I don’t deserve this

[SilkyHalide]

He always wins. Even when he slips up he finds a way to get me to help him get back on top. Because I refuse to resort to using the children. He came unstuck last [detail removed by moderator] and I didn’t take advantage I tried to do the best for children. But now I’ve in effect helped him fix it (as opposed to being vindictive and hurting the children by letting him stew in his own mistakes, or acting unreasonably because he would definately use that against me)he’s at it again. He’s making out my blocking phone contact is damaging to the children. I’ve not blocked him from speaking to them on their phones just me on mine! He can email me or contact me through family in emergency.
He’s now saying he won’t support any visitation of the children to me if he can’t phone me when they are in my care. I’m not a ******* babysitter. He doesn’t need to check on them when they’re with me. I don’t check on him when they’re with him.

[lover of no contact]

Hi SilkyHalide,

Yes its about control again. If it wasn’t him not liking/wanting the blocking of him on your phone it would be something else. He’s using the visits of the children to you, to abuse you.. I take it the children live with him, is that why he can do it?

His threat to you, you either unblock him on your phone or the children don’t get to visit you. If you give in to that, next time it will be, if you don’t see him in person the children won’t get to visit you. Next time after that it will be if you don’t let him in and make him a cup of tea, the children won’t get to visit you.

Does he really have all that power. If you say ‘no’ to his demands, what’s the worst he can do? Can he stop the children’s visits?

I go ‘strict no contact’ with my abuser and I get a bit of flak from my youngest child about having contact with his dad and me not being amicable. Abuser dad wants to be amicable my youngest says. I ignore it. I know its his dad in his ear. I am the most amicable person, but you can’t do amicable with abusers. They don’t want amicable. So it doesn’t matter how amicable I am, our separated relationship won’t be amicable because abusers don’t want amicable. They want fear, worry, hurt and upset.

I can’t explain to my youngest having contact with his abuser dad is like me having ingested poison. Takes me days to get over and I start going downhill very quickly. I won’t do that to myself. I have to keep my mind and emotions on an even keel, which I can’t do when I have any sort of contact with him.

[SilkyHalide]

Thanks lover ONC
Yes I have stuck to not unblocking my phones but my eldest has gone back to dads saying she doesn’t want to stay tomorrow as planned and he is now going to back her up on that.
I have no regular visitation since they moved in with him because he was alienating me. It’s been just what he arranges unless a problem then my days are cancelled. after helping him last week he and they agreed on every other weekend and he agreed to working to build up to them staying more and more aiming for alternate full weeks.
He says no contact might be ok if he was violent and I’d run away to a refuge to escape him but I am being unreasonable given he is a good person.
I know he’s wrong and I know he doesn’t want to email only because he can’t control me by email. He can’t make me doubt myself in an email because it’s what he says to me that gets me, he’s so believable when he’s telling me I’m the problem.

[SilkyHalide]

The thing is I didn’t just help him last week because it was right he was there controlling me limiting my options. I would have dealt with things differently if I had been alone. I tried to get over to school with my eyes, with him stood there that I was scared but I don’t think they could have helped any more than they did.

[Confused123]

Stick to you gut feeling hun, again his trying to control u and make u feel guilty

[lover of no contact]

Hi SilkyHalide,

This is a very difficult and painful situation for you. Glad you’re posting for support. The children are under ‘his spell’. My abuser was the same with my children. I understand the fear and the pain when they are influencing the children and parental alienation is happening in your relationship with your children and you.

If he wasn’t around, your relationship with your children would be fine. But their fear of him, makes them want to keep him happy, keep on the right side of him and if that means not seeing you, they will do it. Abusers are experts at ‘brainwashing’, manipulating, and ‘subtly suggesting’ behaviours they would like us to carry out. Its hard for children to be a match for them.

My children always put their abuser dad before me. They know that no matter what they do, I will always love them, so its easier to keep ‘unpredictable, abuser dad’ happy.

When things were really bad with the parental alienation when we were separating and I was getting away, I had to keep remembering the words ‘My children’s FEAR of their abuser dad is as great as their LOVE for me’. I had to learn to not take my children’s choice of him over me in all things, personally. They were just trying to survive. Even when they all chose through a legal court document to live with him, which meant I would lose their day to day care and I would lose living in the family home.

A few years on and my eldest child has moved out (he has less power over her) and my relationship with her is very good (and our relationship was severely strained (on her part) due to him.

My relationship with my other children is back to normal, but they still put ‘Mr King of The Castle’s’ wants and needs first. But then they are still living with him half of the time.

Hang on in there with your children, keep posting and things will change for the better, and hopefully he will lose the power and control that he has, in your relationship with your children because you’re getting more awareness each day (of abusers antics) and support for the very painful abuse of parental alienation that he’s carrying out towards you and towards your children.

[SilkyHalide]

Thanks for the support L.O.N.C and Confused 123
Xx
I had decided my course of action and keep gearing up to consequences but he keeps changing the rules and tactics.
I got very low today but with talking and posting and reading I am bouncing back. Hugs

[Serenity]

I am no contact with my ex.

When he lived here, he was horrible to all of us. Then he donned the pitiful act and has used the children to try and get to me, and twisted the kids’ minds to think he’d changed. For a while, despite my kids being dreadfully mistreated by him for many years, I got told off by my kids for ‘not putting them first’ and being friendly with their dad, like other separated mothers did ( their dad’s input, I can hear it. He can be so, so persuasive ).

However, I wasn’t dealing with a normal break-up and didn’t have a normal husband. Od realised that I had married a controlling, cruel and psychologically dangerous being, who would love nothing more than to wreck us all to feel powerful, and that he was cunning enough to do it in a covert way.

