Since 2010, I have been writing in this blog and posting experiences. Oftentimes I forget how dysfunctional these experiences were at the time. Time has a away of softening things and making you remember the story in a less crazy light.
My post Accepting the Painful Reality was one of the ones that really stuck out. Rereading those texts from my daughter didn’t even sound like her. Even the way it was written, perfect sentences, punctuation, and specific words did not sound like my daughter. Perhaps she was having someone help her write the perfect respond. May someday she will share what in the world her father and his wife were saying about me.
A few weeks ago, my daughter posted a picture on Instagram. She mentioned that she was no good at captions. Many times I will say something like how beautiful she is inside an out. This time I decided to caption “I got all this from my mama ;)”. It was a lighthearted comment. She does look a lot like me, but I always tell her she also has her own unique look.
So her stepmother actually comments to me “hahaha” publicly on my daughter’s feed. Honestly I was very surprised how brazen she was in making that public comment. My experiences with my ex-husband’s wife have never been positive. She has never said a kind word once over all these years. However, I was angry after getting the notification from Instagram that she commented to me on this post.
Clearly this was a passive aggressive comment that was meant to get a rise out of me. I did not take the bait, good for me! After all, this women has never met me in person. I think we talked on the phone once. She hates me because I am her husband’s ex-wife. She hates me because of whatever he says about me. He is not a honest or nice person. My experience with him was he was a cheater, liar, drinker, gambler, sports-a-holic, verbally abusive, work-aholic, and worse suspected paedophile. He is pissed at me because… what… I left all that?
My husband and I talked it over and he said, “It is really sad. She will never have what you have. She will never be her mother. She will never have kids of her own now. You are above that. Don’t even give it a second thought.” My other good friend said, “She wishes she could be your daughter’s mom.”
One of the members of my NPD group said there was a simply answer for her comment, “She is threatened by you.” Although I cannot guess how anything could be threatening to my ex-husbands wife at this point. She must know I have zero interest in my ex-husband. His behavior is so bad that I have had to go no contact with him.
Of course, I have to discuss this with my closest friend and she was angry. Her initial thought was there must be a good way to respond to that. However, I decided that the best way to deal with her was to block her on Instagram. I had no idea that you could block someone you were not connected with and now she cannot see my posts or profile. As an added bonus, I cannot see any of her comments either. Win win!
So yesterday, I met my daughter for coffee after she got off work. Side note, I am so happy she is working and starting to gain that independence. She really needs that. I asked if she had seen the comment her stepmother made to me on her feed. I added that I realize you live there and cannot say much. She said she did see the comment and tried to give her stepmother the benefit of the doubt. However, she worried that I might comment back and how that might escalate. I told her that I had given her the benefit of the doubt too, but that she really has never said a kind word to me in all these years. That I just ended up blocking her and that solves the problem.
Anyway, it was another good visit with my daughter. She mentioned that she found the Eiffel Tower necklace my husband had bought her and cleaned it off. She also showed me a picture of her stepsister and her together. Perhaps she is feeling a little nostalgic. She has not stepped foot in this house since she left a year and a half ago.
Her room looks very much like the day she left, but much cleaner. The bedspread and curtains are different. I know that it is probably time to make it a guest room, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to convert it. It seems like there would be wash of emotions. It makes me a little sad to go in there. My mother even mentioned that it made her feel a little sad during this last visit.
This has all been quite a struggle to deal with emotionally. My daughter is still not allowed to visit the city where I live, “It is forbidden.” He says it is because he is grounding her from a friend. However, she is nineteen and has been “grounded” from coming to my area of town for 2 months.
Someday, I expect my daughter will put all these memories together and it may hurt. One day she may realize how much she was being manipulated here and that maybe her mom wasn’t the problem. It is really horrible when parents pit a child against the other parent. This was my ex-husband’s personal war and all of us were casualties of that war. So pointless and unnecessary. My mother said today that a good father would encourage a daughter to visit her mother. Instead he makes up rules to prevent it.
Is This Abusive 
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