Ex SC. What would you do?

[sassbott]

Hi

Some history for those of you who aren’t familiar. I was in an on/ off relationship with someone for nearly 5 years. Never cohabited, no joint DC, no ties at all. In the final 2 years I had very minimal contact with his DC - so not like I was a significant part of their lives. I am aware however that I am a trusted adult (or was). They were very fond of me and my Dc.

The relationship itself was incredibly unhealthy and i tried to end it many times, ultimately I would listen to his promises of therapy/ change. Mr nice guy would be back for a period before the cycle began again. I am now getting professional help to ensure that this time, I stay away from him. Zero chance of reconciliation. It’s really hard. He is blocked (WhatsApp/ FT) and the only comms left open are via email (which I think should also be shit down).

One of the things that came up in a recent counselling session was the fact that he has retained contact via our respective children.
My DC are older (teens) and have their own phones, WhatsApp etc. I have not said to them what they can / cannot do - he is not blocked on their phones. They told me that he texted them earlier in the week and wished them a happy Xmas. They sent a simple one liner back. Fine. My DC are old enough to figure out how much/ little interaction they need. I would prefer to not interfere with them.

When it came to his much younger DC however, my counsellor advised that I stop all contact with his DC. He said it was highly likely that my ex was using his children as a means to keeping communications with me open. And it was highly unlikely (given how little I saw these children) that there were messaging me unprompted / without my exes encouragement. Which when I think about, I tend to agree with.

In the last facetime I did with them, they asked when they were seeing me etc. After that I emailed my ex asking if he had told them we had broken up. He replied no and that he would do so after Xmas and in the meantime ask them not to message me. I told him it wasn’t fair on them (or me actually) and I no longer wished to be put in a situation where I am being asked when I am seeing them. He should be having that conversation with them. It’s not difficult to stop the contact, he could simply remove my details from their devices. They are younger and don’t have their own phones etc.

Yesterday his kids messaged my kids. Fine.
Then I have woken to an email from him this morning. Saying that his children have been trying to contact me and asking me to let him know I’m ok so they don’t worry. So he’s attempting again to keep some form of contact, through his children.

He clearly hasn’t asked them not to message me. He clearly hasn’t ‘cut ties’ as he said he would as he has messaged my DC (and they know we have broken up and are completely fine with it).

My question is what do I do?
I think my counsellor is right and I think he is using his kids as a conduit to keep comms open.
Which isn’t fair.

But then a part of me thinks ‘you’re being so mean, this isn’t how you act.’ It doesn’t feel nice. But I think that’s why He’s doing this. He knows I am soft and that I would never want his children to be upset. And be the direct cause of that upset.

WWYD.

Ignore the email and continue to lock down comms?
Fold and reply and do one last FT with his kids given he has said he will tell them in the new year?

It all sounds so exhausting @sassbott. It’s good that you’ve blocked him. He is being truly awful.

It might be worth having a chat with the police about this just in case. He’s harassing you and also your children (via his children as a double proxy). That’s utterly dreadful.

@Magda72 goodness that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Of course he doesn’t want to equip his children with critical thinking, or ask them open ended questions re their emotions regarding what is happening between him and their mum. That would mean they start to think independently and potentially tell him things he doesn’t want to hear/ that don’t suit him.

Wow. This thread as I pull at it just keeps unravelling more and more. Thank you sharing that insight.

So he projects his views of himself onto his children and then will expect them to adhere to that narrative. That is he in fact a fantastic father. He’s not remotely interested in them having emotions separate / different to him. That’s why he moved in a pack with them. I was right, it wasn’t them, he created that Co dependency in them

Oh dear. Those poor children.

Ignore the email and continue to lock down comms?

yep

no need to get involved

and no you're not being mean its up to him to sort out his dc etc etc

Happy new year everyone. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to those who posted and provided me with support over what felt Like such a tricky and emotionally loaded time.

I was successful at remaining no contact. I did not respond. My children heard nothing further from his. My counselling resumes this week and hopefully with that comes more progress.

I’m super proud of myself. I have never held this firm on my boundaries before. It felt hard, it initially felt unkind. But I feel like I’ve taken a huge step forward and continued steps away from him.

I don’t by any means think I am out of the woods, but you all helped over a very big hurdle. Thank you.

Well done @sassbott. From having been through similar myself, I know it would have taken a lot of will to disengage so successfully, particularly over the Christmas period.

