My Family
I was supposed to go over to my dad's house and help the family put up Xmas decorations outside, which is a family tradition. We do it every year. Somehow, I got confused, and I thought it was supposed to be tomorrow. But I am so frustrated with my family right now that I wonder if this was a Freudian slip.
It stems around my sister and her breakup from her boyfriend who "put his hands around her neck" to quote her. Watching the way my family is handing this just stirs up all kinds of feelings in me, mostly anger and frustration. My sister's refusal to talk about it. That's one thing, I mean, some things are hard to talk about, one needs to feel ready to deal with certain things-I get that. But the inherit denial, minimization, and doublespeak of my family is absolutely infuriating to me. It brings up, for me, all the ways in which the atmosphere of my childhood made me more vulnerable to attracting my abuser, and even worse how I was not supported in my divorce from my abuser because of denial, minimization and doublespeak and how it not only re-victimized me, but also gave me abuser more ammunition to abuse me with.
Since I have gotten divorced there is example, after example of how my family mishandled and misunderstood what I was dealing with. The prevailing attitude I encountered from my dad was that he and my step mom didn't want to get involved with my ex-husband and I's arguments. His attitude was that divorce, was by nature contentious, and that I needed to stay rational, and solution oriented, work through these issues the best I could and take the high road. That is my dad's attitude towards problems in general. That one needs to think through which options are beneficial towards the ultimate goal you are trying to reach, and that anything which is an obstacle to that goal must be discarded or you will most likely pay the consequences for that decision. There is nothing inherently wrong with this line of thought-I actually think it has tremendous value. However, this line of thinking has one fatal flaw-it discards the impact of emotions, of justice, of fundamental human motivations and innate concerns. I am a human being, I am not a robot and I cannot make reasonable decisions free from emotions, free from a desire to want what is right, and fair, and just. It also assumes that the person you are dealing with operates from a similar framework, that there is a goal someone is pursuant to in behaving a certain way, and you use the motivations towards that person's goal to influence their behavior.
But my ex-husband's ultimate goal was control. Control over me. And to get it he would try and inflict as much pain as possible, he would try and manipulate, and use our daughter as a pawn, and harass and stalk, and do whatever it took for that ultimate goal. Any engagement with me, was considered, in Chris's (my ex's name is changed in this journal) mind, as him still exerting control over me, and an opportunity for even more control. When one understands that oh-so-difficult concept to wrap our heads around, that another person's every action, every design, EVERYTHING really leads back to the issue of needing to control another person to feel like they are worth anything-everything becomes pretty clear. Even if I said or wrote or responded in any way to my ex, no matter what my response would have been, my ex viewed it as that response was elicited from me because CHRIS wanted it-therefore his attempt for control was successful. Therefore, anything from me at all was reinforcing this idea in his head that he should, could and did control me. Sounds paranoid right? But unfortunately, as I have spent years finding out at great pain and personal cost-also completely true.
Contrary to what my parents or anyone might have thought, his reactions to things were not out of ignorance of the consequences or thoughtlessness, they were not motivated by love for me, or hurt that I left him, or loneliness, or depression, or even hate or lashing out in pain. There was nothing I could have done to make things better, to find solutions, to defuse the situations he created, to help him reach some goal for this behavior, because the only goal he had in mind was control over me, and it was the one thing I absolutely, positively, did not want to tolerate for one more second of my life-or I thought I might truly and permanently lose myself. And not some semblance of control, total and complete control was the only thing that would satisfy him. If he could cause me pain, anger, guilt, defensiveness, shame, self doubt, confusion, any emotional response was control. He pushed a button and I reacted. The more I tried to not let him push buttons, the more I refused to respond, the harder and more ferociously he pushed them until he was full force pounding his fists on them in a desperate furry.
This was not something my dad understands, I don't even think to this day. I think on some distant, intellectual level he knows that I was being severely mistreated. That it was unfair. But I think he utterly believes that the right thing to do, the thing one should be able to do, is just detach from that. Look at the situation like some kind of logic puzzle you can find the right answer to, some equation that has an elusive answer if you just try enough solutions.
However, reality is when someone who is so bent on controlling you at any cost is forcibly inserting themselves into your life it feels like rape. It is terrifying, it is violating, it make you feel completely helpless-like you're caught in an elevator between floors with the possibility of crashing to the ground floor from the 13th story and no one can get to you-and the walls are closing in. I wanted to beg for it to stop, for him to leave me alone, but that was never going to happen. And I had my family, the ones who were supposed to have my back, the ones who was supposed to take care of me and protect me when I was too confused, and hurt and scared to take the best care of myself just left me suspended between floors, trapped in my own hell.
