How I Coped With Coercively Controlling Ex-husband (What You Can Do to Help Yourself)

Therapeutic protocols and the legal system often facilitate emotional abuse in high-conflict divorced and divorcing families.  Both legal and therapeutic professionals are aware that problems exist, but neither has addressed the problem with medical and legal protocols, perhaps because Father’s Rights and Protective Mother advocates are at loggerheads over who is most responsible for and most victimized by these abuses.  But high-conflict families are the ones that produce the children most wounded by divorce. Moreover, the emotional abuse suffered in these families is every bit as damaging to children as child sex abuse. 

I know this because my son, daughter, and I all suffered extreme coercive control and emotional abuse from my ex-husband and his second wife.  While my son and I survived the emotional abuse with permanent emotional scars but are basically OK, my daughter has struggled with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  BPD is, ironically, the disorder suffered by many victims of severe child sex abuse.

The American Psychiatric Association needs to recognize coercive control in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; until politicians write legal codes addressing the problem, until therapists, judges, teachers, and attorneys are given clear guidelines for recognizing and coping with how coercive control affects co-parenting, the parent has to make the best of an unfair situation.  

My recommendations for families going through coercive control abuse below are based on what worked for me as a co-parent struggling with abuse in a system that offered me little protection or support for my children and for myself.  Some of my recommendations are also based on what I learned to protect myself legally.  Others focus on coping behaviors that respond effectively to your body’s biological reactions to anger and pain, or on natural ways to nurture your body’s hormones to improve feelings of well-being.

1. Get yourself into therapy and/or find an experienced mentor to help you.
2. Get yourself and your children into family therapy.  This therapy works best when the therapist has training in Family Systems or Structural Family Therapy.  Individual therapists advocate for children specifically and can split apart parents and children when a coercively controlling parent is manipulating a child to turn against the parent.  A therapists trained in Family Systems or Structural Family therapy look at how different family members affect the relationships between other family members.
3. It your child does not trust the family therapist, get your child into individual therapy so that they can develop a trusting relationship with a therapist. There are two reasons why individual therapy is important for some children.  

• If a child has been taught to distrust therapy, a therapist who advocates just for the child’s interests only can help that child trust therapy.  This can help this child seek out therapy for healing in the future.  
• Getting a child into individual therapy demonstrates to a judge and to other therapists and Child Protective Services that you are a caring and supportive parent no matter what the abusive, alienating parent says about you.

My experience:  My daughter heard over and over from her father how he got into trouble every time her brother spoke about family problems in therapy.  She learned to both blame her brother for causing Dad to get into trouble and to not share her experiences and concerns with the therapist.

4.  If you can’t afford therapy, try to find a mentor who has experience coping with high-conflict divorce to help you cope with your high-conflict co-parent.

5.  Go to your local domestic violence agency for help and advice if you don’t have the money for therapy or you don’t know how to find a mentor.

6.  If you don’t have a mentor to help you cope with the conflict on a daily or frequent basis, find two or three confidants who can at least listen to you as you process your feelings. Make sure these confidants are willing and able to keep your situation confidential.

7.  Outside of therapy, mentors and confidants, keep your discussions about your interactions with your abusive co-parent diplomatic and brief.  For example, you can say, “I am facing some schedule challenges with my co-parent right now.”  Do not confide details.

8.  Take classes in Non-Violent Communication, or, if you know the skill, practice it right now.

1. Take classes on the internet.
2. Take classes in person.
3. Join a NVC practice group.
4. Read books on Non-Violent Communication.
5. Journal NVC responses to actions and communications made by an abusive co-parent.
6. Remember to use descriptive, nonjudgemental language.  This can be challenging.  For example, rather than saying that you feel unsafe when someone is angry around you, say that you feel unsafe when someone uses a loud voice around you.
7. Use Non-Violent Communication in Email and verbal communication with your high conflict co-parent.
8. Use Non-Violent Communication with your children.
9. Use Non-Violent Communication with everyone in all conflicts because it will improve your relationships with friends, family and co-workers.

