I Want the Flowers

I was afraid of being alone and that was when my family was still a part of my life and I had friends (mutual with FW). It’s been 4.5 years since Dday and I remember not being able to grasp how I would financially handle everything. (although the thought that i would no longer be stuck with FW was super appealing). I got a lawyer and filed for emergency support (FW had just drained our joint bank account). I did not have a full-time job or any really good prospects so I enrolled in school and got a second job (while handling everything with the kids). And it turns out that once FW was out of the house it was WAY EASIER than when he was around. I eventually cut his family out, and then my whole family and all mutual friends (which was pretty much everyone). I have a handful of new friends now and my two kids- I don’t really go out and holidays are always just me and my two kids, but you know what? I’m WAY HAPPIER. Being alone is fucking awesome. In the beginning, I thought I would eventually start dating again, but Now?? Now I have zero desire. This may or may not change, but I’m here to tell you that being single (I’m 53) is fabulous and I can totally see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I tried to delay my divorce so I could wrangle some more money or at least find a decent job, but FW drained our joint bank account and I couldn’t feed my kids, so START with a lawyer, then work on your employment options. My other issue was I constantly scheduled everything around my kids which made finding work much harder. Once I realized my teenagers don’t need me around (and FW is ALSO legally obligated to either pay for care or make sure they get to school) it opened up more jobs for me. Today I’m pursuing a nursing degree and I was able to buy FW out of the house (with our retirement) so my kids and I have stayed in our original house. Moving for you might be an option, but talk to a lawyer first. Also, I bought myself flowers nearly every week the year after FW moved out.

Dear ICBMF –
Not only can you buy yourself flowers, but you apparently can do a whole helluva lot. Doing it without the added anxiety of dealing with a FW will make your tasks much easier. Not your problem where or whom he is with.
Bet you anything his family is made up of cheaters. You inflicting consequences probably makes them very uncomfortable. How DARE you!

I get the financial considerations. But delve deeper into the archives here, and you will discover how chumps who were barely scraping by managed to achieve financial security in a short time once the FW wasn’t there draining their accounts with porn subscriptions, hooker payments, gifts to schmoopies, and male grooming products.

I squirreled away $1000 over two years in order to leave my abusive xFW#2 over 30 years ago. You will need enough for a rental deposit/first month’s rent and a moving van at least. I recommend getting far, far away from the FW and his band of enablers as soon as possible. Start looking for jobs in nearby towns/cities.

And don’t jump back into the dating pool too soon. You need to KNOW you can make it on your own. We believe in you.

As someone who has been single since D-day (almost 5 years ago), I can tell you that being alone is a thousand times better than being married to an abusive cheater. I actually love being single and have no desire to date or be in another romantic relationship. Don’t let fear of being alone keep you with an asshole like your husband.

You are already doing all of the work. Being on your own won’t change as things much as you think. Even though I ended up with full custody of my son, my own place, a job, and all the work that goes into it, having to do 100% myself, without having a FW to deal with I had LESS work, LESS stress, MORE time, MORE money, and far more happiness.

I lost nearly every friend I’d had with FW (15 years together). I had very little support outside my mom, my best friend, and my attorney. You can do it.

If you can’t afford a lawyer, look into alternatives like lawyers who work pro bono in association with women’s shelters, advice from the law library, or free consults. Even if you can’t hire a lawyer full time, you can sometimes engage them for guidance with periodic consultations, which you pay for hourly. As CL said, you can apply for spousal and child support as soon as you start the divorce process, especially if your kids have medical needs.

You have literally nothing to work with in your marriage. Your FW’s family are more than likely going to side with him, no matter how long they’ve known you (I was fortunate that FW’s family actually supported me, but I know it’s not the norm). There’s a lot we have to let go in order to escape these abusers, but it’s worth it, I promise.

I’m 8 years out. And I mean out. I left the ‘home’ we bought together, I left the community, I left that whole life and I left the in-laws and all the flying monkey friends behind too. I remember sobbing in the shower (and not for the first time) and coming to the realization that I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than subject myself one more moment to his disdain and disrespect. And it was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Absolutely begin with investing in a one hour conversation with an attorney – but to make the most of your time, CL always reminds us… they aren’t your therapist! Go in with a specific list of questions: what is the mandatory separation period? how can I file for full child support? what additional services do your teens need, make sure FW is paying for it? who gets to stay in the current home? visitation rules? LEARN and then you can build your strategy based on facts. Two years is too long to continue being abused.

