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The most heartbreaking dramas that sociopaths create are those that involve children. Many sociopathic parents stand up in court proclaiming that they “only want what is best for the children.” They’re lying. What they really want is to use the children as clubs to beat their ex-partners into submission.
There is no such thing as a simple phone call to find out what little Johnny needs to bring to soccer practice. Every phone call or e-mail is an opportunity for the sociopath to manipulate, denigrate and infuriate the ex, through lies, innuendo and misinformation. For the parent trying to protect the children, it’s exhausting.
A few months ago, Lovefraud published a letter from “Penny,” who is in this situation. She wrote her Tips for co-parenting with a sociopath. One of Penny’s recommendations was that parents request that all communications with their former partners go through Our Family Wizard.
Our Family Wizard
Our Family Wizard is a website designed to facilitate communications between separated or divorced parents in relation to their children. It promotes “cooperative parenting:”
Parents can coordinate shared custody and joint custody parenting time schedules, health records, immunization histories, expense sharing, school information, virtual document storage and much more on a website specifically designed to deal with the issues that arise in co-parenting situation.
Our website is committed to removing conflict and improving the lives of children. In fact, judges in all 50 states order families to utilize the site in contested cases to reduce conflict.
The Our Family Wizard website is a great tool for managing difficult parenting relationships. The website provides excellent documentation to help reduce conflict that may arise from ineffective communication. Should you need to return to court, all pages are printable and most come with a preformatted print option with all the necessary data you will need to show that you have met your parenting obligations.
The service costs $99 per year per parent. “This fee is worth it,” Penny wrote. “I know this because the judge hearing my case ordered that communication between my ex and I take place solely on the Our Family Wizard website. The judge also ordered that no verbal communication is to take place between the parties facilitating the exchange of my child.”
No creative language
Thousands of families use Our Family Wizard, according to Jainarain Kissoon, CEO. One reason why it helps in high-conflict situations, Kissoon says, is because the website’s structured format allows no room for “creative language.”
“Phone conversations used to turn into heated battles, then the battles moved to e-mail,” Kissoon says. “The site helps compartmentalize what everyone is doing. In co-parenting classes, they emphasize businesslike communication. The site provides organization—there are no long e-mails back and forth.”
With Our Family Wizard, parents can limit communication to filling in the blanks—soccer game, what day, what time, what the child needs to bring.
Features
Our Family Wizard includes the following features:
- Calendar—each calendar event, such as soccer practice, includes which children participate, the location, the drop off parent and the pick up parent.
- Journal—entries can be shared or private. It’s a place to document any incidents, and all notes are time and date stamped.
- Message board—With no outside e-mail servers, there are no lost messages and always a way to verify a message has been received.
- Info bank—A place to manage all family information, such as schools, childcare providers, immunization history, emergency contacts, insurance and more.
- Expense log—tracks shared expenses, automatically calculating each parent’s contribution.
Documentation
An important benefit of Our Family Wizard is its level of documentation:
- Each entry is time and date stamped—who created it and when
- Every page is stamped with the last time both parents viewed it
- Messages cannot be altered or unsent
- Dates on journal entries cannot be altered.
- One parent cannot change the other parent’s information
- Nearly everything can be tracked back to an IP address
- An accurate chronology of events can be produced
- All pages are printable
The software includes the option of third-party accounts, so, if necessary, therapists or guardians ad litem can monitor communications. If a parent engages in abusive behavior, it is readily discovered and difficult to deny.
With Our Family Wizard, it becomes easy to tell who is complying with court orders, and who is not. Kissoon relates why one judge said he liked the software: “It gives people enough rope to hang themselves.”
In an early pilot program for the software, a judge ordered 40 families to communicate only through Our Family Wizard. For two years, none of the families were back in court.
Testimonials
The Our Family Wizard website includes testimonials from parents. “Manuel S” wrote:
I am thankful to this avenue of communication. It has controlled the nasty phone calls from my ex-wife to me and my wife, and has put an end to her foul language since she is aware the content of messages is monitored. I have documentation to avoid he said she said situations and her violations of my rights to see my kids!”
Penny says the website works. “Please mention to readers that they can request that Our Family Wizard be ordered by the judge hearing their case,” she wrote. “The judge can order the Our Family Wizard email as the sole means of communication between couples litigating a child custody/visitation dispute.”
