My ex insinuates I’m going to attack him. What can I do?

[Tipa]

My soon to be ex was removed by the police for drunkenness and coercive control and financial abuse. I documented it all when I made a statement, he spent a night in the cells and then moved out.

He has decided that he is the victim here, and that I am a danger to him, and at every interaction/correspondence he drives a fiction that he isn’t safe in the same building as me, I am a danger to him, and that my statement to the police was false. It is staggering how he’s convinced himself of this, and he keeps repeating it to the children and in writing to me.

Is there anything I can do to make him stop? Solicitor’s letter? Legal action?

In reality I’m the one at danger and he had threatened to kill me in the past, and I strongly suspect that part of his moving away is to ensure that he doesn’t get drunk and come round and attack me.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Stop all contact with him. Block all correspondence.

If there has to be contact for the children contact Social Services and ask them to arrange contact somewhere you do not have to be and do not have to see or speak to him. Tell them there has been police involvement and you feel unsafe.

@Tipa

My soon to be ex was removed by the police for drunkenness and coercive control and financial abuse. I documented it all when I made a statement, he spent a night in the cells and then moved out.

He has decided that he is the victim here, and that I am a danger to him, and at every interaction/correspondence he drives a fiction that he isn’t safe in the same building as me, I am a danger to him, and that my statement to the police was false. It is staggering how he’s convinced himself of this, and he keeps repeating it to the children and in writing to me.

Is there anything I can do to make him stop? Solicitor’s letter? Legal action?

In reality I’m the one at danger and he had threatened to kill me in the past, and I strongly suspect that part of his moving away is to ensure that he doesn’t get drunk and come round and attack me.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Can you share examples of the coercive control and financial abuse? Just at a high level to stay anonymous. Also the frequency of drunkenness. It would be useful to know roughly what we're dealing with here.

Drunk at least 5 nights out of 7, constant insults, emotional abuse, gaslighting, hiding and destroying things, controlling every second of my day, verbal abuse, financial abuse. Verbal abuse in front of the children, humiliation, deliberate sabotage of things that mattered, threats, I was constantly on egg shells.

I'm not going to probe further if you don't want to but what you've told me is "lawyer speak." For example, a solicitor would say "financial abuse." A normal person would say "I'm not allowed to see the bank statements" or "I'm not allowed a debit or credit card."

Obviously you may not wish to divulge further but I'm trying to gauge the severity of the situation. From what you've told me so far, both of these scenarios could be true:

1. Your STBXH is a violent man who alternates between manipulating you as a means of control and getting drunk and verbally abusive. He constantly does things behind your back to make you question your sanity. He rifles through your belongings and throws items of sentimental value away out of spite. He gives you no access to money as a means of control. You fear for your life around him; and

2. You and your STBXH are having a nasty divorce. He likes a drink and has occasionally said mean things to you in the heat of arguments about future childcare arrangements and financial settlements. There's been some tit for tat game playing, he's thrown some of your treasured possessions away. Maintenance pending suit hasn't been agreed so he's only paying the bare minimum that he has to and it isn't enough for you to live on, and he immediately removed himself from all the joint accounts. The arguments have gotten nastier and you've convinced yourself he's a threat to you to such an extent that you called the police on him.

If it's 1) then you need to ask your solicitor to file a NMO and get an occupation order on the house. If it's 2), then just ignore his behaviour as engaging with it will diminish your own reputation in front of a judge. Focus on the outcome.

Very definitely option 1. He never hit me. But everything else in spades.

Got Nmo drafted but didn’t have to file it as he has stayed away, same with occupation order. It’s his insinuation that he is the one at risk of my making what he calls made up stories about his behaviour when actually he was dreadful.

What he doesn’t know (I think) is that a neighbour heard his behaviour towards me and when he was arrested, they gave a lengthy statement too, detailing how he spoke with me, the verbal abuse etc. The police wanted to know if I wanted to press charges for coercive control and I decided that it would be better at that point if I didn’t. They said had he been violent they would have charged him anyway as they have a policy of not dropping domestic violence cases in this area. But that if I wanted to go ahead with the coercive control case they would be supportive of it, and the neighbour’s statement is on file, and whilst I haven’t seen it, I’m led to believe that if it was used in conjunction with the evidence I already have, they would expect to at least attempt a prosecution. Coercive control is a new law and it’s still early days in making the charges stick but they were encouraging, such was the level of his control of me.
So it really is bizarre that he believes he is the victim. And yet when I ask him what I’m supposed to have fabricated he won’t give any details, he just says “you know what you did.”

OP well done for getting through this and being on your way to freedom. I'm sorry you have had to go through all this.

I'm not an expert on psychology, but there is a concept of projective identification that results in people throwing into others the emotions they actually have within themselves but won't acknowledge. E.g: they are angry with somebody but experience this as suspecting the other person is angry with them.... and even acting in a way that indeed provoked that anger, so that the anger can be expressed without them owning it. What worries me about him saying you might attack him is that psychologically it may originate from him knowing he wants to attack you, but refusing to own it as coming from him. This may be unconscious, or fully conscious/manipulating. It's also related to the whole DARVO thing,of abusers making themselves out to be the victim.

I don't have enough experience to advise what you do, but I think it's vital for you to protect yourself and your children..... and emotionally don't even begin to hope to 'get him to see the light' he won't. Just focus on protecting yourself and document everything as much as you can.

I hope people with lots of experience will be along soon. I'm sorry again that you are going through this.
Xx

And @Unknown83 I don't think there is any reason we wouldn't use a term like financial abuse. We're not passive victims... we research what is happening to us, we talk to lawyers and police, we even objectively label what's happening to us because it is powerful to name it for what it is.... OP is clearly not at the start of this process.

I'm not going to probe further if you don't want to but what you've told me is "lawyer speak." For example, a solicitor would say "financial abuse." A normal person would say "I'm not allowed to see the bank statements" or "I'm not allowed a debit or credit card

Eh, that's exactly what I'd say and I'm not lawyer.

He is an accomplished manipulator and is taking up the 'space' which puts him in danger of being held accountable. For every time he says he feels under threat from you, he perceives that he diminishes the risk that others will listen when or if you make the same complaint.

Limit contact wherever you can, document and don't be afraid of asking for external involvement. The more you show that you have nothing to fear and are clear but fair in your account of the things that happened to you, the less this behavior will impact on you.

I'm not an expert on psychology, but there is a concept of projective identification that results in people throwing into others the emotions they actually have within themselves but won't acknowledge. E.g: they are angry with somebody but experience this as suspecting the other person is angry with them.... and even acting in a way that indeed provoked that anger, so that the anger can be expressed without them owning it. What worries me about him saying you might attack him is that psychologically it may originate from him knowing he wants to attack you, but refusing to own it as coming from him. This may be unconscious, or fully conscious/manipulating. It's also related to the whole DARVO thing,of abusers making themselves out to be the victim.

This! This is exactly what I suspect!