Gaslighting : ignore or confront?

[jadeddazedandconfused]

Hi, I have just come to the realisation that I'm being gaslighting. I have split from husband but still sharing a home.
Over the years I have found lots of 'missing' things in odd places or even in the bin. Mostly it is small items of mine and the children, sometimes there are cost implications other times it's just annoying and slightly distressing because he always denied it or blamed our small children even when he's hidden things so high the children couldn't have done it.
Sometimes it's been important documents.

Recently when I asked him for something that had disappeared and I'd searched everywhere he produced it and said I'd not looked properly (I had) and he said 'if I was going to take o
Today I remembered how when he was bullied at school he took revenge by stealing from their bags & coats in the cloakroom. I believe The hiding /throwing away stuff is part of that old pattern but it makes me feel unsafe, not 100% sure how to tackle it.

Hundreds of times I have asked him not to touch /move/dispose of my /the children's things but when met with blatant denial it's hard to know how to deal with it. I can't lock everything away being don't know what he will choose next.

I have thought about getting a box and just saying anytime you're not sure what to do with something just put it in here for me to sort out but I feel trying to do things on the sly that won't help
I thought I could mention the bullying story he told me but I'm expecting him just to laugh it off as usual and tell me how ridiculous I am but at least he'd know I'm on to him.

You will be amazed at how much easier it is with the kids once on your own with them. I too worried about how id cope on my own.
Constantly being told i couldnt cope on my own, and id never get this far without him. I believed it.
Once out,it dawned on me how little he actually helped with the kids. He was like having another kid, so that in itself made things easier. I had 4 children, not 5!

It is hard and i also have my up and down days. You have been conned and ripped off in a sense, but you most certainly arent stupid!
It is hard to come to terms with how controlled you have been without even being aware of it.
You have learned an awful lot through this experience though! I know i have.

I have things crop into my mind still to this day where i think "shhiitt...that was what he wanted, not me!"

They are very clever with what they do and how they do it. Dont ever blame yourself or put yourself down because of his behaviour.

You have seen him for who he really is, and so you have beaten him at his own game.

I hope you manage to sort something out with a solicitor tomorrow

Just a word about arrangements for the children following divorce/separation as you mentioned custody - and that term is no longer used. Where parents agree they can make whatever arrangements they like without the need for any Court Orders. BUT if this does end up in the family court or you feel you can't trust him to stick to any arrangements you make between yourselves, then the way forward is for you to apply for a Residence Order and this Order is granted to the parent who has the children living with them on a permanent basis. The non-resident parent almost always gets a Contact Order which is usually defined by the Court.

When these matters end up in the Family Courts a social worker is allocated from (CAFCASS) Children and family Court Service) and they investigate the circumstances of both parents and have a duty to act in the best interests of the children. Unfortunately they are very overworked and so these private law cases tend to be done in a somewhat hurried manner, but the social worker should make a recommendation regarding which parent should get the Residence Order and give recommendations concerning regular contact (if appropriate) for the non-resident parent.

I think you already know that legal aid is no longer available for these cases. IF this goes to court you will be encouraged to see a mediator at court to try to work out arrangements in an amicable manner but to be honest by this time, the parents are "daggers drawn" are totally unable to be amicable and see it as "winning" or "losing" and the children of course are in the middle of it all.s

have a look here for more practical advice to add to the excellent stuff posted by Nina

Thanks guys
he's just asked me for my thoughts on his reply to my email. Cheeky fecker it took him nearly a month to respond to my queries and it was only because I confronted him that he replied at all.

I said I need to seek legal advice and he said I thought we're going to work it out ourselves and I said we were but I'm not happy with your plans, he got really annoyed and said I'm robbing the children of their inheritance if I selfishly choose to sell the house instead of letting him stay in it!

he says he will be having the children half the time so what's the problem? I said surely if you can afford to keep it and support us elsewhere then you can afford to support us to stay in it and you live elsewhere?! He said not if the HA say that I can't afford it with his contribution...

He made it sound so reasonable and has fogged my brain, he said what's the point of us selling it just because I can't afford to live in it when he can, I'm so confused.

I kind of agree with him about the children's inheritance but I also think what happens now is equally important, there's no way he'd have them half the time, he can barely handle them now plus his shifts would make it impossible.

I have solicitors on Monday afternoon, HA are no further forward with their decision, they said they can't just do it for me as a one off, they have to change their company policy across the board to accommodate it and they have a board meeting coming up where they might discuss it, it's very up in the air so all this talk about who stays is the contingency plan based on the HA decision.

