I haven’t written a domestic violence blog in a long time, but despite the fact that our divorce papers have been signed, the abuse has renewed. This time in the form of manipulating my daughter. He knows that I would do anything for her if I could. She’s 14 now, and not the happiest camper about moving to Florida, away from her friends in East Texas. And despite the fact that he didn’t even call her for her birthday this year, he has promised her that if she came to live with him, he could give her what I can’t (at the moment), a place back in Longview. Even though he doesn’t work there, and can’t sign a lease due to his drug felony.

There’s a clause written on our custody issue that says the three of us, my ex, my daughter, and I, can sign a paper at some point in the future agreeing to dismiss supervised visitations and submit it to the court, which he agreed to when he signed the divorce papers. I have not seen any change in his dangerous behavior, and I am not willing to sign anything of the sort at this time. However, he took it upon himself to misread the papers, saying that the “parties” referred to in that paragraph were him, my daughter, and his parents who are listed as the supervising parties. (For the record, he did not have a lawyer at our court date.) I still have yet to see this paper. So even though the county has an “agreement” on file, according to my lawyer, it wouldn’t hold up since I never signed it.

And that’s where it started again. He told my daughter to tell me that if I didn’t open a “civilized” line of communication with him about removing the supervision, he would report me to CPS for child abuse. He sent a text to me himself saying he knows I hit my daughter and I don’t want the consequences for not cooperating with him. He had his SIL call and leave a message warning me that Florida will take a child first and ask questions later, and that I didn’t want to make him mad like this. I have only responded to Amy, who I continue to talk to and text, even though she is staying with her grandparents right now. My response to her was, it can’t be civilized if it begins with a threat.

So last Thursday, I spent an hour talking with a CPS investigator, crying through half of the discussion. It was incredibly painful to hear the allegations, and to have to rehash the reasons for our divorce and the supervision in the first place. I was accused of slapping my children around on a regular basis, as this is my preferred method of discipline, and I do it also when I’m stressed, which is often. I was accused of medical neglect, and of pulling my children out of school to pretend to homeschool them, so that I could move to Florida to be with a man I met online.

When the investigator left, she suggested that I probably should get go back to counseling. The thing is, I was ok for a long time. He was leaving me alone. I’ve just become his target again, perhaps because he broke up with his girlfriend, or perhaps because he’s honed in on my weakness again, that I’m not working and feel like I’m not providing enough for my children.

I’ll wrap this up with another link, one that I wanted to share with my daughter, especially the part on consistency. She wants to believe that he’s changed, that he can be the father everyone else would like him to be. And it’s very hard to break her heart and to try to convince her why he’s acting the way he is now.

From The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics

“…in the context of domestic violence, the following factors should be taken into account, based on our experience: a) Batterers who disappear from their children’s lives tend to be high in selfishness and self-centeredness, with resultant increased risk to damage mother-child relationships (as in the case example that opened this chapter); b) Batterers who are inconsistent parents tend to remain so, and thus the children may grow close to him only to lose him again, setting back their healing process; and, c) Granting extended visitation privileges to a batterer following a disappearance can reinforce his belief that he will not be held to a reasonable standard of parental responsibility. “

Peace

My blog will be silent for a while, and then will be relocating, due to the fact that my abuser spent a great deal of time the other night reading through.  I will not be silenced, but my words are my therapy.  I apologize to my readers, and wish you all safety and healing.

pav

Some of you have been asking if there’s been any change in my legal situation lately. To put it short – no. To put it long, the man I’ve been separated from for 5 years now is still avoiding being served. And this continues to prevent me from moving back to Florida, “home,” as a friend put it, and back to the man I love.

Some of you know my love story, but there are still times I want to shout it from the rooftops how happy I am that my love came looking for me twenty years after we broke up the first time. My parents tried their hardest to keep him from me, and even though I won’t say that’s why we broke up, it certainly didn’t provide any incentive for us to try to stay together. Besides, I know that we wouldn’t be together today if we would have stayed together then. I feel now I can balance my grown-up responsibilities with the nearly overwhelming urge to spend every moment in his arms.