Several times when I tried to describe the difficulty of what I was going through I was told, point-blank, by my father that he didn't want to be involved in this back and forth, the interpersonal problems, he only wanted to be able to add something constructive. He offered me advise on how to communicate better. Educated me on what my options were, in case I was too overwhelmed to think them through on my own. I was completely invalidated. It confirmed for me what Chris had been drilling into my head for years, that I was overreacting to what I perceived as abusive, that it really wasn't that bad. That if I just tried hard enough, did the right things that I could control the outcome of what was happening. That it was somehow my fault that these things were happening because I wasn't comprising enough, compassionate enough, communicating well enough. I was letting me emotions cloud my judgment. That my feelings about what were happening were "wrong." And that I shouldn't have them, I just needed to stuff them away and be logical, think things through, that my own feelings and perceptions couldn't be trusted. I felt so totally alone in my pain. Plagued with self doubt, which made me questions everything about myself, and therefore my ability to handle any situation correctly. It made me hesitate to take action when I was justified in doing so and when it may have benefited me immensely given the actual reality of the situation.
To add insult to injury they continued to talking to him constantly, for years and years. Invited him in at Xmas, accepted gifts from him. They didn't try to hide it exactly, but certainly didn't take into account my obvious discomfort with it. I remember even voicing my concern the fact he pumped them for information. And I know he did because he made sure to mention things that my daughter couldn't even have told him. That the only people he could have gotten that information from was my parents or my sisters. It was no accident that he would mention these little tidbits of information about me, to make sure I knew HE still had a relationship with my family. He could still get information bout me. He still knew what was going on me, regardless of whether or not I wanted him to. My boundaries were useless, they didn't matter in the face of what he wanted.
When we first got divorced he was blatant about telling me they were on his side, these later comments he made were just evidence to that fact. He would tell me that my parents didn't know why I'd left him, and when I'd comment on that to my parents they'd respond that Chris was just being Chris, just twisting things to fit his reality. Totally minimizing this behavior, like it was just a little personality quirk, harmless. He was trying to alienate me from them, but they couldn't see it. When I told them he pumped them for info their response was that they tried to be careful about what they said to him. Again showing a complete disregard for what I was dealing with, and dismissing my concerns. I felt like screaming, "Don't you GET IT? He ruminates on this stuff, anything, even the most insignificant detail is fuel for a very damaging fire, it disallows him from moving on and puts his unhealthy and sick focus back on me! Even if you didn't say ONE WORD about me, YOU are linked inextricably in his mind with ME, you are tools, you are a cue for rage and depression and a desire for control! You are not helping ANYTHING! You are making this a thousand time worse, and allowing this abuse to continue!"
And they were ALL like that, my parents, my sisters, my mother. When Chris and I first were divorced my mother even stayed with my ex when she came out to visit, and NOT with me. How Fucked up is that? I was emailing back and forth with my ex over finalizing my divorce decree when HE informed me about this plan. And of course he did it in a way that was a sure fire attempt at driving another wedge between my family and I, and that they supported poor little him, and not cold-hearted me. He told me that they were not planning on telling me that my mother was going to stay with him and he was telling me because he thought I ought to know. When I called my sister and my mother on it they denied they weren't going to tell me, saying that they just hadn't finalized the decisions making processes yet, and that since my daughter was going to be staying with my ex the week my mother was coming out that that was why the arrangement was being considered. Great way to show support for their daughter/sister, right? I'm not supposed to view that as a lack of support at all, just my imagination yet again, just feelings are that inappropriate and out of place again, clearly. No reason to expect my mother to stay with me 2 months after separating from my spouse and just ask my STBX to switch weeks for me to have my daughter, or for a couple of extra nights in our visitation schedule-that's a pretty crazy thought. Crazy old me again.
Another excuse they loved to use was that they needed to check in on my ex to see what state of mind he was in, to see if he was healthy enough for shared custody of our daughter, or to offer support to keep him from going over the edge so Rachel could maintain a relationship with a healthier father. Total ridiculousness, that they were in a better position to gauge how "healthy" he was by a few hours of interaction with him, him on his best behavior of course, rather than what I was TELLING them he was doing to me, because of course I am just....I don't know stupid, or biased against him, or jaded and vengeful, or too sensitive or emotional or something. What a bunch of crap, really. I felt like I was screaming into a hurricane. Did they really believe that continuing a relationship with him would keep me safer? Keep that social structure going that guides most people's behavior?
