coparenting with abusive ex
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| Fri, 08-04-2006 - 2:01pm |
Hi everyone,
I really need advice on how to respond to my abusive ex, who is objecting to my request that he stop approaching me (he has a history of stalking me and even of pushing his way into my house and making death threats). I stopped going to our children's extra-curricular activities because he was using those activities (sporting events, school plays, etc) as opportunities to sit next to me and renew in me the anxiety that he caused in me during the incredibly abusive marriage and afterwards, when he stalked me and threatened me. I am incredibly careful in my habits and routines, so that it's difficult for him to stalk me at present, though he does lurk in front of my apartment building for a while before we are scheduled to exchange the kids (but I don't have to walk down to hand him the kids, because our court order says that we can't have face to face contact).
We are only supposed to contact each other by email, and we are each supposed to send only one email a day, though he usually sends me 2-3 per day(and it used to be more like 5 emails and three to eight phone messages per day!). Anyway, he has been using the typical rhetoric of friendly co-parenting, in addition to adamantly denying any abuse, in order to try and get the court to have us both present at school events and to get me to interact with him at these events. Yesterday, he sent a most ridiculous email to me outlining his "proposal" for how we should interact: if we meet at the grocery store or somewhere else without the kids, we should exchange polite greetings, if we meet somewhere and one of us has the kids, then we should hang out together for a while so the kids can say hi to the other parent, and at school/extra-curricular events we should sit together and be friendly.
He makes his requests sound somewhat reasonable to anyone who doesn't understand the history of abuse/stalking, etc, so I am a bit worried that I need to phrase my response carefully so I don't sound like a hostile or bitter person who is uncooperative in coparenting. I should add that my oldest has noticed the stalking (I've never discussed it with the children, for obvious reasons) because he has stalked me while the kids were in the car with him on a number of occasions, and he has pressured the children on many occasions to give him information on where I am so he can "go and talk" to me. It is distressing to my oldest to see us together because she has vivid recollections of the abuse and of him yelling in public at us, etc (our youngest doesn't have these memories as far as I know because he was a baby when we divorced). But anytime I mention the abuse, all he does is deny that he ever did it and calls me a liar.
I think that part of him doesn't understand why I don't want to be near him. I think he's really hurt that I want him to respect my boundaries, and even now, five years after the divorce, his mantra is why can't things just be the way they were (yeah, it was a sweet deal for him, but not for me!). I also don't think he sees himself as an abuser and that he is so self-centered in his views that he doesn't even understand that he can't undo his abusive words and actions just by denying them.
I feel that in my response to him I have to take into account his inability to admit his past behaviors and just address the issue from the point of view of the best interest of the children and my need for boundaries.
I really, really need advice on how to respond to this. Any communication with him isn't just communication with him, but it's something his lawyer will try to use later to depict me as a bad person and an unfit mother.
Thanks so much in advance for your advice.

Hon, have you been reporting EVERY violation, or at least most of them?
I'm sure you know that you want to keep contact with him to an absolute minimum, and only discuss the children. That is what he doesn't want to do, because he wants to work on you, but it is what must be done.
I agree with Gonna's advice to record every single violation of the RO. Consistency and more consistency is the only way he will ever get the picture, and it may require the court's help.