One of the things about living with a narcissistic sociopath is that you begin to believe the things they tell you. When you are gaslighted and emotionally manipulated for so long, you start doubting everything.
Even though I knew I had to leave my (ex)husband, he made the decision so hard. He said things to me, and to the children, that really made me wonder if everything WAS my fault. He blamed me for absolutely everything that went wrong in our marriage. He took absolutely no responsibility for anything.
This carried over into the care of our children once we separated. Although he claimed he "loved" them, he did not show that love in any of his actions. When I asked for sole custody, he said things like "You obviously know what's best; you go ahead and be a super mom all by yourself" or "You never even had a father, so you don't even know what it's like. Of course you want to raise the kids the same way - without a father". Those words were said to hurt me, and they did just that.
I wondered how much of what he said was true. I doubted my reasonings for wanting to leave him.
As things progressed and our divorce was finalized, things didn't get much better. Because visitation was what could be "arranged and agreed upon" by both parties, it was a constant fight. Eventually, his visits with the children became less frequent and shorter in duration. He blamed me for this, as well, saying that I was just trying to control him by making him commit to taking them at certain times. He refused to "play by my rules" and the children suffered as a result.
One night this past summer, my older daughter let him have it, telling him how she felt and finally getting it off her chest. The phone call ended abruptly when she hung up on him. He then proceeded to call my youngest daughter, who ended up sitting under our kitchen table in tears listening to him rant and rave about both me and her sister.
At this point, I knew I had to take further action. After all, he wasn't seeing them anyway, and his phone calls and text messages were always negative. He wasn't involved in any aspect of their life, other than trying to get them to turn against me. I went to the courthouse and filed a modification to our visitation schedule.
Our court date was scheduled for about 6 weeks later. As I think I said somewhere else in a post, I was prepared to fight. I expected him to blame me for everything. However, he did not put up a fight at all. He willfully gave up all of his rights to the children, agreeing to no longer call or text them anymore. Part of me was thrilled and relieved. The other part of me was heartbroken. How could someone just give up on his own children?
In this situation, there really wasn't a winner...
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