Please don't feel you have to reply to this but I need to write it down.

[fuckmepinkandcallmerosie]

I can't be arsed to name change to my other name for this. I need to write this down to see if getting it out of my head helps me to make sense of it.

I have an ex husband. He was abusive, controlling, and all kinds of a bastard. If you search for my other name it's justforthisonepost and some of it is detailed there but it might have been in chat and it might have gone. I am out of the situation now, have a lovely DP and all is good.

Except that the ex is still controlling me through the kids and it is driving me slowly insane. For example, he sees the kids one night a week and every other weekend and takes them to school on the morning after he has them. This is going to sound really petty but it is really annoying - he keeps their clothes. If I send a coat or anything I don't get it back. DD2 goes to school on the morning in joggers and trainers with her uniform on the top, I never get the joggers and trainers back and end up having to text him to get them back. When I text him, he ignores the texts.

For example, I texted him and said "I need trainers for DD2. She has 3 pairs, all at your house please can I get a pair she can't get out to play tonight because it is wet out and I only have school shoes or sandals". That text was sent at 4pm. he doesn't reply. So I text again at 7, please can I have trainers. Still no reply. I ring at 9.30pm and say I need trainers for DD as she can't get out to play and he is totally passive aggressive nasty with me.

It's hard to describe, he doesn't shout or yell but it's all contained aggression and "I have not got time to be replying to texts that you send I'm busy".

Yesterday I texted him "When suits tomorrow to meet to swap xyz" (ie trainers and coats and other stuff. The reply I got was "I will be there at 3.15". This has really upset me and I can't explain why very well. It feels like he's ordering me and treating me like a second class citizen, that he is more important than me (which is how he treated me when we were together) and that I have to do what I'm told and be dictated to.

I know I'm being unreasonable but I'm not up for posting there. Please don't feel you have to respond I just need to get this out and see if I can work a way of making me not feel so crap.

a scatty 12 yo with a passive aggressive dad and £1,000 of violin!! NOOOO. Just tell her it has to stay at home until she gets more organised with other things - good incentive. in the meantime see if school wil lend one when needed - in the same conversation you're going to have about the other stuff.

night night

I am.

Put the phone DOWN!

STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE!

Meh. See how he tries to draw you in? See? You have played a different game ( no game, really, just a bit of ordinary strength) and now he is texting YOU to make arrangements.

Ha ha. Typical abuser. Fuck him. Yay you.

I have no intention of responding. The other option is that me and DP get up early and head out, and just aren't here at half 8.

sorry x-post with 'bastard violin is going...' No need to lie - just tell him you're going to get a £50 one and its because you are concerned about her ability to be responsible and putting too much pressure on her to look after it til she can show she's ready.
If you lie you are on his 'lost the coat' level (well not quite but your position on the moral high ground slips slightly.)

don't rub it in about the dp being there - tempting but there's no need to stir - you're better than that and don't need to make cheap shots now you're being a grown up and not playing his game anymore.

Arf!

Check you out!

Right, I'm going to to sleep now.

I hear a woman roaring... I think it might be Rosie

I know - tempting though it is to stir, I won't really iyswim? But the kids have obviously been at ex about the clothes, I'd guess, because he's never sent a text like that before.

fuckme if you aren't there when he calls round what will you do if he dumps the violin anyway and it gets knicked/wet?

If you want him to be more reasonable you need to lead by example

really going to bed now x

I know - and I would never ever hear the end of it if that bloody violin got nicked. Or wet and warped.

The violin is Not your responsibility. He is giving it to your daughter, not you.

BED.

i wonder if you could hit him where it hurts? (no not there)

he doesn't want to be humiliated by them carrying bags through the school... find a way that there lack of clothing/ equipment is laid at his door... let school know. write official letters. dd does not have a coat today because her father has it and will not return it... ?

record every single thing that goes to his house and put it in the "this is why my ex is a useless parent file" evidence... is needed for any change to happen.. if he is not providing adequate care by ensuringhtat they go to school with the right coat etc. i am sure the head of the childens schools will be sympathetic if you explain the reasons why they don't have xyz...

OP, my friend's ex does exactly this thing with clothes for her two wee children.

sorry I haven't read the whole thread but...

