hopeful4

Hi everyone. I am sorry it's been so long. I got off the board back in July-Aug pretty quickly. I feel I needed a break for a while as some of these posts were triggering, and I needed to just focus on life for a while.

Needless to say, it's still up and down. As some of you may remember, I have two girls with my XAH. My youngest, who is a tween, goes to his house every other weekend. My oldest just goes on Saturdays that her sister is there to visit for a while as she is of the age to not be required to go.

I have to admit, I am struggling. My X did horrible things to me and our family. He is no model citizen. However, things have been going fairly well for he and the kids. I don't know if he drinks less, or what happened, but he seems to not drink in front of them, which is major progress. It is in my divorce decree that he does not, although for a long time that did not hinder him at all.

He did not pay child support from part of 2014 to part of 2015, for a total of almost a year. Ten months I believe. I really just let that go, and never had him pay anything back, I did not even make a big deal of it. I have never been a great money manager, and things did get behind while we were married, and after as well, that still had his name tied to it. I have paid it all off, but it hit both of our credit.

For the first time ever, he is interested in his credit, and he just keeps hammering me with all of these texts about it. He also is under some illusion I want to get back with him (sooo not true). I have made an effort to get along with him, and have apologized for my part of things, but he just won't stop. These texts come out of the blue here and there. He completely blames me for his alcoholism, criminal behavior, and cheating during our marriage. Big surprise there.

So, I am stuck in this cycle. My life is good until he texts and starts the cycle again. It happened yesterday. I slept about 30 mins last night. It actually causes me full blown panic attacks. Why does this man, whom I really cannot stand, hold such power over me?

He does not enforce a lot of his visitation. I let him get by w/so much because I know eventually he will try to use our daughter to get to me if he thinks he is not getting the job done. I just want peace and happiness for me and my girls, who are my life.

I am sorry to come here and vent. I try and talk to family, but they don't really understand even though they try.

I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all.

PhoenixJ

Hi h14. I am a newie. Why apologise? You are reaching out- trying to make sense of something that has not sense. You feel unsafe and not in control of how you feel because of that. How can you get to being safe- you and yours? What is happening to you is no brainer bad. I do not know what resources you have- restraint order? Counselling- al-anon? Keep posting- to ask for help is never a bad thing to do. You have my prayers. PJ

AnvilheadII

hey there stranger.

can i ask a question? why can't you just turn OFF your phone at night? put his text alerts to silent. you are not obligated to be a source for his spew. you are not his financial adviser. confidante.

biminiblue

I don't have kids, so I have no experience to share...but you've been missed and I'm glad you're back.

It must be really awful to have no way to be no contact with this man. I'm sorry.

hopeful4

Thank you Phoenix.

Hi Anvil. This was during the day, I actually did not see the texts until about three hours after he sent them. My reason is that I am the type of person who just wants to get things over with. I did this for a while. I actually have his wife on silent b/c she was doing this to me about six months ago. I just hate the feeling of dread at looking at my phone and not knowing what's going to be on there.

I don't know. I am a mess. I try to keep the peace for my daughter, and I do feel badly about the financial fallout. However, I have done all I can to clear it up. I paid $150k this year just to get things out of his name.

I will be honest. I am frustrated that it affects me in this way. I don't want to care and wish I was one of those people who could just blow all of this off and tell him to kiss off.

Ariesagain

Here's the thing...you're no longer a couple. He has a new wife, even. His credit is his issue, not yours.

Maybe it's time to set a boundary and stop being anything but clinical with this guy. "Our texts and messages from now on need to be limited to the subject of the children. Thank you."

Then you don't respond to anything else. Period.

There is no appeasing people like him...any admission or acceptance of responsibility on your part will only be used against you. He's never going to be someone who says, "Hey, we both made mistakes," EVER.

If it's about your kids, period. The end.

AnvilheadII

what are you afraid of? of him??

you CAN just delete his texts. you do not have to respond to him. unless it specifically relates to one of the children and visitation.

it will be up to you to enforce your boundaries. and he make like it. big woop. you don't need his approval...........do you?

dandylion

hopeful.....I have heard of others who have engaged a third party to screen all the emails, texts, voice mails, etc., before seeing them.....only the ones that concerned truly vital information about the minor children...like illness, Dr. appointments, visitation change......
He is harassing you....
What does your lawyer say?

hopeful4

Yes Aries, that is my plan! I am going to say it just like you just said it too.

I just feel very tired and run down at this point, and have had a hard time moving forward in my life this year. It's been a tough one.

Thank you for your input and support.

hopeful4

I have not gotten my lawyer involved, trying to avoid that at all costs. I am really broke and cannot afford to involve her at this point. Also, custody rules in our state just changed to 50/50 default last month. He has cleaned up his act a lot since we divorced, I am afraid if I involve the courts that he will file for more time, and honestly, he could get it. That's what I am afraid of, and he knows it unfortunately.