Today, there is someone else who seems to feel as entitled to run my life as they did, keeping us apart. When this person seems to lack the most control over his own life, he reaches out to try to control mine, like the dog he kicks when he’s had a bad day. And although I removed myself from his physical grasp five years ago, because we conceived a child together, I’m still legally tethered to him. He is the only reason I am not back in Florida this very moment.

I have gotten very depressed at the situation recently, but pulled myself back up. I’ve also contemplated a few bizarre schemes to try to move to Florida with my children before I actually make it to court one of these days. But I’m ok. He can keep me from him for now, but I won’t let the sadness my ex is trying to create overshadow the joy I get thinking of holding my lover’s hand, which seems to light up the world around me. The smile I get just hearing his voice, his laugh.

And baby, just know that you are so worth the wait.

My favorite instructor and coworker just passed away. He had sent out an email Monday that he had a mild heart attack this weekend and was being transferred to another hospital for some tests. That he looked forward to being back at work as soon as possible. I had answered his email telling him to rest and get better, and sent him our Christmas picture, since he was crazy about the kids. He was the one that always brought flowers for my desk each time he was in town. My boss just called a few minutes ago and said there was a complication to his open heart surgery and he didn’t make it.

I had told him in my response that it’s odd how we take our health for granted sometimes. I don’t know if he got to read my reply. In his email he told us that this was nothing to do with his workload, just his attitude since his last heart attack nine years ago of, “If it isn’t fun, Don’t Do It!” I looked to him as a father figure, and a wonderfully funny, very caring friend.

Frank, you will be missed tremendously.

From an article on Batterers Intervention, on the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence website:

What’s Going On With Batterers?
It is important to know and point out to batterers that most men do not abuse their partners and their children. Dr. David Adams, a batterer’s counselor in Boston for over twenty years, estimates that about eighty percent of batterers grew up in a home in which they watched their father beat their mother. Therefore, they likely have the skewed notion that most, if not all, men use violence to control their families. A former abuser, now batterer’s intervention program director Hamish Sinclair likes to tell the men in his groups, “Real men do not abuse their partners and children.” Dr. David Adams reports that while there exists a range of behaviors among batterers, most share similar beliefs and traits. The following represents some of those common characteristics Dr. Adams has found in two decades of running batterers’ intervention programs.

