Constant Harassment

Life has not turned out the way I imagined. It isn’t even remotely close. Life for me is an endless story of pain, grief and seclusion. The more I fight it, the more of a recluse I become.

Currently I’m being subversively attacked by a couple using intellectual warfare to wear me down. People are so focused on the physical side of domestic violence that they over look the mental abuse that happens just as frequently. Even after removing myself and my children from the home of my attacker 9 years ago, the relentless attacks upon me continue. There seems no end in sight until my youngest child turns 18, but even then there is no guarantee  he and his wife will stop.

They are on a campaign to ruin my reputation. They have isolated me from some family members and lost me friends. The constant lies they tell those closest to me are beyond vile. Its repugnant the stories they tell. Yet they continue to try and paint me as the hateful woman. The mother not allowing her children to see their father. They paint me as the attacker, the abuser, the wretched parent who beats her children. They make me out to be some vengeful harpy, intent on revenge.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Am I glad my children are refusing to have contact with their father? Bet your bottom dollar I am. Now I know they are safe, but this doesn’t give me any sort of sick pleasure. I find it saddening that they have no father they can love and look up too. That they are missing out on all of the extended family from their father’s side, makes me want to cry. Family should mean so much to each other but in cases of domestic violence family takes on a whole new meaning.

My children are not so trusting of people, they are quiet and reserved in new situations. Always analyzing for a threat. It takes them a long time to truly warm up to new people but due to the scars they bare, they never fully give of themselves. As a mother watching them always being on alert breaks my heart.

So I do my best to hide the attempts of control from their father, the attacks he makes on my character to all those who will listen (even forced too in some circumstances). I don’t tell them when he demands things or uses their school as a way to try and undermine me. I don’t tell them he has been in the area dropping things at the school to play the ‘poor father’ card. I hide the endless threats from his lawyer.

My daughter only recently learned of the physical damage I received from him by accident. As she was too young to remember when I left, she has no memory of his abuse, just a vague feeling that not everything was right. The knowledge that her father had physically harmed me, left me with a permanent injury made her scream in torment. She cried and ranted, stormed around the house slamming items down on the table. Her rage, her pain was more than she could handle. It made her more adamant she never wanted to see him again.

In her mind that was over stepping the line. Her father had no right to harm me just as no one has the right to harm her. Now every time I drop a glass or can’t carry the shopping she curses her father. This is not healthy for her and I wish she would let it go for her own mental state. But the slightest show of pain or discomfort from me has her face turn to stone as the fire of loathing burns within.

So now I wait……wait for the next round of the assault.  There is no protection for women in my situation. Just an endless cycle of highly intelligent attacks.