What do you think?

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2005
What do you think?
5
Sat, 01-28-2006 - 6:19pm

Hi. I was wondering if any of you knew just how much emotional abuse constitutes placing distance between the father and his kids.

I have not started any divorce proceedings or family court yet and I need to let them know that he is emotionally abusing the kids. When he takes them places, sometimes they talk to him and he just doesn't answer. When they ask him questions it takes an hour for him to answer and even then he will answer sarcastically or ask them to answer it themselves. He never places importance on showing them that Mom comes before anyone else. Recently they were selling flowers at my older daughter's school and she wanted to buy some for me, my younger daughter, him, and her two teachers. He said to only buy the flowers for the teachers, when she really wanted to buy one for me. One time, during taking courses for school, after he was no longer physically in the house, he was with our girls in the car and they spotted me at the bus stop, about forty minutes from our home. He said he could not stop there and did not pick me up. In reality, he could have turned around and pick me up. That is very disrespectful and my little girl was utterly confused as to why he left me at the bus stop. Not that I want him to take me anywhere, but it is important to teach your kids that you always respect the Mother.

I cannot allow this man to let his crappy morals affect my girls. I am going to take them to another country if I will not have full custody of my girls with either very little visitation from him or visitation with the agreement that he must see a counselour for his parenting. I have been telling him for years that he needs parental counseling, all to no avail. I have worked with kids for years, many underprivileged and have helpled many parents learn how to interact with their children or helped them when they had specific problems.

I will go through the legal system. If they don't put as much weight on this as I think they should, I will disappear with them. I probably should not be writing this, but no one in the world will harm my kids, and if I need to reestablish myself in a new place, then that's what I will have to do. I will not let him affect them in a bad way.

My aunt recently divorced a man she was married to for over thirty years. He had done such emotional damage to her kids, it was frightening. She lived with him and the kids with no family around in a different state than us, and he did not want anyone else around. By the time she left him, the kids were grown and he had left his scars on them. She was afraid to leave because she was from another country and did not know her rights. But she also did not tell any of her family members what she was going through. I am not waiting till they get older to deal with this. Yes, I am not living with him anymore and the girls see him 2x a week, but that is enough when you are exposed to his kind of personality. I had written a message previously and someone advised to cut off contact if sensing emotional manipulation to the girls on his part, but how can I? He still pays a lot of the bills, and takes the girls to school. When I will be able to pay all of the bills, and have the car, then maybe I can try to stop the contact till it is resolved in court.

I am planning to go to the counseling office that I went to to talk about his abuse and putting down everything that he is doing and speaking to someone who is an expert with this.

If I had sensed that he wanted to work on himself (as any normal person would do if they had a problem in their life) then I would help him work on it. But he does not want to and wants to continue in his destructive manner. He will fight me furiously when I tell him that he needs parental counseling, but his manner when he is with them can be so cold, so uncaring, if you viewed them all together, you would think he is a stranger to them. There is very little warmth, and he is unstable. He does not use psychology with them, but will fight them on things, like a little boy. He is so screwed up. The utter way he speaks to them, or doesn't answer them or handles things with them, is so dysfunctional. You never feel like you're on an even keel with him. You constantly feel like you're on a rollercoaster. I'm sure my girls feel plenty of frustration with him constantly. He is so detrimental to our lives. You would think he would take advice from me given the fact that I have so much experience in working with children. I think he wants to see them purely to irritate me, and he is not interested in dealing with them correctly. If he was honest with himself, then he would admit that he doesn't really want to be with his kids, I'm sure of it. Because all of his actions point to that. Why would a person try so hard to be in their kid's lives, only to be completely useless in dealing with them? Even when he takes them, they call me twenty times just to ask me things because he does not know how to handle it.

I feel like I have a shadow in my life, and until I somehow rid myself of his horrendous nuisance (trust me, he is a nuisance) to our lives, I will not find true happiness. I just hope the courts feel the same way. It helps that things are documented in two different therapists office, and I was in a shelter for a week till he left the house. What do you guys think? Is there a way to remove this man from our lives forever? I truly believe he will do a lot of damage if I don't and I don't want to wait till they are old enough to state that they don't want contact with him, I don't want their childhoods to be scarred. What do you think?