He made it sound so reasonable.

Course he did. He's trying manipulate you into letting him live alone in a 3 bedroom house while you uproot your kids for his benefit.

He's a gaslighting porn addict who may or may not have an inappropriate interest in children. This would not be anyone's definition of 'reasonable'!

I would ignore everything he says from now on, don't get pulled into discussions with him, it's just manipulation. Let your solicitor deal with all of it.

Yes, ignore.
'Thank you. I will discuss that with my solicitor.' Rinse and repeat, until he gives up talking at you.

Thanks twinklestein I won't be agreeing to anything now without proper advice. He was vehement and mocking my reasons to disagree with him.

I can't believe how much I misjudged this cuckoo in the nest. He is so plausible lots of people think he's great. A weird thing I could rarely tell when he was laughing or even smiling or joking, it's like he wears a poker face mask at all times and now I've dislodged it slightly.
It gives me 'the creeps'.

Thanks wyrdyBird I will have to keep coming back here for reason. My counsellor is on holiday this week fortunately H is at work a lot from Friday so I won't have to see too much of him.

anyfucker I've been reading the blog information Thank you.

The law still stands that if he exposes the children to pornography it is child neglect, if he lets them see it knowingly it's child abuse. If it's regular neglect then legally it has the strength of abuse.

Getting evidence is the key thing which is why I think you shouldn't just up and run. If you leave without having evidence it will be much harder to find later on. If you think his porn habits are a danger to children I would address them now. When you separate you will have no control about what he does in his home when your children go for contact (if that's ever granted).

This goes for the EA as well. It will be far better to get evidence before you leave even if it's in diary form.

A weird thing I could rarely tell when he was laughing or even smiling or joking, it's like he wears a poker face mask at all times and now I've dislodged it slightly. It gives me 'the creeps'.

Is this a sign of EA? I know someone like that. Did you find that on a website, I would like to know more.

Sorry to comment again horsetowater but the issues of neglect and abuse are not as compartmentalised as you seem to believe. There are many kinds of abuse and neglect, physical, social, emotional to name but a few and they cannot be separated, as they overlap - it can be argued that all children who are neglected and abused are by definition emotionally abused. Sometimes the parent is physically present but is not emotionally available to a child (not attending to their needs) and this constitutes neglect. I remember a case where the step father was encouraging a 13 year old girl to watch porn films while her mom was at work and this was part of the "grooming" that often takes place as a prelude to sexual abuse. He did go on to commit indecent assault on the girl, and we did remove the girl, but with the mother's consent. She claimed the girl was lying and wanted her daughter out of the house so that she couldn't "cause any more trouble." I always suspected that she believed her daughter, but she had younger children and there were of course financial implications if she left her husband, who was the father of the younger children.

Child protection issues are complicated and often complex and I don't think it helps to post in a way that suggests they are compartmentalised.

You mention evidence, which of course is key. If the case described had gone to court the chances of the step father being convicted would be very slim because it is the child's word against his, and there was no forensic evidence. Most abusers get away with it because children (even if they are on a video link) cannot cope with being cross examined by the defence, and anyone who makes a statement has to be cross examined. In fact the sf was arrested and bailed but the CPS did not think there was sufficient evidence to take the matter to court.

As far as I can see the OP is not making comment about the possibility of the ex exposing the children to pornography (but I may well be wrong here) I think she said he is a very good father and is very involved with the children. Sorry again if I have that wrong.

I'm not sure how the OP can get evidence to be honest, but you are quite right to say that she should obtain evidence if she can (by keeping e mails, texts etc) and I also agree that there is a concern that he could do whatever he likes if and when he has contact with the children on his own. I'm not sure of the age of the children.

I think your last post about EA suggests that you may well be jumping to conclusions, and again the issues of someone who is an emotional abuser will be complex and will take all sorts of forms (gaslighting being one of them) and controlling/dominating is another, shouting/swearing, name calling etc etc. I could go on but I really think you need to be aware that dysfunctional adults come in many guises and will abuse others in all sorts of ways, and I a certain that the description of someone whose "mask is slipping" will not be found on a website. This is just an observation that the OP made about her exH.

Sorry OP I am really not trying to hi jack your thread but I really do have to challenge issues that are factually incorrect and therefore may not be helpful.

