How to ignore

[Sundaysunshine22]

Six years on from separating, my child's dad still brings me to tears.

He was abusive when we were together, and over the last four years, he's taken me to court over 15 times with about seven of these in the last 18 months. Applications can range from any minute issue, making false claims about me being a flight risk, putting in bogus claims to social services etc. He's had multiple restraining orders.

I know all of this and yet every time he messages me, I try to remain polite and factual and calm but he becomes irate and descends into making further allegations and blaming me for his abusive behaviour. I know this is deflection in my heart but every time it happens, I feel this intense panic and rage about the rewriting of history and feel really compelled to immediately fire off a message.

I wondered if anyone else has experienced this and what strategies you can give to help me? I want to get to a point where I read these messages and just give an eye roll and think "what a bellend" and feel confident of my truth, not feel these intense feelings every time

Are you able to set up an intermediary? So arrange he can liaise with X (a sibling of yours, parent etc) to communicate regarding your child etc due to his continued harassment is required and then inform him and then block his number?

You can put your own application into court to stop him putting applications in.
You need to have the absolute minimal contact with him. Hide everything about your life from him. Dont tell him or any others about your plans.
Report him to the police for harrassment they wont do anything but it gets his psychotic behaviour logged.

Give yourself a minimum time for emails - say leave each email 24 hours before reading it, give yourself 3 days to write a reply, then leave the reply in drafts for a further 48 hours before replying?

Thanks all. I used to make all communication go through my mum but then he started harassing her too and disclosing private information to her to embarrass and shame me. It became impossible.

Has anyone got to that point of thinking "yeah whatever" rather than go into a blind panic? Is it therapy, mindfulness, just getting older....

You mention restraining orders. Are his messages breaking these orders? Do you have clear documentation of the conditions?
Of so, report to the police, in writing, and get a reference number, every single time he threatens you or uses abusive language. Keep a diary. Keep all the evidence.

Don't respond unless you absolutely have to. If it is just threats and insults, ignore, save and report.

This won't be much help now but the only thing which helped me was time... its been 11 years for me now and I can finally roll my eyes and think 'Twat!' rather than the heart palpitations and the sinking feeling of dread.

You're amazing to keep on keeping on - hats off to you and your DC will know what you've done. Another thing I got told a lot, and I'm sure you will too, is that the scales will eventually fall from the DC eyes and they'll see him for what he is. I never believed this, especially for my DD who worshipped the prick... but now they are much older, they are well aware who has always fought their corner, has sacrificed their own wellbeing at times, who has never given up. I say that so you know that what you're doing is so important and worth the fight - your DC will never forget x

I hope you find peace soon!

Thank you so much for this. This is good to hear it gets easier with time. I'm glad you've found your peace 🌈