More drama ensues ...

I realize I’ve not brought this blog up to date yet which may make this post seem confusing but … I wanted to post about a recent encounter with my EX.  Sigh.  A few days ago, he’d asked me to take our son on an evening which I don’t normally have him which is perfectly fine for me but he wanted to “make-up” the lost time by adding another day to the following week.  Mind you, this would be a no-brainer for “normal” co-parents but my EX has never, ever allowed me the same luxury.  Being a full-time student for the past few years, I have been forced to ask him to watch our son for me on occasion.  Never, in spite of my requests, would he allow me to “make-up” that time so I thought to myself,” well, let’s not deviate from the pattern we’ve established” and told him I would take him but there would be no make-up days.  Suffice it to say, this sent him into a ‘stomping his feet, steam coming out of his ears, temper tantrum’ which produced multiple emails that were cutting and derogatory.  As usual.  As Oprah would say, I had an “ah-ha” moment and realized that I did not have to continue receiving these nasty emails so I just simply blocked him.

Well as one could easily predict, my EX began creating new email addresses with the hopes of getting through with his vile venom.  I’ve cut and pasted an excerpt here:

“WHEN YOU LEARN TO STOP LYING AND TRYING TO CONTROL AND MANIPULATE PEOPLE, THEN MAYBE THINGS WILL CALM DOWN.  I WILL BE FORCED TO COMMUNICATE THROUGH YOUR HUSBAND IF YOU HAVE MY EMAIL BLOCKED.  YOU NEED SERIOUS MENTAL HELP PER THE THREE THERAPISTS REPORTS TO THE COURT.  I AM MORE THAN WILLING TO PUSH FORWARD WITH THOSE REPORTS AND LET THE WHOLE WORLD KNOW ABOUT YOUR DEEP SEEDED MENTAL PROBLEMS.  SO EITHER COOPERATE OR LETS GO TO COURT AND LET THEM DECIDE WHO GETS CUSTODY BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THEY WILL DO.  I HAVE TOLD YOU OVER AND OVER I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BULLY ME, YOU HAVE MET THE ONE PERSON IN THIS WORLD THAT WILL STAND UP TO YOU AND YOU DONT LIKE IT. TOO BAD! DEAL WITH IT.  IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE EMAILS I SEND YOU BECAUSE I AM BLOCKED THEN THAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, DONT COMPLAIN ABOUT NOT GETTING THE INFORMATION.  ALL COMMUNICATION TO ME IS TO BE TO MY EMAIL”

My EX prefers to use lies, conjecture and underlying threats of taking my son to control me. (Never had any diagnosis especially by three therapists.)  He was like this while we were married and guess what?  Eight years later, he’s still going strong.  Does this bother me?   Of course.  Occasionally I feel the swell of frustration well up and I want to bang my head against a wall and scream at the top of my lungs.  I don’t.  Instead, this time I blocked his emails.

Two days later, I receive an email from guess who??  The EX.  This is strange because all the email addresses that I’d added from him over the years, were mysteriously missing from my blocked list so his email got thru.  My husband and I have long suspected that he has been breaking into my email accounts off and on for years and now I feel certain that he has again.  I changed my password one more time and added the addresses to the list.  One.  More.  Time.  I’ve long given up asking why and need to really start asking HOW.  How do I keep dealing with this without losing my sanity?  How do I put higher boundaries up?  How do I insulate myself and my family from the pervasive barrage of abuse?   Anyone dealt with this and if so, any tips?

And the story continues ...

In an attempt to consolidate as much of the past 8 years as possible, I wanted to give you a brief description of the types of behaviors that my EX would employ.  Once I moved out, he began following me and driving by my home regularly; he seemed to know where I was, the times I arrived and left and whom I was with.  I would get nasty emails, multiple times a day which were accusatory and degrading.  While I didn’t date for the first year and 3 months after I’d left, the EX thought I shouldn’t have a life outside of taking care of my child.  Mind you, our son went to his dad’s 3 nights a week so I had time to cultivate a social life when I wasn’t take care of him. 

 What also began to increase was the voicemails that my EX would leave on my phone at home and my cell phone.  Sometimes there would be 5-6 messages day, telling me how much of a bad mother I was, how selfish I was for leaving and taking our child out of his “home” and how he was going to take my son away from me because I didn’t “deserve” to have him.  He also convinced himself that I was “pscyho” and had a mental illness which was funny to me because I was never diagnosed with anything and had/have no issues functioning.   He began contacting anyone in my life he could think of:  my parents, my sibling and his spouse, my friends, even going as far as contacting my clients.  (I was working as a nanny for many families at the time to support myself and keep my son with me 24/7.)  He also sent many of my friends a key stroke detector virus in emails which would attach itself on their computer when they opened the email.  This afforded him my new email address(es) as I changed them over and over to get him to stop the constant harassment.  Each new email I created, he would find it and start emailing me there. 

