Abuse and Co-Parenting – Using Our Daughter as the Pawn for Abusive Games
My abusive ex-husband is still playing games and is using our daughter as his pawn. It is so unfair and I know any attempt I make to reason with him will only make things worse, not better. In fact, if I let him know in any way that his words are getting back to me it will only cause him to do it more to our daughter.
My daughter said, “Daddy said when you two were married he took care of me and did all the cleaning while you spent all your time on the computer.”
What I cannot figure out is if my ex-husband is delusional or if he actually believes that is the truth. I have years of journal entries where I vented my frustration about how he hardly ever came home, was out drinking and spending money we did not have. The only time he was home more was during the last 8 months of our marriage when he was supposedly trying to make our marriage work. The irony about that situation was I actually believed he was trying and thought we just might have had a chance. I believed our marriage just might make it until I found out all the lies.
Abuser Lies About Our Past
During the last few months of our relationship he was doing some pretty sneaky things. He had a secret bank account hidden from me and had $1000 a month going into that account without my knowledge. He also signed my name on our income tax return for $8000 and hid it in that same bank account. When I asked him about the tax return he continued to lie to me about it for three months saying it should arrive by check but our CPA said it could take several months. He had also promised to cancel the Country Club membership that he signed up for (without my permission) when he had actually just ‘frozen’ the account temporarily. To top this all off he was also continuing to talk to the same women that was ‘just one of the guys’ not someone he was having an affair with.
Our daughter also said, “Daddy says that the first marriage you have doesn’t count because that is just ‘practice marriage’.
What in the hell is he thinking telling her something like that. The good thing is we responded by telling her to take her time before she gets married and really get to know that person well.
Co-Parenting Challenges with Abusive Ex-Husbands New Wife
You may also remember my telling the story about his wife and the stunt she pulled at our daughter school called What a Tangled Web they Weave. This was the beginning of the story about how my ex-husbands girlfriend transferred to my daughter’s school in her 3rd grade year. The school pretty much gave her full parenting rights and actually told me, “She has all the same rights you do.” What?!? The school actually and trumped me with his girlfriend as my daughter’s primary parent. No matter what I said to the school they continuously attempted to justify their inappropriate behavior. The school should have been the neutral and safe environment for our daughter. Who knows what my ex-husband’s wife must have told the school because things were pretty normal before that. We moved to a new house two years ago located in another school district. We have not had any problems at school since.
So his wife tells our daughter, “Your mom tried to get me fired from school.” Well I did not but I sure wish I could have gotten all involved fired; principal, teacher and ex-husband’s assistant teacher wife.
Anyway, these types of comments continue to come back almost every time she goes. If our daughter asks for a cookie, they tell her, “You are not at your house with ‘The Food Police”, you can eat whatever you like at our house.” It is funny because I do not feel our house is overly strict in how we parent. If you compare our household to theirs it is literally the exact opposite. So comparing a house with ‘normal rules’ to a house with ‘no rule’s would seem extreme.
Really sick behavior. Really unfortunate that our daughter is put in the middle. There is no reason for her to be in the middle of any of or past. When she is an adult and asks I will decide at that point what to tell her. The only motivation I could see for telling her the truth would be to help prevent her from marrying an abuser.
Is This Abusive 
This is my life. I hurt because me daughter gets caught in the middle also. My x verbally abuses our daughter, he just denies it, I have no proof other than her words, her tears and her self esteem issues. Why can’t it be as simple as we are divorced because we don’t get along, but get along with your child and be good to your child. I hate hearing from the therapist, “your daughter will need a lot of therapy in the future.”
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Hi 3mommy3,
I completely understand. When it comes to my daughter I realize I have taught her many lessons in life in dealing with my ex-husbands behavior. What my daughter deals with is Passive Aggressive and Manipulative behavior.
For example, he does not tell her I am a mean mother, well not in those exact words. He tells her “Your mother will get mad at you when you get home.” or “Don’t do that honey, you will get in trouble with your mom when you get home.” or “Your mother is always overreacting to everything.” “You can eat anything here honey, we don’t have the food police in this house.”
When she was really young and came back from a visit she was actually scared of me because of something he said. It took me the longest time to figure out what he was doing because he never really said it.
It has been really challenging to raise my daughter with his constant attacks against me through her. I know she will turn out okay but at what cost to her as a child. It is truly frustrating that I cannot protect her from this.
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