I've come so far. 7 years ago, I took my daughters and left my 9 year marriage to a narcissistic and emotionally abusive man. It’s been a long journey – 10 years since I first went to my doctor for help, and only the past couple of years when I learned more about the concepts of the inner critic, self-talk, CBT that I’ve actually made any progress. The past year, working with this program, I’ve been able to identify core beliefs that I didn’t even realize I held, and I’m finally beginning to be able to change the thoughts and behaviours that are creating and keeping me in this depression.
I still have to interact with my ex because of our children. He takes them every other weekend, and they adore him. We are civil, and I’ve been good at not bad-mouthing him in front of the girls, though I’ve kept an eye out for negative impacts that he may be having on them. For example, when my slim eldest daughter started saying that she was fat, I managed to pull from her that her father had been teasing her about having a “belly”, so I had a careful conversation with her about how her dad, as wonderful as he is, has a tendency to criticize others for things that he dislikes about himself. We talked about this being his issue and nothing to do with her, so she had every right to throw these little “jokes” right back at him.
There have been a few instances like this with both girls, and I’ve chosen to address them by equipping the girls with ways to deal rather than to address it directly with him, as he doesn’t see anything wrong with his behaviour. I don’t know if that’s a cop-out on my part, but the power of emotional abuse is that it really just comes down to my word against his, and I don’t suppose that I would have suffered as I did if I were able to confront him effectively.
Things had been going pretty well – the girls are wonderful, happy, confident, and doing well in school and friendships. My younger one less so, perhaps, than my older daughter, but they’re 12 and 14 – sensitive times and a challenge to the confidence of even the most well-adjusted kids. But when their father came to pick them up for his week of the holidays a few days ago, my younger daughter was beside herself because she wasn’t ready when he arrived. She couldn’t find a pair of jeans that I’d just brought up from the laundry that morning, and she was literally tearing her room apart and sobbing that her dad was going to be so angry with her.
I was transported back 10 years. Although I helped my daughter find the jeans (her sister had packed them by mistake), calmed her, and saw them both off with my love, I’m not recovering very well. He’s hurting them, and I don’t know how to stop it. The memories and feelings came flooding back over me – the desolation of when I’d finally run out of excuses for his behaviour. My next step then was to confront him and enter into 2 years of conflict and misery before finally ending the marriage. I don’t know what my next steps are now – I feel my daughter’s pain so strongly, and feel as though I’ve failed them. I’m the grown-up, and I’m supposed to protect them.
Ok, if I put on what I have learned, I suppose that I’m catastrophizing. I’m forgetting all the good things that I’ve done – all the work I’ve done to prepare my children to deal with their father. This is a problem, not a catastrophe, and I can problem-solve my way through it. One of those problems were there is no absolute right answer, and I’m just going to have to trust my instinct.
The problem is that I don’t trust my instinct here. Supposedly, children do best when they have access to both parents, but because of my experience with him, I don’t believe that he is good for them. I’m going back and forth and in the meantime am sinking down into my depression again. He’s such a horrible person, but I have nothing to prove it. My daughters are suffering and I can’t help them.