You are stronger than you know. Most chumps are, they’ve just been convinced otherwise by gaslighting and covert undermining. Even though I made significantly more money than Mr. Sparkles, in his mind my work hours were more flexible so I got the daily daycare runs and soccer practices and doctor appointments and sick days with the kids… all of them. Meanwhile, Mr. Sparkles would take long lunches or leave work early (unbeknownst to me) to meet up with his f-buddies from Adult Friend Finder or Ashley Madison. I lost two jobs while I was married to him. After the discard, he had our son with him on a summer vacation with the OW and her kids and my boy was tired and crying for me… he called me and left umpteen voicemails (I was on an airplane) demanding that I come right back and get our son. SERIOUSLY. #manchild

I’ve been single now since the discard in 2014 (divorce in 2016). I’ve been so busy rebuilding a life, keeping my son on track (who is an honor student, kind, confident – #blessed), and my career has blossomed. A great patch of time in my life. Would I like to date, yes – I think I would… but not if it means giving up the peace I have in my life now. I’ll never do that again.

You can do this. Take one small step each day and before you know it you will have walked a mile. Keep coming back here; read the archives; build a fw free life.

Ms. I Can Buy Myself Flowers,

You can do this. It is hard but once he is gone it does get better. When my ex left 1.5 years ago he stopped paying the mortgage, property taxes and strata fees on our town house. He hasn’t paid for our sons expenses or activities since he left. Yesterday, my ex shows up to my sons birthday in his G Wagon with a new Rolex on. My ex “forgot” his wallet so I had to pay for my sons party by myself (including his family and friends).

I work long hours and pick up overtime, I take vacation days at work so I can get overtime shifts on my vacation days to make money for my bills. My credit card bill and line of credit are high. I haven’t paid my Canadian tax bill this year yet but I will. It will take time, but I know I can do it. I consider it the price of freedom.

Despite life being financially harder now. I am so much happier. It is worth it to know that I won’t get another STI, I won’t have to deal with my abusive ex at home. I don’t have to deal with his family. I surround myself with people who treat me with respect and know who I am and what I am worth.

You are already doing everything yourself without any of the benefits of being free. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Dear Flowers,

I suspect you left out a great deal of detail in this letter. Maybe it was for the sake of brevity. By your “word vomit” comment, you seem to think your very brief, generalized account was “oversharing,” which it hardly is. But it’s understandable you would feel that way because you’re currently socially isolated and surrounded by evil to the point you think that your story could not evoke even minor interest or empathy from normal humans. That right there is proof that your abuser (because that’s what he is, full stop) has systematically undermined any potential social support you might have had over the years: you no longer think your side of the story has any merit which is a giant, flaming, epic lie. Just to jolt yourself out of this mindf*ck, I recommend watching the dramatic Netflix series “Maid” about the effects of coercive control and gaslighting in relationships. Not only aren’t you alone in what you’re going through, but there’s increasing global recognition for your plight and an increasing number of people out there who will understand what you’re going through. CL’s recommendation to to seek out resources for domestic violence– especially resources for the coercive control category of DV– is a way to find that sane tribe.

One clinical name for this type of gaslighting is “perspecticide”– one of the chief things that abusers do to isolate and control victims. Basically they make you think you’re worthless and no one will ever love or support you. Over time, as you’re made to feel more “worthless,” you start to “smell” desperate to others which tends to freak shallow or unreflective people out. Then you’re even more isolated. Then you’re so discouraged that you isolate yourself. And voila! The abuser’s work is complete! But abusers typically don’t rely on their own messaging that victims’ narratives and perspectives are “invalid” (you know, the glazed looks or yawns or general impatience or scoffing rage when you try to offer your perspective or feelings). Abusers will also systematically triangulate to make sure that no one else validates the victim either. Abusers are tireless in this respect. The reason that no one is listening to you or supporting you is because your abuser, like a dedicated counterintelligence agitator or political PR “ratf*cker,” has been going around behind your back for years casting you as crazy or incompetent or worse.

