Four threads to freedom! Divorcing Twatchops once and for all

[thenamehaschanged]

Still can't copy and paste links but my last thread was New name, new game, less stress, more progress!

This really, really is the last one now - I hope that my story has helped anybody breaking free from abuse - it's bloody hard but you can do it!

yep, a definate limit on emails is needed - no chatty chat. nothing unless its a one line "sorry cant make midweek this week"

and a huge NO to the questionairre. I just thought it was a chance to try to make you do something for him like before.
The marriage is over. His self improvement is for his future and its up to him to sort that out.

"Confidential questionnaire"?!?! Tell him to go and do one. God the cheek of that man! as others have said, not your job, not your responsibility. He is trying to draw you in yet again, but you have gotten too far away for him to do that now. I would be letting Rottie know of the latest developments and see what she says. Twatty needs another short, sharp whack on the nose with a solicitor's letter, just like you would have done to train an errant puppy years ago. However in Twatty's case, he is going to need one every so often .

KOKO Name, god he is such a fuckwit! for him, and for you.

Sorry to hear he's behaving as everyone predicted, but at least you recognise it for what it is. This questionnaire thing would seem to be right up his street, and he probably sees it as a nice substitute for all that early morning list making!

Congratulations on the new job

Well done on your new job Name . As a frequent job changer (more often than my socks says DP) I know it can be tough being the new girl.
Agree with Random - he either sticks to the agreed dates / times or he waits for the next one. Why should you and the girls be messed around?

Allowing email is opening a door, you know this man. In his head this may mean encouragement, and an inch is going to quickly become a mile.

As to the questionnaire.... um, call me deeply cynical, but I bet his solicitor would love a written list of accusations to prove your unreasonability and hurtful accusations towards his poor client, plus time to come up with rebuttals and re writes of history. Don't touch with a barge pole and reject as neutrally as possible. 'Not Applicable. Divorce is in progress due to long term abuse on X's part (please see Non Mol order), and he is no longer a part of my life.'

If that goes straight back to Twatchops it reinforces your key message, and it gives his solicitor no ammunition. If it does go to a counsellor, it should make it pretty clear to him/her that the marriage is over whatever his client may have told him.

Thank you everyone so much, I really appreciate you all taking the time to come and bolster me back up!

Well, I phoned BIL today and just laid it on the line - he agreed it was out of order of h to be calling me babe (yuk) - we have agreed it's back to communicating through BIL if we need. I'm going to draw up a plan of access and if h can't make it then he misses it - I utterly hated him tonight when I got in, this job is full time so I'm knackered tonight, picked up the kids from their different friends, dd2 started on me as soon as we got in and I just lost it with her and sent her to bed for being disrespectful. He gets none of this, and never really did, and now he can just swoop in as Mr fun time twat chops - have a laugh with them and drop them back to me to fight over homework and getting up and going to bed - I hate him! And him and his fucking questionnaire can just do one, you're all right, ain't my effing problem.

Anyway, me and dd2 had a tearful making up, she was sorry for being rude and now she's all cosy on the sofa watching the little mermaid while I have and MN! Gotta remember she's only 6, and it wasn't h she was having a go about, just being tired and demanding.

Name

This is why I stressed to you time and time again in your previous threads how essential NO CONTACT is to getting through this.

You have to literally pull up the drawbridge, batten down the hatches, put the sentries on duty and stop this man getting to you in any shape or form .. and that includes email.

When I split with my ex of over 10 years (and I had two kids with him aged 9 and 7 at the time and we worked together in a family business) my only direct contact with him post split was via email and then I made it absolutely clear that anything of a 'personal' nature would not get read. You can pretty much tell where an email is going from the first few words .. and you just need to stop reading and bin it. They will soon get the message.

For us reading this thread .. we can see how already he is getting to you and upsetting your equilibrium .. and it are just the tip of a potential destabilising iceberg! Break ups (aka Escapes .. when controlling manipulative fuckers are involved) are hell on earth anyway. The ups the downs, the doubts, the fears, the euphoria, the flatness ... you have to navigate it all. But trying do it while the one you are trying to escape from still has some kind of way to get at you, no matter how tenuous .. is all but impossible.

Shut it down now and absolutely refuse to engage with him .. via email or any other way. Also you have to block this brother in law. Again he's a means of getting to you ... a relayer of information, opinion, observation and one that you just don't need. Please, please shut that down too, otherwise it is is going to be so much more difficult for you to move on to a new life and place where your husband and his family are very much in the past.

