If you've lived with a manipulator, aggressor, or
otherwise toxic partner in a relationship where children were born, know that
getting rid of his toxic influence won't be easy. It's great if you can end the
relationship to save yourself and your children, but it's important to realize
that it won't be simple.
A toxic person won't let you live your life. They feel
intense anger that you've left them, and if you've found the strength to leave
with your children, be aware that they will use all their weapons to continue
making your life hell. If threats of suicide, convincing your parents or mutual
friends to persuade you to come back "for the sake of the children because
they need a father," etc., don't work, then a cruel battle for the
children comes into play. For the manipulator, it's not so much about the
children as it is about continuing to destroy you through them.
The easiest way for them to try to win the children's
attention is by buying gifts. If you're on maternity or parental leave and
don't have extra money, and he's working, it's easiest for him to shower the
children with gifts to make you feel like he's in control again.
If you end up in court dealing with custody arrangements,
you'll be painted as the villain for breaking up the family, leaving your
husband, and also the father who loves his children. No one will care about how
he treated you unless you addressed physical assault earlier with doctors and
police reports. If you were afraid and didn't have the courage to address it
earlier, child protective services and the court likely won't believe you. The
man will likely hire an expensive lawyer, and you'll be left pulling the
shorter end of the stick.
One thing is custody arrangements, where often the needs
of the children are overlooked in favor of the father's interests. If the
father is interested, he often gets the child frequently, and if not? It
doesn't matter, the court still respects that.
An aggressive manipulator can spend a lot of time with
the children, using that time to turn them against you. He may force the
children to misbehave towards you, not obey, and under various threats, the
frightened children may comply to avoid being beaten or left alone at home,
traumatizing them. They obey out of fear, knowing that your anger as a mother
is much safer for them than the father's anger.
The aggression of such men is not only directed at you as
a woman. Often, children don't want to go to a father who hits them, shouts at
them, and otherwise harms them. Many times, children are forbidden to talk
about it and suppress their feelings out of fear. If the children gather the
courage to say they don't want to go to their father because they don't feel
safe there, the mother has to convince them to go, as the court obliges her to
properly prepare the children for visitation with the father. However, I
believe that if those judges who write such statements in court judgments were
in the shoes of those mothers, they wouldn't be able to do it if the children
once felt unsafe at their father's and didn't want to go there.
Another chapter involves
threats of lawsuits, fabricated police reports, with which these men try to
mentally destroy and exhaust the woman
Enter your comment.