Doing this to you was probably made easier because parents who act as caretakers for sick or disabled kids may have more difficulty than average in making and maintaining adult friendships. At the very least, it’s hard to find time for socializing and, at worst, a lot of people think sick kids are a “bummer” and that devoted parents’ focus on health and healing is a “big snore.” But frankly I think the fact that it might have been easier for your abuser to isolate you and therefore easier to gaslight you and distort your perspective of yourself and your circumstances fall under the “eggshell skull” legal standard: just because a victim had a preexisting “thin skull” doesn’t make the perpetrator who bashed them over the head with a tire iron less liable even if they didn’t know about the preexisting vulnerability. But if the perpetrator knew of the preexisting vulnerability (as your abuser obviously does), it makes it all the more evil that the perpetrator targeted this Achilles heel.

Maybe you’re also leaving out details because you’re just not clear on the ways your abuser has, over the years, managed to weave a kind of barbed wire web of coercion and control around you that you now find yourself inexplicably tangled up in. If you’re going to untangle all that barbed wire, you first have to recognize the wires– recognize abuse as abuse. When abuse falls just short of overt violence and physical injury, it’s difficult for most people to categorize it which is why there’s currently a worldwide campaign to add “coercive control” statutes to domestic violence laws and policies (https://www.theacecc.com/post/not-all-bills-are-created-equal-a-review-of-coercive-control-legislation).

Aside from seeking in-person support and protection from victim advocates, I would recommend the book “Coercive Control” by veteran advocate and forensic psychologist Evan Stark. The first point that Stark makes in the introduction is that most victims of domestic violence list psychological abuse and “coercive control” as even more paralyzing and devastating than direct violence. In light of this, you might consider sitting down and writing out every single rattling, unsettling or subtly or overtly menacing thing your abuser ever did and said over the course of 16 or more years. If he’s never laid a finger on your or so much as punched the sofa you were sitting on during a typical cheater rage, it may take some effort to dredge up the memories of all his intimidating gestures and words and– very importantly– remember their gutting effect on you at the times they happened. You might have to peel off the layers of all the blameshifting self pity your abuser spewed in the wake of each of his abusive gestures in order to use “FOG” tactics (fear/obligation/guilt) to blind you to his full responsibility for his behavior. Because one thing is clear: you’re not staying out of love for this person but fear.

Fear of what? That differs from victim to victim since abusers tend to surgically tailor their psychological terror tactics to the individual vulnerabilities, strengths and fears of their victims. Saying you’re not motivated by actual love for this abuser is no reflection on your ability to love but simply to say that abusers are not, by definition, lovable. Furthermore, abusers tend to hold hostage or threaten anything their victims do love or value.

Proof that you’re a loving person is simply that you’re somehow being held hostage in shitty circumstances. It means something you love is being threatened. As a fellow mother of a medically fragile child, I can make a wild guess about what you love that is somehow being used to entrap you and that, furthermore, what obscures the fact that this area of our psyches are easy as pie to terrorize is the functional denial of every devoted parent of ailing children. In short, trying to constantly bear in mind the reality of how our kids can periodically swerve close to deeper, permanent impairment or death is like looking into the sun. It can’t be done without going blind. Or it’s like walking on a razor wire over a gorge. It’s just not wise to look down if you don’t want to lose your balance. While everything we do is an effort to allay those risks, if we considered the full risks at every moment, we’d stop sleeping, stop functioning and crash or die and then who would care for our kids? To remain functional, effective and proactive in order to save our kids, we have to shield our psyches from the full brunt of that life and death reality which creates the perfect opportunity for abusers to sneakily implant terror and hold us hostage. Since we can’t be constantly cognizant of our deeper fears for our children, this makes us a bit blind to how these fears can be amplified and used against us.

Think about it in the abstract: what could happen to medically fragile children if any interruption in medical care further compromises their health, if emotional stress further complicates their conditions, puts them at greater risk for catastrophic depression (always a risk for sick children) or if increased stress to their main caretakers — us– compromises our health and therefore our ability to provide the intense level of vigilance and care required to keep kids like that in their earthly forms? Our kids’ health tends to rest on a teetering Jenga pile made up of financial resources, social support, institutional supports, the kindness of strangers and our own physical and mental wellbeing and energy. We end up being so bloody nice to everyone for fear that any support might be withdrawn. Pull out one of those blocks and the whole stack collapses. Even the specter of being a divorced single parent of ailing children brings to mind social bias against single parents. Just the merest demonstration from an abuser that they could, for instance, casually mumble something to other people which would compromise our social status is like waving a gun at our kids because it could rob us of the scant support we need to keep our kids alive. What makes a threat like that more potent is that I know from first hand experience the sense that way too many of the people I would interact with regarding my son’s health and education seemed to want some grounds on which to demonize special needs parents because they could use this to justify withdrawing critical supports they didn’t want to be giving in the first place.

