You’re Not Meant to Take Down the Mother of Your Children
By: Martha Marvels
Tags: Domestic Violence, Narcissism, Men, Women, Personal Development

You’re Not Meant to Take Down the Mother of Your Children

A plea for change

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

A couple of years ago I envisaged a time when there would be peace. I fantasized about stepping off the treacherous rollercoaster that my life had become. My reality had succumbed to a battleground between parents that children should never, ever bare witness to.

Each night as I drove home from my day job I wondered what I was about to be faced with as I walked through the door. Would I enter into a boxing rink or would he be calm, perhaps cooking dinner, functioning as a father?

I’m not silly enough to realize that I did not make any mistakes during our separation. In fact typical of a survivor of narcissistic abuse I was champion of any game that called for a blame label. Yep that was me, “I shouldn’t have said anything, I should have said something sooner, I make everything worse, dad’s a better parent” — that becoming a game too.

Even the children’s Independent Witness asked me, “who started it?”

I felt like I was in the principal’s office, facing detention. I was ordered to write lines ‘I will not raise my voice. I will not raise my voice’ — a 100 times.

Yes I blamed myself for that too as I answered, “well I started it, I guess when I applied for the Violent Restraining Order.” Not I responded to many years of abuse with a VRO but I started the fight that took us deeper into the trenches that we were in so deep, after a torturous two and a half years, I was no longer fit.

Becoming alienated from my children and with much chaos and tears I was now living my ex husband’s narrative. I was starting to see myself as he named me; incompetent, easily triggered, erratic … there were many names and accusations. How long have you got? Confused and in a daze — I naively thought the legal system would protect my children and I.

However if my marriage was WW1, entering into the realms of the sterile court rooms became WW2. I’m still waiting for an emergency rescue to save me, my arm stretched out for a life raft. As time progressed I realized no one was going to save me. I had to save myself.

After many years of being beaten down I had forgotten how to be assertive and I did not know how to set boundaries. I thought leaving was hard but the aftermath was harder. Why didn’t you leave sooner? I didn’t need other people to ask me that, I punished myself with that question daily. I was scared to stay but I was more scared to leave.

Threats, verbal rages, physical intimidation had become his too frequent repertoire as we initially attempted to live separated but under the same roof — my children exposed to the conflict and hence trauma. I did not know how to stop the conflict, his continued denigration of their mother in front of the children and the deliberate chaos, lies and manipulation.

I have come to the realization that I cannot stop him. However I can enhance myself and rise above the drama and provide a stronger role model for my daughters. The change was to come from me. Therefore when he attempts to stop me from entering the hospital to visit my own child, when he approaches me in the car park — really are you employing spies? I do not react, I learn to not be so easily triggered by his actions.

So blinded by revenge, by beating me down he is harming the children. Further trauma follows our separation - days, months, years after the day we called it quits. He is saving face in front of his family, friends and the authorities as he attempts to save the children from their ‘crazy mum.’

However I was not crazy then and I am not crazy now. I am beaten down by him and the system as I experience his continued ‘crazy’ projected on to me because I dared to say no to abuse because I dared to stand up to him.

Whilst he beats me down physically, verbally and with continued accusations he is compounding the girls’ trauma. Who am I if they see me week? Who am I if they see me silent? Who am I if they literally see me pushed and shoved? My daughter says, “he did not push you that hard.” Daughters confused, suffering, exhibiting symptoms of trauma.

The outside world can be frightening, unpredictable. Home should be safe, a sanctuary. The girls think they have to take sides as the battle remains in court because his goal is full custody of the children and to relinquish the girls of a relationship with their mother.

But he is not only punishing me, he is punishing the children. A master manipulator — he woes people to his advantage until I am on the outside of my children’s life looking in.

I have a responsibility to my daughters to stand up to bullying behavior otherwise I am showing them it is okay to expect intimidation, name calling and verbal and physical abuse from your partner. But it is not okay. Relationships should be a safe environment where each member is cherished, valued, and worthy of RESPECT.

The day he threw me against a wall should have seen me leave but women don’t typically leave a relationship with a first, second, third red flag. My deal breaker was his lie to the children – “your mother started the fight, I was only defending myself.” As I watched him retell his version I thought of the psychological damage our lesson was portraying before the children. Pity turned to abhorrent disgust at his twisted words. I saw the cycle he was legitimizing for my daughters to repeat, one a teenager and one on the cusp of her teens.

I owed my daughters more, I decided I would provide a home where girls emerging into women are to be celebrated, are special, unique, loved — not dominated, manipulated and abused in many different forms for his behavior to be justified, or ignored.

A peacemaker — I’m not comfortable with fighting, with being assertive. However I’m learning to step up, to find my voice, to believe in myself as a strong woman and as a mother worthy of her children, worthy of RESPECT.

There’s more fighting to do-I have more fight in me. I have found my supporters, I have found again my fighting spirit, my goal as I am — mother and all the things a mother is — and therefore worthy of respect and therefore worthy of my daughters’ time, worthy of their love and affection and yes admiration.

RESPECT thy mother.

If any of this story resonates with you please don’t suffer in silence.

If in Australia call 1800 RESPECT

If in New Zealand 0800 REFUGE

If in the USA 1800 799 SAFE

If you’re unsure as to whether it is abuse the

www.thehotline.org has a helpful list of the types of behaviors that are defined as abusive.

Take care, you are always worthy of RESPECT.