Now I did have a part to play at first, for many years I was too messed up in the head from years of abuse to assert myself and what my needs were, to insist on boundaries-if you support him you are not supporting me because of the consequences, to me, of supporting him. My boundary is-you can't have it both ways. Choose. Just a little bit of minimization on their part, of internationalization of the problem and I was triggered right back into the abuse fog again. That fog of self doubt and stuffing down my feelings until they became a hard, tight ball like a bullet lodged in my heart. But as I got stronger, and smarter, I got better at communicating what MY idea of abuse was, and how they could support me. And the bullshit still continued.
At one point my ex started emailing me, and coping my folks. Saying because I was so difficult he wanted all communication to go through my parents because then I things would get resolved instead of me avoiding him. His goal was to get my parents on his side, he thought he could make me look bad in their eyes, humiliate me into phone conversations by airing false accusations and sharing embarrassing details about my life. But it didn't work, or course. My parents, committed to only adding "constructive" communication ignored anything but true concerns about our daughter, which were basically nil. Their eyes started to open to what I was dealing with with those emails, which were of course toned down considerably compared with what I was used to. But they still saw the subterfuge for what it was. I warned them he would still continue send private emails to me, with things he wanted to say that he didn't want them to hear in case they made him look bad, the name calling, the threats. They asked me to forward those as well, which I did. Bi-weekly, as they came in for another year and a half. I told them I was considering a restraining order. My dad gave me the name of a contact he had working with the a domestic violence shelter. I ultimately decided against the restraining order. I sent my parents some of the information and websites I was referred to regarding domestic violence and abuse.
When my daughter had her psychotic break my ex-husband's abuse was the worst it had been in years. Very possibly the worst it had ever been. Partly because of the stress he was under. HIS daughter, as a mirror for him, was NOT mentally ill. He's still in denial about it. Under this extreme stress, I also relaxed my boundaries. I felt bad for him, she had a lot of delusions and paranoia about him. Chris, to give credit where credit is due, did not make the situation worse in her treatment. But as usual, I paid the price for his distress. He became needy and demanding, started making inappropriate comments, inviting me over to his house, getting more and more irate when I refused and tried to set specific boundaries as far as how often we would talk, and what we would talk about. I finally laid out consequences to his irate, drunk phone calls when I didn't answer my phone six times a day, like he expected me to when we were married. I refused to talk to him anymore, and eventually cut off all contact exact email, and only responded to questions about our daughter. He practically became unhinged, and all of this behavior was made worse yet by the fact my boyfriend was in a neuro-rehab facility in California for his brain injury. He was made bold by my bf's absence. For the first time in a while I was really, really scared.
This is when I told my dad, "if I end up dead, you know who did it." THAT got his attention, and I was deadly serious. He said he and my step mom were going to have a talk with him the next time he called (he was calling them a lot around this time-raging about me and how I was sabotaging his relationship with his daughter and begging them to reason with me. His distressed phone calls were not about his daughter, nothing there had changed, he still had the rights to visit her at the hospital, access to all her doctors and medical records-the only change was he didn't have access to me-which was what he wanted. My parents told him, in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. I felt validated, supported, protected.
That is why it shocked me when they causally mentioned a few months later that they were taking him to dinner with my daughter for his birthday. I was horrified and speechless. This was already in the works. Feeling defeated, and weak, I didn't argue. Until it resulted in a barrage of calls, voice mails, texts, and emails the days following the dinner date. I had enough. I called my dad and told him what I was experiencing, and let him know it was incited by the dinner they had taken my abuser to. I told him, in a raised voice I had never used with my father in my life as I paced my bedroom that my ex was not some poor, sad, lonely but good guy, pushed to the depths or despair by losing the wife he loved, he was a abuser who left scars that couldn't be seen instead of ones that could, and that I didn't deserve it, and there is no reason I should have to take it, and that they were making it worse by staying in contact with him, and I was at my absolute whits end with their behavior regarding this. My step mom apologized, my father agreed that it would stop. I had no trust that it would, but I hoped this time it would. I still don't know if they are in contact with him or not. I don't believe they are at this time. I hope not, because next comes the ultimatum, and after that the follow through if necessary, and that would break my heart.
