Thumper

We can still establish very strong boundaries surrounding what kind of communication we will participate in. It protects us. It really was very very important to me and felt it kept me sane and on track that first awful year.

Topic, type, frequency, location, duration - all are within our control.

For me it was

Topic - child only. I willing sent him all child related info I had and I did it in a timely fashion. I only responded to specific and legitimate questions about the children. I did not respond to statements, speculation, or questions that were bate and not legitimate. He asked for the same information over and over. No idea if he was being an ass, really lost it, didn't remember asking or what. Didn't care. I simply saved the one giant email I had with every bit of info under the sun and re-sent it all - over and over.

Type - email only

Frequency - I had no strong boundary here. I had to sit down and log on to read the emails and I only did that when I was prepared for them.

Location - email was at home with my computer. I did see him at kid exchanges and had another boundary for those exchanges. I would exchange pleasantries. Anything else and I literally turned my back and attend to the children and left as soon as I could. There was no other way to deal with him. Even an innocent child information exchange was a path to hell at that time.

Duration - not important in my case because I didn't talk to him in real time.

No I didn't spell out that out for him, I just did it. It worked.

It didn't really change his behavior. He sent tons and tons of manipulative awful emails (and I posted here about some of them when I struggled) but I did not engage. I stuck to my boundaries and it worked. What a relief.

It is true that we are never really completely free from a person we share children with but can erect boundaries as strong as we want. My ex was not aggressive and scary though. I didn't need police protection or anything like that - that is outside my experience.