• Public vs. Private Behavior: Many batterers work hard to create the public image of being the concerned, decent “family man.” Often nobody else has seen the violent, controlling side of him, resulting in victims being accused of exaggerating or lying about the abuse.
• Abusing Power, Control and Manipulation: The batterer’s goal is to achieve power and control over his victim. Domestic violence is not simply random, isolated acts of violence. Rather, Dr. Adams tells us, it is “a planned pattern of coercive control that includes verbal abuse, threats, psychological manipulation, sexual coercion, and control over economic resources.” The batterer’s incessant criticism and allegations of infidelity ravage the victim’s self-esteem, keeping her on the defensive and isolated from her family, friends and co-workers. Part of the manipulation is to keep changing the list of rules and demands the victim must meet to avoid abuse.
• Projecting Blame: One of the most widespread forms of batterer manipulation is to blame the victim for his abuse. Similar to alcoholics, the batterer portrays himself as the victim, arguing that she “drove me to it,” “pushes my buttons,” or “provoked me.” Frequently, outsiders are then deceived into focusing on the victim’s actions. This does the batterer no favor; for in failing to hold him accountable, he has no means to analyze options to the violence.
• Claiming Loss of Control: For some time mental health professionals believed that most batterers suffered from poor impulse control. Thus, when batterers said, “Well, I just lost it!,” most of us believed them. Dr. David Adams and other reputable batterer experts now report that less than five to ten percent of batterers have poor impulse control or an anger problem; rather it is, as mentioned above, a planned pattern of coercive control. Most men who batter their partners and children do not exhibit “generalized violence.” They do not assault the police officer who gives them a speeding ticket or their boss who yells at them for being late to work. Clearly, many batterers believe there will not be sanctions for partner violence. For those batterers who do exhibit generalized violence, extra caution should be taken, as they tend to be more dangerous to their families and law enforcement officers.
• Claiming a Problem with Anger: Similar to the excuse of poor impulse control, many abusers allege difficulty controlling their anger. However, Dr. David Adams asserts that only a small minority of batterers, he estimates five to seven percent, cannot control their anger. We have learned this from listening to batterers as they explain their abuse. For example, one batterer said that he puts the children in the next room before assaulting his wife, to prevent them from witnessing the abuse. Another abuser reported taking off all his rings “so I wouldn’t hurt her too bad.” Dr. Adams tells us that such explanations are typical of abusers. This planned behavior constitutes pre-meditation in West Virginia and every other state, and obviously does not indicate someone whose anger is uncontrollable.
• Attributing to Substance Abuse: Dr. Murray Strauss, in his article “Alcohol Abuse and Family Violence,” reports that in spite of the high correlation between domestic violence and alcohol/ drug abuse, experts agree that such substances do not cause the violence. Doctors Strauss and Adams say that the alcohol or drugs may function as disinhibitors and a convenient excuse, but batterers who abuse substances have two separate problems for which they should receive treatment, education and be held accountable.
• Minimizing and Denying the Abuse: Batterers’ education specialists report that few batterers, even the most brutal, consider themselves as such, and will, invariably, under-report or deny their abuse. Researchers Scinovacz, Browning and Dutton found that even when directly questioned by law enforcement, judges or therapists, most batterers simply lied about the abuse, with some attempting to rationalize it. Dr. David Adams reports that, when prodded, the majority of batterers will minimize their actions with comments such as “I only gave her a little shove,” when, in fact, he pushed the victim down a flight of stairs. Batterers typically consider even serious abuse (punching, choking, beating up) as self-defense, when it is clearly retaliation for the victim’s failure to do what the batterer wanted. Often, even severe batterers express shock when arrested, for it has not registered that their violence constitutes a crime.
• Failure to Take Responsibility for Own Actions: Most batterers blame outside forces for their violent behavior; the victim’s “mouthiness” for example, alcohol or a bad day at work.
• External Motivation: Dr. David Adams and other experts have found that most batterers are externally motivated. That is, they care very much what others, particularly men, think of them. When men in our communities are willing to stand up and say, “Real men don’t beat their partners and their children,” abusers can get the message that their behavior is closer to that of an immature bully and coward.

(This was clipped outside the door when I got home yesterday after work. My sweetheart’s name is initialed, and her full signature is removed for privacy.)

Mom,

I know I haven’t been the best daughter in the world.  I’m sorry for treating you that way.  We were told to write a five sentence note on thankfullness to our parents, but you do more than five sentences can cover.

You go to great lengths for us.  Even though it bugs me, you try so hard to let me know how important school and chores are.  You really do seem to know what’s best for me, even if I don’t myself know.  You listen to me, you pay attention.  I love sitting on the couch and watching the news with you, or doing yoga.

You give such great advice!  Some of the hardest times in my life you’ve helped me through.  Even the little things like buying Beefy Mac every night I seem to take for granted. 

You deserve happines.  I promise I’ll try harder to show you that.  I know you want to be with R and I’m thankful you’re waiting until school is over.

You make me feel safe.  You sleep by the door.  In the middle of the night when I hear a noise I worry if there’s a burgler in the house, I remember that the noise would have woken you up and then I feel fine.

You help me remember I can do anything.  You’re a living example that I don’t need anyone to take care of me to be successful.  I admire you as a single mother and as my mother.

I love you 27.

I’ve tried for the most part to keep my political views to myself, as it has the potential to cause large fights.  However, I have to say now that I’m disappointed at those around me, including the media, that ignore the fact that our new president is as much white as he is black.  I know that it shouldn’t be an issue at all, and each time I read about the historical significance of electing our first “black” president, I cringe inside that there are still people that can’t see past a person’s skin tone.  It should be insignificant in today’s America. 

Yes, I’m not naive and do understand that there was a point in our country’s history where regardless of his intelligence and political standpoint, he wouldn’t have even made it to the ballot to begin with.  And I do find it fascinating to contemplate what effect the internet has played in this election, in this time of blogging, emails, and online social networks, hearing the message louder than seeing the face.  In all this, though, I am still saddened by the fact that some Americans still vote based off of racial prejudices, made all the more evident by the fact that the Longview News-Journal front page online does not show Obama at all, instead choosing to run a picture of a light-skinned Republican sherriff. 

