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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

A question about how abusive people view their victims after they leave?

203 replies

Fightingback16 · 22/05/2020 23:23

I’ve approached this subject before on a thread. I asked whether abusers know they are abusive. I was kind of content with the answer that they don’t, they think a different way to “normal” people. Now I’m not sure what I’m working with.

I’m looking at a potential court case over custody. I was thinking about how he views me now. Does he view me as the same women who I was when we were together. Does he have no idea what’s happening or why I’m not cooperating? Does he see himself still as the victim?

Or, does he know that I know he abused me, is he hoping and relying on the fact that I’m too damaged to act now? I’m making dam sure I’m not too damaged at all!!!

I’m just wondering a little on how he thinks in order to work out how to tackle this. I kind of need to know thy enemy.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:12

Would winning be causing me emotional pain for the rest of my life via our daughter? Is that what some abusers want?

OP posts:
sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:12

In court do you mean?

pre-empt what you're getting in to at court?

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:13

Yes. I’m don’t have any contact anymore since December that’s not via solicitors.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:14

I just wondered what angle he will play.

OP posts:
sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:15

@fightingback16, yes, you are correct, your x will take you down even if your daughter is a passenger to that.

Accept that.

Disengage.

Stop trying to figure him out.

He's no doubt a vacuum, and you asserting that you can live a better life without him has caused him a narcissistic injury and you must be punished for that.

He will never try to 'go easy on you' so that you're a better mother to your daughter.

ONLY HIS FEELINGS matter. Your feelings are WRONG, and he can't really imagine his daughter's feelings clearly.

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:15

I can and do play Grey rock now, it’s easy as he has no contact with me or dd. How do you be a rock when they get contact and use your children to get to you?

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Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:16

Oh f**k what’s taking down? Sorry I just don’t understand what he wants from me!

OP posts:
sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:17

Oh, he will play the victim!!

They always play the victim angle.

With a little bit of she's unstable thrown in!

B1rdbra1n · 23/05/2020 00:19

What's his weaknesses?
how bright is he?

sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:20

Sorry, when I said he will take you down, I meant, in any capacity. Legally. Financially. Emotionally. If he is that type, he wants it to be clear to you and to him that he has beaten you, and when I said he won't care if your daughter 'is a passenger' to that, I mean, obviously a sane, emotionally healthy father would want his child's mother to be content, stable, free from anxiety for his child's sake. But he won't care about that.

B1rdbra1n · 23/05/2020 00:20

What is he scared of?
have you got any dirt on him?

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:20

Ha yes I’m unstable.....luckily for him not unstable enough.

OP posts:
sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:23

This stuff can drive you crazy.

Is he saying he wants 100% full custody.

What is your exact fear right now?

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:25

He is stupid, didn’t finish a level equivalent. I have a masters which he used to throw at me saying I have all these qualifications but I’m stupid as s**t. Now I’m sorry to much info but he has a very abnormal sized manhood. I don’t have experience but it caused him a lot of distress. In a way I was lucky that because he was awkward in that sense he left me alone. I always used to feel he punished me because he was ashamed. He made me believe I had sexual problems but now I know he just projected his shame on me. He also constantly needs to be told his is helping, I had to list all the things he did. He didn’t help me at all, when I said so he went mad!

OP posts:
Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:27

Abnormal as in very small!

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Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:28

I met him and he had a fake UK passport. He has lied about all his tax returns. Smokes weed, fired from jobs for violence, was a drug addict who used to cut his arms.....not the greatest tinder advert!

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sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:30

That is probably true.

there is a kind of negative intimacy with these men, if you get close to them, then they confused about whether they hate themselves or hate you. They feel a bit better after they abuse you. So that is a coping mechanism for them.

But never mind about him and his micro dick.

Have you had a letter from his solicitor/ Is there a court date?

Is there a specific LEGAL threat?

B1rdbra1n · 23/05/2020 00:31

It's handy that he's not particularly clever but then again he sounds extremely dysfunctional not to mention volatile/ dangerous, it's hard to see how he could get his act together to come across well in court?
surely it wouldn't be difficult to build a case against him having access to your child?
I feel really you first need to get safely away from him though?

sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:34

Wow.

Start compiling as much proof as you can.

The drugs, the violence. The weed. The fake passport.

You can afford to exhale, you know that?! Wine

He is a violent druggie who's been fired repeatedly, he has a micro dick, and the only thing he has to make him feel like a big man is making you quake in your boots that he's going to take your daughter! And you're about to rob that from him by going grey rock.

Instead of worry worry worry about that, play the ''then what'' script in your head. If the thing you're worried about happens, then what. Then you will prepare your side, your demands, you will show evidence of his violence and his drug use and that will be all you can do.

sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:35

oh hang on, you're still with him?

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:36

I’m away. Im living with my mum at the moment. He’s in the family home which is another kettle of fish.

I had a letter today from his solicitor telling me I’m using our daughter as a weapon and if I done agree to contact in 7 days he will make an application. To which I’ve told me lawyer that I do not agree to contact.

I think you may be right about him not doing well in court . He is a bully to people who don’t side with him. Everyone he meets is racist (he is mixed race) I’m racist although I did once love and marry him. He will go up to anyone in the street and threaten them if that look at him funny. Half of me wants to go to court to see how he will handle it. He respects no one.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:39

Micro dick....that makes me smile.

No I left a year ago. I’ve been suffering with terrible PTSD and can only now really look at things. Luckily he was too stupid not to push this months ago as I was a nervous wreck. But I never let on to him so he didn’t know.

OP posts:
sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:43

Stay with your mum.

Don't even react to the solicitor's letter yourself.

let the solicitor to send his solicitor a letter to say that due to his violence, drug use, dishonesty (taxes) and self-harm, you don't wan't him to have contact but that you will go before the court.

His solicitor willl then say to him ''violence?''. ''Drugs?'' ''Dishonesty?'' ''Self-harm''. Then he will give his solicitor a glossed over version of all of that in which it hardly even happened at all really and if he did, he's the hero. But his solicitor will see through it all if he doesn't already.

Just let this play out.

Take a breath. You're ok. You can go in to court with the demeanour of a GOOD mother, protecting her child, with the support of grandparent(s) and he will be trying to cover up his anger and drug use.

You can tell the court that you're afraid of him. That is better than saying ''he's abusive''. That is labelling somebody else and they don't like that. But you have a right to say that you feel afraid of him.

sawollya · 23/05/2020 00:45

I feel for you. I was never as stressed and anxious as I was when my x sent me that first solicitor's letter. But I over estimated his power over me.

Original poster
Fightingback16 · 23/05/2020 00:48

I don’t really care about me so much. I’m a big girl, its my little squishy girl who I care about. She saved my life 2 times now. I have to protect her from him and I’m scared for her future. I guess the courts will take longer in these circumstances to set a date?

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