1. violin - if it gets lost/stolen then that is that. You didn't buy it. Why are you worried? DD doesn't cherish it. It's Aunt's problem if she wants to waste her money on living some unlived dream through her niece and ex doesn't want his cheaper violin used.

2. Your girls. Sorry if this sounds unsupportive but you seem to me a bit too worried about you and the effect on you - day spoilt with DP, feeling bullied, to the exclusion of your DDs. This man is as bad to his DDs as he was to you. He is deliberately "losing" their stuff. It's horrid enough being a child trapsing between separated parents' houses and having to remember everything; with a parent actually trying to make things worse it is going to upset them even more. Then he only seems to want them there for show. Do they enjoy time with their Gran when he is away playing sport? He absolutely needs to be read the riot act about the emotional damage he is inflicting on his DDs. If you can't do it yourself, think about who could, a family therapist, a child psychologist. They are likely to want to stop staying over with him if he continues in this vein and if he won't change then you will need to support them with this decision. You couldn't live with his abuse and control, perhaps your DDs aren't going to be able to either.

So...get yourself some self help books on assertiveness so, for instance, you don't send an open text asking what time suits when you actually know what time suits you...and start focussing on how to stop your DDs being put through this conflict and witholding of their things.

Eurostar - I have in the past had innumerable discussions with him about the effect on the DD's. And the emotional abuse inflicted on them and me by his mother. I am very very well aware of it. I feel that second part of your post is exceedingly unsupportive.

As to the violin, I have said all the way along that it is ridiculous. I never agreed to her having a violin at such value, I have asked repeatedly that it not be used that she use the other perfectly good violin which is available. I do not wish to see sight nor sound of that violin. But at the end of the day, it is a valuable instrument and I am not a vandal.

Eurostar - I have asked MNHQ to delete your post. The whole point is that you are supposed to read the whole thread. I have ended up being up most of the night in tears at teh thoguht that you would think that I am not putting my children first.

What bits of the thread did you chose to read and/or not read? Did you miss the bit where I said I did my best to ameliorate the impact on the kids and the whole reason the situation was causing me so much stress was because of trying to deal with a man who is totally unreasonable.

How dare you imply that I have not cared enough about my children to deal with him or stand up for my children in the face of what he is doing. For the record, it is not 3months since I told him if a certain situation with his mother did not stop, I would take the whole sorry mess into court as what she was doing was emotional abuse of my children and that was enough for a judge to stop contact with her.

And pardon me for being worried about me and the effect on me. How utterly ridiculous that I should come on to a forum for parents looking for support to deal with my parenting issue. Imagine me actually trying to put my mental health and wellbeing first and using a parenting forum for support. Just because I posted for support for me does not mean my kids aren't coming anywhere on the list you know. It was a very big step for me to post for support just for myself and for you to imply that I am selfish and not putting my children first is completely horrible.

What did I say that implied that anything that was going on was to the "exclusion" of my DD's? the point of the posts was about the impact on me, and them as well, if you had bothered to read the entire thread.

I am seriously disappointed in MN when I cannot post and get support without someone somewhere turning it into a mother bashing excericise.

And as far as the fucking bastard violin is concerned - read the fucking posts, I have said all the way along I have no wish for her to have the bloody thing, but I'm not going to deliberately wreck something that valuable. And how do you know his Aunt is living a dream through my DD? You know nothing of her background, nothing of her motives. The Aunt may be a lot of things but living a dream through DD she definitely isn't.

And for the record, coming on here ordering people what to do and ordering me to do x y z (like get self help books) is not helpful. I have self help books coming out my ears. I have been for counselling. I am addressing his issues and dealing with him.

I just posted on here for a bit of a vent and a rant.

I will say it again, I have asked MNHQ to delete your post. I have been told by them repeatedly in recent weeks that MN is a place for parents to receive support and I don't understand who in their right mind thinks that you telling me I'm some sort of emotionally neglectful mother to my DD's is helpful.

I think you're doing admirably, Rosie . :)

Rosie . You have done so well already in just one day! Please don't let people who are utterly ignorant of your situation get to you like this. Keep your strength for standing up to your idiot ex.

