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Fallout from FVRO

BettyBooBOO
Community Member
Hi, I took out a FVRO against my husband some 6 months ago, due to his alcohol, drug addiction and verbally, emotionally abusive behaviours towards me and our son. We have reached an agreement where he has returned to the family home and has since stopped his drinking and drug taking and is back to his sober self. Yet, he has been putting up an 'emotional wall' between us and treats me like a housemate. He says he finds it hard to build up trust with me again and yet, he has put myself and our son through an absolute living hell for the last 3 years in particular, and I always stood by him. I feel deflated, rejected, exhausted and do not know where I stand or where we stand. Feeling very lost in my marriage
3 Replies 3

smallwolf
Community Champion
Community Champion

Hello there and welcome to the beyond blue forums.

After years of abuse from your husband one might have thought you would have been reconsidering your marriage and yet you stuck by him. And now that he has become sober, which is probably what you wanted, the relationship is strained for other reasons.

He may have felt betrayed and other feelings by you taking the order out against him? You could also argue the changes were a result of that order.

I think that you did all the right things to protect yourself and family.

It may take time for him to readjust? Or to work out where he stands? Ultimately what do you both need for the relationship to move forward and can you do that together?

Croix
Community Champion
Community Champion

Dear BettyBooBOO~

I'd like to join Smallwolf in welcoming you here, I'm glad you came as your life has been a hard one for quite some time.

For oyu and your son to to be emotionally abused a husband, and for him to have alcohol and drug addiction for the last three years or so would have been most harmful both to you and your child.

Taking out a FVRO must have called for a great deal of desperation and I'd expect it left you wiht a fair degree of soul searching - even though you did the right thing.

I'm sure you are right and there is a wall between you, and he is the one that built it, culminating in the FVRO. Basically I think the onus is on him to make the effort to un-build that wall by continuing to not use alcohol or drugs, and to never abuse you -or your sun.

This is not to say he should to be assisted by encouragement. To overcome addictions is no small thing and being told so helpful.

Undoubtedly the FVRO will have left him feeling less secure and no longer free to rely upon you to meekly take whatever he dished out. So he has to learn to live under those new conditions where he cannot do whatever he liked.

I can quite understand why you feel at a loss and rejected at the moment, and I'm sure look back on happier days in the past. You are basically dealing with a new person, one who has had to recognise you are a strong peron in your own right.

It may take time but he has your love going for him, his knowledge he has managed to change, and your desire for him to live happily with you.

Perhaps that can all be conveyed to him by talk, perhaps by a family councelor?

What do you think?

Croix

Croix
Community Champion
Community Champion
P.S. My apologies for the spelling, the post was sent before I could make corrections and edits, however I think it still makes sense
-C