For more information, visit the website below. If you decide to subscribe to OurFamilyWizard, Lovefraud will earn a commission from your purchase.
Wow, EB-what a nightmare you lived through. I understand how you feel about getting a cancer diagnosis while your spath is ransacking your house. My spath did the same kinds of things….act concerned but had an agenda…the only times he was nice to me or to my parents even when I was married to him still was when he wanted something-usually money. he actually tried to get my parents to turn their entire estate over to him and we’d ‘take care of them’ for the rest of their years…Well, he was so smoke and mirrors around money, made everything so confusing that luckily my parents and i said NO WAY. Thank god. About three years into marriage I came back from a weekend trip in the city to get away from him and clear my head a bit….and he and our therapist had made a unilateral decision to take me off all the financial accounts! He was so happy and so loving and complimentary…took me to dinner and laid that bomb on me. I was in shock. i was pissed. He was smug. And I felt betrayed by our therapist. Blind sided. He said i spent too much money. Are you kidding? He spent 5k on kayak, 8k on a bicycle that was built for him…thousands on clothes that i picked out so he’d look professional and up to date…and I had to shop at old navy. Nothign wrong with old navy but the point is if I wanted anything, even a sand box for my daughter he’d have a fit. I built my daughters who play yard by hand. Wheeled in small rocks, built a sand box, made a climbing tree….myself! So, i come back and find myself out of the loop financially. When we’d get together on sundays to do a budget he’d always make a mess and then say, Oh, come back later something isn’t right, or he’d say “If YOU CAN DO IT BETTER THAN YOU TAKE CARE OF THE MONEY” and if I even said yes ok, he’d freak. So, I realized later that he was hiding money, and then he gave me an “allowance”…it was sickening. I felt degraded..and humiliated. the entire town knew he did this…our accountant, friends, banker…I felt like a child. I lived before I met him and after my divorce from my son’s dad for 15 years…I know how to take care of myself! he treated me like a silly child.
How I have come to this place…feeling so low…is just sad. I don’t want to feel like I need to scramble and fix my mistake…that is what made me make mistakes the first time around…but I am feeling I lost 5 years being emotional. And afraid. But i was also helping take care of ailing parents and going to grad school. Arghh….!
I read what you write EB and I am afraid of losing my daughter. I have tried to call andn they won’t call me back. So I’ll continue to document and do what I need for her and start my trek down to her town weekly. I have fears here…why is that? You know the one thing i wanted was another child, more than anything, and I have lost her. For now. she is my sweetheart and it pains me to hear her cry for me. Sometimes I wonder if she’d be better off without me so she wouldn’t hurt so much but I know that is stupid. I’d never leave her I just don’t want her to hurt. But I can’t control that. I can only love her and she knows I adore her. She is a very smart little girl. Brilliant actually, with instincts…she gets things. I hope she gets him soon. At times I think I’ve lost her and at times I think she hates him. I know he speaks badly about me to her…and makes her believe I have done something really bad. I hate being on defensive and am sick of trying to explain things that aren’t true.
I know how awful it is to find family betraying you. My brother, when my mom was dying, had already put a plan into place. I see it now and I am so stupid because i don’t think like that…I never would have done what he did. It was very confusing when i went to talk to doctors (parents lived 5 hours away by car) the doctor told me he wasn’t comfortable talking to me..I was confused and said what do you mean? Then I told him my dad has alzheimer’s and he stopped in his tracks and said what? I didn’t know that….so apparently my brother didn’t tell him my dad has alzheimer’s but did tell the doctor that i was to have no information about my mother and that I wasn’t to be involved. And at the same time my parents were begging me to get my brother out of their lives…he had been raging and threatening my sick father who was terrified of him and calling my poor mom while she was in hospital yelling and cussing at her….she was dying! So as I try to get guardianship and fix things and figure out what to do…my dad was also dx with cancer right then and I was just overwhelmed…all of a sudden adult protective services is investigating me! After my brother abandoned my father in the middle of the night and there was proof…hospital and neighbors knew and I was called up to fix things….my brother and my spath colluded and turned it around against me…People around me don’t get that this could happen… All of a sudden my brother puts a restraining order against me so I can’t see my father….this while my father is begging me to not ever leave him. He is adorable and I love my father so much and things have become a mess…because my spath got a chance to help my brother and with his md credentials the adult protective services treated me like a criminal…you wouldn’t believe how they talked to me…and although they came to my dads house and saw he was clean, the house was immaculate, my dad was eating a gourmet breakfast (I take better care of him and my daughter then I do myself! LOL) they still ended up siding with my brother….even after the neighbors who is ex FBI told them that when I got there then good things happened but they were afraid my brother was dangerous and is dangerous, could kill us….so, how does this happen with both my brother and my ex? I am sitting here baffled at the last 6 months…everything I did to help was turned around…I get back to my work and i got fired…my spath called my work and lied about me (I do have a pending lawsuit for wrongful termination)….so even as i write this I think who could believe it? My friends keep saying what did you do? My son says, “I don’t know what to believe” and he was there with me! He saw it, he heard my father say he was afraid of my brother. I just don’t get it! And my problem is I am trying to make sense out of illness and it is impossible.
