Hi @Rick
Thanks so much for all your lovely thoughtful encouraging posts. I SO appreciate it! And you know my friend - your advice is never cheap or easy to come by, because it comes by your heart and that is a great gift.
Where to begin? I know I don't need to agree to contact now because of his circumstances, but I'm fairly sure he'll push for it evetnually. I am concerned that he might potentially try reporting me to CPS just because I have a MI (either out of spite or after convincing himself that he's "protecting our daughter", which he's done before - made a report to SOCIT about my older daughter a couple of years ago), and he knows they tend to be pretty horrible about parents with MIs in general. I am also worried about my little one. She misses him a lot, even though she was very distressed and frightened on Saturday night. She doesn't notice what I see - that even though she is (at times) pretty distressed about his absence, she's actually far calmer and less reactive than she was with him here.
Longer term my concern is that I will be forced to let him have contact. Something I've always been deeply committed to supporting in the past - however I have felt about him (or my ex-husband) at the time. The reason for that commitment has been the belief that it was in my children's best interest to have that contact (I know how painful it is to have no contact - I had none with my dad from 5-15 years of age). However that was on the understanding that the good bits outweighed the bad. I am now convinced that in this case the bad outweighs the good. I believe he is doing a great deal of emotional damage. He is an extremely negative passive-aggressive person. He comes across as very personable and quite charming initially, most people never see the other side of him. The reality is that this is the light side, but there is also a very dark one.
Has he been emotionally abusive before? Yes always. Has he got violent with our daughter before? Not like this - an occassional smack (whcih I'm not at all in favour of, but even I lose it enough for that on rare ocassions).
Has he done it before? Well he put his hand around my throat when he was drunk right near the beginning of our relationship. I looked him in the eye and said "take your hand off me". He did, then stormed off and walked halfway across Melbourne in the middle of the night. I believed him when he said he didn't remember it. I forgave him when I told him I nearly rang the police and he said I should have. He told me a story about silencing a woman in this way on a night raid when on one of his two tours of duty in Vietnam. It seemed to haunt him.
I have always questioned why his ex-wife never allowed him to have contact with their two children, and why they never contacted him as adults. Although I know these things do happen, and not necessarily for particularly good reasons. Now I find myself asking different questions. Like: Is this what was going on when he came back from his first tour (he signed on for a second one after a week back at home)? Did his wife have real reasons, very good reasons for cutting all contact? I do know that he arranged to sell all of his assets and put them into trust for his kids, and I think he signed the house over to his wife. He seemed to carry a lot of guilt about it which I didn't understand. Anyway a bit useless speculating on this.
Thanks for the advice on child protection. I think I will make that call. It will have to wait unfortunately, until Monday I guess(?), as I have ECASA again tomorrow and I don't think I can cope emotionally with doing both and then have the little one on my own (my big girl's off to her dad's) for the weekend. The little one is struggling quite a bit at the moment, and is quite distressed about not seeing her dad - but in spite of that she is much calmer and more settled and co-operative at home. Which I find more than suggestive about the role his presence had in making her PTSD worse. I know it made mine worse.
Funny you mention walking by the river! I went down to the river after catching up with a friend this morning. I went seeking solace, and closeness to God. I sat on the fallen tree in the river and took up my liturgy book and bible for the first time in months. It felt good, and peaceful. It was warm today so I even started to paddle my feet in the river during the silence, and then my mobile phone fell out of my pocket into the river!
That put an end to my prayer time very abruptly! I came back to the house and stuck the iphone in a bag of rice. I thought it was stuffed. But no - it is still buzzing away every time an email arrives, it didn't even shut down with the dunking. So it will be spending a couple of days with its bed of uncooked rice in the bag, and hopefully it will be okay. A large bit of grace in an apparent disaster 🙂
I probably better hit the sack now.
But first I wanted to share a couple of my "mantras", which Anne mentioned. I use the first one a lot these days especially when I feel frightened or overwhelmed. I sang it over and over for about an hour on the way down to see my psych on Wednesday, because I was so heart-sore I wouldn't have been able to drive otherwise - I would have been blinded by tears. The second one got me through after I split up with him 3 & 1/2 years ago - after finding out he'd got me into nearly $10,000 of debt and put my chances of getting our own home for the kids at risk. The girls called it my morning prayer, I would go up the bank above our rented house on the side of Donna Buang and sing it every morning.
Jesus your light is shining within us
Let not my doubts nor the darkness speak to me.
Jesus your light is shining within us
May our hearts always welcome your love.
Glory be to you O God!
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
One God and mother of all creation
As in the beginning so now and forever
Amen Amen
Blessings to you my friend, as you so generously bless the rest of us.
Hope doesn't wear out - even when we are weary - it endures!
Kind regards,
Kristin