I am lucky in that I have had the amazing support and wisdom of DV support outreach, led by a wonderful woman who was herself the victim of DV, and she is so strong and insightful. She guided me through a lot.

I realised that I might engender the temporary anger of the children due to my no contact stance. Of course, it worried me that they might believe him that I was petty and selfish. However, I also realised that his mask would fall at some point, and his abusiveness towards the children would return. If I had acquiesced and was in contact with him and acting apparently civilly, apart from him being able to abuse and negatively affect me again, then when he began to be abusive to the kids again, where would they have to run and be safe?

I realised that for my kids’ own well-being, emotional and even physical safety, and for their own moral and emotional development and protection, they needed a place to go where he and his twisted morals were not permitted or welcome, and that it was very important for my kids that their mother was making a stance and going no contact, because if I was in contact with him and acting falsely pally, then I was basically saying his treatment of them ( and me) was permissible.

Then, how on earth could they say I had protected them from him, and what would that teach them both about what was an acceptable way to treat a woman ( mine are both boys)? After all, my ex had certainly never even apologised ; it was preferable to him to even stage false situations to make me look bad, rather than accept blame!

Sure enough, my ex has started again with the cruelty towards my eldest son. It has been so painful to watch. I have been just had to counter his abuse by being loving to my son. I haven’t engaged in long negative discussions about his dad and all along I haven’t succumbed to the temptation to badmouth his dad- as this would be what my ex wants me to do, so he can accuse me of parental alienation. My son sometimes shares his worries about his dad, and I answer as objectively as I can, and keep it short.

My son now hasn’t seen his dad for over a month, after his dad’s most recent act of unkindness towards him. Instead, my son has decided to stay in the comfort and safety of his own home. I bought him a lovely new blanket for his bedroom, I make him little cups of tea, I encourage him to think about his school revision. In essence, I am gently making him feel protected and trying to encourage his own personal development. He is getting good grades, and his dad actually tries to sabotage his achievements- this is the kind of man his dad truly is. I have many a story about that.

Imagine if I was often chatting to his dad and scared to say no to his dad even now, or to take that stance which said very clearly ( by engaging in no contact ) that how his dad behaved was wrong? Where could my son flee to? How would they learn, in their confused and vulnerable state, that abuse was wrong, and that the abuse they themselves had suffered was wrong and that they were not to blame? If I was in contact with him, my beautiful children might even begin to think that the abuse they had suffered was their own fault, not their dad’s.

My youngest is still being bought and groomed by my ex. My ex treated him slightly better, but the abuse is still there- pushing him too hard, making him only do things my ex wants to do, etc. There will be a time when my youngest may need to stand up to his dad, and I want him to have a place to flee where my ex isn’t welcome. Apart from this, my ex is trying to negatively influence my youngest morally and ethically, so I need to be firm in countering this quite openly.

The messenger is the one who is shot. The one who speaks out or makes a stance against the status quo is often criticised and attacked. But it’s important to hold onto the truth and live your truth, because in the end those people who criticised you will need you more than ever to remain strong in your truth. Your kids SS they get older will need you to be the string, constant send moral mum who can protect and guide them against his destructiveness.

With surreptitious evil and abuse, there needs to be a counter-attack, a place where morals lived are completely different. For example, if in the abuser’s house there is a climate of fear and coercion, conditional love and people not being able to say what they really feel and everyone play-acting to soothe the abuser, then in the other house there needs to be a climate of love, acceptance, openness, honesty, consideration of boundaries and others’ feelings, the acceptance of but guidance in how to channel anger, unconditional love, rupture and repair ( arguments and forgiveness )etc. It is our kids’ only hope to not feel that they have no choice than to become victims or to become abusers themselves.

Ignore his transparent abuse. Like all these abusers, his use of the kids is despicable. It may take time for your kids to see the truth, but I think that one day they will. And maybe one day when they are older, you can explain to them why you did what you did. X

[Serenity]

PS : I love the title of your post, ‘I don’t deserve this.’
You are already way ahead. For wasted months, I felt like I deserved it, and in fact none of us do.

What it comes down to us that abusers are in a relationship to win- and to feel the thrill of others losing.

Imagine the joy of being with someone who thinks in terms of ‘win-win’ all the time. That you both just enjoy life together. Who doesn’t blame you for his problems, but gets help for them, and who wants to make you very happy. Now that’s true love.

[SilkyHalide]

Thanks Serenity,
Yes I’ve been reading books about rising above their behaviour. About no contact etc. They have helped along with support on here, groups I have joined and friends and family.
Not had direct contact with DV worker yet but hope to speak to her tomorrow and get some more specialised advice and support on negotiating the legal stuff, getting the right help for my situation.
We all need to believe we don’t deserve this even if we have played a part in the toxicity before we did, or do ,learn better coping skills to drive these toxic behaviours or toxic people out of our lives for good.
I learned yesterday that I made 3 mistakes last week but in all the things I got right because of what I’ve learned previous weeks,it’s ok. And I’ll not make those 3 mistakes next time.

[mixed-up mum]

Just wanted to offer support……

You know in your heart you did the right thing by NOT using the children – you are the bigger person – the better parent – you know that…..

The only reason he wants you to unblock him is because then he knows he has got his way again and he has won.

At the moment he is calling the shots – saying if and when you cans have the children, he is pulling their strings – making them say and do things.

Bide yor time – one day they will see him for what he is – one day they too will break free of him and they will come back to you -hang on in there…..

Luv M.U.M. x*x

[SilkyHalide]

Thanks M.U.M
😊

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