Co-parenting after a controlling relationship

[TheresAHuppoInMyHouse]

I have recently separated from my very controlling partner after a 6 year relationship. We have one DD who is three and a half.

I am committed to supporting and enabling his relationship with DD as I am convinced it is important to her. However, I am full of dread at the prospect of managing communications with him for the next 15 years, while DD grows up!

Does anyone have any tips as to how I can protect myself from a man who has been emotionally cruel to me â?? while ensuring that DD gets the full benefit of a relationship with her father?

I am intending to use our relationship counselling (starting tomorrow) as a safe environment to help me set boundaries and ground rules for future communication. I know that it's received wisdom that counselling often doesn't work when there has been emotional abuse. I'd love to hear how anyone else has managed this type of situation ....

No advice sorry but didn't want to read and run, well done for making that tough decision. Whatever you do stay strong and make sure both of you (as I'm sure you already do) always put your DDs best interests first. I hope it all works out well for you.

Thanks Sprite!

It's such a puzzle. It's hard to have clarity over my own thoughts when he's so clever and persuasive. I wish I could just escape from him for ever but I know DD mustn't sense any tension. I feel like I'm embarking on an impossible mission.

Re your comment:-
"I am committed to supporting and enabling his relationship with DD as I am convinced it is important to her".

I think you need to ask yourself why you think this is the case given his own controlling abuse towards yourself when you were with him.

Re this comment also:-
"I am intending to use our relationship counselling (starting tomorrow) as a safe environment to help me set boundaries and ground rules for future communication"

Who suggested this in the first instance?.

This is not going to work out at all well for you. Do you on some level think he is going to be at all reasonable/co-operative here?. He will use this to further maintain power and control over you and will work on your DD the same given any opportunity. You will co-operate, he will not do so and could well manipulate the counsellor to boot. He will certainly try to manipulate you and make it all out to be your fault.

He was never reasonable with you, he could well use your DD to further get back at you as "punishment" for having the gall in his eyes to leave him.

Your DD needs positive role models, both male and female. He may be her dad but she is unaware of what he is really like. You however, are all too aware of his true nature.

I think the best way to approach is to assume he's going to be hostile and uncooperative. Counselling, mediation and other compromise or voluntary type arrangements work great when you're dealing with reasonable people - not so well with unreasonable ones. Have a good solicitor as back-up, therefore, and don't be afraid to use them. Also remember that he will use any form of direct communication to carry on being cruel. So keep communications 'one-removed' and preferably on record i.e. e-mail and text rather than phone-calls. First hint of fuckwittery, revert to lawyers.

I would also suggest you read "Why does he do that?" written by Lundy Bancroft if you have never read this.

I would also look into enrolling on Womens Aid Freedom Programme as this is specifically for women who have been in abusive relationships. It can take years to recover from an abusive man.

Don't let him intimidate you either out of using a solicitor or into using mediation. If you let him dictate not only the terms of the battle but also the site of the battle, you'll lose. (And I'm sorry but this is already a conflict - be under no illusion) Get legal advice first and then decide if you still want to go to the counselling - which I must say sounds like an increasingly bad idea. Make him a reasonable & fair offer on access based on the advice you get and, if he doesn't like it, put the onus on him to argue at his own expense why it should be different.

It is possible for you DD to benefit from a relationship with her father but it does not mean you have to demean yourself in order to achieve it. Access but not at any price....

Am not at all surprised he suggested joint counselling; its just another tool in such an abusive man's arsenal to beat you with. It would not surprise me if he tried to manipulate the counsellor into making out that it is all your fault.

Do not let him further intimidate you into not seeking legal advice of your own. You need legal advice urgently and certainly before you enter any counselling arrangement at his behest/command. He is likely not to be so clued up on family law either as he thinks or gives the appearance of having.

Your DD also needs to be shown that not all men are abusive like her dad is. HIs other DD may well have had some sort of relationship with him but its all on his terms really. He will likely not behave better with your DD at all over time, he could use her to further manipulate her and by turn you as her mother. He'll have the two of you dancing to his tune; controlling men do not let go of their victims easily.

Just to add to this, my STBXH is EA, and I've been worried about co-parenting plans, particularly as he's already been trying to control/punish me through those plans. What I've found absolutely invaluable is getting detailed legal advice on finances and, most importantly for me, childcare arrangements. STBXH has been saying really bizarre and alarming things about future arrangements and talking through what actually happens/will happen with someone who deals with divorce and separation all the time has been amazingly calming and reassuring. I'm still aiming for mediation/avoiding courts, but with much more knowledge behind me. I hope this is helpful

Thank you earwigs. It's reassuring that it's not just me trying to make a situation like this work. I have had legal advice, it was fair and sensible which I did find reassuring at the time. It's the daily arrangements which I'm finding difficult, and I think my emotions are starting to kick in after all the years of keeping a grip on things. DP is making me feel unreasonable for wanting to split the finances (we are both much better off with our finances together) but it feel like I need practical separation to regain my emotional equilibrium.

