How to Cope Through Post-Divorce Interactions With the Ex: When We Pretend That They’re Dead…

My immediate reaction after the divorce was to change my Facebook status to “Widowed” because changing it to “divorced” just wasn’t final enough for me.

I was so through with the experience, so wrung out from the battle zone that was my marriage, I wanted nothing more to do with him. I really wished that instead of some paper telling me we were done, it was the biological certainty of his death that had rent us in two. To no avail, instead, he was alive, walking the earth and able to get on my every last nerve whenever the fancy struck him. Damn him and the air he breathes…I do my best to ignore him.

I don’t contact him for anything unless I need to. I had to contact him when my son broke his arm to make sure the insurance was still valid. I had to contact him to get his address when the kids wanted to send him a birthday card; which is how I found out the son of a bitch had moved four months prior and not told me, the asshole.

Weeks pass when I make an actual effort to NOT THINK ABOUT mr horrible and his overall shitty-ness. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time and actual matters pressing on my life that I can actually do something about. He’s the annoying gnat that is in the air flying around but never gets close enough to swat dead.

I don’t contact him because he is an asshole. 100% jerk. He’s the guy that I would go out of my way to avoid if I only just met him. He’s awful! Manipulative, self-centered, abusive, racist, close-minded, disrespectful and a misogynist. All terrible traits. So why subject myself to what is a guaranteed long-distance mind fuck? No reason, therefore I don’t call. I don’t text. I don’t e-mail and overall just do my best to keep a low profile and hope he forgets about me and my children.

And he usually does, for a couple of weeks. Then one day out of the blue (it’s very inconsistent so I can’t begin to anticipate what caused it) he’ll call wanting to talk to the kids, and whether on purpose or by accident I miss his call most of the time. He’s one of these antiquated assholes that actually leaves voice mails on my cell expecting me to listen to them when he could just as easily text me the same message–and it would get a faster response too!

He gets pissed if I don’t answer the phone that instant.

Then start the angry text messages (because I haven’t listened to the angry voice mail and there are some words that Google Voice just doesn’t transcribe…). I try not to reply to those.

When he calls, on the times I do manage to answer, it’s some weird time and I am not home, or school’s not over yet, and he usually will ask me how they are doing (they’re wasting away, duh?) and worse, he always asks if they have asked about him. I NEVER know what to say then.

Only one time replied that they (scout’s honor) haven’t asked to call him during the two weeks that he had not called them, and he fucking lost it. He called me a liar and every other epithet under the sun and I had to hang up because ain’t nobody got time for that shit.

The fact is they don’t ask for him. They may randomly come to me looking to reminisce or ask why we got divorced or how come things didn’t work out, but maybe only 1 out of 100 times do they ask to call him. Seriously though, WTF do I say? I dread when he asks that question, and that’s probably why I dread answering the phone when he calls.

mr horrible is 100% of the reason why my phone stays on vibrate/silent throughout the day and not just during class or at work.

I feel terrorized all of the time.

I live under a constant cloud, hoping not to hear his ringtone or the bell of his text message notifications. I wish I had a restraining order so he wouldn’t be able to contact me. The inequity of our arrangement is glaring, his marital shortcomings being the emotional abuse and manipulations from him. None of that has stopped. He still treats me like shit over the phone. He disrespected me by not respecting the fact that as a family, me and my children have lives outside of his, we have schedules and a life outside of our apartment.

Part of the reason why I hate when he calls is that in the first month after I moved away from NJ to Texas, because he insisted on calling every day at the same time, which he did for a week straight, then one day we weren’t home and he went ape-shit. He called my phone non-stop for an hour, texts, and voice mails. We were at the movies. My phone was in my purse. WTF?

We got into a huge fight over the phone where he said he expected us to be sitting by the phone waiting for his call. Every day at 6pm my time. Whether he actually called or not. I told him that was a ridiculous expectation and I wasn’t going to do it. That there was no fucking way that he should actually expect to talk to the kids every day at the same time, OR that we just be “available” at that time every day with no guarantee that he would actually call.

That sort of demand might have been okay when we were married, not that he ever made it, but I would have done it out of devotion and loyalty. However, that ship has sailed and I am not rearranging my life for that assclown anymore. That was the whole reason why I got the divorce in the first place. Liberation.

