Jilllian

I'm so glad you get support from coming here.
I just started coming here myself, and I'm very grateful for the words of wisdom from people who have been there...

As for leaving my ex-husband, I did not have a support network.
I had family around at the time, but they would have encouraged me to stick it out and I feared they wouldn't be supportive. Turns out I was wrong, but that's a different topic all together.

I planned on leaving for a couple of months.
I rented a safe deposit box at a bank just out of town, and in it I put valuables that my ex wouldn't notice were gone (like my jewelry, money that was laying around the house, important papers, etc).
I had the bills for this sent to a post office box I rented in that same town, so no bills came to our house.
I also hid things in this safe deposit box that I didn't want my ex to find (names and phone numbers of potential landlords for example). Back then (late 1998-early 1999) I had no cell phone or computer to store these things in.
The second month in, I rented a very small storage unit. The smallest one I could get.
And in it, every chance I got, I would put clothes in there. Little by little so that it wasn't noticable. Same for my two-year old son's things, and my soon-to-be daughter's things (I was pregnant with her at the time).
All along I kept saving as much money as I could without it being noticeable.
Then one day I just loaded the rest of my things into my car and took off to an apartment I secretly rented.
I had just enough time to take some money out of one of our bank accounts before he knew the jig was up and closed out all of our accounts, just like I knew he would do.
It was all very calculated, but it had to be.
I remember that I just couldn't wait for "the day."
I looked forward to it every second of every day.


Whatever you decide to do, you'll get support from people here.
Seems to me there isn't a lot of judging going on...just a whole lotta supporting.