Well done sassbot !!! As Star has said it's quite something to manage what you have managed over the festive period !!!

Hopefully he will badger off and leave you in peace but somehow I feel naive in saying that !

Well done @sassbott. This is such an emotive time of the year & personalities such as your exdp are (ime) even harder to deal with at emotive times.
Hopefully he will start to get the message but like @candlelightsatdawn says that may be a bit naive.
I hope you're doing ok - I know guys like this are basically quite toxic & we are always better off without, but that doesn't always negate the sorrow of ending what can also have seemed like a good relationship.

Amazing, @sassbott

Massive kudos to you, you should be super proud of this Herculean task of maintaining no contact. That’s awesome. Well done.

I love this phrase: ‘no response is a response’

Thanks all. It felt much harder than it should have done. I should be cartwheeling with joy over the fact that I am free from the toxicity and drama.

It just feels sad tbh. All I can say is based on this experience, no one should underestimate just how difficult it is leaving a toxic relationship. I’ve never experienced such disorientation. My head absolutely knows this has to happen. It also understands there is no future and I have had such a lucky escape. I categorically know how fortunate I am that I emerged from this without entanglements of shared finances/ an our child/ marriage. But my heart just hurts and unbelievably at times, still misses something. It’s not him, I don’t miss him. It’s not our relationship, because there was no real relationship of any sorts. I am trauma bonded. It is a thing. And it is honestly so hard to break free from. I miss something but I can’t tell you anything positive about what I miss.

I am clear however about maintaining no contact. I just have to keep building the amount of time I have sustained it and keep moving away.

@sassbott I think it's important to think that you can acknowledge that someone can be truly awful/abusive, the situation is awful/abusive but miss the potential of what could have been.

It's like living a ghost. It's not really there but the spectre lives on sometimes to haunt you. It wasn't all pretend, yes most of it wasn't real, but there would be been glimmers of something else, it's ok to miss that - totally normal in fact.

@candlelightsatdawn thank you. My counsellor has started me thinking about unpicking some of these things.

I am robust enough to try and understand who he is and the why’s. The emails over the holiday period were attempts to get my attention my counsellor thinks. An attempt to regain the audience he had lost (me). It’s also entirely possible that because he has managed to make himself (and his children by association) ‘victims’ of my behaviour within the email, that he has suitably got what he needed from sending the email (I’m crazy/ horrible/ poor him and his innocent children), that it will be enough for him to have chalked this up as his discarding me. And it may well mean I don’t hear from him for a good while.

But in amongst all of this, I have to work on why I stayed and understanding the trauma element is key to that.

natashaadamo.com/trauma-bonding/

This is a really interesting article. I’ve got some way to go. I wish I’d never met him.

Ohhh I'm gonna have a read ! Chuck any more you have found helpful my way please ?

What's that saying "I was once given a box of darkness, it took me years to realise that too was a gift" - said to me at a v dark place in my life. I always imagine that box a bit like Pandora's box.

Through all this you will have learned thing you never thought possible. Although absolutely horrific, it will give you a very specific set of tools outside the norm that most people won't have and possible a incredibly dark sense of humour.

I do wonder if it's pot luck (bumping into one of these joyful creatures) or whether they seek out a specific personality type so different from their own because they know on some level they aren't complete and have limitations outside the norm . Sadly I do think its "luck" of the draw because these people can't focus on someone else for any consistent amount of time but I do wonder !

I had a partner who I got with very young, he was older (red flag right there). Took me 10 years to shake that man and even now and then he pops up and does something really unnerving like texts me off a unknown number telling me he knows I have moved house and he would like a replay of my 22 birthday (that birthday he raped me). I know it's him, he always lets me know it's him. I never respond but the affect afterwards can stay for months. Always sends me back to therapy and that's really frustrating.That's why I got into the pro Bono work I suppose. It's the acknowledgment that he won't ever "let me go" but I will be dammed if I don't try and help other women get some distance.
I suppose we all use our own box's in different ways.

You have come so far don't let him take that from you !

Thank you for that article sass. Please do share anymore good ones.

Candle that's awful and horrific that you still get texts. hope everythings ok with you x

@SnowWhitesSM if it helps. And I don't know if it does. The control he has is gone, the shame about talking about it is gone and although I take a step back when he does spring up, I try to remember 5 steps forwards and one back is still progress.

