There are, admittedly, so many things I cannot understand about my abuser. Eventually I am sure there will be a post about each one of them. Today, however, I am particularly stumped. For the life of me, I cannot understand how any one in the world would not want to be a part of my daughters life.
I am aware that there are mothers out there who think custody is a game. I have met a few myself. The kind of woman who thinks children are tools to control people. The kind who think a child is a messenger, or a hook into the other parents life. The kind of women who think a visit between a child and a father is something that should be earned through personal favors. The kind that refuses contact between a father and the child because of personal grudges. The kind that threatens to take the child away as soon as she gets angry, completely disregarding the fact that they are not the sole parent in the situation. I am aware, that through either denial of contact, or demands on time, some women abuse their position as a mother. It is disgusting, and I do not condone it. As a mother, the only consideration that should be made is whether what you are doing is in the best interest of your child. And because I believe this, I have spent so many hours pondering the benefits and potential risks of my daughter maintaining contact with her father. Because I believe this, I am now here wondering how someone can disregard their role as a parent in such a flagrant way.
So much of me wants to take my daughter and hide her from him. It is my first instinct. It is always what I truly want to do. In my gut, I know that if I were to take her from him, it would be in her best interest. So why, you may ask, have I not taken her away from him? Well, let's think about it together for a minute . . .
There is the nagging feeling from my gut saying "Take her away from him NOW. Deny visits, change my number, do not allow contact."
Sounds great, right? Well, yes. If you don't think about it too hard, it is a fantastic option. But, let's think about it, just for fun. First, there will always and forever be the option that my daughter will resent my choice, and because of that, allow herself to be taken in by him in the future. Without him there to demonstrate what an epic disaster he is, how will she know that I did the right thing? If I stop her from ever knowing how unreliable, selfish, self absorbed, violent, angry, controlling and abusive he is, am I in turn taking away her reason for staying away from him? The second point is more important, and the one I think about most when I consider this option. There is no doubt in my mind that he would love nothing more than for me to take her from him. Yes. He would love it. In fact, I think he tries to make me sometimes. For him, if I take her, his lack of ability and presence is suddenly not his fault anymore. There is nothing my abuser avoids more than accountability. I know deep down, he even hates the word. So I know that he would love nothing more than for me to tell him he can no longer be in her life. This gives him free reign to move, start a new life in another state (which he has mentioned doing many times, even to my daughter), and spin a yarn about his tragic life and bitch ex who took his daughter from his loving arms. I will forever be waiting for the day when he shows up and tries to leech his way into her life, playing the victim, or claiming huge changes and remorse. In either option, it seems she is at risk either way, from knowing him and his damage, and from not being prepared enough to handle him when he makes his way back in.
Although this is not my favorite option, it is the one I am left with when I look at my situation realistically. There are, of course other options. I could allow her to make the decision for herself, and tell me when she does not want to go anymore. But waiting for that puts her at risk in the meantime, for heartbreak, and disappointment. Every time she comes home from another visit, I hear about the terrible things he says to her, or the irresponsible things he does around her, and I see her upset by his actions. And I am pushed even further into not having a choice but to not allow her to go see him anymore. To be honest, it seems like that is what he wants. He says awful things about me and our new family unit to her. He explodes in fits of anger, telling her things about our situation no child should have to tolerate being told. I often receive messages talking of his desire to move, to be with his family in another state and how that is the only way he sees to get on his feet. I am nothing even close to surprised that his ultimate solution involves running home as though he were a teenager.
But even that has it's implications for my daughter. Now she is left abandoned by her birth father. Regardless of what our birth parents do, we seem to have an underlying need for their approval. To be abandoned, discarded like a bad decision, is a heavy burden for a child to carry with them. I am left to wonder what this will do to her in the long term. Will she understand that I had no choice, and that what I am doing is truly the best thing for her? Will she remember what he is like when she is older? Or is she going to wonder what would have been had he been a better man? Is his abandonment going to be a determining piece of her story? Will it be something that manifests itself in bad decisions and recklessness as a teenager?
It seems no matter what I do, she has been dealt an unfair hand. No matter how I cut it, he fails her every time, and I am left hoping that I have provided enough for that to not break her. In the very near future, I have to do something I will think back on for the rest of my life. Yet again, I have to take a stand against him, take my control and use it, and do what is best for my daughter. I won't lie. The idea of not ever having to see my abuser again is fantastic. To not have to look at him when he picks her up, or hear his voice when he calls her, is an absolute blessing. A dream come true. And to not have his influence in my daughters life, even better. But the idea of having to see the heartbreak his abandonment will cause is too much to think of.
I know that all I can do is what is best for her, and provide her with the tools to get her through it. I know that. It does not make this any easier to understand. She is so smart, and so funny. She is caring, and sweet, and compassionate. She is the most beautiful human on the entire planet. And this person, who has an inherent right to all of this beauty despite having done nothing to deserve any of it, just discards it like it is worthless. I could not imagine how a human being, a parent, can look at the person they created and not want to watch them become an adult. To miss out on the moments when they just want to crawl into your lap, to see them look for you in moments of uncertainty, knowing that you are an anchor for them, and they know it. How do you walk away from Easter, Christmas, Halloween and the Tooth Fairy? Watching them believe in magic, is magical. It is work, it is not all rainbows and sunshine and fun and games. It's homework and talking back and endless fights over the circles in her socks. It's going through every phase, every difficulty and heartbreak and setback. It's being there day after day with routine and structure and safety. And every single minute of it is amazing. So, how do you walk away from that?