It is so hard to tell this story…I want to write a book, probably like we all do! Because the story of my ex inlaws is hysterically funny and ill…a great film noir! and then to add in pornography, affairs, a physician who speaks in tongues, prays with his patients, was written up in the local paper for being a god…and he rages, is abusive, raped me, had inappropriate behaviors with our daughter….addicted to Ambien and operated on patients with no recollection….and he wouldn’t NOT take the Ambien when he was on call…there is alcoholism and addiction (mil and fil who is dentist) and my own recovery…it just goes on and on like the crazy story it is!!
I had one thread of sanity left when I found this site. this past weekend was my lowest point…I thought I was going to need SSRI’s to get through any more…and I still might. I just am grateful to be here among people who understand, believe and can help. I, too, get your stories…and empathize. I had no idea so many were affected like this. It helps to know it wasn’t just me…and as I’ve said before so many times these past five years I have thought it was all me..that maybe my spath wasn’t an spath…but I know my heart and I know the truth.
Thanks for listening….again!
Chinagirl:
Thank GOD your parents had the awareness NOT to trust him with their future!
The reality in life is……we all have a ‘story’. None more aweful or impactful then the others……
If we walk this earth…..we have a story.
I think we are raised with a fantasy of thinking life is fair.
We all learn these lessons the hard way……IT”S NOT!
I’m trying to explain this to my son, who’s insisting he learns everything the hard way.
We encounter lazy, bad, manipulative and bad peeps wherever we go in life. It’s just the way it is.
I’ve got to back away and set my boundaries stiff…..and not waver.
It kills me to watch him screw up……lose jobs, make poor decisions etc…..I can see it all coming…..he can’t.
The only way change can take place is when we take personal responsibiity for our actions.
When we are feeling bad about our choices and the bad endings……that’s when we will change our futures.
Correct our actions or beliefs for the future.
It applies to all of us!
In regards to your D. Expect the ‘shield’……expect no cooperation…..you must find the holes in his ‘game’. You must follow through, to show the courts your actions and expectations of a relationshp with D. And give him NOTHING. Percieved or real.
We all do things we’d change……and quite frankly, the courts will not hold too tightly to setbacks…..as long as they are changed.
In this period, you have attained your further degree…..you are on the right track.
As I was told by a judge…..we are NOT in the business of breaking up families.
The spath did this…..and you must counter control ALL info being provided to the courts.
Document yourself and ‘build’ a case.
You are so right. I always thought life should be fair. wow! how naive. I also thought the judicial system was fair. I can’t really rant about something I know very little about but at this point i do not feel I have been given a fair shot throught the system and despite written professional documentation of my spath’s porn addiction, raging at me, raping me etc no one gave it any merit. But things that happened to me in the past 20 years ago was brought up in court and used against me. i guess money talks.
Tough love is hard isn’t it? Raising our children. I feel lucky my son has done well but I am sad that he still has a weird connection to my ex and I wonder if it has to do with money…Hate to say it but I do think as a self preservation he knew my ex was helping pay his college and he only had one year left when I left spath….my son needed and wanted to finish so I am happy he was able to get what he could out of spath…but its not as if my son, who is very very close to his little sis, has been using any relationship with spath to see his sister. I want to say ‘he is young’ but he is 26, not that young…although he bought a house last year and has a good job…he also lost his fiance in a car accident as I mentioned..he is probably in a bit of ptsd himself going through all of this…his grandmother died, too. (My mom)…but I am still uncertain of his loyalties and it feels strange to shut everyone out. But I have to. I have had too many people hurt me and my own family trashed me as well. they don’t even know me. Haven’t seen me in years but i get to be the scapegoat. I am the only one in our entire family with a degree and I have three yet I am perceived as the sick one and the loser? Not even close. But it ticks me off anyway.
