Lundy advice on abusive stbxh

[Penguinnose]

Hello,

I have heard so much about Lundy's book and I was wondering if he offers Any advice on dealing with an abusive ex when you have children together? I often read advice on here about detaching and not engaging and that has been my strategy so far ( we have been separated nearly a year now) but I'm struggling because even now if I do something that makes him angry (like the csa catching up with him and taking money from his account...) he turns into bully/tantrum mode and messes me around through contact times and sends abusive texts.

As I say I am trying to detach and just ignore him and carry on but when he attacks my family through his nasty texts etc i feel I am building deep anger inside by not responding. Then again I know I can never win any argument with himself.

I just want him to go awayd and leave me alone.

What would Lundy say?

I dont know what Lundy would say but at the risk of sounding flippant: after overtly not engaging with him, I would buy a doll that resembles him and a big box of pins.

My advice is to move towards a position where you are able to ignore everything he says. His opinion is not valuable - it is the opinion of someone from your past, who is trying to hurt you. Before you get to really not caring, you might have a few interim stages. Important thing though is even when you do still care, not to show him that. However long his emails, however much he insults you do not explain, do not react.

As an interim stage I used to print out my ex's emails and 'translate' them, highlighting where there were abusive, controlling or manipulative statements. So, 'You are stubborn and unreasonable' would translate as 'it's not fair, I'm supposed to get what I want', 'how dare you sneak to the CSA behind my back' translates as 'it's not fair...I want to be the boss again and I resent having to give you the money that's rightfully yours'....that kind of thing. That is a waste of time really..but it can help to re-frame your idea of the man behind the message and stop letting him hurt you so much.

The next step is to go through his email, ignore all the crap and highlight the bits that are actually important to your life now. You can send an 'I don't have time to read all that...but half past three at the school is fine' message if you want to.

But the best tactic is to ignore everything unless it's dates, times and places for drop offs and VERY important education/medical matters, of which there are very few actually. This approach has three benefits, firstly it saves loads of time, secondly you don't get hurt by his words, thirdly it is hugely frustrating for your ex cos he learns that he's not hurting you anymore. I had a message from my ex saying 'I get the feeling that you don't care what I think any more' - RESULT!

Great advice, LF!

Write out a huge ranting reply and then delete it or save but don't send. Or ban yourself from responding for at least 24 hours - he is hoovering you back into the abuse. Even a delay in replying will deflate him. Plus if you drag your heels about replying long enough you just stop caring. Worked for me

Meanwhile just want to say I v much empathise

He has a whole book about dcs and abusive relationships.

Think you've had good advice on here. He does it to punish you, so the less you think about him, the less he is succeeding.