Are you abusive or are certain behaviours just abusive?

[Strawberrywine1]

I’m just wondering as at court the judge would never call my ex abusive but would say that his behaviour at times was.

I find it hard when talking to my daughter. She says things like daddy said he bought you things and sacrificed things for you so he was a good husband to you he says. I follow it up with yes but daddy shouted at mummy and mummy wanted to be treated better so she l decided to leave to keep us safe…etc.

She has said so is daddy bad. It’s really hard to answer. His behaviour towards me was bad but does that make someone bad? He shouts at his current girlfriend in front of her but not at our daughter (well she said he has raised his voice a few times).

He was generous but expected things in return (like your soul etc etc). I try and explain that we accept from people what we want to and mummy didn’t want to accept the shouting.

It’s difficult to explain I find that people think differently about things.

When your DD comes to you and says “Daddy says he did this/Daddy sacrificied this” etc, just says breezily “Oh did he?/That’s nice” and move the subject on. Even a “well, everyone sees things differently”… cheerfully and then moving on.

This is what I was advised to do by a women’s counsellor after I left my ex. He used to say all sorts about me! I felt like I needed to defend and explain.

By not engaging, there was nothing for the DC to feed back either, to give him energy. I never pulled him up on it either.

My DC figured everything out as they grew.

Apparently he is still always telling them that he has no money because he has to pay me so much… he pays minimum amount through CSA (based on self employed wage where has already removed every penny he can into a pension, car leased through business etc, to keep profit minimal).

The DC have heard this for years and figured out quite clearly that he has much more than I do financially, and that a lot of the other stuff he says is nonsense too.

It’s hard, but just try and be as non committal about him as possible to your DD: even slightly positive if possible!

He is basically doing this himself without me having to “slag him off”. I’ve always told her that her relationship with her dad is not connected to me and what happened to me or why I left. She has witnessed his shouting and come back upset. He has shown her what his is like and what I went through. We did have a conversation about how the shouting made her feel. She asked if that why I left and I agreed and said that mummy was sad from the shouting and I chose to leave. She also says she still loves him and I tell her that’s fine mummy loves you no matter.

I really wish he would just stop talking about us, it was years ago now. We have both moved on and it shouldn’t be important to him to be so desperate to get his side across. But then like the PP said it is a need for him to be adored and look a hero, I guess he simply can’t help it.

It’s despicable he keeps harping on about the past to the children but you just have to not engage to give him any energy as that’s what he is after, he wants to bite.
you have shown your children you walked away from being abused which is fantastic OP they will see how strong you are and be thankful to grow up in a calm loving home as they get older

I’m unsure If he is trying to get to me or whether he just can’t bare her really thinking he isn’t a hero. He used to text me all the time after we split and he wasn’t allowed to see her “as soon as I get contact I’ll tell her the truth, I’ll tell her about what her mum was really like” etc etc. He constantly asked
for court orders to stipulate I was not to tell her bad things about him (I never did). He is the hero to all the people in his life.

His past relationships though he abused them all, but I never knew because it was all done in his home country. He overly gives and thinks we are his saviour but we are
not. I found out one of his previous gf cheated on him so he beat both her and the boyfriend then cut his own arms. His past sounded so awful.

@Strawberrywine1
Are you not able to get any court orders yourself to try to prevent this crap from him?
I'm not in the UK so I'm not sure of the rules there.

He is doing it to get to you and get her to think he is the hero, by not engaging he gets nothing from you and as your children get older they will see why you left.

That’s where I struggle. I’m not sure if he has the ability to actually bother to sit and think up ways to get to me. It’s a side effect for sure, him making himself the hero ultimately makes me the villain. Nothing is black and white though and I do have my own issues which aren’t brilliant. At the end of the day I didn’t want to be shouted at and walk on eggshells. He could have left me at any point and looked the hero.

@daretodenim this makes a lot of sense. He was not premeditated and he was extremely giving in ways, very overly invested just extremely reactive.

I think at her age I'd just tell her that it's complicated and people are rarely completely good or completely bad but mummy was frightened too when he used to shout or hurt you and that you shouldn't have to be scared in your own home. Home is supposed to feel safe so you left to make it feel safe again.

@Balloonhearts it certainly is complicated enough for adults to understand let alone children.

@MortyMort has got it right. Engage as little as possible with this rhetoric, but comfort her if she's upset.
She will figure it out herself. My dad was like your ex and now 30 years after the divorce he still cant help himself smearing my mum, so it might never stop. She led him on and ruined his life, didn't appreciate him, acted crazy and lost the plot, tried to keep him from seeing me. The whole shebang.

I never took a single word of it seriously. I knew from personal experience exactly what my mum was like (and it didn't add up with his story) and exactly what he was like (also as above) and I came to my own obvious conclusion that his view of what went down was not compatible with reality.

One great help with this is that my mum didn't get involved in my relationship with him at all, leaving me the freedom to make up my own mind without her influence or without restrictions.
I take him for who he is and don't hold a grudge or anything, but I know what he's like and there's nothing he can say to make me change my mind on my mum and who I know she is.