One thing is I need to figure out is how do I not act defensive about everything? When I am accused of things I didn’t do do I explain it? Or do I leave it alone and then when its my turn to talk so to speak I just tell my story? I have been making mistakes I feel by being very defensive and running around saying “No, I didn’t do that!” and I look like a maniac! What do you think?
I don’t want contact with spath so what I have done is make a new email address that I will use just for spath and his wife and his attorney if needed…and have tried to set up contact with spath’s wife and told her i want to set up time three times a week that I can call daughter every time…so there is no phone tag and no disappointments etc…that way it is kind of set and expected. I think that is a better solution than me trying to call and never getting a return, or if I do it is not when I asked time wise and I’m with clients etc….and my cell doesn’t work well in office so i have to go outside and it makes it not a smooth thing. So I am trying to set a few things up that can be consistent so i can be solution oriented rather than problem oriented and I told his wife that i am sending package to her office and she can open it and check it out if she is more comfortable that way but that i want to make sure my daughter gets it and i am also recommending that I start a journal and that my daughter and I journal back and forth every 1 or 2 weeks…I write for a week, she writes for a week and we talk about oru days and our thoughts etc. And I explained I am waiting for judges paperwork before I can see the therapist who will supervise our visits…he won’t do it without that paperwork and I haven’t recieved it…I asked my ex to give therapist a copy but he won’t of course. So i started a dialogue today with spath’s wife who is a bit more reasonable and hopefully she is starting to see signs of illness with him….she has gone along with some weird things that he has done…I watched them come up during the divorce five years ago and take back the four runner even though I said I would drop it for him…but l ike stealth warriors they “stole” it and flew out of the gate with it…and i stood there watching and laughing and had text him saying “Hey, glad you got the four runner….My friends and I just watched you come up and grab it even though I was going to drop it off for you like was requested” and the fact she got caught in that kind of behavior makes me wonder where she is at…probably believing that I wouldn’t bring it to him…but I wasn’t given the chance to! that kind of thing…and I think EB or OxDrover you said that some day she will see the signs. His first wife emailed her 3 days before their wedding saying be careful…the wife did respond and it was quite an ordeal I think the day of the wedding…my ex was pissed and yet the wedding went on as planned. We just couldn’t NOT warn her…you know? I knew it wouldn’t work and it hurt me more than anything because it pissed him off more at me…but woman to woman we went back and forth trying to decide if it would help at all…and we actually told her not to tell him but that if she married him to keep these emails and call us in the future and we would help her. she has fallen into the trap of believing what he says about me and i did the same about his first wife. his first wife is amazing. I’d marry her! LOL. She really is incredible. Smart, gorgeous, a go getter…she lives next to some famous musicians and is really involved in the domestic violence stuff…and he portrayed her just like he portrays me…inept, sick, mental, adulturer. he projects is what he does.
When you write D does that mean daughter? the last paragraph above i assume you are talking about my plan for my daughter….
CHinagirl:
Yes, D=daughter….sorry about that.
At this point….when you open dialogue to new wife……keep it about D ONLY!!!! Even if she tries to provoke you into conversing…..D only!
Decide on a new wife ‘tone’ you’ll use at every conversation…. with a smile, friendly….direct and say what you want…..not need….want. Commit to that tone regardless of how she picks on you or leads a convo. take it right back to nice/friendly/smile.
If you can’t handle that ……get off the phone for that moment. Tell her you’ll need to call her back.
Make her look ‘forward’ to your talks…..and remember it’s NOT girltalk! It’s D talk. No snyd remarks, nothing that puts her on defense…..Not kiss ass….just professional with a friendly twist. think of someone you know who communicates in this manner and study them……and do it too!
Be gracious of her ‘kindness’ to D. Refer to ex as first name only…..
Well, i can meet Jerry at the park at noon with D, that’d be great.