Edited 1/28/2006 6:20 pm ET by smoothride
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2004
Sun, 01-29-2006 - 1:44am
I can't offer any great advice, but I do know what you are going through. The x I got mixed up with was pretty much the same towards son. However, he went a bit further in actually threatening and harming son so that the courts gave me sole custody. Once that was clear to him, he vacated son's life completely. Perhaps you should review how much hard evidence you have concerning damage he is doing and see what you can do with it legally. But I would never recommend that you skip the country. Under various agreements many countries have together, you would be sought out and, once found, may be thrown in jail. The chance that your children would be removed from you permanently is a bit risky. Legally, it would give your x a huge argument against you to do so.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2005
Sun, 01-29-2006 - 2:07am
I understand what you are saying, albeit a little offended. If I would ever go to another country, I would of course make sure as much as possible that that would never happen. I would never take the chance that my kids would stay with him permanently. I know you were trying to help, but it does not make one feel better when you make a comment like that.
If the courts cared at all about children, then they would take all of these things into consideration. I am the mother of these children, and like a tigress, will protect them. The courts do not love my children, and very many times I hear about the courts making horrible decisions regarding children. I was told many times that it is very hard to prove emotional abuse. I don't think so, but this is what I've heard.
As far as I'm concerned, I have a right to protect my daughters and if the courts will not allow me to do it, I will do what I have to. There is no justification for letting an unstable, emotionally manipulative man be around kids, although he is their father. It would not be right of me to do so.
Please try not to offend when you answer people. I know you were trying to be helpful, but I am a very upright, humanitarian who has helped many people with their problems and children; (I worked with kids and counseled parents and their children) and that jail comment really got to me. I am the last person to ever be near that type of environment and do not appreciate comments like that.
(P.S. - I guess I was unclear in my post when I asked what do you think, at the end of my post. I was asking what you all think in relation to how the courts handle the subject of emotional abuse and if I have a strong enough case to at least demand that he go to counseling and be supervised. That is what I meant by that question.)


Edited 1/29/2006 2:13 am ET by smoothride
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
Sun, 01-29-2006 - 8:59am

Hey,smooth.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2004
Sun, 01-29-2006 - 12:38pm
Perhaps if I put it in the context of my own experience, it wouldn't sound quite as abrasive. I completely understand what you mean about wanting to protect ones children. I was also panicked at thinking that the x would ever be allowed to be left alone with my child and to be constantly reminded of the father's 'rights' just seemed insanity. And to be in a situation with a man who was determined to exercise those rights would probably push me to the same point as you, thinking 'how can I protect my child?' in ANY way possible. Unfortunately, when I first took my son and hid from x, it seems that x tried to do just what I had described could happen to a parent who takes the child out of the country. I was terrified what might happen so I checked what the laws were. Everyone, including my son, are US citizens, but we don't live in the US. The x apparently called the US embassy to report me as a child abductor. Sadly, the staff at the US embassy were anything but helpful when I called them to tell them what was going on, in the hopes that it would prevent me from being arrested. Fortunately, because there was no police report, and fortunately because the judge in the case knew where I was, they didn't consider it an abduction case. But I found out in that way what 'could' happen if things don't work out so nicely. If you were to say that you were taking your children out of the country, though I don't know your whole story, I would not really believe you deserve to be jailed for doing it. But fact is that these dang courts often see only black and white and may not make the connection between an abusive x and a protective mother. Truly I was only trying to alert you what kind of pain a vindictive x could possibly inflict on you in a situation like that....because mine actually attempted it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-02-2004
Mon, 01-30-2006 - 9:01am

Smooth,

I think you misunderstood Hglucky's reply. She is right in that if you leave the country with your children it's very hard to disappear. 911 made it really hard to live off the grid so to speak. If you leave and would continue to have custody then your ex may be entitled to longer visits with your children out of the country where they live, which may be worse than the current arrangement. Many countries will consider it abduction and will file charges against you and in a court it would look bad. It's a fine line between protective, good mother and evil ex trying to ditch the ex from the kids lives.

I am in the same boat as you. I wish my ex would just go away and leave us alone, but I have to be careful that I don't make myself look as bad as he is. In Maryland, he has a right to visitation unless and until he physically hurts the child. Until then I can document things and make sure he sticks to the guidelines of his visitation. I have my visitation set up as a monitored transfer where he can pick up the baby at a church and someone takes the baby to him in another room. I don't have to see or speak to him for any reason. For now, I am fighting for sole custody and hoping that in time the newness wears off and the ex just fades away. Until then I play by the rules and document, document, document.

I know you are a humanitarian, but none of us ever thought we would be at this place in our lives. I know I would have laughed at you if you said it to me in the past, but here I am.