UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader whom we’ll call “Gloria.”
I have been divorced from my abusive husband (mental, physical, sexual against me but he NEVER LEFT A MARK ON ME) for 11 years and we have 3 teenagers together. I have known him 20 years. For most of this time, I have been puzzled about why I could not “move on” after the divorce.
Yes, I left him. During the marriage I did not know the name “abusive,” so I just kept trying to be a good wife and mother, fulfill my marriage commitment, etc., but then I woke up just enough to know that it was “abusive” and I left. We had gone to about 8 couples counselors during the marriage, and I always ended up feeling much worse, and he never took any of the responsibility, just smirked and was derisively contemptuous.
I kept trying to get along with him following the divorce, to “co-parent” (we have joint custody) as the courts seem to require. I have a lot of good will and keep forgiving and trying, but I’m not a pushover! I’m an assertive person and I do assert myself with him constantly, respectfully. Though he is not respectful in return. I tried for all these years to say to the kids, as I was advised by mental health professionals, “your dad is a good man. I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. We just don’t love each other anymore, the way married people should… but I loved him when I married him, and he is your father, and I will always support and respect him.” I am so angry at the mental health professionals for steering me wrong! Seriously, I did all of this in such GOOD WILL, but ignorance. I only, always, wanted what was going to help my children.
After everything I tried, nothing seems to work and now we are barely speaking. I mean he has been trying to control and shape how I am “allowed” to communicate with him. Basically, instructing me, I could email him, but only once a week, only one topic per email — and so I would, and then it would be something else. I mean, just impossible demands and hoops to jump through. I finally realized, there is no compromise with this man, unless I do all of it. He does none of it.
Scares the children
There are some interesting, colorful problems that go along with my story. One daughter cut her wrists a couple years ago (one time), she was frightened of her dad and refused to see him, and he blamed me (instead of coming together with me to help our daughter in crisis) for her refusal to see him, and threatened me with legal action (he threatens repeatedly).
He attacked her physically in her room, locking the door, menacingly advancing, pushing her to the floor, yelling at her. He has rage attacks frequently. He scares the children.
I should mention that he is very wealthy, a lawyer. Not a con-artist profile! He never bilked me of any money — but I am struggling financially due to having been focused on raising the kids all these years, and the kids have difficult personalities. He could, for example, take me repeatedly to court, just for the pleasure of impoverishing me further. He did this during the divorce — his family has a lot of money. He is an upstanding citizen, good employee, no criminal record except that one time I called 911 and he was arrested and charged with DV
Prized possessions
I have tried to lay low with him. I have tried to “appease” him just to get off his radar. We have joint custody and the kids go back and forth. We have tried a few times to go to counselors to help with “parent coordination,” but the counselors always fall for his lies OR they look at both of us puzzled and say stuff like, “with the two of you, it is hard to know where the credibility lies.
He is more interested in them as prized possessions than in them personally. This follows the pattern of how he treated me (as an object) during our marriage. It is a very cold thing.
Now not only do we have the one daughter refusing to see her dad, our son is also refusing to see him. He will not say why, “I just don’t feel like it.” This, I should say, is an adamant refusal — there is nothing I can do to force it. My ex-husband blames me and has accused me of “parental alienation.” He does his own alienating — he needs no help from me!
I have been advised by these counselors, “The conflict between you and your ex-husband is very bad for the children. You need to stop.” And I am so hopeless, hearing things like that. I am not the one doing it. I am not the one attacking, or ignoring, or being rude and disrespectful. Though I do sometimes assert myself to him (not defend, not counterattack, not withdraw). I say, “You are lying.” He smiles and says, “No I’m not, you do it too.” There is just no getting to integrity with this man. It is maddening.
My own parents have admonished me to try to give him the benefit of the doubt and get along with him for the sake of the children. 🙁
College money
My ex-husband is assigning “roles” to the daughters: the daughter who still sees him is the “good” child and the one who refuses is the “bad” child (they are twins). He has offered $100,000 in college tuition to the “good” daughter, and he has told the other daughter that his $$ help for college is conditional upon her return to a “full relationship” with him. I assume he means that he comes back to live with her — not that they have a real relationship based on love.
I should mention — he lies, lies, lies. He smiles like there is no problem, making me out to be the crazy one. He has been remarried for the past 5 years, and I think she is possibly more sociopathic/evil than he is. For a long time, I thought maybe he has BPD. Then I thought no, he lacks empathy, must be a narcissist. Then, now, I see the sociopathic connection. I see the fake display of emotions. I see the lack of remorse. Well — both he and his wife have the fakey-nice sing-songy way of talking to the kids, it sickens all of us, and I worry about my one daughter who still goes over there. I worry about my son who sometimes exhibits thoughtless behaviors.
