I’m really struggling and I’m posting here for traffic for advice. I was in a really severely abusive relationship 6 years ago. I managed to flee when I was pregnant as my turning point was when he was telling me he was going to kill me, set me on fire all when I was pregnant. He then proceeded to tell me my entire pregnancy that I need to ‘say goodbye’ to my child whilst he is in my stomach because when he is out, I was never going to see him again. Naturally, I didn’t allow contact for my baby’s safety and this was backed up by the police, medical professionals, social services etc.
unfortunately he took me to court, and if anyone has experience with this, they often see a dad being involved and give them anything they ask for regardless of the circumstances. He failed multiple hard drug tests, was proven to be an abuser yet courts gave him unsupervised access. They also failed to protect me. I asked for a third party to do the handovers for me, he said he ONLY wanted to see me and courts enabled him and put in the court order ‘NO third party allowed’ - meaning I have to see my abuser every other week when our son has contact with him.
My son loves him, and I do everything in my power to ensure they have contact. He changes the time of the court order often to suit him, he may ask for extra time on birthdays and parties that I give him - I do everything to allow the bond between father and son.
my issue is, he constantly messages me - it’s either harassment messages like ‘I still love you’, ‘everytime I see you I want to grab you’. Or it’s the other end where if he asks for contact the day before or on the day he wants it and I tell him no because he didn’t ask in advance, he will kick off and be nasty because he didn’t get his own way. He’s currently kicking off because cms is going through tribunal (he’s self employed, if you know you know) and he’s ignored all letters of them requesting evidence. He got the final communication telling him if he don’t comply they’re going to arrest him and he blew up my saying I’m going to get him arrested and I’m a bad mum for doing that to our sons dad. One message after another after another being nasty and then making threats and bringing other things into the ‘conversation’ saying I lied about the abuse and he done ‘nothing’ to me. I’ve ignored him but it’s getting me down.
I’m almost 6 years out of the relationship, I still have severe ptsd and cptsd because of it and every time he ‘kicks off’ or even just generally getting a message from him or having to see him, it triggers me and I cannot cope with it. I’m in deep depression because of it and I’m so anxious and stressed and I am a shell of a person that I once was. Baring in mind I was this thriving 20 year old when I met him and he was 29 and he’s ripped my entire 20’s away from me because of his abuse.
courts enabled his abuse. I left to protect my son and now I have to hand him over not knowing if he’s being abused or not and if he is, I’m not there to protect him. The entire thing is a mess and i guess I’m just asking how do you live your life ‘coparenting’ with an abuser (and an undiagnosed narcissist). I put boundaries in place and tell him he can message me once a week to ask for updates on our son and I will contact him with any information regarding our son’s medical and school but other than that, to not contact me but he doesn't listen and it’s severely making me unwell. He then uses the excuse of ‘I’m withholding information from his dad’ and ‘as his dad he has a right to get told when he asks’. I know this post is a rambling but I need help and professionals have failed us