9.  Journal/document your problems with your co-parent.

1. Document your difficulties with your co-parent for therapists, attorney, Child Protective Services, judges and whoever may be concerned about your children and family.
2. Writing about your problems can help you calm down when you are stressed.
3. Writing can help you organize your thoughts.
4. Writing can help you learn new skills such as NVC,
5. Writing can help you organize more effective responses to the words and actions of an abusive co-parent.
6. How to journal;

•   If you are stressed, try to calm down.  Don’t worry about what you are writing; just write down what you are thinking and feeling as you think it and feel it.
•   Journal like a journalist (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How)
•   In order to practice new skills such as Non-Violent Communication, take a specific situation or communication and then write down your response in the NVC format:  I observe…, I feel…, I need…, and I request…..
•   Brainstorm ideas for coping with your situation.  Do something so you can separate out the ideas for later review, such as setting them off with numbers, hyphens, or bullet points.

10.   Learn the skills taught in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy either online or in therapeutic classes or through your local domestic violence agency.  In addition, there are low-cost and free counseling services that may be able to help.

a.  Learn Mindfulness or awareness/compassion for one’s own emotions, needs, feelings, and reactions.

b.  Learn mindfulness or awareness/compassion for your child’s emotions, needs, feelings, and reactions.

c.  Learn mindfulness or awareness/compassion for your co-parent’s emotions, needs, feelings, and reactions.

Aside: People are going to ask, “Why do I need to be mindful about the needs and feelings of someone abusing me?”

There are three reasons:

Number One:  This is not just about you.  It is about your children and their need to have healthy relationships with both parents.  You have to keep trying to support your children’s relationship with their co-parent until it has been conclusively proven to outside authorities that that relationship is harmful to them. 

Number Two:  You are not a credible decider of who is causing the problems in your family.  Currently, judges decide, and the credible witnesses they listen to include therapists, other medical professionals, Child Protective Services, and court-appointed advocates for your children.  You have to prove to credible witnesses that you are not the problem.  The way you do this is to always be respectful to your co-parent and child, no matter how they treat you.  When they treat you badly, that can be very challenging, so you have to practice, practice, practice.

Number Three:  You are more likely to win in a legal setting if you can remain calm and respectful no matter how badly your co-parent is treating you inside and outside of court.

4.  Practice Forgiveness of the abusive co-parent and disrespectful child.  You do this for the three reasons above.  You can choose the method that works for you.  It works for me to bless the co-parent or child every time I criticize them to third parties.  I also pray for their well-being.

5.  Develop a daily meditation or prayer practice.  Some people prefer a Buddhist- or Hindu-inspired non-denominational meditation practice.  Muslim Sufis achieve a meditative state through sacred dancing.  I personally achieve my meditative state through my own personalized practice of Centering Prayer I learned as a convert to Catholicism.  Other Catholics and Christians may feel drawn to prayers with words such as the Rosary or the Lord’s Prayer.  I also find that quiet contemplation in nature brings me peace and well-being.  Whatever works for you, just do it and do it often.  

6.  Develop a daily mantra to improve your self-esteem and cheer yourself up during episodes of tears or anger.  An example I used for myself is “I am strong, and I am getting through this.”

7.  Develop healthy methods of distress tolerance in the moment.  Do not use drugs or alcohol, or even something that really does not help you for the better, such as binge eating or binge watching television.

1. Talk with a mentor or confidant.
2. Deep Breathing.
3. Counting to ten before responding.
4. Physical activity such as exercise or going for a walk
5. Spending time in nature, whether sitting on a beach, hiking through a forest, contemplating a waterfall, or walking through a garden.
6. Yoga, Kung Fu, or other martial arts that help you develop a positive mind/body connection.
7. Get enough sleep.
8. Reading books about self-care or spiritual self-healing.
9. A physical activity that accomplishes a need that puts you ahead in your life.

• housework
• gardening
• fixing a car
• woodwork
• home maintenance

My Story: My ex-husband demanded that we do pick up and drop off of the children at Starbucks.  While he was rarely more than fifteen minutes late picking up the children, he was routinely 30 minutes late dropping them off to me.  Once he dropped them off to me a full two hours late.  To cope, I often brought books on healing and spirituality with me while I waited for my children.  This helped me because it gave me a very positive distraction.  While I was in a tense situation, I was focusing on how to cope with tense situations.  Books I read while waiting to pick up my children from my ex-husband included books by Wayne Dyer and Dr. Jaime Romo.