Bring her ‘back around’…..to….hmmmm…..she doesn’t seem that bad?!?!?!?!
This takes 100% of the time……..one slip up and your back to 0. Start over.
Defensive;
Okay……heres my take. I realized i had spent the past 28 years of my life defending myself against CRAZY, weird things……nothing I had ever thoguht about let alone done.
It was so long a time of doing this…..one day…..I realized…there is nothing I can do to make them/him believe me.
And why does he accuse me of having an affair??? etc..
Well…it dawned on me the projection!
When I stopped defending myself…..I realized that everything he was accusing me of…..HE WAS DOING!!!!
So…..I started listening….’taking’ the punches so to speak….with NO reaction.
I wrote down all the accusations and started looking in that direction.
All the times he accused JR at 10 of being gay……well guess what……guess what spath was hiding…..YEP…..
The accusations are to keep us off balance…..worrying about US……STEP BACK….and see it for what it is…
Well into my divorce….I told my attorney….I am NOT going to address anythign he acuses me of…..UNLESS HE PROVIDES DOCUMENTATION.
I won’t acknowledge any of it…..my attorney quivered.
He accused me of draining tha account. My attorney felt compelled to respond. I said…NO!
I brought to him the bank statements showing SPATHS withdrawal of the money He accused me of withdrawing….spaths signiture and all. A cashiers check made out to spath and all……AND a deposit slip to another bank showing (on the same date) a deposit into his sole account the same amount!
Okay……so…..ya get it now?
I could spend a fortune and keep running in circles defending myself…..we all could.
STOP!
Decide what you want……and how your gonna get it.
Don’t let anyone else…..no judge, no attorneis….treat you unfairly and spend your money and keep you away from D.
The one who strikes first…….wins.
Think of a fight with kids…..no one sees the first punch…..they see the retaliator….the defendor…….and who get’s punished…..the defender.
Every time.
So…..be the first to throw the ‘legal’ and documented blow.
It also throws em off balance…..they think they know you….they think they can predict your reaction……give NONE!
Shake it up.
I studied the spath…..I put together all the peices of my life…..and the lies and how I fell for them all.
THEN…..I turend it all around and used the same tactics back on him-Backspath……..but I did it with a smile and professionalism……not cocky, in your face, spit on him in public……..I let him take that roll.
Portray what you want to the courts…..WITH backup!
Your not a bad person…..your a person who was stepped on and pounced on by a spath….who exploited your slipup.
That was all he needed to run.
Defending constantly makes us look crazy.
When someone is always saying…..I didn’t do that….I didn’t do that either…..it makes us look like a victim….
WE MUST APPEAR TO BE THE SURIVOR THAT WE ARE.
Own our mistakes and take the responsibility. No one likes a perfect person……people always will try to find fault.
Go OFFENSIVE!!!
BUT THE EFFECT WAS THE SAME!
Thanks EB, you are smart, wise…sadly no doubt you had to learn a lot of this by going through it, too…
My concern for me is what exactly you said: the one who strikes first wins. When I left him five years ago I was on the offense. I found an attorney. I had moved to our condo three hours away, so different city/county. The attorney said ‘let’s wait and file for divorce for a few months…let’s get you more established here and your daugher established’. I said, Ok and enrolled my daugher in Montessori school, myself in school, made friends, set up play dates etc. My attorney was a bit bitchy to me and I didn’t have a good feel but didn’t know what else to do. I also had a letter spath had written talking about his pornography and about speaking in tonuges that he had started doing. weird stuff. I thought Yep, I am doing ok here. My concern had been since he took me off accounts I would get nothing. anyway, all of a sudden he is giving me a letter saying he is not filing for divorce…a strange letter…but then I found out he had filed in his city/county. My attorney yelled at me “Why did you tell him you had an attorney?” I told her I didn’t. I then found he had a PI on me and he had that computer key stroke monitor (which I still didn’t know about for several more months…really had no idea what was happening here) and once he filed in his county, small town…I think that was it for me. I just didn’t realize it. A very conservative, good ol boys club with him being a superstar new kid, despite the fact I set him up socially, designed his office yada yada…