And there it is.  *Shrug*

If you were wondering, that’s what the top of the blog says this month, in honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month. 

I am not ashamed.  He will not make me hide the truth.

I have been away from him for nearly five years now, and thanks to the distance, the incidences of panic on my part and attempted control on his are fewer, though some are almost as painful as the physical injuries. 

I am worthy of love.  That’s been a hard one, and there are days that I still don’t feel it like a “normal” woman.  There are shades of paranoia in my relationship now that I can only attribute to the years of exposure to my abuser’s manipulations.

My sweetheart flew from Florida to see me last week.  I can’t remember a time I’ve been so happy.  My children like him, and the world was so much more colorful holding his hand.  And Saturday night, we did something to honor the trip.  He had two new amazing tattoos done, and I had one very special one.  I knew I wanted something to mark this milestone in my life, how far I’ve come from what I was, and how happy I am to see a possible future without fear.  I decided on an awareness ribbon, but not really. 

Instead of a typical ribbon, I wanted something girly.  I wanted pretty.  So on my right hip, where I have continual pain as a result of both RA and violence, I have a new bow instead.  Think of the ribbon, and then tie up the loose ends.  That’s where I am.

Peace, pav

Understanding the Batterer in Visitation & Custody Disputes

This link has taken me hours to get through.  I’ll start to read and something will hit to close, so I’ll end up going back to something else.  There are a couple quotes I wanted to specifically share here, but I would like to encourage my readers to please visit the link.  (Bolding is editorial – pav)

A significant proportion of batterers required to attend counseling because of a criminal conviction have been violent only one to five times in the history of their relationship, even by the victim’s account. Nonetheless, the victims in these cases report that the violence has had serious effects on them and on their children, and that the accompanying pattern of controlling and disrespectful behaviors are serving to deny the rights of family members and are causing trauma.

 Because of the distorted perceptions that the abuser has of rights and responsibilities in relationships, he considers himself to be the victim. Acts of self-defense on the part of the battered woman or the children, or efforts they make to stand up for their rights, he defines as aggression against him.

Those abusers who accept the end of the relationship can still be dangerous to their victims and children, because of their determination to maintain control over their children and to punish their victims for perceived transgressions.

After a break-up, the abuser sometimes becomes quickly involved with a new partner whom he treats relatively well. Abusers are not out of control, and therefore can be on “good” behavior for extended periods of time – even a year or two – if they consider it in their best interest to do so. The new partner may insist, based on her experience with him, that the man is wonderful to her, and that any problems reported from the previous relationship must have been fabricated, or must result from bad relationship dynamics for which the two parents are mutually responsible. The abuser can thus use his new partner to create the impression that he is not a risk.

He will often admit to some milder acts of violence, such as shoving or throwing things, in order to increase his own credibility and create the impression that the victim is exaggerating. He may discuss errors he has made in the past and emphasize the efforts he is making to change, in order to make his partner seem vindictive and unwilling to let go of the past.

He commonly accuses her of having mental health problems, and may state that her family and friends agree with him. (I got this only a few weeks ago, in an email my ex sent to my current boyfriend.  Quoted: “Nobody that meets me hates me and my whole family is dying for a shot to testify about Toni. She wants me to take drug tests and stuff? How about she takes some pysch evals? I mean really. She has many people on this side who will testify to behavior that calls into question her stability.” ) The two most common negative characterizations he will use are that she is hysterical and that she is promiscuous. The abuser tends to be comfortable lying, having years of practice, and so can sound believable when making baseless statements.

Mediators and GAL’s tend to have a bias in favor of communication, believing that the more the two parents speak to each other, the better things will go for the children. In domestic violence cases the truth is often the opposite, as the abuser uses communication to intimidate or psychologically abuse, and to keep pressuring the victim for a reunion. Victims who refuse to have any contact with their abusers may be doing the best thing both for themselves and for their children, but the evaluator may then characterize her as being the one who won’t let go of the past or who can’t focus on what is good for the children. This superficial analysis works to the batterers advantage.