Good luck for this morning. You will get this sorted. Your DP sounds fab by the way!

Thanks folks - I just feel a bit attacked by someone who can't be arsed to read the whole thread. I have done everything I possibly can to support my DD's and I put my kids first every day of my life and for anyone at all to imply that I don't is really unkind, and cruel.

If you can't be arsed to read the thread you shouldn't be arsed to post IMO.

The whole point of the open text about what time suits was to find out a mutually convenient time - I never said I had a specific time that did or didn't suit me, I wanted to have a discussion with my ex in which my views and opinions and his views and opinions were both valid and that led to an agreement between us. My issue wasn't with the time per se, it was with the fact that he was ordering me what time. And not taking my views into account.

Hi Rosie, hope you are ok. I wonder whether part of the reason you felt so strongly about Euro's post is that it's a hugely emotive situation you're dealing with, with strong resonances back to your past with your ex. Euro's post is not especially sensitively worded, but it's not as extreme as an attack,either. Were the situation less emotive I daresay you'd be in a better position to shrug it off - which is why a bit more sensitivity would have been helpful in the post.

That said, the fact that the post had such a strong effect on you suggests overwhelmingly that part of you still feels on the backfoot wrt your ex. That you feel he can still get the upper hand despite no longer being with you, and that you feel somewhat at a loss about how to overcome this feeling/ place yourself on an equal footing with him power-wise. For example if your dp weren't around I'm guessing you'd feel a hell of a lot more vulnerable because you rely on him to correct the power imbalance.

Am I talking bollocks? Could there be any truth in what I've said?

He's just arrived. And left. Minimal interaction. Something has worked though - I have been presented with two tesco's carrier bags of DD2 clothes, apparently DD1 has it "under control" and has brought stuff to school. Oh and the fucking violin. And the missing hockey stick which was lost so long ago DD1 thought it had been nicked at school and I replaced it.

He said "I can't understand why all the clothes end up at my house" - emm because you don't send them back? WRT DD2 and the trip clothes, he actually said that he had no idea about those clothes, he hadn't seen the case and as far as he was concerned DD2 should have returned case with all dirty clothes to me. I told him that I had talked to her and she had put washing in the washing basket at his house as the clothes were wet and dirty and his reply was "news to me"

Speedy - x-posts. I don't think I am on the backfoot WRT to my ex and I always will be. I am trying to protect and do the best for my children, but the implication in Euros post is that I am putting myself first to the detriment of my children, that I am selfish and self-absorbed and that is not the case. I have tried repeatedly to deal with this man, and I honestly think unless you have been in the situation it is impossible to truly understand.

I am trying to deal with a very difficult situation in as non-confrontational a way as possible. That's my nature. I don't want an all out war with him.

SpeedyGonzalez i have no clue what you could mean, how could she feel more vulnerable without him around. sorry but sounds like nonsense imo.

op hope this action signals a new start, he sounds very clumsy and disorganised but this is where your girls step in to remind him. best of luck x

I don't see you as that, I see you as someone who is trying to be resaonable about everything, as any normal person would be, but as you know you are fighting a losing battle with him. Keep it up. Next time he says something like "I can't understand why all the clothes end up at my house" just smile and keep thinking fuck wit fuck wit fuck wit. You will never get anywhere with someone like him, but you can make yourself feel better about it all. You don;t have to be unreasonable, like him, but you don;t have to be overly resaonable either, you have danced to his tune for long enough. It is not about him dancing to yours, but YOU dancing to yours

Whoop! Ha!

Rosie got some clothes back! Rosie got some clothes back!

See? These sort of bullying wankers almost always back down the second you call their bluff.

(Rosie...please don't get upset about things said on here - I truly don't think EuroStar was being hugely awful - and you need to focus on the more positive elements of your thread, rather than the slightly more negative bits. )

I said WRT to the "understand" why the clothes end up at my house - what I said was "Actually whether you understand or not is irrelevant. The bottom line is they do. And I need them returned."

And he again trotted out his line about not hoarding the things.

And I said "I haven't said you have hoarded them but what you have done is failed to ensure that they have been returned and this needs to change. I will continue to communicate with DD1 and DD2 until I get all the stuff back that I have bought"