So, mistake one. Then the stuff he had done while married…I realize was a set up now. He had taken me off the accounts. I couldn’t do anything about it except leave him and at that time I was not ready…I was stilll in save marriage mode. he had done a number on bringing down my self esteem and makingi me feel like a loser. He had never been accountable for porn, affair, women, spending, addiction etc. projection is his game. I still didn’t know it. So, off the accounts and he would then say “Oh, go ahead and write a check for the lawn guy” etc and i’d take a check and sign his name. I did this a long time…2 years at least. In court then he’d say that I was a forger, stole money….and I had nothing to prove that I had written checks except the bank statements…and all I could say was ‘he told me to do that and if he didn’t want me to why did he wait until now to say something” but he already won, you see? He set me up to look like a forger. and of course I wasn’t perfect because after I left and moved (not divorced yet and not legal separation) I took our (and it had both our names) credit card and spent about 10k…I was so pissed from being controlled for years financially and I just went nuts. I took myself on a vacation for a few days, bought some clothes, ate out…all the stuff I hadn’t been able to do while married. I was just pissed. so, that made me look bad in court and it was impossible to explain what he had done in our marriage…the abuse and the control was impossible to show. The entire thing was a nightmare and all i ended up doign was backpedaling…my entire offense was gone. As I said i was so emotional and so pissed and just had no freaking idea this was what was going on…this kind of spath thing. I didn’t realize it for another several years…Geez, I must be slow and I thought I was smart. I was gullible. and my thought process for so long was save the marriage. Divorce is not an option. he would say the same. yet he had a plan he had put in place a long time before I realized. Long before I left him. He was doing things to push me out…do you think? I am really asking because I kept wondering why the behavior was so bad and the coldness and blank looks were there and that he would keep doing the things he did….he wanted ME to leave. I would look bad, he would be a poor victim who tried to help his addict wife, despite my five years in recovery and the fact i was the healthy one. And I fucked up working out of emotion and not understanding and offensive smarts.
So, I have been on defense for five years. I just pray I can turn it around. The judge hates me. She thinks I am a unfit loser mother which is so far from the reality. I am a much better parent and even the custody evaluator said he was very uncomfortable with D in a one on one setting. He is! i taught him how to parent! I taught him how to love. I brought the laughter and fun into our house. The kids and my sons friends all came over because of me…i heard them say how weird spath was….he is weird. he has no sense of humor and doesn’t have any male friends. He doesn’t know how to just be. He is incongruent in himself…you know?
So, the question…well, the answer is that I do what you are telling me…and I will believe me. I did just that in the email to his wife today. Nothing but polite, respectful. I have always been that way to her. I have nothing against her. she doesn’t know any better…except having an affair with my husband and on her fiance. she moved to our town and was engaged…then soon she wasn’t! I left spath and he was with her. she was a traget maybe….we were having problems, he met her at a dinner for medical people and I bet anything he targeted her. she could have babies she is 15 years younger than me (I am 9 years older than spath), he could set up his life with her, kick me out, get custody of my daughter by having a home already set up. I just didn’t have any idea because he kept saying Divorce is not an option. And when I started to leave he begged me not to leave him. I read somewhere on this site that is what they do at the end. At that point I was at a point of no return….I was done. I had had it. No more books, no more church, no more therapy….I told him he had to fix himself I couldn’t fix him and I realized I had been trying and it wasn’t my job. He said “I stood by you when you got sober from vicodin” and I said “No you didn’t…you were in your porn and sex addiction…you couldn’t care if i was doing vicodin or not…” and that truth pissed him off.
It just baffles me to put this together…It is starting to gel, to make sense. Trying to prove it just seems impossible since he has already won part of the battle.
Another commonality is the sex stuff I am reading about. The porn, I know he had at least 2 affairs if not more…he had an affair 2 times while we were dating (hindsite) and once while engaged (hindsite), he had a serious addiction to internet porn and the only time he was upset about it was when he thought his medical clinic found out he was viewing porn because one day they shut his computer down. what did he do? He called me yelling at me telling me it was my fault! How funny. I said, how is this my fault? You checked my email and opened the email (that had the bill for his viewing the teen porn, sicko) and I said sorry, that doesn’t fly. You are the one who looked at the porn and bought the site, not me. Other than that he couldn’t care less if it affected me or my D.