Yet, I feel not so liberated, and instead mentally incarcerated.

It’s troubling. I can’t tell if he’s purposely messing with my head, or am I making assumptions about his motivations? I don’t know how to go about reconciling this information. Is it even possible?

Sometimes I pretend that he is dead. If I have to refer to him, it’s in the past tense. I even attempt to be nostalgic about the whole marriage. That lasts about a few days and then he’ll do/say something to remind me that it’s all just my pipe dream because he is very much alive…

An incident via text did it most recently. We had arranged to have him Skype with MK the morning of his birthday. It all went well and they were almost off the call, when there is a knock on my door. My brother has arrived a little early for our surprise outing to celebrate MK’s birthday riding go-karts and playing video games. For some reason, mr horrible HATES my brother. No love lost there, my brother loathes mr horrible in return but at least knows how to be civil about it in front of the kids provided mr horrible behaves himself.

Needless to say this could be an impending disaster.

That’s when I notice that mr horrible is no longer trying to end the conversation but instead is attempting to usurp our time of departure by prolonging the conversation starting with a new line of questions for the kids. When reminded that he’s delaying MK’s surprise, mr horrible relents but only with the assurance that he will get to Skype with them again later on. Later on when? I have no idea when we are coming back home. We had no estimated time of return, our day was very open-ended with no specific itinerary, only items on the to do list. So I tell him, if and when I have a better idea of when we will be home, I will send him a text.

Well, I forget to text him. Honest mistake. WE were having so much fun, and my son was so thrilled with what we had planned for him on his birthday that we ended up not returning home until 10pm exhausted and looking to wind down. The next day, I’m relaxing on the couch watching a movie with MK and CR when someone starts blowing up my phone. I look and there are 6 text messages received in rapid succession… all from mr horrible.

That’s when I remember that I forgot to text him the day before and I start to feel guilty until I read his texts. At which point I no longer feel guilty but I am pissed off instead. The gist is he thinks I am stupid, a loser, and that remembering was too difficult for me.

That last part is partly true, but not for the reason he believes. He then proceeds to insult my brother and me some more.

He ends his tirade with a hope that the kids will eventually feel the same way he does about me.

This outburst is the primary reason I don’t give him free reign to talk to my children without monitoring. He’s the kind of toxic asshole that would make it his mission to inject his poisonous thoughts and beliefs into them without care to the inappropriateness of his actions.

Every wrong action, he does to satisfy himself. He doesn’t care or think about how his actions affect the children and I can’t forgive that, nor can I overlook it or ignore it. Most books on divorce would encourage me to give him unfettered access to the kids, to create more open lines of communication. Most books don’t deal with sociopath ex-spouses like him.

He’s the poster child for WHAT NOT TO DO when co-parenting after divorce.

My mother lied to me about my father when I was growing up thinking she would protect me. Telling me lies did not help me but rather scarred me as I transitioned into adulthood. In hindsight had she told me the truth, not only would she have saved me a world of hurtful experiences in general and with my dad, but my relationship with my mother would have fared better in the long run. Now, as a result, I have serious trust issues, which are compounding in the aftermath of this divorce.

I don’t expect mr horrible will ever believe me, but I don’t tell my children lies about him to “turn the kids against him”. There is no need to lie. The truth is so terrible that just to make it appropriate for sharing with the children when they ask questions, I have to leave out the nastier portions. He benefits from that method of recollection.

I may omit the ugly truth, but I don’t lie to my children. I give as much information so as to answer their questions without excessive elaboration. I don’t say anything that isn’t true, I give facts and not opinions. If they ask for my opinion, I preface it with a disclaimer that it is my opinion, and since they are teens, they should form their own opinion based on all the facts. It’s a kindness I bestow to him, not that mr horrible will ever acknowledge my effort, nor would he think to reciprocate. As far as he’s shown, it’s not in his nature.

Co-parenting is hard, and unfortunately, no one way fits all. Had I followed any of the advice I received from books, friends and professionals, I would be absolutely miserable right now. Sometimes it is better to follow your gut and trust your instinct, especially if it is guiding you to be more cautious than average.