It stems around my sister and her breakup from her boyfriend who "put his hands around her neck" to quote her. Watching the way my family is handing this just stirs up all kinds of feelings in me, mostly anger and frustration. My sister's refusal to talk about it. That's one thing, I mean, some things are hard to talk about, one needs to feel ready to deal with certain things-I get that. But the inherit denial, minimization, and doublespeak of my family is absolutely infuriating to me. It brings up, for me, all the ways in which the atmosphere of my childhood made me more vulnerable to attracting my abuser, and even worse how I was not supported in my divorce from my abuser because of denial, minimization and doublespeak and how it not only re-victimized me, but also gave me abuser more ammunition to abuse me with.
Since I have gotten divorced there is example, after example of how my family mishandled and misunderstood what I was dealing with. The prevailing attitude I encountered from my dad was that he and my step mom didn't want to get involved with my ex-husband and I's arguments. His attitude was that divorce, was by nature contentious, and that I needed to stay rational, and solution oriented, work through these issues the best I could and take the high road. That is my dad's attitude towards problems in general. That one needs to think through which options are beneficial towards the ultimate goal you are trying to reach, and that anything which is an obstacle to that goal must be discarded or you will most likely pay the consequences for that decision. There is nothing inherently wrong with this line of thought-I actually think it has tremendous value. However, this line of thinking has one fatal flaw-it discards the impact of emotions, of justice, of fundamental human motivations and innate concerns. I am a human being, I am not a robot and I cannot make reasonable decisions free from emotions, free from a desire to want what is right, and fair, and just. It also assumes that the person you are dealing with operates from a similar framework, that there is a goal someone is pursuant to in behaving a certain way, and you use the motivations towards that person's goal to influence their behavior.
But my ex-husband's ultimate goal was control. Control over me. And to get it he would try and inflict as much pain as possible, he would try and manipulate, and use our daughter as a pawn, and harass and stalk, and do whatever it took for that ultimate goal. Any engagement with me, was considered, in Chris's (my ex's name is changed in this journal) mind, as him still exerting control over me, and an opportunity for even more control. When one understands that oh-so-difficult concept to wrap our heads around, that another person's every action, every design, EVERYTHING really leads back to the issue of needing to control another person to feel like they are worth anything-everything becomes pretty clear. Even if I said or wrote or responded in any way to my ex, no matter what my response would have been, my ex viewed it as that response was elicited from me because CHRIS wanted it-therefore his attempt for control was successful. Therefore, anything from me at all was reinforcing this idea in his head that he should, could and did control me. Sounds paranoid right? But unfortunately, as I have spent years finding out at great pain and personal cost-also completely true.
Contrary to what my parents or anyone might have thought, his reactions to things were not out of ignorance of the consequences or thoughtlessness, they were not motivated by love for me, or hurt that I left him, or loneliness, or depression, or even hate or lashing out in pain. There was nothing I could have done to make things better, to find solutions, to defuse the situations he created, to help him reach some goal for this behavior, because the only goal he had in mind was control over me, and it was the one thing I absolutely, positively, did not want to tolerate for one more second of my life-or I thought I might truly and permanently lose myself. And not some semblance of control, total and complete control was the only thing that would satisfy him. If he could cause me pain, anger, guilt, defensiveness, shame, self doubt, confusion, any emotional response was control. He pushed a button and I reacted. The more I tried to not let him push buttons, the more I refused to respond, the harder and more ferociously he pushed them until he was full force pounding his fists on them in a desperate furry.
This was not something my dad understands, I don't even think to this day. I think on some distant, intellectual level he knows that I was being severely mistreated. That it was unfair. But I think he utterly believes that the right thing to do, the thing one should be able to do, is just detach from that. Look at the situation like some kind of logic puzzle you can find the right answer to, some equation that has an elusive answer if you just try enough solutions.
However, reality is when someone who is so bent on controlling you at any cost is forcibly inserting themselves into your life it feels like rape. It is terrifying, it is violating, it make you feel completely helpless-like you're caught in an elevator between floors with the possibility of crashing to the ground floor from the 13th story and no one can get to you-and the walls are closing in. I wanted to beg for it to stop, for him to leave me alone, but that was never going to happen. And I had my family, the ones who were supposed to have my back, the ones who was supposed to take care of me and protect me when I was too confused, and hurt and scared to take the best care of myself just left me suspended between floors, trapped in my own hell.