So…lots to learn here. And I realize I am writing a ton. I apologize…It is like discovering the plot to a movie that baffled me. And yet it is my life and I am trying to save my life. God, who knew I’d be here at my age…dealing with something so horrendous after all I have lived through already. I know, poor me…don’t mean that, just that I really need to get my shit together. and get strong and tough. No more wimpy whiny nice guy. I hear you all say how you set boundaries, can’t trust, can’t let anyone in. It’s so true. And I have to be very professional, not emotional. My son’s father’s wife is like that I am can emulate her. she is really good about not letting peole in, putting up boundaries. I am too ‘nice’, too helpful. f__k that!
Thanks!!
Dear China girl,
Sweetie, don’t apologize for writing a lot, write as much as you need to and those of us who are here at the time will answer you as best we can. Sometimes our ideas are different, sometimes the same, but in the end, you are the one who has to make the decision on what to do and how to do it. We are the “life coaches” but you are the TEAM and you are the one playing the game. We can just give you some ideas and stand on the side lines and say “Yea! Go, team go!!!” (((Hugs)))
Go back through the old articles in the archive and read them, I’ve read most of them, one surfaces every once in a while I missed but I think I’ve read most of them and still I go back and re-read some of them. Good stuff! ((((Hugs))))
First, am I supposed to be posting on a different page? I was sent to this page by Donna initially when she found out about my daughter and I have stayed here….I assume it is based on topic?
I’ll post here for now….
I was thinking a lot today, reading a lot last night and then talking to a friend. Besides taking an offensive stance and doing what EB and OxDrover and Donna have been telling me (and thank you again and again) I really need to take stock and be responsible for my part in this. I realized this after talking about how I met my spath and how we got together and then ultimately married. WowAs I was telling this story to a friend today the red flags that I ignored then are glaring now. I would hope they’d be glaring now and that I would be better equipped to take better care of myself. But hindsite is only helpful if you (I) pay attention to the lessons. I always spout this and tell my clients this: “You teach people how to treat you” Most of them say, “What?” but then when they think about it they get it and agree. The other thing I believe is men tell us exactly what their intentions are a lot of the time but I didn’t pay attention to what he was really saying…I heard what I wanted to hear. My part with my spath is I allowed many behaviors to continue for a very long time before I stood up to him. Even before we married. I was talking about several very crazy incidents that happened before we got engaged and how many times he backed out of promises and invitations (invited me to go to his home town, I bought plane ticket and new dress and he backed out. Invited me to memphis for thanksgiving,I bought tickets, he backed out, I went to seattle instead, he asked me to marry him twice and changed his mind-said he was too scared and unsure of himself…well he was telling the truth right there. he was unsure about himself. Yes and I should have been, too. and lastly…slept with two women while we were dating but i believed his lies that he only kissed them…) etc etc etc. How much has to happen before I look up, wake up and take a stand for myself? My god. It is embarrassing.
So my part is I allowed a lot of bad behavior to happen and didn’t set good boundaries. And if I had maybe I wouldn’t have married him…maybe he would have bailed knowing he couldn’t run me over….maybe i would have been healthier emotionally and would never have even dated him! I wish. But what I know is I am healthier now. And even though I just found this site I have been working on myself and my issues…and with this site I will be even better equipped and stronger to deal with this nutcase. But I have to put those boundaries out there all the time….not allow bad behavior to occur..well it can occur it just can’t get by me!…with anyone…friends, family, prospective dates, clients even. If I treat myself with respect and love and self care then the bad behavior won’t be a part of the equation. And by understanding my part in this I won’t remain a victim. Maybe I was victimized for a little bit but I am not going to stay there.
I hope that made sense…and I am certainly only talking about myself…no one else.
Dear ChinaGirl,
You can post on any thread. Usually the first day or two people stay on a topic on a thread, but then it sometimes/usually veers off on to other topics, or “chases rabbits.” Or is like an ADHD child—LOOK, BUTTERFLY!
You are taking responsibility for your part in allowing the abuse to continue and in ignoring the red flags. To me that is the FIRST and BIGGEST HUMP to cross. It is NOT blaming the victim for their own victimization, but accepting our own choices and the consequences.
It is “manning up” to what we have chosen to do which got us in the situation for that person who DID ABUSE us to continue to do so.
DENIAL ain’t a river in EGYPT, so we need to get our canoes out of it and start paddling them.