He knows it's wrong, his behavior, his abandonment, all of it. Otherwise, he would just leave, rather than do what he is doing and play the games he is playing. But, here we are. I know he is telling people that I am giving him a hard time about seeing our daughter, despite that being the opposite of what is happening. I know this because his mother once called me informing me that she doesn't understand why I am keeping her from him, and how she "hopes God can forgive me for what I am doing", (rich coming from the woman who quite technically was an accomplice in my attempted murder. At the very least, she was told someone was going to kill me and did nothing), so I'm fairly certain when it comes to what God has a beef with, she is way higher up on the list than I am. It seemed as though she had been told that I would not let him see her, rather than the truth. She was very clearly under the impression that her son not seeing his daughter because I was not allowing it. Meanwhile, he had been declining weekend visits for two months claiming he had no way to pick her up. I tried so hard to facilitate the visits, my significant other had even driven my daughter to the visit and picked her up. The truth is that before that message was sent, he left for a month to go sit on the beach and call it "getting his head straight", and then came back to no job and nowhere to live and could not come get her or provide a place for her to visit. He went 8 weeks without seeing her of his own accord. For 8 weeks, he was in another state, or failed to find a way to get to her once a week. And at the end of this 8 weeks, I get told by the woman who was going to let me die, the woman that harbored him for a month while he avoided his responsibility, that she hopes God forgives me for this.
Yeah, me too, lady.
This kind of thing used to bother me. His words used to carry weight. His failures used to disappoint me in palpable ways. I would allow him to control me still, by allowing myself to react to his manipulations. But that was then. Now he holds no power over me. Nothing he does surprises me. I do not think of his day, how he feels, what his life is like, or how hard life is for him. I do not give one second to wondering what he does during the day. I do not care. I am not saying I do not have feelings for him. I have plenty. Love is not the opposite of hate. They are actually quite similar. Both are strong emotions that represent a bond between two people. Both feelings require a massive amount of energy. I hate him. With every fiber of my being. And despite what most people who are trying to help you heal will say, that is OK.
I am not consumed by this hate, despite it's intensity. Yes, when I have to speak to him, sometimes I get so mad I cannot control it. I yell, and say mean things. However, I do not sit and think of him. I do not hope for revenge. I do not stalk his social media hoping to find some sort of dirt. I do not care enough for that. I hate him, but I hate him because I allow myself to. Because I want to. Because he is the person who tried to take my life from me, and he deserves nothing from me. He does not deserve to expect forgiveness. I am not obligated to him in any way. How I feel about him will not stop my recovery. I am the one who decides how I feel about things, and how I respond to this. And I am happy. I love my life. But I hate someone for what they did to me and for making me work so hard for the life I have that most people take for granted.
It is not him specifically that still has the power to upset me most of the time. What has the power to upset me is seeing anyone pose a threat to my child's happiness. To amplify that feeling, simply make the person posing a threat to my child someone who should be standing with me to protect her. I think people make a grave mistake thinking that in order to move on, we must forgive and forget. To move on, we must accept, compartmentalize, and process. That series of neurological checkpoints may take us to a place where we can forgive what has been done to us. However, it may also take us to a place where we can see the extent of someones damage, and show us how unforgivable what they did was. Both of those can be healthy outcomes. I will never forgive him. I will never tell him, or even tell myself that I forgive him for changing who I am as a person. I will never not be the girl who's boyfriend tried to murder her. This person pointed a loaded gun at my head and pulled the trigger with a blatant disregard for my life. This person is hurting my child in unimaginable ways. This person is disappointing the one person I love most in this world. I am left to watch her heart break and watch her search for logic in an irrational situation. I do not owe him anything, including forgiveness. And I pray that my daughter understands that from a young age. I do not need to forgive him to heal, and neither does she. I do not need to understand him and feel for him and tuck his damage into a box that explains it away. Not right now. Right now, I am healing. I am in control of what I feel, how I think, and who I allow in my life, and when my daughter realizes his absence and needs to heal herself, she will be as well.
So, as I prepare myself for what is to come, I accept that all I can do is what is best for her and hope that I can provide her with the tools to handle how this makes her feel. I know I am giving him what he wants, and that does bother me. A very small part of me dislikes that in his story, I will be the bad guy, and that there will be people in his new life that will genuinely believe that and assist him in his delusion, but I have also accepted that this is beyond my control. What I can control, and what I will do, is what is best for the little girl who now looks to me and the people I surround her with for her examples and role models. What I can do, that I could not do before, is lay my head down at night knowing that I did my part in breaking the cycle, and I am aware enough to know that it is my job to assist my daughter in hers.