From the moment I decided to split with my ex, I never spoke to his sisters again (and I liked them both .. but I just knew if I went down that route I was fucked), his parents (not so keen on them to be honest) weren't such a great loss. It was hard but necessary. Any of our mutual friends who I thought he might use to get to me, I'm afraid they were out of the frame as well. That was hard, but necessary, otherwise I knew I'd never get free of him.

You've seriously got to shut this down .. because he's getting to you ... in tiny ways yes, but through the brother, the handovers and now this opening up of email communication.

If you are going to move on from this fucker .. you've got to stop all this right now, NO CONTACT is tricky when there are young kids involved I know But minimal, formal, no bullshit contact is perfectly possible. I know, because I did it, and I have not so much as exchanged a single verbal word with my ex since the day I left him 10 years ago, let alone him still feeling he had some right or privilege or opportunity to ever call me 'babe' again, as yours seems to think he has.

It's early days still, but already you are engaging way too much. Knock it on the head Name - honestly sweetheart it's the only way with this sort of man, as I know from experience.

Font
x

Font! Thank you - it really has affected my equilibrium you're right, I was getting to a good place and then wham! Just like being in the marriage but in reverse.

How did you manage handovers with your kids and him when they were young?

I said to BIL about how H's chirpy email had bothered me which was before the babe incident - and he said, well I wouldn't worry about exclamation marks!!! And I just thought oh good god none of you get it - exclamation marks in a chirpy email from a man who I had to practically flee in the night from after years of abuse are most very unwelcome and ominous. !

I'm going to draw up this access plan, send it to them and then want as next to zero contact as possible

name please be kind to yourself. Your life has done a 180 degree turn. It's like you've been dropped in the middle of a foreign country and are having to start over. There's lots of things you can't change, and you're taking action on the things you can. Yes, he'll be able to be the 'Disney Dad', the sorry SOB, but you really can't do much about that. At least not right now. It's OK to be tired, OK to be emotional. And it's OK to do something for yourself and your girls, too. If you're tired after work, there's nothing wrong with takeaway or something easy & simple for supper. When my DH started working out of town 4 days a week, there were a few nights where the boys and I had breakfast for supper or grilled cheese and soup. Once, I'll admit to ice cream in bed for supper, but don't tell on me, I'll lose my mum card! It's OK, you'll all survive.

exclamation marks in a chirpy email from a man who I had to practically flee in the night from after years of abuse are most very unwelcome and ominous. !

And in fact, Twatty himself doesn't really get it either. He thinks:

"All I have to do is be nice to Name, and she'll see what a great guy I am, and how she's wrong to have thrown me out with the trash. In fact, I'll just trample all over her boundaries and go along with all of this guff, but I'll just go back to the way we used to be, and she'll come round eventually. After all, how could she resist ME!!!

This is how the supremely self-centered think. It is all about how great they are, and how everyone else, therefore, must be in the wrong. Don't succumb to his line of thinking, you have had many years of it now, so unconditioning yourself to this will be a work in progress. Keep on coming back here so that the lovely vipers can realign your thoughts .

Its also another reason why this face , and this one and this one , work so well on these self-centred types, as they are an unequivocal message that you don't like what they are doing. If you give them a neutral face they will think "Oh she doesn't mind what I am doing, I shall take a mile then".

KOKO Name, with a little help, you'll get through this just fine as well

How did you manage handovers with your kids and him when they were young?

He lived 35 miles from me and was a lazy fucker anyway, so would never drive the whole, way, not that I wanted him turning up outside my door.

We met halfway in a Pizza Hut car park of all places on a roundabout. He was invariably late, but I'd drive in - he'd turn up, the kids would get out, I had tinted windows anyway so the fucker couldn't see me .. and off they'd go.

When they came home .. it was the same in reverse. That's how it went on until they were older and could catch the train over to see him (I'd still have to pay the fucking train fare though, even though I got sweet FA financially when we split up). He'd pick them up from the station his end. I'd pick them up this end.

It honestly isn't hard to do, you've just got to get that steely resolve which I got one morning when it was like a light switch going on - if I don't see this fucker, if I don't speak to this fucker, if I don't let this fucker get to me .. then I'm home and free in a completely fucker free life. So that's what I did. And I was.

Shut him down name shut him down otherwise all this will have been for nothing. Put up the wall, seal the gaps, stop there being any way through no matter how benign it might seem on the surface like the go-between brother (in law).

You got married, you had two kids together, you don't like him, you don't love him, you don't want to spend the rest of your life with him, the kids will grow up, we're all gonna die, you don't want to waste what's left of your life living with the fucker, so fuck him off out of it, once and for all.

