Strategies for keeping sane when dealing with an abusive Ex with regards to contact with DD

[Isetan]

My counsellor had updated me with some information from my Ex in relation to contact with our DD and although co-parenting has mostly been combative, I now acknowledge it will probably always be combative.

Brief back story:
Ex strangled me and was arrested and convicted for attempted manslaughter ( 3 year sentence with 1 year suspended). I take our DD to visit him once a month on special "father/ child visiting hour" (300 KM round trip), he petitioned for a change in prison because it was more important that he be closer to his parents then to DD), I have not seen him since sentencing a year ago.

Currently going through a sole custody petition and as upsetting as his lazy and and entitled attitude is to having contact with DD, it probably works in my favour because what he says he wants (contact with DD) is very different to how he behaves.

In a few days time he will be moved to an open prison and will be granted day release, this does make me apprehensive (putting it mildly) and I know that he will have more of an opportunity to pressure me once he moves.

How do I balance my DD interests (having contact with her father) and my sanity by keeping my distance from the violent idiot?

Not only doesn't it work but, with a psycho/sociopath, it gives them tips on how to cause maximum psychological/emotional damage in future

I wish all you women who are battling men like this the very best, I really do. I would say that the most important thing you can do is to do all you can to GET AWAY FROM THEM. Don't listen to anyone who suggests you should be more understanding/give them more space/be kind etc. It is not appropriate to treat them with the hope of bringing out the best in them - there is no 'best' with people like this, no 'best' to be brought out. Normal rules DON'T APPLY. the normal run of things is to be as nice as possible to bring out the best in them. They don't have a best; they abuse and control like breathing. They don't know how to function in any other way and are not interested to behave in any other way. They enjoy abusing and controlling and have no intention of giving it up.

It is very hard to get your head around what these people are actually like - a shell, nothing human beating under the surface. imo the laws, policies etc also have no idea what these people are really lilke. The human instinct is to think 'surely, underneath the horrid exterior is a human being capable of compassion' - no there isn't a human being underneath the horrid exterior who is capable of compassion. The 'slow fury' is because we don't obey - in thought, word, deed ie entirely ie to be a shell like them, obeying them without question, an extension of them.

Possibly, someone somewhere knows how to appeal to people like this (in Broadmoor?) but imo the best that can be done are strategies to contain them. It won't ever be us who appeals to them, as we were the chosen target for their abuse and control and our abusers won't ever see us in any other light. They accept the children only if there is no evidence of the mother in them, not even a faint trace; but imo are incapable of separating the mother from the children in their minds, even if they are sometimes successful in totally brainwashing the children against the mother . that is a given btw, they will do all they can to poison the children against the mother - and I mean poison, nothing subtle or half-hearted like influencing the children against the mother. I don't just speak from my own experience but from the experiences of the countless women I have met who have had the terrible misfortune to be involved with men like this.

It is almost impossible to diagnose men like this (there are women like this too of course), let alone form effective laws etc to contain them. They are often high-functioning, the life and soul, adored by one and all: they know how to work the system. Are masters at it

springydaffs... all you wrote is so true...
It took me nearly 6 years to realise that ex just didn't have basic human feelings. He was very good at pretending but just couldn't keep it up. The thing is its so alien and so I forever used to make excuses for him. But you're right, all the normal rules just don't apply.

Thanks for writing all that down x

Great posts springydaffs and I should print them out and stick them up because you are bang on the money. There is no better side to people like this and my ex proved that again and again over the years. I have been quite caught up with the idea of being the better person etc. And it's only really having been away for a couple of weeks on holiday that has made me realise how much he is still controlling and manipulating my day to day life. I daren't get involved with anyone new because of how he might react, this is two years down the line (also, not surprisingly I am very bruised).

I used to think and still do to a certain extent that I wish he'd hit me rather than the head stuff. As if then I'd have proof, as if all the other things don't count. But even then, as wit the OP, it's easy to think they deserve a chance to parent and society as a whole reinforces this. Even my solicitor, who was recommended by Women's Aid, completely sided with him, his assistant was appalled. He is very plausible and very clever, always keeps it on the right side of things legally although recently he has been escalating.

But I know I do need to get away and am now thinking how I can start putting that into place. I actually thought he would drift out of my daughter's life, I didn't reckon with the extent of his cold fury against me.

"..I wish he'd hit me rather than the head stuff."

That's exactly what I thought about my husband, Queen. I kept it quiet though because I was ashamed to say it or even think it (given the women who are hit. eg OP ). Then I went to a WA support group for victims of domestic abuse and the women who had been hit said, to a one, that they 'preferred' being hit to the emotional/psychological abuse. They even said I had it 'worse' than them because at least after the violence there was a time of calm and normality. NOt sure I can agree with that tbh because imo it's all appalling. HOwever, it did validate how I felt and was a great help.

WA don't do those support groups any more which is a huge shame. The woman who set it up had been a victim of DA, then the council took over the group (funding ) and put some woman in to run it who hadn't been a victim of DA - had read all the books, done all the training, but still had absolutely no idea what it was really like. Eg one of the things we did in the group was, after the tears and the shaking, we fell into making jokes about our abusers (black humour). We laughed until we cried - it was incredibly healing. The new facilitator didn't like that one bit and made it clear we should stop. Silly cow. She pushed me out of that group (I didn't exactly accept her authority - ahem). The women there were frightened of her and she even controlled them to a certain extent - appalling to see those women being controlled all over again

Anyways, there is the Freedom Programme - a similar thing but more structured. Highly recommended (have I already mentioned it?). I agree, baby, that unless you've experienced it (first hand?) it is very hard to get your head around the total absence of humanity in abusers. Even those of us who have experienced it find it very hard to accept. imo the policy makers etc don['t get it. Or maybe they do but it is nigh impossible to legislate against it. Plus quite a few judges wives attended that support group I went to, the one where we laughed until we cried.

That total lack of humanity... that's it.
Even now I still have moments where I just can't get my head round it... no one can really be that way, but they are. x