Okay, so now you have BOINKED yourself over the head a time or two (or ten!) for being so “stooooopid” but not it is time to FORGIVE YOURSELF for being HUMAN. And, to quit being embarassed. There are LOTS OF SMART and educated folks on this blog, People with lots more letters after their names than you and I, with lots more experience and education and they got bamboozled so we are in GOOD COMPANY, it was not because we were dumb or “stoooopid” at all, it is because we had an excess of empathy and compassion and caring for OTHERS, and a shortage of caring for ourselves. Now we’re gonna change that.
We’re going to start caring for and nurturing ourselves, and to love ourselves, and give to ourselves. Gosh, isn’t that a wonderful concept?!!!! LOL
I wish I had thought about that concept 50 years ago or more! LOL (((((Hugs)))) post where ever you are comfortable, or just chime in any where. No one here is going to slam you for “doing somethign wrong.” the Only rules around here are “don’t flame or name call others, just be polite, but disagreement is okay, just be polite. Not too much to remember. This is the best group of supportive people I’ve found anywhere on the web. I’m glad you are here. If LF does even 1/10th for you as much as it has done for me, it will be wonderful! (((((Hugs))))) God bless.
chinagirl
You can look at “your part” in this till the cows come home, and it’s a good opportunity to sharpen up a bit…but ultimately this was NOT your fault. He SET OUT to harm you knowingly and willingly…who stands a chance unless you are aware of how their particular evil operates…I knew all about manipulative, exploitative men before I met the P ….it wasn’t so much ignoring red flags…( show me a relationship that does not have them) but HOW GOOD HE WAS at acting the wholesome package….the regular sleaze bags are easy to spot…these ones are not.
No harm in looking at all that boundary stuff…but I’m beginning to think that it was almost destiny to go through this experience to learn about evil and how it’s not like the stereotypical version
that there was no way of knowing he was bad until further down the road…love is a covered dish anyway….you have to take a leap of faith anyway….
the truth of this experience is….that relationship down the road that you think is perfect…they have 2 kids, he is so good to her and she is very happy. He really has another life of gay sex, another marriage, a pregnant girlfriend…that’s what we are dealing with….boundary protection or not.
It’s interesting, beginning to change my self care and self nurturing…something i didn’t learn growing up but have come to understand that I need…and the people I know who have good boundaries are people I really respect. And they don’t apologize for it. I have always been one to be so worried not to hurt anyone’s feelings…yes a people please type, too, but not so much now. I still am respectful but not to the detriment of myself. I teach clients about boundaries and talk about much of the time, women especially, are called bitches or whatever when we set them. Men are looked at as strong business men….we are just not taught now to do this well. So it is a difficult concept to learn middle age but not impossible. Just takes time. As i have been reviewing my life the past few days I have always had boys/men give me a bad time for having boundaries. Even as a 13 year old girl….I remember guys trying to manipulate me if I didn’t do want they wanted. and even to this day….right now I have a guy friend who wants to date me and is pursuing me very aggressively. I don’t want to date. I am not ready in any capacity right now. (and btw I went off match!) The idea of dating is not appealing, the idea of having to compromise, give of myself, any of it…can’t do it. Not now. I have set my boundary with this guy from the start. Clearly and strongly and for fuck’s sake if he doesn’t push and push and push. He is ruining our friendship. I’ll tell him one day why it needs to be the way it is (and I”ve said friendship only, a dinner once a week, maybe a hike but that is all) and every single day he asks me to do something. Every other day he says things like “I want to kiss you so badly. Why don’t you come over and watch a movie at my house and you know just as friends, nothing more, just sleep over? let me hug and hold you and let me love you) Geez. This is after a month of having to tell him every 2 days, NO NO NO. He is a 55 year old man. Married twice. A professional. Educated. What the F? Maybe I am just more aware right now? Maybe I have zero tolerance for anyone who can’t abide by a simple and stated boundary but maybe these are the kinds of guys i am still attracting….He continually talks about how horny he is. I really could give a shit. No empathy for him there. Go get laid is what I told him. But it won’t be me. I can’t tell if he is just a normal guy who is wanting sex or if he has much deeper issues….deeper issues is my guess from what I know about him and it again comes back to a grown man unable to sustain my boundaries means i say good bye. Right? What do you all think?