• Draw, paint, or sculpt your feelings or your situation.
• Sing, play an instrument, or listen to music.
• Dance your feelings, but not necessarily as a formal way of connecting with the divine.
• Repeat a mantra to improve your mood in the moment (I am strong, I am getting through this).
• Grounding through thinking of five things you see, four things you hear, three things you can touch, two things you smell, and one thing you can taste.
• Develop a box containing sensory items to ground you such as something you can touch, something you can see, something you can taste, something you can hear and something you can smell.
• Distraction, such as watching television or eating chocolate or junk food, if it is done in a limited fashion.  Extensive reliance on any or all of these things is unhealthy.   
• Do not use drugs or alcohol to help yourself calm down and cope.  Using drugs and alcohol to cope with stress will sabotage your efforts to provide a better situation for yourself and your children.

My Story:  I like to garden, and I always need to do housework.  When I garden or do housework, I both reduce the physical aspect of my anxiety and reduce my overall anxiety by accomplishing something I need.  In addition to the satisfaction of accomplishing needed work, I also improve my mood because my house or my garden looks great.

8.  Learn how to write short, business-like e-mails.  Think of a therapist and judge looking over your shoulder each time you write one.  What do you want them to think about you? You are working on problems with your co-parent.

 

Step one:  Do not hit the reply button today for these e-mails unless it is absolutely critical that you reply today.  You need to take time to understand what your co-parent is saying to you, and you need to think about how to respond in the most respectful, businesslike fashion. 

My Experiences:  My ex-husband used to write long, complicated e-mails.  Most of what he wrote was criticism of me.  Often only one sentence addressed the critical information.  Sometimes he said opposite things in the same e-mail and sometimes in the same sentence.  So I had to read these dense, abusive e-mails with a fine-toothed comb to understand them.

Step Two:  Either cut and paste the e-mail into a new document or hit the reply button and do not send, but write a response to each paragraph.  You can forward this edited copy to a mentor or confidant you can discuss the e-mail with later to help you figure out how to respond.

Step Three:  Write a response to the e-mail.  You can forward this to your mentor or friend but don’t send it to your co-parent or the attending therapists just yet.  Address only the critical issues in your co-parent’s e-mail— the critical parenting issues and major false accusations your co-parent has made against you.

Step Three:  Wait a few hours or overnight and rewrite your response.  Repeat this step two or three times until you and your mentor or confidant are  satisfied with you reply, but do reply to you co-parent with 48 to 72 hours.

Step Four:  Use Non-judgemental/Non-violent language.

Step Five:  If your response is complex because your co-parent has raised multiple issues, then summarize your points at the end of your e-mail.

9.  When you parent or interact with your children, think of a judge or a therapist looking over your shoulder.  What do you want them to know about your parenting style?  Then you do what you want the professionals interacting with your family to know.

My Experiences:  My ex-husband often made false accusations of wrongdoing against me in his e-mails.  I had to filter out what was important enough to address and what was best left unaddressed because it was not important.  For example, I sent my in-laws gifts of copies of the children’s best schoolwork at Christmas time.  After Christmas, I sometimes called them to thank them for gifts they had sent to our children.  I knew better than to talk about the problems I had with my ex-husband.  I kept the conversations brief, diplomatic, and focused on good news about the children.  I never had a negative interaction with any of his extended family after we divorced.  Yet he would mention these rare phone calls in e-mails and would say that his family was profoundly disturbed by their phone calls with me.  All of our e-mails were sent three-way to the Parenting Time Coordinator.  I left the accusations about my ex-husband’s family finding their contacts with me disturbing unanswered because they were not about important parenting issues. 

10.  Take parenting classes online or at your local school or domestic violence shelter— wherever they are to be found.  Try to make sure there is some way you can document your attempts to improve your parenting skills.

11.  Practice, practice, practice.  If you have been using ineffective and unhealthy coping skills, your brain is trained to react the wrong way instead of responding the right way.  You need to use your new skills at least twenty times to build new neural pathways in your brain.  If you can join a support group, particularly one that uses role-playing to train the brain in new coping skills, as role-playing is the best way to learn new coping skills.

My Experiences:  My ex-husband would not leave his false accusations alone, no matter whether or not I responded to them.  He did the same with schedule changes that I turned down.  He sent me email after email criticizing me, accusing me, and demanding changes even though I turned down his request, and our Court-Ordered Parenting Time Coordinator instructed us not to make changes in order to reduce conflict.  I had to address the false accusations he made a few times and the schedule change requests he made a few times.  I did not have to repeat these issues more than a few times unless the Court-Ordered Parenting Coordinator instructed me to address them.

What to Do?  All of the above.

You can also buy my book on Amazon.com: How to Heal: A Workbook for Survivors by a Survivor Plus Tips for Documenting Abuse by V. Jones