Controlling Ex and figuring things out..
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 09-17-2005 - 11:19am |
I have been looking over some posts and sending out positive thoughts and prayers...wanted to check in and fuss a little myself.
My marriage was over about 4 years ago. The advent of a diagnosis for one of our children having special needs put extra strain on us, but it was a catalyst, not the reason for the breakdown. I tried so hard to make it work--his control was so insidious and had gone on so long, I made excuses for him, I explained away everything from the first pangs of realization that he shouldn't have that much say so over my every move and what I said ... to justifying that I wasn't 'smart enough' and he was 'helping' me by making so many of the decisions in our daily life. I started remembering the way I 'was' as a young adult, how I functioned before I met him; I was so, so different. I had just become, or allowed myself to become invisible. I finally got to a point unfortunately, where I was basically becoming dysfunctional - had I not left then, I would have been putting my children at more risk I think or I would have had to get mental health services, depression help, medications or something to keep getting through each day etc. You know what? It is really, really horrible in some ways and I am a nervous-Purvis about every single little problem I must face or figure out, but I am doing it. I have some good friends, though they cannot help financially, they are trying to encourage me. If I lose the children in the move away custody case I don't know what I will do, but there is no alternative. He has created a custody 'offer' which he wants me to sign - it is so prohibitive with the visitation you would think I had some drug or alcohol or something kind of abuse issues, of which I do not; though I do not have any family to help nor any financial savings.
His "offer" would give him sole legal, and I could visit them when he deemed it was not upsetting their life schedule - he would magnanimously have an extra guest room in their residence where I could stay when I came to visit the kids...its 25 pages long and I don't understand most of it, but I know it would put me out of their lives for sure. So I will wait for the final custody decision of the judge, and am just hoping and praying someone in the system will see if they place the children with me, that they will always be encouraged to see their dad, go to generous visitation times etc., but if he gets them and moves them to another state, I will be erased and those children will have a hole in their heart forever.
Zinnia - you mentioned you were worried about finances and being able to take care of the children. It is hard - I know what you mean; but don't base your whole decision on whether he will pay child support. My ex took the savings account, he changed all the locks on the house, he has 85% of the furniture, kids stuff, a thousand family pic's from my precious childrens childhood, all the Christmas memorabilia, basically most of our 15 years of life...he has paid the child support late, sporadically, when he feels like it, subtracting out what he deems that he has spent on the children without any consult or discussion with me, kept the entire federal tax refund - etc.
But aside from what I wish I had for the kids, and a very few wistful thoughts which float through my mind about something I need, like I wish I had my sewing machine, I don't care. I am scared to death of how to take care of my 5 children when our final trial is over if I get primary custody, I still have absolutely no idea how I am going to, but I will. I will somehow. And if I don't, and if I ever do have to end up calling his family or him to come and get them if they are literally in danger or hungry, I will still know I tried my best to take care of them, I didn't leave them in the middle of my pain, my heart knows no other course except to love them and provide for them and I am trying. If I could only get a lawyer to help me understand some of this legal stuff, that would be a huge help, but I have a job and can't qualify for county legal aid, and just absolutely cannot find any lawyer willing to accept the case based on my paying them a little at a time. In my region of the world, they have lots of 'business' so they dont' have very much time as they have lots of cases I guess. At least the court assigned a guardian ad litem to represent the children, so maybe that will help this be a little more 'fair' in court, I don't know.
My relationship with my children is so changed, they love me lots but are insecure; he has made them insecure as far as 'mom won't be able to take care of you, you are going to end up in the street' --- and of course they don't really understand we would not be so bad off if he paid even the very small amount the court ordered for temp cs, we would not be at risk, they are too young and I don't tell them any more than absolutely necessary about anything to do with the divorce. He has done the whole P.A.S. all along; but I do not think it is worth it because it will hurt them, they need to think at least now that their dad is good and loves them. If he ruptures that relationship as they grow, then they will see him for what he is. He has already begun that with my oldest; his heart is broken, even though I have tried to encourage him to talk things over with his father when they have arguments etc., he doesn't want to 'choose' but does feel closer to me and wants to live with me, but doesn't want to lose his dad either. His dad is controlling with him too and they cannot ever discuss things, it's just 'do what I say - period, you're a kid, you have no input.' I hate it that I am so helpless to help alleviate the kids' pain in all this.