A round of applause for Fontella

Fontella brilliant, just brilliant. Exceptional use of the word fucker! Hahaha

Oh name, just catching up here. If when you ever email again, please keep on pulling him up if he uses nicknames like 'babe'. Oy, Twatchops, the name has changed. I'm not your 'babe' - it's ........ to you now! (Insert whatever you want there.)

In fact, try " I'm not your 'babe' - it's STBXW to you - but you can call me 'Ex' (or maybe The Sooner the Better?) now!

Fucking hell Font that was a masterpiece haha!! Right, I get it - I totally get it NO CONTACT!

Everyone thank you so much, although can I just say here that the 'counsellor' has sent through the questionnaire - if I could post the website here I would - I have never seen such weird drivel - it's a non profit organisation set up to help abusive men realise they are being abusive 'oh yeah, is that because they thought they were being nice?' - I'm like where the hell did he find this?!

So you think, ok benefit of the doubt and all that - click on to the questionnaire and it starts with 'what time in the day does his temper start?' Err Twatchops o clock? What time? Seriously haha.

Anyway no contact, no contact, no contact!! Thanks again Font

May I be first to predict that, should MN ever publishes a Profanisaurus, "twatchops o'clock" will be right up there with "twunt" and "LTB". Classic!

Ooh ooh! Share some more daft questions, please??? >beg-icon

Haha thanks Pedant!!

Ok - what room is the 'violence' most likely to take place? What is my job? After which events is 'violence' likely to take place?

and yeah, in the small print, as everybody predicted, there's talk of me attending a session with him in a few months down the line!

Oh that's a load of bollocks. If it's an email just politely email back. After taking advice I'm told it's not appropriate for you to contact me and I won't be responding to the questionnaire. Though I'd be tempted to say ps I'm divorcing him so I don't have to worry about his temper!
Hope you've told rottie about the stuff the girls have come out with that's definatley more emotional abuse and of a 6 year old!
Have a lovely weekend

"what room is the 'violence' most likely to take place?"

Let me guess, if you said "the kitchen" then the abuser could spend a session merrily listing his "triggers" which would be no doubt all to do with the victim not getting the dinner on time/leaving dishes in the sink longer than 5 mins/having toys strewn everywhere.

Then they could resolve how to react better next time they met a trigger i.e. Some woman being utterly crap.

I find it bizarre that the victim be asked to rake over coals in a questionaire just so the abuser can feel like they're not completely the bad guy, just need to learn to react differently. I mean, they had YEARS of repeated warnings that they had to start reacting differently or they'd lose everything. But they never bothered pretending for long.

How they behaved all these years was a CHOICE. It wasn't some deep-seated subconscious thing nobody alerted them to! Oh if only the wives had filled out a questionaire!

Are you sure this is a counsellor and not a student he met in the pub?

name when I was in bed last night I actually found myself trying to compose a really cutting but wonderfully dignified response back to the counsellor.

But all my imaginary responses kept devolving into bitter passive-agressive little soundbites so plainly I am no good at being wonderfully dignified!

Font rocks, she really does. Brilliant posts. As for the 'counselling' questionnaire you're expected to complete - what a bloody, bleeding, effing NERVE! Glad you're telling them to eff right off! Ridiculous. Where the hell did soon to be ex Turd FIND this so called 'counselling' outfit?

I think the basis for these questionnaires is probably if the abuser & the victim of his abuse are trying to 'save' the relationship. It's really the only reason why those questions would make any sense, isn't it? So is it really relevant in your case? Only questions that may pertain to how he treats you as his EX-wife AND questions that may pertain to how he treats his children during access. I'd comb through it and answer any questions that you think may help you and the children in the future. Like 'Does the arsehole in question explode for no fucking reason?' or 'Does the arsehole in question have trouble with 'boundaries?'. Shite like that. Whether or not you answer any questions, I would send it back with a notation that there is no possible chance in hell of reconciliation, you are done and not interested in 'helping' him for the next poor woman who crosses his path. That you are only interested in the safety of your children. I'm sure the counselor has been given the impression by him that there is still a chance of saving the marriage.

What the actual fuck??! I herewith rescind my sliver of hope that this counsellor was a proper professional with a DV perpetrator programme. Not that I think they work particularly, just that I'm in favour of furthering the field of knowledge. As you say, TC seems to have found the least professional option (or set up his own!) The idiot.

I'd be tempted to fill it in, with "All the time", "Every room", etc, but that would serve nothing at all and I agree the adult response is no response - or a terse note to the counsellor saying you want no further contact.

Post a link to the website, g'wan