So, it has been a very long time since I have had to communicate with my abusive ex. Do I miss it? Nope, not one tiny little bit. It is still difficult navigating the relationship with my daughter since she still lives in his house and he is still very controlling. To my daughter, she may believe his being controlling is a form of love. Hopefully she will learn one day that control is not love.
I sent my ex-husband a brief email on December 16, 2018 that simply said:
“Our daughter is not allowed to come to my city?”
He never responded and I didn’t expect him to respond. Suddenly, my daughter was allowed to visit our city. So my daughter came to visit one day and said her father mentioned that he received an email from me. I said, “Oh, he got my email.” She went on to describe what he said to her, “He said that I was not allowed to drive “his” car to my city.” Them my husband asks, “Did you drive your dad’s car here?” So my daughter’s car is not her car, it is my ex’s car. It doesn’t even sound like there is a plan on how the car could become our daughters.
On one hand, I get this because we own the car our daughter drives. However, we do not refer to it as our car, because we think of it as her car. Now, we have a payment plan set up with her in order for her to purchase the title. She is also paying about 25% of what we paid for the vehicle. I believe people take better care of things when there is skin in the game. Obviously whoever owns the car title is the true owner.
Remembering back to living with my ex-husband. He was the bread winner and paid for the vehicles and house payment. So, whenever he was happy with me it was “our house” and “our car”. However, whenever he was pissed then it was “his house” and “his car” that he pays for. Again, this is simply all about control.
My father gave me a car when I was seventeen. He did not tell my mother he was buying me a vehicle and just showed up one day with the car. Then of course I was an a-hole teenager who felt it was “my car” and she couldn’t ground me from “my car”. Looking back I realize how inconsiderate this was by my father. He didn’t discuss it with my mother who was the primary parent. My father was not just trying to do a nice thing… he was being controlling.
Is This Abusive 
It’s is amazing how much your ex sounds just like my ex. Thank you for these blogs I don’t feel quite so “isolated” in my experience after reading yours. And you found a caring supportive partner. Nice to see that is possible. I’m rediscovering myself and learning to love “me” and thereby model self love and self respect to my children. Thank you again for sharing.
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In the book “Why Does He Do That” he describes how it is like they came from the same school of abuse. They do tend to the the exact same things.
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