He created a 'parallel' universe sort of when I finally filed for divorce, because it was such a huge, huge failure in his family's eyes and he and they thought he could forbid it. The controlling personality definitely is partially derived from his parents. Since he could not stop it, in order to preserve his image amongst family and friends, he retroactively looked at our whole marriage and has made what even were the very good years to be horrible...he has 'rewritten' our relationship, he tells people outright lies about how it 'was', he imagines things that were absolutely never wrong, all because still to this day he takes NO responsibility in our marriage failing. He was perfectly happy to own a woman...to have her take care of his house and children, to make her exume his political ideology, to make 90% of all the adult decisions, to keep his absolute control in life...even when it was obvious he was not happy in the relationship over 4 years ago - and he would not get counseling with me unless I went to his preacher, he doesn't believe in psychology you know...still, he would rather be miserable and have things the same, than to get 'help' or make changes. After all, there wasn't anything wrong with HIM, he just couldn't understand why a woman wouldn't count her blessings by the minute to have a man provide for her and their children - what? Was it wrong to want her to follow a few 'rules'? Naw, doing what he wanted was her place in life, her HONOR. What? Did he enjoy a little pornography on the internet from time to time? No huge deal, he thought he 'probably shouldn't but a man does have needs after all and sometimes a little variety keeps him from really wandering in real life'...*sighs, he was never good in bed anyhow, but I didn't know exactly what was not right about it, not that I knew what the difference was, but I am beginning to read things and figure out that was just another area of his control. *Smiles...someday I might just learn what else is out there...heh.
K, sorry, venting on my own! I still literally am living day to day, and am worried what I will do even when the rent is due next. And so there is guilt associated with the worry of how this is hurting the children. We currently have 50-50 temp joint custody, though they are with him more than that but I don't have a lawyer and can't fight him on it other than verbally arguing which just upsets the kids, so I don't. But though I am so so sorry I could not make it work longer til the children were older, if I could rewind time and go back nine months, I would still do it again. I read something somewhere recently...it took me forever to begin even to understand that my love and my feeling of responsibility for the children was not tied to being an indentured servant, 'keeping the peace' by obeying like a child basically, or being subservient to his family members under a facade of being a 'traditional wife and mom.' There are many happy, loved wives who are stay at home moms and who have good relationships with their husbands...my life was like that only on the outside of our front door...the pain, the constant arguing unless I went along with almost anything that was said, the put downs of never being good enough for his family because even though I was doing what I should or not 'talking back' --- it was 'obvious' they and he said that I had a 'rebellious spirit' because I wasn't truly HAPPY to be submissive to him and them, that was craziness I just couldn't keep up with anymore. My girls shouldn't see that as a healthy adult rolemodel for either the wife or the husband; nor my sons. Now we have no security, I am at the edge of a world I have never encountered and don't know what is going to happen, but I know I am strong enough to make the best decisions as they need to be made. That doesn't mean its going to turn out as I am praying for, but it does mean nothing more could be done right now in the middle of what we are going through. I just can't do any more than what I have.
Even with the heart pain my children are going through, I think they will be okay, and they will be able to grow from this experience. I hope I can fight it long enough to ensure that he is not able to erase me from their lives... that is my main worry; the children need to know both their mommy and daddy as they grow up. But I can only do the best I can with the experience and knowledge I have right now, this day. I am keeping on keeping on, its so scary, but he is not in my face telling me how little I am worth if I do the least thing wrong, reminding me of things I have done wrong in the past, or making me worry about things I 'will' do wrong again or how that will hurt our children. (*He is still emailing me edicts, does not communicate or answer me in any way, but sends me orders as to when I MUST pick up the children, what I MUST do in some regard, or his fancy expensive lawyer contacts me or shows up in court, but...I don't have to do it...I can THINK for myself, I can find out information, etc.)