 My lawyer at the time began sending my EX’s lawyer multiple letters demanding that his client stop the harassment and stalking behavior but to no avail.  The EX amped it up:  he began seeking out my old boyfriends to see if he could get anyone to “agree” with him that I was a crazy bit**.  Luckily, my friends and family contacted me to let me know what was going on but it caused me so much stress. 

I felt humiliated and embarrassed that he would stoop that low to harass my friends, family and everyone else who was in my life.  I was constantly looking around when I came home and when I left, trying to see if I saw him (which I did on occasion).  I began screening my calls and dreading to hear that beep-beep-beep that indicated I had a voicemail message.  I truthfully spent a lot of that first year crying and researching the web to see if there was any help for me … I desperately wanted it to stop but couldn’t find anyone or anything to help me.  The best my lawyer could offer me was advice to “ignore” him.  I began to worry if we would ever have a life of peace and would I ever find someone I could spend my life with?  I mean, seriously, who would want to date someone with a crazy EX??  I used to joke with my friends that even I wouldn’t date me.  Sigh.

Some background

Now that you know my purpose, let me give you some more background on me.  (To protect my family and particularly our son, I am remaining anonymous.)  I am a 43 years old woman, have remarried an amazing man who has 2 beautiful teenage daughters and we have four sweet dogs to complete our happy family.  I am a graduate student, earning my masters in social work next May and am excited about working as a mental health professional.  My professional goal is to work with domestic violence victims and to also work as a family mediator for high conflict families involved in custody/divorce cases. 

Anyhoo, my EX and I met back in 1997, married in 1999, had our son in 2001 and I left in 2003.  Without boring you with the minor details, suffice it to say that I married my “dad” when I married my EX.  His controlling and abusive behaviors must have felt familiar to me, almost like coming home in a self-destructive, sick way.  Of course at the time, I was not consciously aware of this but gained insight during the therapy I attended before leaving the marriage and after.  That being said, the marriage was full of coldness, distance and behaviors that were the beginning of his mission to control and ultimately break me.  If he was angry with me, he would take my car keys so I couldn’t leave the house; he would put a code on the home phone so I couldn’t dial out.  He often turned my cell phone off so that I couldn’t use that either, also frequently went thru my cell, recording numbers of people I’d called and using those numbers later to try to harass me.  He monitored my computer usage and often would read my emails and use those against me.  He threatened to kill me if I left, and then kill our baby so that he wouldn’t have to go into foster care. 

Desperate to get out, I began hoarding as much money as I could from what little I was earning at the time.  When I was finally ready to leave, our son was 2 and I began a search for a rental property in the same town so that the visitation issues would not be as difficult on our child.  I found a cute little house, put an application on it, was accepted and made an appointment to sign the lease.  The morning of the appointment, I received a call from the owner who said that my EX (then husband) had called her and told her I was “crazy” “did drugs” and would be a menace in her property.  She said that while she didn’t believe him, she couldn’t in good conscience rent to me because she was worried about the EX coming after me and causing issues.  I was devastated and frightened.  For one, I knew I was mentally sound, had never done drugs and that this was only an attempt to slander my reputation and stop me from moving out.  How did he find out I had found a place?  Had he gone through my cell phone while I was sleeping?  Perhaps but I was bound and determined to get out.  Finally, with the help of my lifelong best friend, I found a place to rent that was owned by some people I’d worked for over the years as a nanny (my profession at the time).  I contacted a lawyer, had my EX served that I was moving out and taking our baby and on May 24, 2003, I left with the help of my closest friends who showed up to help me move out.  I was blessed and loved that day and knowing they were there for me, gave me strength to keep moving forward.

Was I afraid?  Yes. Was I worried he would come after me? Yes.  However, I knew that if I didn’t move out and move forward, I would never have a chance at happiness and a peaceful life.  Most importantly, I didn’t want my baby to think that this marriage was what love was.  I grew up with that and knew the damage this can cause and I was terrified that he would learn this too.  I had no choice but to leave so I did.

A little about me

This is the story of my own personal journey from hell, through hell and back to hell again (just kidding, but barely!)  J  Seriously though, as one of the millions of women (and men) who are survivors of an abusive relationship, I wanted to accomplish two goals with this blog.  One:  to share the gory, dirty details of my arduous struggle to not only get out of an abusive marriage but to unfortunately continue to endure the ongoing harassment and abusive behavior from the now EX husband, 8 long years later.  Secondly, to show others that you CAN move forward and live well in spite of the persistent barrage of abusive pressure and regular attempts of sabotage from the EX.  I encourage anyone who has been touched on any level by my story, to reach out to me and the readers to share your own personal story … knowing that there are so many of us going through similar situations, can lend comfort and hope to others who don’t feel that they will see the light at the end of their own personal tunnel.  Remember:  You are not responsible for his/her behavior; you are worthy of respect and you deserve to live a life of peace and harmony:  I hope my blog will remind you of this.  So … these are my goals and this is MY life.