I Am Done Caring About His Feelings

Today my ex returned to family counselling after stopping therapy in the spring. He also pulled consent for the children to attend, no one knew the reason why he objected. It took six months and several court applicatons for me to get them back in therapy. This basically meant they were starting from scratch.

The three of us had an appointment today as well and the counsellor told me that my ex feels like a victim and a pariah. This was unsurprising considering his narrative all along has been that he is the wronged one and everyone else is the enemy. As of today, my empathy for him no longer exists.

I was with my ex, John for 18 years and believe me he is no victim. John is beyond a narcissist. My lawyer and my personal therapist think he may be a sociopath, due to his need to take me down at all costs no matter how it will hurt the children.

He has not complied with a single court order, or any Judicial Case Conferences, Judicial Settlement Conferences, Mediation, etc. He has never paid support and I have only been able to get what enforcement has been able to collect. I am now owed more than what I can earn working full-time for a year.

He has lost his driver’s license, so now his girlfriend has to drive when he wants to see the children, which isn’t that often. Rather than pay the support he owes, his girlfriend is his personal chauffeur. Next he will be losing his passport and marine license. He works as a commercial fisherman so this will affect his ability to work. He would rather take the ship down with him than make sure his kids have food on the table.

He makes more than enough money to pay the support owed and still have a very comfortable life. His agenda is to bankrupt me in order to punish me for ending the marriage. He is furious that I gained the strength to say no more.

John wasn’t always like this. When we first met, he was charming, polite, interested in what I had to say and couldn’t get enough of me. This was the complete opposite of my childhood where I wasn’t allowed to have a voice or to take up space. I was flattered by all the attention and rather than be on the alert that something was wrong with this, I thought I finally found love.

Slowly over time, red flags started waving at me but I batted them away thinking that this is what all couples went through. When they came faster and more often, I thought that it was because we were now living together, married, had a child, a second, etc. I always made excuses for them. I tried to explain, defend, understand. I hid what was going on from my friends and family or made jokes or I smiled if he did it in front of them like it was no big deal.

Until one day, I couldn’t pretend anymore and the children and I fled the home for an island where a friend lives. We took nothing with us and I had to tell my children that their dad was having a temper tantrum and we were going to give him some space until he cooled down. When I returned to our hometown, my friend took me to the downtown law courts where they offered one hour of free legal advice. The lawyer laid it down in black and white and called it what it was: abuse. I immediately started crying as no one had ever used that word to me before, they had just said that he wasn’t nice to me. He suggested that I go to a free women’s legal resource center.

I phoned them and they were able to see me the next day. When I gave the law student the details of what had gone on during the last several months, he brought in his supervisor. She also used the word abuse and talked to me about a safety plan. I was shocked as I never really considered how serious everything he had been doing was. When you are in the storm you don’t see how dangerous it is, but outsiders who are sailing on calm seas can recognize how rocky it is.

I really didn’t want to lose my home and everyone told me that if the children and I left we would, so I was determined to stick it out. That coupled with the fact that I was a stay at home mom for the past twelve years, didn’t leave me with much choice. John took all of my financial resources away and became an emotional terrorist. His emotional, verbal and financial abuse became intolerable. He knew exactly just how far he could push things without me being able to call the police. I barely slept and stayed out of the house and sat on the back deck, except for when I made meals for the children or if they needed something. As soon as they went to bed, I went to my bedroom too, taking a book, the laptop and my cellphone while he remained on the couch. My phone was always charged and if he came into the bedroom for any reason, I panicked with my hand on my phone ready to make a call.

My neighbours were always on the alert as well and texted me often. If they heard him screaming, they checked in. When he escalated or did something new, the kids and I hung out at their house and they fed us. If I needed to go to my lawyer’s, the kids were looked after by them. Everyone was on high alert.

Then after about seven months, he took it too far. He started screaming and pacing around the kitchen and living room in front of one of the kids with several tools in his hands, threatening to break things. I became extremely frightened because he wouldn’t calm down. It took awhile for me to be able to get the kids out under false pretences and once I was able to, I called my lawyer who told me to phone the police.

We spent one night at a friends and another at a hotel. Luckily, my lawyer was able to get a protection order to get him removed from our home. The protection order was recently renewed for another year.

My ex hasn’t changed even one iotoa since then. He is allowed to communicate to me by text and email and it is supposed to be only about the children. He is not supposed to be near our family home. He violates this regularly. I receive several texts and emails every week where I am sworn at, name called and berated. My mental health is called into question. I am called a cheater. Apparenly, I have stolen money from him. He tells me that the children and I will be homeless and bankrupt and it will all be my fault. He also does the same to my lawyer. Not a single allegation is true but that doesn’t stop him from spouting them.

I put myself through school last year and am currently working part-time. The children and I live off what I earn, what little amount of credit I have available and what I can borrow off of my mom.

I have my children one hundred percent of the time and we are doing our best to work through what has happened with John. We are slowly coming out the other side both with the help of counselling and by erasing old patterns and starting new ones.

The next time I see the family counsellor, I am going to tell her that I do not want to hear what John’s feelings are. I spent far too many years feeling empathetic and sympathetic for him and trying to fix a broken man. You should not have to earn someone’s love and it is not ok to be told constantly that you don’t deserve someone to be nice to you. She can keep John’s feelings on her notepad, I don’t need to hear them.