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Hi
Its been (detail removed by moderator)since I left and I thought I had left the ‘is it abuse’ question largely behind me. But ex is insisting on 50/50 child care arrangement and I have had the choice but to go along with it or have him turn up on the doorstep and have it out with me in front of the kids for anytime under 50 %.
(detail removed by moderator)
I do want my kids to have the best possible relationship with him, I do not want to remove him from their life as he loves them in the only way he knows how and they love him. My youngest even misses him. However, I do want to protect them from the damaging aspects of his behaviour.
Limiting the time seems the only way to do it.
The problem is that this means that I now have to go over everything I am trying to put behind me including obsesing over wheather he is/was an abusive parter or father… I hate to think about it, the bad stuff that people will get as abusive I can’t bear to think about or talk about and I dont even believe that it happened to me… and the rest that i can talk about might just sound like sour grapes after a separation. It seems so petty and domestic or like I am insane.
Caffcass is going to talk to me and I am so worried that i will just look silly or mad. I am constantly talking to a mythical caffcass officer in my head and I get caught up with what it was like for me instead of for the kids or just feel ranty and worried that I might of remembered stuff wrong.
Really worried.
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Trauma from abuse brings confusion and memory loss but please believe his abuse was real and dangerous. Get in touch with your local women’s aid and get them to support you. You need to act in the best interest of your children. If they loved a pet rabid dog that savaged them, would you keep the dog? You need to protect them and any contact with an abuser is going to damage them. You cannot separate the damaging parts of him by limiting contact because during any contact he will abuse. You can get some free legal advice from Rights for Women, they have a website. Most family solicitors will offer a free initial consultation. Keep any evidence of his threats. Texts emails etc and keep a journal of his behaviour too. The court will want evidence. Perhaps you could suggest he sees the children in a supervised contact centre if you are forced to allow contact at all,
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Writing might help?
I mean making a list of short blunt statements.
I hope this won’t trigger, but jist simole factual things like:
He punched my face
He twisted my arm
He shook child A
He calls child B ‘X’ most days/weeks
He gets angry if children make noise
Children hide from him
Children go quiet
Children wet beds
He throws things, scares children, they cry and run away
He has explosive rages which scare us
He threatens ‘X’ (might be to hurt, to kill, suicide, etc)Make your list, which could be hard for you to do, but it will help fix very short less emotional statements in your mind.
Keep to the list and dont expand on it, keep it hard hitting and concise.
Rehearse saying these things when you are feeling strong and have some bright and cheery music on, or in a place that feels safe.
Have someone be with you if that is possible and would help you to feel stronger.
They meed to hear the blunt reality of life with him, of what he does, without risk of misinterpretation.
He does x, y, z. The effect the children is…
He will abuse you, you have said, in front of the children, he has no boundaries, and demonstrates an entitlement to just bully you into submission, in front of thr children. This is also abuse to them.
I hope this helps and that your meeting is a positive one that will ensure cafcass know very clearly that this is about you putting your children first, nothing else and that he is unsafe for your children to be alone with.
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He got into rages with them.
It was scary to see.
He shouted, he got in their space hitting, dragging manhandling them and threatening to do so.
When I protested, he said that he was not hurting them physically, he was just a bit rough. He said that their behaviour was my fault. He got angrier. He said they were spoilt and misbehaving. He said I made everything worse and that he was only having to do this because of me and that I needed to leave so that he could sort things out.I thought maybe he was right, or maybe it was normal for a lot of people to discipline their children like this. I could see how he learnt it from his own family. I felt his pain. The children were out of hand… I was defiantly the soft one and now he said I was undermining him.
I said I would always stand between he and the children if I thought he was going to hit them that I would never condone it. But that if he didn’t, I would back him up.
He physical stuff reduced/stopped, but he held me to my offer. I then had to back him up (not question his treatment of them) or he would get into a massive rage. It didn’t matter that neither I nor the children where clear on what they had done wrong.
I need to see this up on the forum alongside other testimonies and to read it as if it was someone else. That might help me see.. but he is still their Dad and I don’t want it to be true. How can I help them going forward. They want and need their Dad. He also rings them up when they are sad and makes them feel better!!! He seems better at this than me even.
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He can be as great as anything, but also abusive.
What matters is how he behaves when things go wrong, not when everythings right and he gets to play the doting father when they are upset and disney dad. Its all about having control of them
He needs them to turn to him when they’re in need.
He doesn’t want them to have others to turn to, that would threaten his hold over them.
Good for you writing it out here, I think it does help to write it down.
For the cafcass meeting keep your statements brief and hard hitting, without any area for grey.
Keep writing it all out.
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