Where persuasive evidence of a history of domestic abuse is present, risk to the children from unsupervised visitation can be best assessed by examining:

• the abuser’s history of directly abusive or irresponsible behavior towards the children
• his level of psychological cruelty towards the victim
• his level of willingness to hurt the children as a deliberate or incidental aspect of hurting the mother (such as throwing things at her with the children nearby, being mean or deliberately risk-taking to the children when angry at her, failing to pay child support that he has resources for)
• his level of manipulativeness towards family members
• his level of selfishness and self-centeredness towards family members, including expectations that the children should meet his needs
• whether he has been violent or physically frightening in front of the children
• whether he has been verbally degrading to his partner in front of the children
• the severity or frequency of his physical violence and threats, including threats to hurt himself
• his history of sexual assaults against the mother, which are linked to increased risk of sexual abuse of the children and increased physical danger
• his history of boundary violations towards the children
• his substance abuse history
• the level of coercive control he exercises over his partner and children
• his level of entitlement (attitude that his violence was justified, expectation that his needs should always be catered to, seeing the children as personal possessions)
• the extent of his past under-involvement with the children (e.g. failing to know basic information such as the child’s birth date, names of pediatricians or school teachers, or basic routines of the children’s daily care)
• his level of refusal to accept the end of the relationship
• his level of refusal to accept mother’s new partner being in the children’s lives
• his level of refusal to accept responsibility for past abusive actions (including continued insistence that relationship was more or less equally and mutually destructive, continued insistence that his violence was provoked, continued minimization)
• his level of escalation
• his level of inability to put the children’s needs ahead of his own and to leave them out of conflicts with his partner
• the ages and genders of the children (younger children may be more vulnerable to physical or psychological abuse, female children are at somewhat higher risk for sexual abuse)

It sometimes feels like a losing battle convincing members of my ex’s family that what I experienced was/is real. When the judge asked me four and a half years ago if I thought there was a family member suitable to supervise his visitations with my daughter, I named his brother in Houston. At the time, my ex was listed as living with them, and my ILs were working out of the country. The stipulation in the orders says either his brother or a party I deem fit supervise his visitations at all times.  I was and still am willing to drive my children four hours away for a safe visit, but as I’ve stated in other entries, my ex hasn’t yet requested a visit.  And when his parents returned to the states, I believe I only told them no one time for a visit, and that was because we already had company in the house that weekend.  They will ask for the kids, and occasionally my ex will drop by while they are there. 

As we seem to get closer to actually going to court to get divorced, I realize it’s inevitable that visitation and support issues will be examined. It looks like he’s aware of that fact himself, because I recently started receiving a child support payment from him more months than not. And now that my daughter is a teenager, more aware of a dangerous situation, I’m more comfortable on her ability to call him out on his behavior as she’s done a few times recently, though not with good results.

What’s interesting is that I’ve haven’t met another woman in quite my situation before. Those I’ve met that have experience domestic abuse in the past seem to be far enough away from it and their abuser now that they can in fact tell me that it does get better. But I haven’t actually met anyone who’s abuser is still trying to reach out and control them. So I went a’searching to try to find others’ stories about supervised visitation, coming up with this gem I thought I would share.  I’ve seen and heard many of these examples for myself in dealing with my ex, up to the point that even now, in one of his latest emails and blog entries, he’s saying he is planning on moving to a tiny town a few miles from me to volunteer for their fire department,  despite the fact that he’s currently living in a nice house of his parents in Fort Worth and making decent money in the oil fields.  His reasoning being he would be closer to his daughter, even though he would still have to drive back that way to his parents home to actually see her. Just another example of his attempt to manipulate me, this time as stalking.

From The Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse:

While the assumption has been that the level of violence will be reduced or eliminated if supervised visitation is ordered in domestic violence cases, practitioners report that batterers exhibit similar behaviorial patterns while utilizing supervised visitation services.

Staff of the Clearinghouse on Supervised Visitation collected examples of behaviors commonly displayed by alleged batterers who were referred to supervised visitation programs in Florida in 2001. As the examples in the following table indicate, the same behaviors of batterers described in the literature, are observed in supervised visitation programs.

Table 1. Common Behaviors of Batterers Seen at Supervised Visitation Programs