Teenagers
Which brings us to today, where the story got very interesting all of a sudden. I recently got a full-time job, which requires my being gone from the house for the usual number of hours (instead of being home as flexibly as possible, which I tried to do all these years, working part-time or flexibly). The kids were having a rough adjustment to it, but I said, be patient, it’s a transition, we will get through it, but yes you have to help out more (teenagers). I have been a good mom. I have been there, I have done stuff with and for them. I am not perfect. I think I have been utterly normal and healthy. Despite the PTSD I’ve had to deal with.
So, the one daughter who refuses to see her dad, she reacted badly one day when I had a “lecture” to all three kids (it was a stern lecture about wanting them to help out more — I have to be very careful and precise and honest in presenting this to you: My kids are not used to me being stern — they are used to me being “nice” — so this was new and different to them, but I assure you nothing abusive or out of the ordinary in what I think is pretty common and normal parenting especially with teenagers. I really am a very even keel person. So this daughter goes to her counselor the next day and rants about me, she is so upset, and the counselor reported me to CPS, which began an investigation, and I will cut to the chase:
Mandated therapy
We now have mandated family therapy: me, the 3 kids, the ex-husband and his wife! This is very interesting since I would really prefer “no contact,” and that would be much healthier and more appropriate for me. It is interesting and maybe useful for the kids now to see the way their dad really is during these sessions, which send chills down my back (especially the new wife and him together). The kids are getting very angry and fed up with him and his lies and his “impression management” at each session.
Read more: Our family wizard can help you co-parent with a sociopath
CPS “found” me “unsubstantiated neglect,” which is such a sad blow to me. Because I know it is unfounded. I know they did not do a fair and thorough investigation. And I know the investigator had her mind made up before she even came to see me. It was a hostile interrogation and she told me the allegation was that I “hate” my daughter and that I am “mentally unstable.” So this will be on my record (searchable database for prospective employers/volunteer agencies) for the next 5 years, until my youngest is 20 years old. I think this is insane. This is what the system is like. I think, why would the state expect a victim of domestic violence to be in weekly mandated counseling with her abuser? It makes no sense to me.
And this is where I am now — some things in the way society views sociopathy, domestic violence, etc. just do not make sense. My friends are even shaking their head and nervous — they say, “Gloria, if this can happen to you (CPS), this could happen to any of us. You are such a good mom!”
Why all the urging to women to leave our abusers, and THEN we are expected to co-parent with them? And the children are supposed to just be okay with all this?
Learn more: Proving parental alienation in court
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Aug. 26, 2011.
Letter to Lovefraud: I’m looking on POF, but I’m scared to move forward
Gloria
I only read to “prized possessions” but I’ve got to comment.
You know your own reality, you know how hard you have tried. You know it is impossible to get along with him, you know it is out of your control. That so often seems to be our problem in the first place, we go into these relationships with kind of a God complex, we can do the impossible, we can’t . If anything is our problem, that is. When I realized that I really was trying to do the impossible then I realized it didn’t matter what ANYONE said. I knew the reality I was living. Now if people try to tell me I should do this or do that I don’t hear them or think to myself, “You do it.” We know our reality. Lucky people who don’t understand. Lucky people who, for them, normal rules work.
Dear Gloria,
“Prized possessions” is so right on but he will destroy them for sure….looks like he is already doing it.
The daughter who is doing the cutting is showing one of the signs of Borderline Personality disorder (it is only one of the signs) The one who turned you into CPS for “abuse” for wanting her to help around the house, sounds like she is showing some signs as well (or are they the same child?)
The mandated family counseling? LOL What a joke.
It frustrates me that some of the “professionals” don’t “get it” about manipulation and emotional abuse, or that it can be as bad or WORSE than a physical beating. At least broken bones can heal, an emotional beating destroys lives and the mending can’t be done with a cast and 6 weeks.
Gloria, I wish i had a “suggestion” for what you could do that would even “help” but I have NO IDEA what would help your situation, other than to just turn the three kids over to him and walk away and try to save yourself, and I doubt that is the answer either. It appears to me that your X husband won’t quit until he has “destroyed” you and your children, then stomped on the pieces. He has the malice, fake mask and resources to accomplish that. I am sorry that you are in such a terrible position. I will pray for your strength, the healing of your heart and your children. God bless you.
