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After yet another ear bashing (this time in public, with swearing in front of the kids) he spoke to our eldest when I wasn’t in the room and told him how unhappy he is with me, and how I don’t listen (he recently told our son that I just sit on my arse all day!).
My son told me that he had said to daddy why don’t you get un-married so that you don’t shout all the time and mummy doesn’t get upset. His dad then told him the word ‘divorce’ and proceeded to talk about living somewhere different and mentioned about visiting.
He hasn’t mentioned a word to me about his conversation with our son and I’m not sure what to say to him. I want to tell him not to involve our very young son but I also don’t want to start him off having a go at our son for sharing this with me.
Have any of you had a similar situation or advise how best to deal with it? Thanks
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Hi Robin,
My abuser ex-husband confided in my teenage daughter his plans to separate (discard me) from me a few months before I received his separation letter. My daughter did not tell me as she believed his lies about me and the twisting of the truth. It was awful that she knew for a while and I didn’t. It weakened the bond between me and her. He also used to say the same ‘she won’t talk to me!’ and she won’t listen to me!’.
I couldn’t talk to him/listen to him as he kept just shouting in my face, telling me (in front of kids)’you’re mad!, you’re crazy!’, you need to see a doctor!, you’re destroying us!’, you’ll be out of this house!, you’re bullying me!.
How can you talk to someone who rants and raves and you end up feeling as if you’ve been ‘run over by a bus’ if you engage with them.
There’s no point telling him not to say it to your son as he knows it upsets your son and it upsets you and that’s the way he likes it. He will do the opposite to what you want anyway. If you say don’t say it to your son, he will do it all the more.
Keep posting for support and to stay strong to deal with his threat of divorce. He wanted the threat of divorce to get back to you to unsettle you.
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It’s another attempt at control: making you feel powerless by not even doing you the courtesy of speaking to you respectfully about issues and major decisions. He’s trying to make you feels fearful of the unknown, powerless, as if he holds the power to make any decision – and by excluding you from any decision or discussion ( and involving your eldest) he is doing what abusers do best: try to make you feel powerless and small.
Speaking to your eldest about it and not you is a typical tactic of an abuser: triangulation. My ex was apparently secretly running me down to my teenage son, minutes after being in a room with me and trying his best to trigger me to react negatively to him.
Triangulation is where abusers try to involve a third party, and try to set them up against you, so they the abuser can be on the middle, controlling the relationship between you two. It gives them a sense of power.
My counsellor told me that children move towards those that love them the most, and with love comes concern and consideration for their welfare.
If I were you, I would be transparently clear with your eldest and tell them that their father shouldn’t be speaking to them about adult issues which concern you and him, that they may be growing up, but they should still be able to live without being involved and dragged into the problems with the marriage, that it’s not their problem.
I was a teenager when my parents divorced, and whilst some might say I was old enough to cope, I certainly wasn’t ‘old enough’ to cope with being set in the middle and being told intimate details of my parent’s issues. It’s upsetting at any age when your own sensitivities are ignored and you’re just used as a sounding-board by a parent who loads responsibility on to you, rather than get help from someone who isn’t directly involved and vulnerable too.
My teenager seemed to be relieved when so told him that his dad and my problems were not his responsibility and that he needed to enjoy his life and let his dad and support sort things out ( though I do talk to him sometimes about his dad’s tactics sometimes if they are affecting him).
Telling your eldest that these things are not their responsibility will hopefully help your child feel cared for and will help them see that their dad’s involvement of them is selfish by comparison. You’ll also have the moral high ground!
Hopefully your eldest will be able to tell your partner not to involve them in the future. Abusers use people as tools and weapons, and yourceldest might not even realise that they have a choice to not be involved!
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