Several times when I tried to describe the difficulty of what I was going through I was told, point-blank, by my father that he didn't want to be involved in this back and forth, the interpersonal problems, he only wanted to be able to add something constructive. He offered me advise on how to communicate better. Educated me on what my options were, in case I was too overwhelmed to think them through on my own. I was completely invalidated. It confirmed for me what Chris had been drilling into my head for years, that I was overreacting to what I perceived as abusive, that it really wasn't that bad. That if I just tried hard enough, did the right things that I could control the outcome of what was happening. That it was somehow my fault that these things were happening because I wasn't comprising enough, compassionate enough, communicating well enough. I was letting me emotions cloud my judgment. That my feelings about what were happening were "wrong." And that I shouldn't have them, I just needed to stuff them away and be logical, think things through, that my own feelings and perceptions couldn't be trusted. I felt so totally alone in my pain. Plagued with self doubt, which made me questions everything about myself, and therefore my ability to handle any situation correctly. It made me hesitate to take action when I was justified in doing so and when it may have benefited me immensely given the actual reality of the situation.
To add insult to injury they continued to talking to him constantly, for years and years. Invited him in at Xmas, accepted gifts from him. They didn't try to hide it exactly, but certainly didn't take into account my obvious discomfort with it. I remember even voicing my concern the fact he pumped them for information. And I know he did because he made sure to mention things that my daughter couldn't even have told him. That the only people he could have gotten that information from was my parents or my sisters. It was no accident that he would mention these little tidbits of information about me, to make sure I knew HE still had a relationship with my family. He could still get information bout me. He still knew what was going on me, regardless of whether or not I wanted him to. My boundaries were useless, they didn't matter in the face of what he wanted.
When we first got divorced he was blatant about telling me they were on his side, these later comments he made were just evidence to that fact. He would tell me that my parents didn't know why I'd left him, and when I'd comment on that to my parents they'd respond that Chris was just being Chris, just twisting things to fit his reality. Totally minimizing this behavior, like it was just a little personality quirk, harmless. He was trying to alienate me from them, but they couldn't see it. When I told them he pumped them for info their response was that they tried to be careful about what they said to him. Again showing a complete disregard for what I was dealing with, and dismissing my concerns. I felt like screaming, "Don't you GET IT? He ruminates on this stuff, anything, even the most insignificant detail is fuel for a very damaging fire, it disallows him from moving on and puts his unhealthy and sick focus back on me! Even if you didn't say ONE WORD about me, YOU are linked inextricably in his mind with ME, you are tools, you are a cue for rage and depression and a desire for control! You are not helping ANYTHING! You are making this a thousand time worse, and allowing this abuse to continue!"
And they were ALL like that, my parents, my sisters, my mother. When Chris and I first were divorced my mother even stayed with my ex when she came out to visit, and NOT with me. How Fucked up is that? I was emailing back and forth with my ex over finalizing my divorce decree when HE informed me about this plan. And of course he did it in a way that was a sure fire attempt at driving another wedge between my family and I, and that they supported poor little him, and not cold-hearted me. He told me that they were not planning on telling me that my mother was going to stay with him and he was telling me because he thought I ought to know. When I called my sister and my mother on it they denied they weren't going to tell me, saying that they just hadn't finalized the decisions making processes yet, and that since my daughter was going to be staying with my ex the week my mother was coming out that that was why the arrangement was being considered. Great way to show support for their daughter/sister, right? I'm not supposed to view that as a lack of support at all, just my imagination yet again, just feelings are that inappropriate and out of place again, clearly. No reason to expect my mother to stay with me 2 months after separating from my spouse and just ask my STBX to switch weeks for me to have my daughter, or for a couple of extra nights in our visitation schedule-that's a pretty crazy thought. Crazy old me again.
Another excuse they loved to use was that they needed to check in on my ex to see what state of mind he was in, to see if he was healthy enough for shared custody of our daughter, or to offer support to keep him from going over the edge so Rachel could maintain a relationship with a healthier father. Total ridiculousness, that they were in a better position to gauge how "healthy" he was by a few hours of interaction with him, him on his best behavior of course, rather than what I was TELLING them he was doing to me, because of course I am just....I don't know stupid, or biased against him, or jaded and vengeful, or too sensitive or emotional or something. What a bunch of crap, really. I felt like I was screaming into a hurricane. Did they really believe that continuing a relationship with him would keep me safer? Keep that social structure going that guides most people's behavior?