PS if you have not read the book “Legal Abuse Syndrome” please do so, and go to Dr. Leedom’s “parenting the at risk child” web site….also, you might actually contact a DV shelter near you and see what resources they might know of in your area, a support group or other resource that might help you.
Gloria,
Your story has a ring of familiarity to it. There are patterns here. Triangulation is one.
Spath met a billionaire whom he tried to milk by becoming good “friends” with him and his wife. Spath would come home and tell me about him. He said, “G has 2 twin daughters, who are grown now and they hate each other. G pitted them against each other while they were growing up. They hated each other so much that they demanded to go to different high schools. G, dislikes his daughters too, the only kid he loves is the mentally retarded youngest son”
The whole family has a strained relationshit. G is now about 80? or so.
That sounds like what your spath is trying to do to his daughters. He wants drama and he’s going to get it come hell or high water.
The only things I can recommend to you is the same as we do to everyone else here: EDUCATION and GREY ROCK.
You must learn as much as you can and get books for your kids to read, so they can understand what is happening too.
Get LOTS of books, make them read over and over and over again on the subject. it takes a long time to cement this kind of information into your brain, so that it becomes second nature to understand, rather than to be confused by the spath behavior.
Lastly, I hate to tell you this but you will need to be vigilent about gathering evidence. You will need to get nanny cams and surveillance and record what is actually happening.
You need to save emails.
You are involved in psychological warfare. War is war, no matter who is involved. So play by the rules of war: keep your cards close, trust no one, not even your kids because they can turn on you (as you’ve seen). Your goal is not to win, because you never will, but to survive until your kids are out of the house.
Lastly, never show the spaths what you value or what you want, redirect their attention to irrelevant issues to keep them busy. When you want something, never go straight toward it, use a round about way of getting it.
Good luck.
Thank you for this article. I feel you!
I am in a similar “No Win” situation with a spath. Trying to parent our six yr. old.
Last night in desperation, I called the abuse hotline for advice on getting a restraining order. After outlining the situation, the woman said to me, “In my opinion, what spath said to your child is *Child abuse*. I am a mandated reporter, and if you would just provide your personal information, I will report this to social services.” (??!!).
Ummmmm…sure… Got a pen? NOT!!! The LAST thing I need, is an ongoing WAR of, He said/She said, with CPS AND a SPATH!
I said, ” Look, I’m going for a restraining order. In my deposition, I will be including the info I gave you. Since court officials are also, “mandated reporters” one would think, they would have a duty, to report these events. How much would you like to BET me, that they DON”T?”
If I get the restraining order, spath would no longer be allowed to abuse, my daughter, or myself, (theoretically).
Hotline lady’s suggestion, just puts another weapon of abuse in spaths hands. Adds another layer of stress and terror to the situation FOR him, straining an already tenacious grip on what little reserves we are able to cling to.
Even with the abuse industry, they just don’t seem to *get* it about spaths. Why not EVALUATE for this potentiality deadly disorder whenever child custody/visitation is on the table?!!
Tired and frustrated today…. 🙁
Thank YOU! to both LF and Gloria for this. It comes at a time while I am still ‘stacking the deck’ and noting all things relevant for the day I leave. We too have children, which I adore and he tries to control…
I know this will be a long and tedious, steep uphill battle some days. Others? Well, I try not to think about them, yet I must still prepare for the worst.
Our In-justice system has so many flaws it is unreal. Spaths seem to be born knowing how to manipulate things in their favor. It’s only when you take the control away or jerk the rug out from under them, they regroup and refocus- usually on the children. And as much as CPS is supposed to help, yeah, thanks but no thanks. Hugs to you Gloria. It will get better for you some day. Just keep hanging in there until it does.
Phoenix:
“It’s only when you take the control away or jerk the rug out from under them, they regroup and refocus- usually on the children.”
Exactly!
Monday I got a text from spath: “You win. I’ll say goodbye to Lil’bit this weekend.” (can we have some violins please?).
This was supposed to manipulate my emotions regarding, *my poor child being without a dad, and how hurt she will feel*.
Half hour later another text: “I’ll be moving south on Thursday.”
I have been wanting to move south for years. Spath knows that. SOooo…here I was, “supposed to respond, ” Wait! Take us with you!”
He got the same response he’ll get, from me, for the rest of his miserable life: NONE.