Ariesagain

Sending you strength and a hug. This is never easy.

dandylion

hopeful...what about the idea of having your messages screened by a third party?

hopeful4

Anvil, my mom has offered, however, he always texts and I live alone w/my children, so I don't really have a way of doing that. Believe me, I would love to!

ardy

Hope so many prayers and never be sorry for venting here. you are safer then in your own living room... turn off the phone .. if your girls are home and safe and you have spoken to family that matters. turn it off and rest...

Jaeger

hopeful,
It is nice to see you back but I hate under these circumstances. I think you are taking too much blame for the financial situation. You and your XAH were married, a couple....it shouldn't have all been on you. Also, if I remember correctly, when he flipped out on alcohol & Xanax, that costs yall a lot of money to clear up. I totally agree with Aries suggestion.

How much longer until your youngest can decide if she wants to visit? I understand keeping it out of court. I too let a lot of things go with my XH. He wasn't an alcoholic but definitely crazy. If you must involve lawyers, I would suggest taking that time to set up a garnishment for child support. In my state, he wouldn't have the choice to pay or not pay.

I hope you feel better soon!

Jaeger

dandylion

hopeful.....believe me, I am very tech regressed....but, you could get a phone that doesn't do texting....only, voice mail. Your mother could have the code to screen your voice mails and delete any that aren't child vital.
Please don't tell me that you can't live without texting...lol....
I lived for decades without it..and I still don't text. We were able to raise families, and put a man on the moon without texting.
If something must be written..there is always e-mail. (not for him to email you, though!)...

do I remember, correctly? It seems to me that his wife was behind a lot of the financial stuff..and, pushing him to get you to take care of it.....
If so, I suspect that she is behind him to continue to do so..... It sounds to me that he is lower on money than she likes. I have seen it, so many times, that the new woman will be the fire under their feet...and, without that to fuel their jets..they are a lot more passive..... It causes me to wonder if all is not well in paradise....

hopeful4

Oh yes, she is definitely fueling the fire, as always. He is very passive, until she gets behind him. She may have even been sending the texts, I am not sure.

He has a good job, but they have been burning through the money for sure. New furniture, he just got a new car, etc. That is what kicked off some of this b/c she had to cosign for his car and it made him mad.

Jaeger, you are right, he has cost us to the tune of about $25k in cleaning up all of his messes. He conveniently just forgets all about that. Ugh. Dandy, that is a possibility. I could just get a little go phone or whatever and let him know that is my new phone number, and that it won't text. He really won't speak to me on the phone, so maybe that is the way to go.

If it keeps up, I am going to try to convince him to use My Family Wizard. I will pay for it. He just loves sending off those nice little texts though, so I don't know if I can do that or not. So many things in hindsight that I wish I had known about when I divorced him that I would have gotten in our decree. Oh well, hindsight.

Aries, to answer, there is no magic age in my state where a child gets to decide she no longer wants to visit. She is only 11, just now old enough that the court would even listen to her testify if we did go to court, which I desperately don't want to do. Her sister stopped going right around 15.5 years old after a big blow up. She now visits but never spends the night and it gets under his skin in a big way, believe me. However, he knows there is nothing he can do about that. She is now 17, which in this state means she decides where she wants to live. Even if she wanted to move out of my house, she could. Not that she does LOL. Gosh I love those kids.

Thank you guys for responding. This is not how I wanted to come back, with trauma and drama.

FireSprite

It is always lovely to see you here hopeful, but I'm sorry you are dealing with drama!

Why is he doing this? Haven't you already split/handled 100% of every single thing that you could possibly do (like, last year) to finalize every remaining credit issue?

dandylion

hopeful....I think family wizard is a great idea for NORMAL people....but, I think in his (her) hands, it would just be one mo re bullet for his firearm. don't borrow trouble...lol...
About the phone...you could try if for a one month cycle and that will give you an idea of how it goes...without too much expense. Actually, you would save money, in the long run if you used that type of phone.
You could tell him that due to the many months of missed child support and cleaning up his financial mess..you all are now living severe osterity cutbacks and the different phone is just one of the necessary cutbacks (lol)........

hopeful4

Hi Firesprite!

Yes, I did clear up and pay off everything and there is absolutely nothing I can do and nothing I owe. Now he is ticked off b/c it's still on his credit report from when it was late. There is nothing that will make that go away except time. I went through all of this w/his wife back then, and he just turned it all over to her at that time. Fine. Done.

Now, he has decided he wants to hammer me for it himself I guess. It just means a second round of fun for me.

I am just so tired and not handling this stress well at all. My work sent out an email that we are getting an EAP and I plan to utilize that for counseling as soon as it's in place, but that may not be for a while. I am not really sure.

These communications should not put me into full blown panic attacks, but it really does, which shows me I have a lot to work on. One way or another, I will be back in counseling in January. I have to do it.