It gets more manageable is what I'm saying. For me it has never vanished but that maybe because I think I have met someone so on the sociopathic scale, it left a mark.

Btw I would have never have said this about him a couple of years post break up (took me multiple times to leave) I was heartbroken, messed up and blamed myself, most baring that birthday and a few other occasions was emotional abuse of the highest kind aka being locked in bathroom for 24hrs as I had upset him. Didn't seem to bad at the time. Time gives hindsight and all that jazz. Couldn't call it abuse either. Years it took for me to accept it.

Sorry to share the above and take over- I should have put a trigger warning in there. Just wanted to show that it can take some time and that's ok too.

@candlelightsatdawn I am so sorry! What awful experiences you have been through. Please do not apologise and feel free to share. It’s good the shame is gone and you can recognise it for what it was. It does take time I agree. Again I am so sorry.

@candlelightsatdawn @SnowWhitesSM ok I will keep sharing. Some articles are just superb.

There are also some great people working in this space on Insta. Look for the #mariaconsiglio
Some really powerful posts.

Candle, I am already fully aware that this knowledge I have gained will help me untold amounts as a parent (arming my children with this knowledge is invaluable). It will help me in my life and so much in my career. I have met characters like this in work - and they have always bemused me and I have tried multiple tactics with them, none of which have worked. Now I know so much more, I would react very differently.

I don’t think (for me) it is pot luck. I think I was newly separated (I had been separated for just a year when I met my exp) and I was vulnerable and as a result my boundaries and ability to set them were shot. He saw that, and that’s why he stayed. I think if he was to meet me now, with my knowledge, we wouldn’t get beyond a few dates. The minute he told me how high conflict his divorce was, I should have walked. Because that was a red flag right there.

But because I hadn’t done enough work on myself to be comfortable being alone, I clung to him and just gave. He got his needs fully met - and that is all me. Not him. I wasn’t in a healthy place when I met him and (like you), years later, I can now see that.

Another silver lining for me, is that in having the strength to walk away and turn down marriage/ cohabiting, I had to build myself up whilst with him. I knew deep down that my boundaries meant he and I had a shelf life. He wanted that family set up desperately and medium to longer term what I was offering incensed him. When I put those boundaries in, I had to ask myself and do a lot of soul searching to acknowledge that I was effectively ending the relationship. But I accepted that fully. So by the time I left this relationship. I was in many ways stronger than when I went in. Which I know sounds counter intuitive, but the reason I didn’t walk away much earlier is because I simply didn’t have that strength.

So yeah. While I wouldn’t wish a person like this on my worst enemy. And whilst it has left real emotional scars inside. Dealing with a person like this has made me stronger.

It took a lot of back and forwards to get there though. My children are the real reason k was able to do this. I don’t want them seeing a man treat me sub standard. I don’t want them thinking his behaviours were acceptable. I didn’t want his children near mine - his simply have too many emotional issues looming. I wasn’t prepared to have my children make compromises to accommodate his. They were the ones I think (on the surface) I did this for. Then as time went on, I could see that there was very little I was getting out of it too. In the end I just realised that the trust was completely gone.

I knew in my heart of hearts he had met someone (even though I suspect he had other supplies frequently). But I also realised I couldn’t leave him alone with my children - he was simply too manipulative. And I couldn’t trust him with any information - none. Even my telling him I suspect I was peri menopausal (in the hope he would try and read up and understand so he could support me) was twisted against me to say my hormones were causing extreme mood swings and I needed to see a professional about it asap. And I just knew, when he launched his next ‘attack’ at me, when previously I would have engaged and countered and gone through the cycle? I just shut it down and walked away.

Snow - it’s taken me years to get here. I wish I had continued confiding in people. I wish I had not let shame/ guilt silence me.

I’ll close my musings (posting this all has been helpful) to say that what kept me hanging on was hope. Hope is one of the most powerful emotions on earth. I just wished, deep down, that I would see sustained change. That the man I met would come back to me. But it never happened and it never was going to. I was able to walk away when that hope, once and for all? Died.

Now I simply understand this much. Whether his is the way his brain is wired, whether it it learned behaviours. It does not matter, he will not change. And he will move on to the next woman and rinse and repeat. And it’s absolutely nothing to do with me, or incompatibility. It’s who he is.

I am just very very very fortunate that
A) this never turned into a physically abusive relationship
And
B) I retained my independence and ultimately protected myself financially etc.

Onwards