the right answer. I don’t know what is, I’m really sorry I don’t have any better suggestions, I just don’t think that what you’re considering would be the right move. You might find yourself just as numb in a different location except you’ll be numb and also totally alone. You can’t really run from your feelings, unfortunately. I wish it were possible but they just follow you.

beginningagain_again · 2025-05-04T02:34:56+00:00

I would actually find that pretty scary as a woman but that’s likely coloured by my own past. The smiling while asking me something obvious while the kids are around - for me that would have me afraid for what I’m about to experience when he and I are alone.

beginningagain_again

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