When my divorce was finalized, something clicked in my brain—and
I rejoiced, I will not lie, because I thought the hardest part of this journey was
behind me. Note the past tense. I shouldn’t be so cynical. Yet while the heart-dropping fear of court (I
don’t know how attorneys do it—once you walk into a courthouse with the weight
of your children’s future on your shoulders, there’s just no way to aptly
describe the pressure and fear) was over, the pain of living in a house full of
unpredictable anger explosions finally given the conclusion it needed—validation
from the judge in the form of an explicit ruling guaranteeing the best
interests of the children, while also putting in protections to ensure those
interests…relief is the least of words to describe it.
What doesn’t stop is the someone who used to be in control
all the time, now finding himself without it, continuing to seek control and blending
it into new avenues and manipulations to regain it. Luckily for me, there were measures put in
place where my ex has to text or email only—so he can’t yell and berate me. (And he wouldn’t now, because his M.O. would
have been to do those types of things behind closed doors, and there are no
closed doors anymore.) Unluckily he has
transformed his vitriol into long and ‘engaging’ emails, or “e-mauls” as
another single parent I know calls them.
It took me a good year to figure out how to respond, to be brief, to the
point, and disengage from accusatory comments as much as possible.
Also, written in the decree is a court order to go to a co-parenting
counselor (CC)—a mediator of sorts, a ‘traffic cop’ assisting with the ‘traffic’
of parenting (i.e. pick ups, drop offs, trades in schedule, etc). He uses her as a forum to complain about me;
I take the time to get assistance on how to disengage. This works for me, because he cannot directly
target me, at least in person, and around the big things, the CC has been
helpful—like the dumb and needless blow out about sharing Easter Sunday. To the 11th hour, the ex stirred
up drama, until he finally backed down (with her advisement), and at the end of
the day, my girls were able to spend some time with both families. Because again, they don’t remember the terror
from before, they only see the good side of him now, for the most part
(crossing fingers), and they love him and their extended family like all kids
do.
So it’s taken three years to get used to this new
process. I have learned that “winning”
against someone like my ex is not like “winning” or “losing” a football
game. To him, it actually might be
(earning points by berating me about how I tied up the girls laundry bag for
transfer, etc), but to us, “winning” is living a life full of goodness and
blessings, love and laughter. To not
engage in petty and accusatory comments, because there’s no room for that in my
big, loving life now. To show my children
that love does not come with a price to pay, that anger is not dangerous, but
another healthy feeling among the many, many feelings that we may have as we
journey through life.
My fiancé A is still learning this lesson. My sweetheart A wants to swoop in and ‘save’
us in a traditional sense, to protect us, to keep us from harm. He sees this by fighting and he sometimes sees
me as ‘weak’ for not fighting. I wish he
would understand that engaging and fighting allows my ex to “win.” By spending emotional time on what my ex is thinking
or doing—that’s how he wins, because now he is back in our heads, back in my
home, taking up emotional space in the home I worked so hard to rebuild without
him.
Are the children’s health and/or safety at risk? No?
Then a petty battle of words is not worth fighting over. Because you bet your last dollar the moment should
I hear something that affects their health and safety, the second I take action
to establish another TRO. (Which is
torture by the way—whoever makes commentary that TROs are easy to come by and
women lie all the time to get them—they really do not want to face my wrath. It is excruciatingly painful.) Are our personal boundaries and privacy in
jeopardy? Then yes, that is a
conversation and tone that is worth setting, worth fighting for, and I know how
to set and maintain those boundaries, because abusers are always looking for
ways to push them. I have lots of
experience setting boundaries and the scars to prove it.
I just wish, with all my heart, that when we move forward
with divorce, especially the ones who have to deal with abusers and
manipulators, that we could know our “new” life is so much better, so much
bigger, and to do everything we can to minimize the effect of manipulative,
petty, and accusatory comments in our lives.
And I pray and hope that my fiancé A learns this lesson too--he says to give him time, that i've had all this time to get used to it, and he needs time and experience and patience. And it's true, it’s not something that can be told, it can
only be lived.
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