Now I did have a part to play at first, for many years I was too messed up in the head from years of abuse to assert myself and what my needs were, to insist on boundaries-if you support him you are not supporting me because of the consequences, to me, of supporting him. My boundary is-you can't have it both ways. Choose. Just a little bit of minimization on their part, of internationalization of the problem and I was triggered right back into the abuse fog again. That fog of self doubt and stuffing down my feelings until they became a hard, tight ball like a bullet lodged in my heart. But as I got stronger, and smarter, I got better at communicating what MY idea of abuse was, and how they could support me. And the bullshit still continued.
At one point my ex started emailing me, and coping my folks. Saying because I was so difficult he wanted all communication to go through my parents because then I things would get resolved instead of me avoiding him. His goal was to get my parents on his side, he thought he could make me look bad in their eyes, humiliate me into phone conversations by airing false accusations and sharing embarrassing details about my life. But it didn't work, or course. My parents, committed to only adding "constructive" communication ignored anything but true concerns about our daughter, which were basically nil. Their eyes started to open to what I was dealing with with those emails, which were of course toned down considerably compared with what I was used to. But they still saw the subterfuge for what it was. I warned them he would still continue send private emails to me, with things he wanted to say that he didn't want them to hear in case they made him look bad, the name calling, the threats. They asked me to forward those as well, which I did. Bi-weekly, as they came in for another year and a half. I told them I was considering a restraining order. My dad gave me the name of a contact he had working with the a domestic violence shelter. I ultimately decided against the restraining order. I sent my parents some of the information and websites I was referred to regarding domestic violence and abuse.
When my daughter had her psychotic break my ex-husband's abuse was the worst it had been in years. Very possibly the worst it had ever been. Partly because of the stress he was under. HIS daughter, as a mirror for him, was NOT mentally ill. He's still in denial about it. Under this extreme stress, I also relaxed my boundaries. I felt bad for him, she had a lot of delusions and paranoia about him. Chris, to give credit where credit is due, did not make the situation worse in her treatment. But as usual, I paid the price for his distress. He became needy and demanding, started making inappropriate comments, inviting me over to his house, getting more and more irate when I refused and tried to set specific boundaries as far as how often we would talk, and what we would talk about. I finally laid out consequences to his irate, drunk phone calls when I didn't answer my phone six times a day, like he expected me to when we were married. I refused to talk to him anymore, and eventually cut off all contact exact email, and only responded to questions about our daughter. He practically became unhinged, and all of this behavior was made worse yet by the fact my boyfriend was in a neuro-rehab facility in California for his brain injury. He was made bold by my bf's absence. For the first time in a while I was really, really scared.
This is when I told my dad, "if I end up dead, you know who did it." THAT got his attention, and I was deadly serious. He said he and my step mom were going to have a talk with him the next time he called (he was calling them a lot around this time-raging about me and how I was sabotaging his relationship with his daughter and begging them to reason with me. His distressed phone calls were not about his daughter, nothing there had changed, he still had the rights to visit her at the hospital, access to all her doctors and medical records-the only change was he didn't have access to me-which was what he wanted. My parents told him, in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. I felt validated, supported, protected.
That is why it shocked me when they causally mentioned a few months later that they were taking him to dinner with my daughter for his birthday. I was horrified and speechless. This was already in the works. Feeling defeated, and weak, I didn't argue. Until it resulted in a barrage of calls, voice mails, texts, and emails the days following the dinner date. I had enough. I called my dad and told him what I was experiencing, and let him know it was incited by the dinner they had taken my abuser to. I told him, in a raised voice I had never used with my father in my life as I paced my bedroom that my ex was not some poor, sad, lonely but good guy, pushed to the depths or despair by losing the wife he loved, he was a abuser who left scars that couldn't be seen instead of ones that could, and that I didn't deserve it, and there is no reason I should have to take it, and that they were making it worse by staying in contact with him, and I was at my absolute whits end with their behavior regarding this. My step mom apologized, my father agreed that it would stop. I had no trust that it would, but I hoped this time it would. I still don't know if they are in contact with him or not. I don't believe they are at this time. I hope not, because next comes the ultimatum, and after that the follow through if necessary, and that would break my heart.
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