I think you should listen to twinklestein she has good advice and it may be easy for you to think this man is being reasonable but that is probably his aim, to hoodwink you. Sometimes when you are in the midst of a difficult situation you cannot see the "wood for the trees" and it takes someone outside of the situation to realise what is going on and this will of course be especially true of women who have suffered the same kind of emotional abuse.

horsetowater it's just something that's always bugged me about him, I tried to tell myself that it's my imagination but it was definitely happening. He did say once that he doesn't smile because he hates his teeth and he did spend a fair bit having then whitened but it was things like he'd make a dodgy comment maybe a bit mean and when I challenged him he'd say he was joking and I'd say well you were deadpan you don't look like you're joking, it's another thing that was subtly unnerving.

When out and about or socialising he didn't seem to have any trouble smiling or laughing!

Another weird thing is that we used to cycle together a lot, he's much fitter and always cycled ahead so we never talked. He went on a ride with new friend, said it was brilliant they chatted all the way and I childishly asked why he can chat to this guy and not to me and he replied 'I don't know him but I know everything about you' then when I responded a bit upset he said he'd been joking but I know he wasn't, it feels like he had no interest in me for so long I feel a fool

nananina thanks you for sharing your professional knowledge. I have no evidence at all just a questionable Web search years ago and a few boundary issues and a couple of other things that are on my all other thread (don't know how to link) all of which I have reported to the police and they state that it's all too vague.

As far as I can possibly be aware the children are not exposed to porn, they don't show sexualised behaviour just the normal discovery and fascination with genitals which seems to be across the board (2.5 & 4) as far as I know he has always used private browsing or deleted histories.

My biggest fear is what he can do when he has them away from most I have done the right things with regards to reporting and speaking to health professionals I don't know what else I can do?

Hi Jaded I think you've done the right thing by reporting things to the police - even if they are vague - can you say what they are? PM if you don't want to post on an open forum. It is a worry about him having contact with them on his own, but I think you said that he is a caring father didn't you? If so, I can't imagine why he would be abusing them whilst in his care and as they get older of course they will be able to say what is happening. I don't mean that you will sit them down and question them but children do often "come out with things" that will raise concern, and the important thing is not to show surprise or anything, but to be calm and try not to ask open questions (as in "did he do that....") and then things often come out (with a little prompting) and we call this the "dripping tap" effect - things come out over a day or several days or even weeks and you can begin to build a picture of what is happening. Always, always record what is said verbatim and date it.

Sorry I don't want to add to your problems and this of course is rolling the tape forward. Just thought I'd mention it.

Nananina I haven't said anything that is factually incorrect. Of course I know all about the different shades and hues of abuse and the complexities. I chose not to go into it and focus on OP getting evidence.

Am I not allowed to hear OP's views about the poker fact thing? I find it very interesting and thought OP had got it from a website that I might be able to read up about it. I don't understand what you're getting at.

Jaded - that's amazingly scarily familiar.
Does he walk ahead of you sometimes or not talk to you when you're out, behave like he's alone or with the other person you're with?
And the 'I was just joking'. What a mindfuck that is.

No I think that's the problem horsetowater you don't understand what I'm getting at. I think we should end this bickering as it isn't helping the OP.

Hi nananina the details are on another thread entitled 'how predictable another husband and porn thread' I don't want to type it all out again as I have had to retell it several times, I don't have the energy to keep going into it.
I would like to educate my children how to keep themselves safe in all aspects of the issue, about boundaries and keeping their privates private, I want to do it in a matter of fact way and keep it like any other mummy and child conversation so if you can direct me where to learn how to do it well that would be great. I think somebody posted a safeguarding link up thread so I will check it out.

horsetowater ask me whatever you like, if I can answer I will if not Google is your friend! The thing about the mask slipping is my own observation but I have done a lot of reading about narcissistic tendencies as my mum seems to have a narcissistic personality and I'm pretty sure there is something about a mask slipping and yes H does all those things subtly putting me down, ignoring me etc but it's done so cleverly that if I mention it I just look mad.

If you Google narcissistic personality disorder it might help.

Link to Jaded's previous thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/1925986-How-predictable-another-husband-and-porn-thread

Thanks twinklestein I have just reached the end of my tether, poorly children and no sleep means poorly me, shitty shitty weather I need to recharge.

Take a break Jaded. :)
Any good movies on tonight?

I don't think I'll be up for much after the second corrie! I have a very poorly little girl in my bed and have been awake since 4am! I'd love to sit and watch a movie but the weekend looms, two littlies and constant storms it's going to be hard work!

I might watch something in bed on the phone, any recommendations?!

Sorry haven't rtft..but have thought about getting a nanny cam? So you have proof...even if you never show it to him. Just so you know you aren't crazy?