Did you mention the EA element to your lawyer? I didn't.

How on earth can you have joint finances with someone from whom you are not only separated but is openly hostile towards you? If he can make you feel unreasonable for wanting something as simple as control over your own finances, he must be one hell of a manipulator. Do get legal advice and tell them absolutely everything including the emotional abuse and ridiculous suggestions such as retaining joint finances. Otherwise they will assume it is a reasonable, amicable split and you'll get bad advice.

We still have joint mortgage and accounts as I haven't been able to get him to discuss how we can unentangle everything. I have asked repeatedly, and suggested we have mediation, but no luck yet. He is just putting off the inevitable but it is frustrating. He has moved out, but comes here to look after DD, according to the schedule we've agreed. It's good for her to have continuity of place, but not so good for me.

I'm SO nervous of the legal route. I have diaries of the constant criticism over the past 3 years, but I don't want to have to relive it, or to have adversarial lawyers taking his side against me. I don't want to 'win' anything from him. I just want everything to be separate, and for there to be clear ground rules and boundaries.

However, I do need help to make that happen. I just can't envisage how a lawyer will make things better, not worse.

Have you told the bank where joint accounts are held that you have separated? That usually results in some action e.g. the account is frozen. Nothing to stop you transferring half the balance to an account in your sole name .... nothing to stop either of you transferring the whole balance if you were of a mind to. The mortgage is a little more tricky with it being a joint liability tied to an asset but the day-to-day for Direct Debits and so on can be easily dissolved.

All 'the legal route' means is that you are given good advice on what is a fair arrangement or settlement and how to go about it. It rarely gets to adversarial lawyers battling out in court and it's emphatically not about anyone winning or losing. They need to know about the emotional abuse simply in order to realise that your ex is unlikely to respond to reasonable requests such as mediation. It will mean a different approach, that's all.

A lawyer makes things better because a lawyer is 100% on your side. At the moment, with all your fears and insecurities at the forefront of your emotions, not even you are on your side....

I didn't mention the EA stuff as such, though I did say some of the things he'd said (eg that I'd have to move out, with the money I put into the mortgage and that he'd stay in the house with the children). They were very reassuring about that, and also talked about appointing collaborative lawyers where someone was "difficult to manage". I could have said more, but I think they got some of the measure of the situation.

Virtual handholding - this is so horrible to deal with. I wish you all the very best.

How long since the marriage ended? Does he actually accept it or is he thinking he can manipulate you back?
The danger is that your desire for amicable co-parenting leaves you open to manipulation, and one thing I have learned is that controlling people will use any means they can to retain control. He will not miraculously be reasonable because you have split.

I left over a year ago, and can only describe it as a nightmare. We are still trying to get a legal settlement, so I am unwilling to put many details up. You need a lawyer, and you need to ignore any attempts to take it out of legal channels. This does not mean court, there are lots of ways of being less adversarial but you need someone to clearly say, this was not agreed, this is not acceptable, until you get the strength to stand your ground and say it yourself.

And yes, be absolutely upfront about the control and EA, this is the reason you are leaving. I did not spell it out, but my lawyer had the measure of it pretty quickly. She is absolutely unflappable (that is her job), whereas the slightest thing still sets my stomach churning (because I still expect the wrath for disobeying his wishes).

Thanks for all the advice. I now have a lawyer who I like and trust but who is going to cost me a fortune! But at least I can call on him for advice on how to deal with each new situation. It's so irritating and unfair that if I have to use him a lot, it will cost me a deposit for my next place. But my independence and security has to take priority.

I do feel as though my attempts to do the right thing while protecting my personal boundaries, are leaving me open to difficulties. My current campaign is to get him to have his weekend contact with DD away from the house. He has refused as he says it's her home, he wants to share her space and her things while he is with her, and he has nowhere else to take her. There are obvious answers to these objections, and he says, looking pained "why are you making this so difficult? I won't harm you! I think the world of you, I hate that fact I make you so anxious'. But he DOES make me horribly anxious, and I don't want him near me.

I am starting to realise that, much as life was unpleasant before, it is going to continue to be difficult and contentious and psychologically combative for a long, long time. It is very very depressing.