I cannot deal with my abusive ex/‘coparent’ anymore! So low!

[butternutsquashed82]

I have been co-parenting for five years. I say co-parenting, but I do 90% of the childcare and have done so ever since my ex walked out when our daughter was a year old.
To give an idea of what life looks like:

1. I pay for and organise all childcare.
2. I organise all hospital and medical appointments.
3. I organised her getting into the local primary school.
4. I take her to 90% of birthday parties.
5. I take her on holidays.
6. I have her 5–6 nights a week. He just puts in the calendar when he does and doesn’t want to have her, expecting me to adapt around him.
7. He never asks how I will cope—for example, this half term he hasn't checked in on plans or help once, but simply demands to have her two nights in a row when it suits him.
8. I try to include my ex in everything; he says no.
9. I organise and pay for all her birthday parties.

10. I organise and pay for all extra-curricular activities. My ex was coercive and became an alcoholic during our daughter’s first year. Over the years, he has pushed boundary after boundary. Whatever I do is wrong. He is a part-time dad who never says thank you or acknowledges how hard I work to give our daughter a nice life. In fact, he laughs in my face and accuses me of having my parents pay for everything, which they don't. He has introduced partners to my daughter without telling me, yet previously insisted he would want to meet any partners before they were introduced to her. When I remind him of this, he laughs in my face and says I'm mental and need help. He refuses to take our daughter to birthday parties and contributes nothing financially to extras like physio appointments, but is constantly texting me abuse if I ever dare to disagree or push back on anything. Because of the constant abuse, I usually just end up going along with what he says. The micro-policing is suffocating. Once, I referred to our daughter as "my daughter" once, and he texted to say I must never do that again. Another time, I used our daughter’s first initial when responding to a query on a school WhatsApp group, and he messaged demanding to know why I had done that. Today was a breaking point. I had to take our daughter to a physio appointment (which I organised and paid for, while keeping him updated), and then dropped her off at his house. Later that evening, knowing how stressed I have been lately, he called me up specifically to say he wanted to take our daughter away on holiday with his new partner. I said that was fine on the condition I could meet his partner one-on-one beforehand. He said no, we must all meet together with our daughter. I said I didn't want to do that and just wanted a one-on-one meeting first. He laughed in my face. When I got angry and challenged why he was calling me up with this when he knows I'm already overwhelmed, he accused me of losing my mind, called me mental, and told me he was recording the whole conversation. To be completely honest, I did lose my shit at him. I couldn't keep it in anymore after years of relentless pressure. I am trapped in an abusive relationship, and no matter what I try, I feel like I can never stop it or make him see sense. He is so horrible and threatening, and he constantly turns things around on me until I’m forced to question everything I do, every decision I make, and even who I am as a person. I am not perfect, but I have given up so much to make sure my daughter has a good life, and he makes me feel so bad for everything. I spoke to a therapist who confirmed his behavior is controlling and abusive. But the mental turmoil over the years has made no sense of my boundaries and made me doubt myself so much. My mental health is on the floor and I feel like nobody listens or understands. I genuinely feel so low right now that I'm on the brink and wondering what the point is. I don't want him calling or texting me ever again. How on earth do I escape this abuse and set hard boundaries when I have to co-parent with someone like this? Has anyone been through something similar and come out the other side? I am so exhausted and really can’t continue anymore like this mentally.

Do you have someone who can be a neutral third party?

My sisters ex was like this. She changed her number and all contact regarding their shared child went through me instead. He soon gave up after his first couple of paragraphs long, unnecessary nit picking texts were responded to with "ok" or "noted". Drop offs and collections took place at our house rather than hers too.

I essentially communicated anything urgent or medical, and made sure I was available im case he needed to make contact (e.g. delayed bringing child back because of traffic etc)

It ended up in court after he refused to return the child one weekend (including not taking to school etc - lives in a different city) and now there is court ordered contact in place.

They've now reached a place where they can do this themselves. He's grown up and apologised for his behaviour too.

It sounds quite harsh, but you need to absolutely toughen up. Set some very clear boundaries. Go non-contact with him apart from either an app or emails as every other person here has suggested.

He sounds like the worst of the worst, but you need to take ownership of knowing this and do something about it.

Use an app, and that we don’t have to speak to each other and if he ever does try and contact you, refer him to the app.

Our family wizard

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talking parents

HikingHippo

this is so good - "noted" or "ok" are such useful non meaning phrases and great for situations like this.

there isn't much you can do when the other person doesn't invest in what you have written or what you have to spout at hand over

Which he will refuse to use.

Exactly, combined with the fact that he had no hold or element of control over me, it literally took the wind out of his sails.

Drop offs and pick ups taking place at mine also meant he couldn't inconvenience her, so he just didn't bother.

So sorry OP. I know exactly what it’s like when they twist everything you do and say and use your infrequent reactions to label you as the unhinged one. It’s awful. And that fear of going to court and him doing that - I get it. I’m about to take that risk myself. It’s a leap of faith.

I would spend the next few months doing the following;

• keep him sweet - don’t change much yet.
• keep your responses to him BIFF. Brief, informative, firm and friendly. Don’t share your thoughts or feelings with him - stick to practicalities.
• Use any spare time to really look after yourself. Really pump self-love in. Whatever you can.
• get help from domestic abuse services locally - try a different number if the first one didn’t get you anywhere.
• if you have audible listen to ‘Its not you’ by Dr Ramani and a book on co-parenting with a narcissist (I strongly suspect you have one on your hands but don’t use this label with him or anyone else - see if it fits, educate yourself about it if it does and then use that knowledge to protect yourself and plan how to deal with him - one thing I will say with 99% confidence is HE WONT CHANGE.)
• The above will help you to survive now and start to work towards thriving. You may decide to go to court for a family arrangements order. You may decide to log his behaviour with the police (the threshold for coercive control is very high so a conviction isn’t likely but you might just want it logged). But mostly aim to build the life you want despite his appalling behaviour!

OP. READ YOUR POST BACK.

@BlueStripeBowlthank you I have reported it but I can’t do anything else.

@BlueStripeBowlthis is all really amazing advice thank you so much for taking the time to respond

Loads of good advice on here. Keep things very factual and don’t JADE (justify, argue, defend or explain). You don’t need him to agree with you or understand your situation (he never will or at least he will
claim not to!).

I would watch some of Jessrunsforsurvivors reels (on fb/instagram/tiktok): https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1F68xuuo1z/?mibextid=UalRPS

she really breaks things down in terms of DARVO, JADE and gives real life situations of things her ex has said and how she has responded and examples of how to respond.

ETA I really feel for you. It’s all on him, he’s a controlling arse and it’s no wonder you feel like you do but if you get support and use the advice, you can minimise his impact. I’d go slow with it all, a step at a time with adjusting the communication first so that attempts to goad you are met with “that doesn’t work for me” or “noted” etc (or silence! You don’t have to reply to everything - going back to not JADE-ing). If you can afford it might be useful to get a consultation with a solicitor just to give you all the facts. My friend found it helpful when her ex was constantly threatening to have her dc 50/50 (or 100%) despite barely managing EOW 🙄.