Toxic pronouns
(c) Melina Magdalena, 2006
I saw him today after work, as I was driving from the bus station to the gym. I didn’t recognize him at first; I just noticed a derelict looking man in a red flannel shirt with no shoes shambling his way toward the shopping centre. Then I realized who it was, carrying those empty shopping bags and remembered that tonight is his night to have the kids. He must have been on his way to buy some food for them. And reflecting upon this pathetic sight I am filled with a mixture of remorse, revulsion and regret. He believes I have destroyed his life. I once thought the same of him. But I won’t go there anymore. He’ll get no satisfaction from me on that score.
I thought I was over domestic violence. I thought I’d moved on – that it was something of my past with which I had dealt with, from which I had learned and healed. But it’s resurfaced yet again, knocking me for a six, and leaving me with head spinning, stomach churning, and self-hating, guilt-tripping, suffering yet again.
I don’t want to rehash the past; anyway – you’ve probably heard it all before. It’s not a new story, but it’s a story that is far too common even today, when these things are sometimes talked about.
Having a blog gives me an opportunity to publicly document the events of the past couple of weeks in a way that may help me gain perspective on my own situation, as well as enabling outsiders a glimpse into what goes on for someone in an ongoing domestic violence situation. I don’t like to see myself in that place, because I feel ashamed and let down. It’s too easy to blame myself, and it hurts so much to see my children suffer. If I’d left things well enough alone, perhaps they wouldn’t have been drawn directly into the maelstrom of the toxic and dangerous relationship between their father and me.
He made the following statements and remarks to me during the course of a single telephone conversation. When I was finally able to hang up I wanted to vomit but of course I swallowed my bile and put my brave face back on. My children were in the room, listening to it all. My son said “That sounded like a very difficult conversation.” Little did he know.
I would kill your fucking parents at the drop of a hat.
I still have a problem with your parents. I don’t know how you can have anything to do with them. They tried to murder my firstborn!
You’re either in or out with your parents and they never liked me. How can you forgive them for leaving you crying at that bus stop for me to pick you up?
Your parents didn’t try very hard, did they, to convince you to stay with me. They made me the enemy and then they made you the enemy until they got the chance to drive a wedge between you and me and then they did everything they could to make you leave me.
I’m not the bad guy. Your parents are the ones who tried to split you and me up. They’re the ones who tried to kill my firstborn. They were so happy when you left me. They poisoned you against me. And they’ve tried to poison my children against me, too. How can I forgive them for trying to poison my children against their own father?
He’s hasn’t changed his tune once in the last thirteen years since I took the babies and climbed into a taxi and left my marriage behind while he slept in after another long hard night of partying down with his friends at the pub. He shows no shred of remorse; takes no responsibility for my choices. He insists I was in the wrong, I was the undoing of him, I was the destroyer of family, the seeker of evil – that weak-willed woman who went back to her parents and abandoned her husband.
And he doesn’t get, that one of the most offensive aspects of his story is that it renders me a powerless pawn with no mind of her own, caught in a battle between good and evil – him and my parents. Whereas my story is that I laughed with delight and shook with terror simultaneously as I took my children and left him. My life was about to begin again, when it had so nearly been ended, and my spirit had been so broken by his abuse. I didn’t know his abuse would still continue, thirteen years down the track.
This time I thought I was strong enough to handle it. Or maybe it didn’t enter my head at all; that he would see an opportunity to strike once again at the stubborn calm I keep around me. I think I thought he might have grown up enough to see beyond his selfish pain and recognize our children’s. And I wanted so badly for them to be able to speak their minds for once.
So I invited him around to talk, and to feed him dinner. He is adamant he didn’t know a meal was on offer. He uses the offering of food as an excuse for his violent, terrifying, bizarre behaviour. Whatever.
My son approached him later, suggested it wouldn’t be so bad next time we got together to talk, that the uncomfortable feelings will go away if only Mum keeps her deal and lifts the restraining order. His father said to him “It’s not really about the restraining order – that was just the first thing that popped into my head.” Bingo. It was as plain as the nose on my face that he was engaging in yet another manipulative ploy to win sympathy and block any discussion between the four of us.
