trying to avoid manipulation by ex

[bibliomania]

Old thread here about ex threatening me because I went to the CSA.

The CSA has finally caught up with him (after intervention by my MP got them to finally act) and is going to take money directly from his employer.

Now I'm getting emails from ex which veer between (a) pleading for me to recognise all the good things he has done for dd; asking me to meet for mediation where he will tell me his income and we will "discuss" his contribution (by which he means he will try to argue his way out of paying anything) and (b) telling me how awful I am by refusing to communicate with him and how damaging I am to dd.

For the record, this man has not given me a penny in five years, and has cost me 17 k in legal fees by dragging me to court on false pretexts. He does spend money on dd (6), but also badmouths me to her a lot, telling her I'm a witch who wants to kill her.

I KNOW that have to avoid engaging with him and let the CSA do its thing. That's what I'm going to do. It's just - why after all this time can he still get to me? When I know I've tried so hard to be fair, why can he make me question myself again?

Because he is a class 1 black belt bastard. You, on the other hand, are a normal nice person who automatically thinks the other person might have a valid point of view worth taking into consideration.

Stick with it, you're doing brilliantly. He'll give up in the end.

Just don't engage and let them sort it out. He's grasping at straws because they are finally doing something, and he doesn't like it. He sounds very controlling, and for someone like this to lose control it's impossible and it's bound to be winding him up something chronic. I'd leave it to them and ignore his mails unless they relate specifically to your daughter.

He tells your daughter you are a witch and trying to kill her.......and you still let him see her????? You're. Better woman than me!
My exH told me he couldn't care less if he never saw me or my DS again. That was enough for me!

Thanks, Purple. I know intellectually about his manipulation - I've watched the confusion on people's faces as they try to process his claims that black is white. But emotionally, I'm not entirely immune. He knows that my vulnerable spot is a suggestion that I'm doing something that's not good for dd and my God, he plays on it.

You're getting money off him so that you can feed her. Of course that's good for your DD

Stand firm biblio

A friend of mine got round this by sending every email she got from xh that wasn't pleasant and/or directly to do with DC access to XH solicitor.

Then XH solicitor charged the XH for telling him he had received it and contacting XH asking what to do about responding to it

This may not be an option for you but hopefully it will raise a smile.

Ignore ignore ignore.

Oops, cross-posts. Blueugg, believes me that it worries me, but SS and CAFCASS know about the badmouthing and including in their reports. I think it was one of the reasons why I still have the majority of the care, but it was not deemed enough to stop unsupervised contact.

I feel better about it now that dd confides in me about it and we can discuss it - previously, she didn't tell me and just privately worried about it until a teacher overheard her at school.

I wish, hampton! Ex doesn't have a solicitor - he had a legal aid one who stopped acting for him, telling the court he was "unreasonable and realistic".

You have to be a very, very poor parent to have contact stopped, ime - the judge told us both that we were better than the parents who come before him in care proceedings, so we should stop complaining about each other.