I can only imagine his level of frustration, now that he is realizing, he has lost control of my emotional responses.
By Tuesday morning, it was back to business as usual, with a barrage of threats. Spath it seems, has changed his mind. He’s not going anywhere without his daughter.
Oh, and I am “welcome” to come live with them”…otherwise he plans to destroy me…
Dear Safeguard,
Yep, he will flip and flop from sweetie to angry and threats, please SAVE all of these messages, texts, or whatever they are as EVIDENCE, you are going to need them in the end.
DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT.
There is a web site called MY FAMILY WIZARD “DOT” COM and it is useful and can be used by court order as the ONLY COMMUNICATION between parents…..and it keeps record and evidence of what is said that is useful to the court, so if you go to court for custody again maybe your lawyer can check this out and get it set as “the communication” avenue. It costs a bit but not much. There is an article here about this website.
When my family went for an entire year (and that included my egg donor) without any communication with my psychopathic son Patrick who is in prison for murder, he wrote to us, flipping and flopping trying to get us to communicate,, then he started to write others and say he was “worried” since he had not heard from my egg donor and would they call her and see if she was OK. She would hang up. He wrote letters to a minister friend of ours (a good man) telling him how UN-Christian we were because we would not give him “unconditional love” LOL After he tried to have me murdered! and almost DID get his brother C murdered by his ex cellmate. LOL
Eventually though, my egg donor started to feel sorry for him and sent him money, then letters, and now support, and lied to us (we caught her) about it all….and we went NC with her as well as with him. (I still have to communicate mostly by e mail on family business with HER but that is ALL I discuss with her).
She still tries to get information about me and my son C, but the last time she pulled that (and actually, I bit and gave her the opportunity to get information about son C) my son C wrote her an e mail and blasted her about trying to find out where he lived and told her in NO uncertain terms that it was NONE OF HER BUSINESS WHERE HE LIVED. I was actually somewhat surprised at HOW ANGRY he was that she was attempting to find out where he lived.
Keep on with your NO RESPONSE and keep as much of your information as secret as you can. Hopefully, he will find another victim and move on, but it may be a while, and he MAY never move on….but make it as difficult and as unrewarding for him as possible. The ONLY hook he has is the child and he WILL use it as much as possible. Good luck and keep on reading and learning, that is our best defense. God bless (Hugs))
Oxy,
I totally understand your son’s anger…I found myself becoming almost enraged, with certain people, who suggested that I might be being “too hard on spath”. They were falling for his “pity ploy” and trying to suck me in to it too! Oh my God, was I pissed!
Ya know, we FIGHT for our safety and our sanity. For our very LIVES and then people close to us, try to hand us over to spath on a silver platter?!! WTH! yeah I still get “mad” just thinking back on those times. I trust NO ONE totally.
If I have plans, no one knows what I am planning to do until they see me doing it.
I have a few people I trust to help me, but even they only know what they absolutely need to know. Spath will find the weakest link in your protective *Armor* “Like a Lion Spots a Limp”…
Sucks. But it is what it is…
Safeguard and Oxy- mine is but a psychopathetic control freak. He has no self-control so seeks to control others in every way possible.
My teen daughter lives with us. He harps on her every chance he gets- trying to make sure first, nobody else is around, within earshot or can see him. Like I don’t find out about it? Puhleeez! I jump his shit every time, but he still tries.
He tries to get the wee ones to do his bidding. Majority of the time, one of them has nothing to do with him. The other one limits their contact with him. I am greatful for this now, but don’t know how long it will continue.
He cannot be bothered to do anything for a mere few minutes, that may bring anyone else some happiness. Those few minutes or even seconds are improtant and it’s right back to all about him…
If anyone accomplishes anything- he tries to step forward and take credit. If someone goes outside to work on anything, he goes along. Not to help, but to watch, coach and otherwise tell them how it “should” be done.
Go to a store, ask about a product, service or DIY project, out of his mouth come the most insanely stupid questions. Things you wouldn’t even think to ask because you know how to put things in the freezer if you want to ‘freeze’ them? Really? He didn’t know… *gasp* How does that make me look, standing there with him, ring on my finger because I am married to a complete dolt!
Safeguard- I know what you mean. I have a small inner circle of friends who know everything that I have endured. Three maybe four people- tops. They know what to do, who to contact and how to find all of the info I have on the vortex, should anything happen to me.
Oxy- Why would eggy be trying to find out about C? Is she planning another attack? Wouldn’t surprise me if she were. Scary, creepy shit you got there.