To absolutely hate my ex

[Solace123]

Currently at my childs birthday party. Ex and me have been split 8 years now. He was very emotionally abusive and awful to me. Hes very manipulative. Took me to court to get 50/50 as he knew this would get to me. He won so its 50/50.
Our son is so different towards me when he's around, not loving and hardly will speak to me.
At the party when I arrived as son was wity his father this week so I arrived alone. His dad was following him everywhere he went literally! Wouldn't leave him side kind of like he was guarding him and didn't want me to be involved. So I was standing there awkwardly

He is now in the party activity section with all the kids and following them around. It's weird. I'm out here talking to parents and getting things ready for food. It's like he can't leave our kids side but he's 9! He done this last year too.
He smothers him.
I hate that man so much. He probably puts me down to our son.
I make sure to never say anything about him because well its not nice for our son.
I was doing an activity with our son the other night and asked what made him happy, he said me and his cuddly. Didn't mention his dad but when his dad is around I'm ignored.
I just worry about what my ex is saying or doing about me

Feeling sad but keeping it together. Don't want ex to see it getting to me because that's what he would love.

Sorry for the rambling. Typing fast before they all come back

This must be very tough OP

You can only do what you can in rising above it and focusing on building the best relationship you can with DS. Hopefully the parent chat is good and you can take a moment to take DS for a birthday Icecream/milkshake/happy meal or some thing just you two to start your own tradition regardless of if you find the birthday party challenging.

It’s 8 years, and you are still allowing him to control how you feel.

Why do you let him have so much power over you ?

Is your son happy? Is he having a nice time? Does he enjoy playing with his Dad?

Your dislike for your ex is overshadowing what should be a happy event.

OP, I’m sorry this is hard for you.

I may be reading this wrong, but it does feel like the key challenge here is your emotions and internal thinking? I kind of agree with the poster above about you giving him control over your feelings.

Nothing you mention actually sounds objectively terrible about your ex’s behaviour right now…. You don’t seem to have any real evidence that he’s speaking badly about you. And him being around your son lots at his birthday party could be read in positive or negative ways, but isnt really an extreme behaviour worth such strong feelings from you.

Maybe there are objectively really awful things he is doing that you are not mentioning….. but otherwise, is it possible this is primarily an internal challenge- emotions, due to the painful past treatment you experienced?

your emotions are really valid, and totally understandable- but I think it would be useful if you work out how much this is an internal problem, versus actual current behaviour from your ex. Because the solution to the first is very different from the second.

Your ex is emotionally abusive. Your son is conditioned to treat his Dad like the centre of the universe. Presumably his Dad will punish him otherwise. This is how abusers work. Your Son can ignore you because he is secure in the knowledge that you will always be there for him. He has no such security with his Dad. It's likely his Dad withdraws love and affection if your Son doesn't treat him the way he wants.

You have just made all of that up

I understand the worry that your son won't interact with you when both parents are present, I have recently had my first experience of that. The advice that I received on here is that it is a difficult time for your son given the tricky relationship his parents have. Don't take it personally, just carry on acting like it doesn't bother you and then like a PP said , create you own birthday tradition just for the two of you loving forward. I was also told on here that kids will gravitate away from the safe parent in a situation like the party, as they know you are the safe One where your love doesn't need to be earned. I keep telling myself this!

With the rest of your post, it is so hard to move forward and not let ex's actions affect you. I'm 1.5 years, you're 8 years out of the relationship. At some point we both need to have reached a point where we don't allow the ex to get these emotionally reactions and eat up our time. Therapy definitely helps. Go to your GP for a referral.

Parent as your want to parent in your time, that is what you can control. Build that nond with you son. Teach him about facts and opinions, about knowing his own mind, no following other's blindly but never reference dad. Never badmouth dad.

Don't show ex he's getting to you

Your son loves you so much and know he has safe unconditional love with you. However sadly his dad's love comes with strings attached and one of them is that it's not safe to favour or show he loves mum. How sad.

I do not plan to ever do joint bday parties with my ex but we split during pregnancy. I didn't invite him to the one I organized for my son and the nursery parents. He can organize his own one if he likes.

This

Yes this is absolutely it! My mum used to do this to me as a kid too and its awful. Tip toe on egg shells ect.
This is what used to happen when I was with him. You'd feel like you'd done something wrong just because you'd said something he didn't like.
I've noticed that DS will ask if I'm ok alot and I think its because he's used to checking his dad's moods. I know that love should never be used as a weapon it is emotional abuse.
The worst part is I have to sit and watch it and its awful.
Yes ex has still alot of pull on my feelings because he knows how to get to me.
Only yesterday he blocked me because he was asking about high schools as he wanted to move and then be close to the one he might go to. I said its 2 years away and we need to visit the schools.
He didn't like that answer because he had already decided where he wanted to live and the high sch for DS he wanted to be the closest for practicality for him. No consideration for DS.
He is an awful, abusive person and it gets to me because I know he isn't the nicest to DS always and that is hard to know and watch