My emotionally abusive ex co-parent

[Missp]

I am currently dealing with the break up of my relationship of 19 years.  This came after the recent diagnosis of my dd23.  My partner was invalidating and emotionally abusive to my daughter for many years.  I believed I could encourage her to change and had many heated discussions about the subject.  She would agree to change but it never lasted and it was always back to square one.

I know I am accountable for some of the damage that this abuse has done to my daughter because I never sent my partner packing  (because I believed there could be change,  mortgage and other financial issues). I loved her and wanted to have a family.

After diagnosis, I began using tools from this site to help my communication with my daughter and did a lot of soul searching and working on myself.  My partner began this process and then suddenly stopped and left the relationship after making some strange suggestions that I was not in a position to comply with.

I  can see that my ex partner has emotional behaviour issues.  I think the realisation that she properly needed to step up was the last straw.

On the positive side, my daughter and I have had deep discussions about all of this and my relationship with her will strengthen thanks to skills learnt from this amazing site.

I post this to see if any others on this site have had similar dealings with a co-parent who has been emotionally abusive.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Butterflygirl]

 

I post this to see if any others on this site have had similar dealings with a co-parent who has been emotionally abusive.

My son is beyond verbally abusive. He is the typical abuser. But when I read Patrica Evans book, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship, I realized there I so much more to it. She considers the silent treatment verbal abuse.

I walk away or hang up. If I feel afraid I sometimes let him vent until he calms down. He hit e once when I tried to stand up  him. He is just like his father. My son's story is in my boundary journal on this site.

Hang in there. You are not alone.

 


 

[livednlearned]

Hi MissP,

I'm sorry I missed your post and am just seeing it now.

My son is 13, and his dad (my ex husband) is BPD with a lot of narcissism, as well as substance abuse. I've been learning whatever I can about the risk factors for BPD because S13 has the "high emotionality" or sensitive genotype that makes him very sensitive. He was diagnosed with ODD, ADHD, and depression/anxiety at age 9. He's now being treated with metacognitive therapy in individual sessions after suicidal ideation last year.

I sometimes am hard on myself for not recognizing that S13 was a "5%" child who needed a different kind of parenting than what I was providing. He needed so much more validation, especially having an abusive and invalidating father who shamed him mercilessly as a kid. I can bring myself to tears any time I think about it.  :'(

It's so hard to raise a child as a single mother. Making the decision to leave is as much about financial realities as it is about safety. For better or worse, emotional abuse often does not trigger us to end the relationship like physical abuse might do, and that can keep us stuck in unhealthy, yet tolerable, levels of abuse.

You did the best you could. I left my ex 4.5 years ago and even with all that I've learned, and all the work I've done to forgive and accept, I still grieve my ignorance and not understanding who S13 was, how he was different, and what he needed.

It is normal to want to have a family, and to hope that things can get better. There was probably just enough hope that it felt worthwhile, until there was nothing left to try.

After a difficult childhood (uBPD brother and narcissistic father), I learned through therapy that I shouldered a lot of misplaced blame and shame in my family. When I sought out my mom for validation, she was able to provide it. That is the most important gift -- it absolves so much of the pain. It is such a natural desire to love your parents, and try to remember that when S13 is in a mood. I try to recognize it as an opportunity to re-center and grieve what for him was a painful and invalidating childhood. It comes out in small chunks and needs healing in stages because the entirely of it is probably too painful.

You're in a new chapter now and it probably feels raw and uncertain. Be kind to yourself -- that is the simplest and most foundational part of healing. And so hard! Forgive yourself and take care of yourself by accepting that you did the best you could with what you knew then.



LnL

[js friend]

Hi Missip,

Yes i was married to an emotional abusive man for 12years.It is really difficult to co-parent with someone who has emotional issues themselves as the focus must be on them due to their immaturity... .Thankfully iam no longer married to him but  his lack of parenting has left a mark on our children particularly dd who has always been the most sensitive.

Like your ex mine too is not willing to put the work in to support my dd. Just because he doesnt see it , he doesnt believe that she is ill. I remember asking him to go to marriage guidance therapy a few times when we were married... .and being raged at everytime. He says he doesnt believe in therapy, says it is a waste of time... .plus none it was him... .just my behaviour. 

Now my children are all adults and all over parental age and he doesnt have the responsiblity for them  anymore he is suddendly ready to step up but they arent interested in having a r/s with him now anymore. They have all been hurt too much. There have been to many broken promises on his part for them to ever trust him.He is the one missing out now (especially now  gcs are here) and I get a feeling that he realises this now.

Try not to be too hard on yourself Missip. We have all done thngs we wish we hadnt done or done sooner.You were trying to keep your family together.I fought hard to keep mine together too  for years without knowing what i was dealing with and i know that invalidating too when i knew no better.I know better now and you do too. You are moving forward and using the tools with your dd which will hopefully improve your r/s and the two of you can became a lot healthier.

I wish you good luck strengthening the r/s with your dd Missip.

[Missp]

Thank you for your supportive words.  I have felt so alone in this situation.  I have realised that my ex partner can not cope emotionally with anything she perceives as criticism of herself.  Trying to discuss how to be validating with my daughter was seen as the final mega criticism, when I actually used the phrase 'emotionally abusive'.  I think, after doing a lot of reading, that she, like many people with BPD, cannot handle the shame of it and reflects it straight back to me.  The problem is then mine because I have upset her and manufactured some relationship toxicity. She becomes the victim. Is this a narcissism trait?

[livednlearned]

I think, after doing a lot of reading, that she, like many people with BPD, cannot handle the shame of it and reflects it straight back to me.  The problem is then mine because I have upset her and manufactured some relationship toxicity. She becomes the victim. Is this a narcissism trait?

One of the articles I read says that people with personality disorders cannot process grief and pain. If you think about what we do when we're sad, hurt, disappointed, frustrated, afraid -- all the challenging, difficult feelings -- and let's say we lack the skills to process them, then the only way to deal with them is to externalize them. If I can't accept that I'm being abusive, but have to deal with those feelings some way, then they have to be projected onto someone else and processed externally. It's much easier to tolerate bad behavior in others than it is to deal with in ourselves. I would guess this is doubly and triply true for someone who does not have a stable sense of self.

NPD, from what I've read, is triggered by a fear of inferiority, whereas BPD is based on a fear of abandonment. Although there are some researchers who describe narcissism (the trait, not the disorder) sort of as a secondary protective measure when triggered by fear. My ex was more triggered by abandonment than inferiority. His narcissism went to a whole new level when we divorced.

[Missp]

Thanks! Very useful information.