Painting him as perfect on social media

[littledove]

I escaped an abusive relationship a few years ago when I was (detail removed by moderator). I didn’t want my baby to have that life, being around an abuser and a drug addict. He would scream/swear at me and throw things and make threats all the time. He was getting supervised contact with my child (without me present), but he just used her to control me and to keep making more threats, kept showing up under the influence of drugs as well and he kept making excuses for not coming to see her, then he fell off the face of the earth when he (detail removed by moderator) and he hasn’t seen my child since.

When that woman left him after (detail removed by moderator) he was charged with domestic abuse against her, he still sees his child from that relationship. And he did message me at this point with a poor attempt to see my child when he had been drinking, I ignored this, and not heard anything in a few years since.

Now he has just had his next baby to his latest woman. Curiosity got the better of me I looked at his new victim’s profile, there’s a post she put up about how he is such a good dad to his  kids  and how they are (detail removed by moderator). And there was pictures of him with his kid (from his last relationship) (detail removed by moderator).

I know these are just seconds worth of what goes on in a full day in their lives and maybe he’s still acting perfect right now. But it’s posts like this that make me question if I did the right thing ignoring him and keeping him at arms length from my daughter. And wondering has he really stepped up for his kids? and making me sad that he never did for my daughter. 🙁

My kid is the happiest, sweetest, kindest child there is,  has never been around shouting or anger, and is so full of love. I just blame myself most of the time in regards to him😭

[Lisa]

Hi littledove,

Thank you for your post. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. You have described someone who has a history of domestic abuse with his ex partners. Abusive men can be very manipulative and charming- posts on social media are a tiny part of our reality and often the only parts we want people to see.

You have done the right thing by protecting both yourself and your daughter. Often if abusive men are “stepping up” its more about image and not something they can maintain.

Best Wishes

Lisa

[Author]

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