No contact, Is this normal?

[November_Rain]

I became separated  from my stb exhBPD when our daughter was 8 months old. He moved from the state 2 months later. We are in the middle of a divorce. I was awarded temp sole custody and he was given supervised visitation. He has not seen her since August. I have not spoken to him since November. During those few months he ran a smear campaign, sent multiple texts and emails a day. Called ranting and raving, and now not a word. Has anyone else experienced this. He missed our daughter's first birthday, missed Christmas. I'm starting to believe I was right all along, that he never really loved her. This truly makes me sad.



 

[ForeverDad]

It is what it is.  Acceptance is one of the recognized stages of Grieving a Relationship Loss.

You mentioned he was on a smear campaign at first.  In that case you need to be doubly sure you're not improperly blocking any parenting available to him.  No, you don't have to push visits on him, you don't even have to remind him to visit - and you shouldn't - just be sure you don't block them.  Just follow the order.

It's possible those first few months were his overreaction, something typical with PDs.  Maybe now since time has passed he's reverted to his baseline level of contact?  Be aware that thre can still be occasional exceptions such as at holiday times.

For example, my ex is a very possessive mother, she would never drift away.  However, some mothers do, though not many it seems.  It's apparently easier for a father to drift away and society is okay with that.  If he drifts away, so be it.  Don't try to live his life.

In short, don't guilt yourself about him.  His life is his life, his choices, don't take responsibility for him.  You do the right things, follow the order and you won't have any reason to feel obligated or guilted.

F.O.G. = Fear, Obligation, Guilt

[November_Rain]

Thanks for the reply. To give a little more detail, those months where I did have contact and he was living in the same state, he was requesting to see our daughter. He was requesting to pick her up and take her unsupervised. Because of our restraining order, past physical abuse and the recent abuse where he grabbed me and shook me with her in my arms, I refused unsupervised visitation. I offered him to come to my aunt and uncles to visit her there. Also at the time there was no custody order in place. He chose not to see her at all because he didn't want to be "babysat". At our court hearing he had recently moved cross country and did a phone in, he heard me testify that the only reason that I got back togethger with him so many times was that I was afraid for my daughter's safety being with him. I was asking the court for supervised visitation. Well I got sole custody and he got supervised visitation, order a get a mental eval, to finish taking the batterer's intervention classes that he was ordered to take from our restraining order, parenting classes and anger management. So I don't feel like I was blocking visitation. I feel he used her to contact me to harass me about other things. I printed all the emails and texts and gave them to the judge as evidence. He would only ask once to see her and the a whole page about other issues. I would always say to him I only wanted to talk about her and nothing else. Now we can only communicate on a website through the courts and haven't heard a word... .So that's why I feel it never was about her.

[ForeverDad]

You did well, for yourself, for your child.  In the past we all let the crazy go on for too long in our lives for various reasons.  Maybe we were too codependent, maybe we kept hoping our dreams might materialize and not crash to earth, maybe we believed what we were told that we were the problem, maybe we thought that if only we tried harder the other would reciprocate.  However, now that we've learned that we can't make a relationship or marriage succeed if the other is sabotaging us, we can find ways to deal with it all that can help us find success in our lives even if reality didn't match our hopes.

I didn't see anything in your posts that indicated you were doing anything wrong.  To the contrary, your actions were very well handled.  All I was stating — take care of your children, follow the order and don't block without cause — was advice we all need to keep in mind, that we don't give others ammunition to sabotage us.  As long as we do our reasonable best, then we've done what we reasonably can and we shouldn't feel guilt over that.

[November_Rain]

Thank you. I did find out today that he hasn't even set up for his orientation for supervised visitation. The court gave us 7 days to do so and it have been 3 weeks. I guess I just keep hopes that he will get the help he needs and be there for our daughter. I had a rather dysfunctional upbringing and ultimately was raised by my grandparents, however my dad was in my life even though he didn't raise me and I always knew I was loved. I accepted things the way they were. That is what I want for my daughter, to know she is loved.