How do you deal with someone that constantly gaslights and then questions your mental health when you get confused by them or who takes what you say and twists it to make you out to be some kind of abuser?
My ex refused my offered plan of contact with our son last year on the basis that he didn't have PR and I had refused to grant it as I fear he would only use it to control us further, our relationship ending due to his emotional and verbal abuse and increasing aggression. His words were "I guess this is goodbye then, please take care of *** as he is my world" Then I received some abusive emails which I ignored and then he sent me an email sending his love to our son and saying he was writing and would continue to keep writing and keeping a record of them so he can show our son when he is older that he always tried to stay in touch. When I told him I had offered him contact and he had rejected it and said goodbye he responded and said I was delusional and he feared for my mental health and that I had proven I was mentally unfit to care for our son and he was going to hire a private investigator to come and see our son and make sure he is ok.
Example two. When I said that if he was paying maintenance our son would have more opportunities, be able to do more things and more money would be saved for his future he wrote back and said he was paying maintenance into an account he had set up for our son and he wouldn't pay it directly to me until such time that he sees fit and thinks I am doing what's best for our son. But then he said he was so worried about what I had said about our son going without that he is lead to believe that our son is being starved so he is going to start paying maintenance so can I please take proper care of our son and stop making threats about him going without.
A bit of background is that we split up when I was pregnant due to his abuse and aggression towards my child from a previous relationship and I. He left the country without telling me and when I tried to involve him in the pregnancy figuring we still were going to share a child together he told me he had emptied his savings and was not in a position to contribute financially or be in any way involved as he had gone travelling to clear his head. I emailed him to tell him when he became a father and he showed no interest bar an acknowledgment of my email. He met our son for the first time when he was 7 months at my insistence. He keeps stomping his feet about PR and says it's in our son's best interests for him to have PR and if I am not going to grant it then he will go to court. He claims to have already volunteered and passed a psychological test to stop any mention of it in court. Why he told me that or would even do it is beyond me, I will be bringing up his mental health as his erratic behaviour is concerning as is the fact that he can't bear our son crying, it makes him cry too, but I haven't said that to him so why would he volunteer a test at this stage?
I don't know how to deal with him, if I don't please him he threatens me or twists what I say or makes wild accusations and he will just use it against me if he does go to court. I don't know how to keep my boundaries while not angering him