As he carried on at my table I was horrified and terrified. Who knows how far he would go? Convinced of his rightness, why wouldn’t he pick up a knife and throw it at me? I would still be in the wrong for inviting him over and giving him food. I was silenced like a rabbit, caught in the deathlight of the oncoming collision, afraid to call his bluff, lest he be provoked to act out his rage physically upon me. I’m still a coward, when it comes to being beaten. It’s not something I enjoy.
There’s no need for me to make him out to be worse than he is. What he is is bad enough.
How would you feel if you woke up one morning and your kids were gone and the only way you were going to get to see them more than once a fortnight was to go to court and fight the fucking lawyers?
Why don’t you think about how I feel sometimes, about what you’ve done to me? How would you like it?
I’ve never forgiven you for saying I could see the kids and then not bringing them. How can I ever trust you again after breaking that arrangement?
I was so afraid after this conversation that he might go off and kill himself and I’d be left feeling responsible. Not that his death wouldn’t make things easier for us in some ways. And what kind of person could I be, to think such evil, horrible thoughts?
It’s not the first time he’s threatened to kill my parents. The police say they can do nothing about such verbal threats, unless they are turned into some kind of arrestable action. Does it matter to them that his threats are a form of abuse and violence against his children who witness the virtual carnage, and me? It seems that restraining order still holds him from attacking me physically, despite his foul words. He could get hold of a gun from one of his weirdo friends; that fan club that adores him, but if he killed me and he killed my parents, he’d be left holding the babies. And that’s not really what he wants. He’s never really wanted to be their father – his actions speak loudly on that score – his behaviour is calculated to control me.
Bearing a fatherless child would be an act of such faith and courage, of political defiance and snarling outrageous dangerous womanly power. To be that child’s mother, without being bound to the man whose sperm enabled my egg to develop, would be such a symbol of freedom for me, the woman who is caught between the husband who hates her and a society that condemns her for leaving him.
So when are we going to have another talk? Or are you over talking to me now?
The only reason you don’t like talking to me is because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Think about how uncomfortable I must feel talking to you, after everything you’ve done to me.
Maybe you feel uncomfortable because I’m right? Maybe it would do you some good to listen to it for once instead of ignoring me and making me out to be the bad guy all the time?
When I rang Lifeline a young male voice answered and I asked if I could speak to a woman instead. He fobbed me off, by claiming all the Lifeline counselors were trained to give me pretty much identical responses. Having been through a great deal of the training myself, I didn’t doubt this, so I let myself talk to him about the threats, the abuse, the violence, and the effects these were having on my children.
Authorities are always so frankly admiring of the way I parent my children. What they do not seem to realize is just how shitty I feel for dragging my children through the mud every time I forget just how bad their father makes us feel. How can I forgive myself for putting this onto them? I could be the best parent in the world and I couldn’t undo the damage our toxic relationship has wrought upon their futures, upon their self-esteem.
Mr Lifeline reflected back what he thought he had heard me say, that I had instigated a conversation between my children, their father and me in the hope, as he so drolly put it, to attain “more freedom” for my children. Then he asked me what I thought I’d done that was so contemptible. What actions had I taken that led to my children’s distress?
Slowly, my head caught up with my gut and my heart began to thaw and the tears began to flow as I understood that what I had done was open the walls of the fortress I’ve built around myself and my children to protect us and I let the monster in to do his vile work again. The shame clouded my eyes. I wanted to slice a sharp knife against my wrists. I wanted to beat my head against the wall to block out the knowledge out that if was I who had started this and I didn’t know how I was going to put an end to it again.
It was clear to Mr Lifeline that my ex-husband was continuing to manipulate the children, that he was perpetrating abuse against the two of them, and me. Now that was something else again – I had managed to ignore that the children were witnessing and experiencing the abuse directly this time, too. How could I have been such an imbecile to think that their father might for once look beyond his pathetic loser self and see that his actions were hurting the children he claims to care for so deeply? Shame. Shame. SHAME
