My Ex Still Hurts Me

No Way I'd Undo My Past Though

This is going to be a difficult topic for me. I don't like to admit it because I feel like it reflects poorly on me. My self-talk says if I were stronger and would just stand up to him more he wouldn't be able to do this to me. But, this week, I had an experience that helped me realize that it's not true. If I stand up to him, he uses it against me.

I don't think I've ever said this publicly before, but I left Ex because he was emotionally abusive. It took some uncomfortable counseling to figure that out, because I thought something was wrong with me. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people don't take emotional abuse seriously. Some people seem to truly believe that if your spouse isn't hitting you, it's not abuse. I can tell you, it's much more complicated and subtle than that.

First, some history.

When we were married...

Ex would go through periods of emotional ups and downs. During the ups, he would take me and our three girls to the water park (even though they were pretty terrified of being in deep water at the time) and be cheerful through the whole multiple-kids-throwing-tantrums-simultaneously experience. He would buy a brand new couch, a TV, a cutting edge video game system, take us to the movies... and never seem upset or stressed out about anything. This would go on for weeks. Then, one day, he would have a totally reasonable grouchy moment. For example, we would be on the road, almost at the end of the half-hour drive to the place we liked to grocery shop, with all of the kids in the back. I would say, "shoot. I forgot the diaper bag." and he would get upset. Not mean, but a little panicked about how we were going to handle a whole grocery shopping trip without diapers. I would suggest that, since we're going to be stopping at Target, we could just pick up a pack of diapers and some wipes.

That was the precursor to weeks of being angry, stressed, and even calling me from work in tears. These were the weeks when he would decide to give the twins increasingly more swats each time they tried to drink water after dinner and they would end up with lasting welts... and he would keep going. These were the weeks when he would choose to put C in a tiny play yard where our dining table used to be, with her mattress and a potty, indefinitely, because she needed to hurry up and get potty trained. These were the weeks when he would get frustrated by the difficulties of installing new flooring and yell at me to "get the fuck out"... so I quietly (trying not to start an argument) took the girls to the beach park we loved, 7 minutes drive from our house, and he almost immediately started calling me incessantly, accusing me of running off with someone else or at least being off doing something I shouldn't be.

Ultimately, he would blame me for these things. He would focus on the ways I could have and should have stopped him. I should have known he was just mad. I shouldn't have left. I should have answered my phone every time he called. He also blamed me for his diet failures because I kept chocolate in the house, and he couldn't maintain his diet if I had chocolate around... and his exercise failures because he didn't want to leave me alone with the kids for 15 or 20 extra minutes in order to go for a run... and his meditation failures (which he claimed were the source of all of his problems) because I couldn't keep the kids quiet enough.

When I pointed out (while he was on an up) that he was having these noticeable mood swings and that I could tell when they were starting, he said I should tell him when things are starting to look bad. I took on that responsibility, thinking I had the power to fix the problem. So, on that trip to Target, I told him. He denied it and said it was a totally normal reaction and I was just making it out to be something worse than what it was. I told him it always started with what seemed like a pretty normal reaction, but he doesn't react like that until things are about to turn sour. He denied it some more... but that was the beginning of the mood swing that turned into the incident at the park.

Weeks later, when I said that he had just recovered from one of these moods and I couldn't stop him because he wouldn't listen to me... he said I should have tried harder.

Do you see how things were always my fault, even after the fact, and even when I was set up for failure?

That's emotional abuse.

Now for the present phase.

We're divorced. We have been for some years now. After a counselor pointed out the cycle of built-in failure I had been living in, I said I wanted Ex to see a therapist or I wanted out. He made a number of excuses for not seeing a therapist, and it took two years for him to finally let me go. In that time, he implicitly blamed me by saying he just needed to find someone who valued marriage, and explicitly blamed me by saying I just wasn't willing to try to fix it. Even after I told him I had tried to work on our relationship several times and in many ways, he clung to that reason and it came up in almost every conversation we had leading up to, and even after, the divorce was finalized. But it didn't matter. I was free.

Except I'm not. My ex husband still abuses me. He lives five minutes from my house and sees the girls for a few hours at a time, two or three times a week. Papa and I have tried to implement a system by which he is at our house a little as possible, but he is frequently late or has to cancel and he hangs out in our house for 30 minutes or more every time he is here (30 to pick them up, then 30 to drop them off). That's 2 or 3 hours a week. I'm spending more time with him than I spend with my friends.

While he's here, he blames me for my medical problems, because I should exercise more or eat better or whatever... because he's an expert on my life apparently. He blames me for my grades (3.4 GPA), because I should have studied more or tried harder or formed a study group or something. He tells me that the medicine that multiple doctors prescribed for C is bad for her and she shouldn't be taking it. Then he refuses to give it to her when she's with him for the day and, shockingly, she's in bed in pain a couple of days later. I end up angry by the end of more than half of his visits.

When I try to tell him that there's a problem with anything, he doesn't care because it's not a real issue because it's something I caused and/or all in my head. My problems with him are, "... not about [him]. They're about [my] idea of [him]." ... all in my head. (words only substituted to match point of view) 

It's a tough situation to be in. Since we have kids, I can't just walk away and I'll never be able to make him see my point because he refuses to accept ever being wrong. The legal buzzword "co-parenting" makes me wince.