NC With Mother of My Child

[Brett Favre]

I am in the middle of a brutal custody battle with the mother of my son. She left me suddenly for another man and moved my son 250 miles away. She has been lying to me about the other man, but I knew that this was the case because I am not naive. It was confirmed through our attorneys that she did indeed have a significant other. I will not go in too much detail about the horrible things that she has done to me, because it is obvious to anyone who is familiar with being betrayed and abandoned. I will tell you that this woman is my best-friends older sister. My best friend committed suicide three years ago and that is how we got together.

 

This relationship has ended horribly. I have been threatened with physical violence from her Father multiple times due to the smear campaign she ran against me. She ran this campaign to gain sympathy and monetary support from her parents and relatives. In reality, I was a very loving and supportive partner, she has ended our relationship because the thrill of me being her dead brothers best friend has wore off.

 

She has manipulated and lied to me constantly. Promising me her love one day, and then withholding any form of contact the next. I have been through hell for this woman and even ended up in the hospital from the emotional abuse she has subjected me to.

 

With that being said, I have decided to protect myself from her evil. I hired an attorney to fight for my son who is 20 months old. I only get to see him every other weekend. She was allowed to move my son 250 miles away because we were not married, only engaged, when she left.

 

About three weeks ago she attempted to file a restraining order against me, in order to gain more leverage with the courts. My attorney got it dismissed because I never threatened her and my messages had purpose, to retrieve my son who was taken, but that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, I have an excuse to have NC.

I admit, I sent her some really angry messages when she left. Mainly because she was still promising me her love and spending nights in hotels with me, but then she would withhold contact and not respond to my messages. She was "leaving me in the wings" just in case her new relationship flopped. I knew this. And it made me very angry.

 

Now, I want to have NC. But, since we are co-parents I have to see her every week and communicate through an online parenting program. I want to know what you guys suggest I do and say? I really want to avoid any conversation or contact with her. If I had it my way, we would do a safe exchange program at the police station, but since she has moved so far away, I have to meet her half-way in a gas station parking lot to exchange our son. What do you suggest? Is anyone dealing with a similar situation? She has narcissistic personality disorder, and every move she makes is calculating and manipulative. How do I protect myself from that?

[Raena]

Is there no other place to do the exchange in that area? Try to find a police station or a parking lot that has camera's. I think Wal-Mart has camera's in their parking lot. The reason I say this is because if you can't get into the safe exchange program, then at least what happens will be on camera.

 

I feel for you, I really do because I'm going through something similar. It is very difficult to maintain no contact with an ex when you have children together.

 

It's very, very difficult. But it can be done for the most part.

 

- keep your conversations short and to the point

- only discuss what needs to be discussed about the child

- If you have to, make all of your correspondence go through email. I haven't gotten to this point yet but I'm almost ready to.

- be careful what you write to her, everything you type is admissible in court. (don't make the mistake I did of blasting her via text message, it's hard not to when they do stupid things)

- do not correspond with her via the telephone. You want a record of every conversation you have with her.

- keep a calendar of events... every time you are to have your child, how often you speak to him/her... how much you pay in child support. Also keep a journal of the things she says to you and how each interaction goes between the two of you. It will come in handy.

 

Distance yourself from her as much as possible. I know it's painful and hard but you can do it.

 

I'm sure, like me, you'll have bumps along the way that will make this difficult. Don't beat yourself up over every little thing that happens. Just do what you can to be a good father to your child.

 

All you can do at this point is what you should be doing as a father... let the rest of it go. Hopefully, at some point, she'll grow up and realize that you two need to communicate with each other without anger... but that will take time. Preferably before your child is a teenager because I suspect it will be much more difficult to co-parent at that point if you aren't able to communicate with each other. You'll need to be on the same page.

 

As for yourself... I can't tell you that this works ALL of the time for me, but it does work MOST of the time. I keep a journal. A place where I can rant and rave about the awful things my ex did to me and continues to do. I've gotten away from it lately but I think that's part of the healing process, letting go. I try not to take it out on my family and friends because they really only want to listen to just so much, ya know? Think things through before you follow through on them. Even responding to a text message. If you are angry, don't do it. I wish I listened to my own advice because I just let it rip last night in text message to him and in the end, it just made me look like a whack job. Come here and write it out, talk to other people, it does help. Get busy doing other stuff and ignore her completely unless it has to do with your child.

 

Good luck

[Brett Favre]

Thank you, Raena. I did make plenty of mistakes during the process and sent many text messages/emails our of anger. I was so angry with her. She destroyed my life and took my son away from me. She put me in so much debt that I had to file bankruptcy. I had a perfect credit score, a brand new car, and was looking at houses before she left me.

 

My boy is his father's son. We have a bond and connection like no other. She saw that, and I believe is purposely trying to distort it. The evilness that she has exuded has disgusted me. I have no more interest in her romantically, at all. If we didn't have a child together, it would be so easy to forget her. That is how bad she has hurt me.

 

The fact that she is my dead best-friends sister makes this even worse. It's like I'm losing my friend all over again. This forum and my counselor are my only outlets for the way I feel. All of my friends have abandoned me, and the only one who wouldn't have is dead. My family does not understand the pain. They hate her furiously but have never been through something so hard and traumatic. My counselor has diagnosed me with PTSD after this situation. I invested everything I had, mind, body and soul, into this woman. The promises we made to each other were everlasting. I never in a million years would have thought that she would do this to me and my son.

 

She is not a good mother and I have that on record. My son has had numerous health concerns under her care. I believe she knows that she is an inadequate parent because she is now having her parents care for my son while she collects the child support. She is so ready to start a new life with her new man.

 

Thanks for your reply. It means a lot to me.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Brett Favre
Typos

[Raena]

I understand what you are going through. There really aren't enough words to express my sympathy. She sounds like a real asshat and I'm sorry she is putting you through all of this.

 

Another thought I had too was to find books on PTSD and how to manage it, also books on break ups and how to manage one. One that I found quite amusing was "It's Called a Break Up Because its Broken". The authors are a married couple who have both been through the ringer with exes and they talk you through how to manage your feelings afterwards with amusing anecdotes and their own stories infused throughout it. Some is from the man's point of view and some from the woman's, some is just generic. It helped me and it might help you. I don't know if you like to read, but that's just another tool I used to help myself through this. I've also read a lot of articles on co-parenting with an ex you don't get along with.

 

In the end you have to be your own best ally. Only you know what works for you and what will help you get through this with your sanity intact. I can tell you what I did, but it might not work for you.

 

One thing I did that helped me was to make a bulleted list of all of the reasons why our relationship ended. When I was done, I had a two page document, single spaced, size 10 font. I then hung it up on my wall where I would see it every day and reminded myself constantly of why not talking to him was the best thing for me. Then I made a list of all of the things that I always wanted to do that I couldn't do when I was with him and I've been slowly working my way through that list. Each one I check off makes me feel better and better about myself. You can repair your credit score, it will take time but eventually you will be where you wanted to be without all the drama of the relationship with her. I did some other things too that wouldn't really apply to you and that's what I mean... you figure out what you need to help you and then do it. It'll keep your mind off of focusing on her and the terrible position she put you in.