Hugs to all the moms or dad out there who are separating their very existence from a controlling ex-mate...every one literally deserves peace and love...may we find it and keep it. Anna

You mention his 25 page propose for sole legal and physical custody, but do you have your proposal into the judge too?
Thanks Jennie,
As usual you are always encouraging and practical ;o). Yes, my divorce filing stressed that I talked to him orginally offering a 50-50 parenting plan but he refused, saying he does not 'believe' in the children bouncing back and forth and doesn't 'believe' in divorce. The initial temporary order was done asking for standard primary placement etc, but he had a short, two and a-half week RO against him for ongoing emotional abuse of me in front of the children, and discussing inappropriate things about the divorce with them...it was done to 'cool him off' a bit so we could go forward a bit more calmly with the divorce process...the lawyer I had at that time, entered the temp order for cs and for primary custody, joint legal with standard visitation two non-overnights each week and eo weekend. The second temp order, and cs lowered to 1/3rd of original, and the ruling that the ex and his family could homeschool the children until the final court date, even though I had asked since January to be allowed to enroll them in a local school, was set in by the new judge. He put us at 50-50 joint legal and joint physical for the rest of the temp period until the final full custody trial in November of this year.
Additionally, during the over 6 months that they were with me until the second order issued by a new judge AFTER he got a new lawyer and had our first judge recused, and changed this to a Move-Away Custody Trial, (he literally screamed in the hallway that she was a 'feminazi' - only his lawyer and mine heard it - I was hoping her clerk or someone might be coming out at the same time, but no such luck. I always allowed him to take them extra places, and when he or the children asked I allowed him have individual children over for special activities where he would take one out to dinner and they would stay overnight with the grandparents and him. I always encouraged the children to 'give dad and grandma and grandpa' big hugs' when they were going to be picked up by him and to have fun in their time together. I have always told the children themselves that we both love them and there are some adult things we are having a very hard time trying to agree on, but whomever they are going to live with primarily, the other parent will miss them and love them very much and try to see them as often as possible....I do not know how much of any of that will filter through to this new judge though. I hope the interview the children's lawyer did will ferret some of those things out...via the children themselves.
I wish like heck he would not move with his parents to another state...I had, erroneously thought, the time I actually filed was a decent time to do it, that we could spend the winter working through the anger, any counseling, a working out of a near fifty-fifty shared parenting plan and by this fall would have been in some ok space, where the children would have been allowed to be enrolled in a local school, and have begun to get secure about a schedule he and I reasonably agreed on, etc. Of course, I was so, so wrong and had no idea I was divorcing his family empire, that he would actually move out of state and turn this to a Move Away case,etc. I thought surely with his estimation of me, he would go on, separate his life and that we could have some business-like relationship as far as the children are concerned. There is nothing reasonable which has happened. I have not seen much in the 'system' that anyone really has noticed or taken time to look at the hundreds of 'control' type things he does/has done from the games with the cs since his paretnts own the business, to his changing the locks on our home and keeping mostly everything, to he and his parents PAS with our children...most friends tell me all the time this can't be happening, I will get the children placed with me, etc...but I do not see anyone in the legal sytem who has once remarked in any way that I could tell that he was doing anything wrong, aside from the lawyer I first had, who was gallant and pleasant up to the $9k mark and then when he realized it was going to be a Move Away case, told me it would cost around $20 to $30k, and he and his staff would not be able to keep me on as I did not have the assets to fund it much further. I hope you are right Jennie, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart as I read your posts to others here also, because you always show compassion, along with the obvious fact you have a 'head on your shoulders'...mine has too much space in it from disuse for awhile, so I am struggling sometimes with my ability to think logically or sequentially, or in a linear way...every thing that happens is a mini-crisis along this journey. But I still have some time with my sweet ones, and the hugs, the reading stories together, the small things are what I am treasuring and trying to concentrate on, everything else is still at a premium, one day at a time. Thanks again, and sending you a big hug -- Anna
I think your whole situation is a nightmare, but even nightmares can have happy endings.