Just a tiny hint from an abuser that they would nudge one of those Jenga blocks– maybe just a viciously well-placed shrug showing that they don’t care about the consequences or could easily reverse blame onto us for any consequences– can make us shrink down into ourselves and play possum, otherwise known as “captor bonding” or Stockholm syndrome. The key thing about Stockholm syndrome and what makes it an actually successful survival strategy is that it depends on the appearance of the victim’s “loyalty” to the captor/abuser in order to inspire a bit of mercy from that abuser. To the extent that domestic abusers are clinically known to be almost preternaturally sensitive to any small sign of rebellion from their victims, “captor bonding/Stockholm syndrome” is only successful to the degree that captives/victims believe their own “loyalty ruses” down to a cellular level. It’s very effective in making abusers pull their punches a bit, at least at first. But where the survival mechanism loses its benefits is when the danger of staying starts to exceed the danger of escaping. At that point captives are confronted with the dissonance of their survival mentality and may start to collapse from shame and confusion over why they find it so hard to escape.

Why abusers do this is the “skein” which is better to untangle once a victim has reached safety and independence. Then have at it, go on a criminal psychology binge. It can be really interesting. For instance, abusers typically compulsively reenact their own childhood traumas but with victim/perpetrator roles reversed so they can experience the thrill of power as if this would somehow erase their former helplessness as victims (hint why your abusers’ family is punishing you: they’re all as twisted and demented as he is). Abusers also tend to have a psychic glitch called “masked dependency” where, because they never had needs met as children and developed catastrophic shame over their own vulnerability in childhood, they tend to deny their own pathological, infantile dependence on primary partners and seek ways to reverse this dependency, weakening and undercutting the self esteem of their partners to the point partners feel too worthless to move on. This protects abusers from fear of abandonment in two ways: by psychologically hogtying victims as well as “externalizing” the abusers’ fears of abandonment by making the partner chronically afraid of being abandoned. Cheating is arguably one manner by which abusers can “transfer” their own fear of being abandoned to their victims. When I worked as an advocate for domestic violence survivors, I never met a single survivor who hadn’t also been cheated on so I agree with the emerging view that cheating is part and parcel with coercive control (https://www.joplinlawyers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FINAL-COPY-Infidelity-as-a-Consideration-in-Domestic-Abuse-and-Coercive-Control.pdf).

It’s all fascinating stuff but the danger is that, when you’re still entrapped, you can end up huffing hopium and thinking the abusers’ psychic flaws are somehow “fixable.” Nope. The flaws described above are part of batterer and serial killer profiles, not mere sad sausage quirks (recidivism for batterers is about 97%. And have you ever heard of a reformed serial killer?). For the time being, it’s probably more productive to simply identify the abuse you’ve likely been enduring all along, then identify each and every “threat” your abuser has ever even subtly hinted at and, one by one, start to take actions that will protect you from each threat. If he’s ever insinuated that you’re an “unfit mother” and he might try to deny you of custody of your kids, documenting his neglect or any abusive behavior your kids are exposed to can help to block such a threat. For every one of his past threats– subtle or un– that you’re able to block, you’ll find yourself feeling less and less mentally entrapped.

You won’t be fully able to cut the “captor bonding” wires until your completely safe so don’t wait for a feeling of full closure to prompt attempted escape. Just trust that “meh” awaits you. The good news about captor bonding or Stockholm syndrome is that, once it dissipates, you’ll likely have little remaining sentimentality towards this guy, proving that what “kept you trapped” all those years was not love for him but love for something worthier, likely your children. Your ability to love is a strength, not a weakness. But the really diabolical thing about abusers it that they’re skilled at turning victims’ strengths into liabilities. I wish you strength and peace, all the support you need and a shining future.

If you want to leave, money matters. On the topic of financial abuse, I just watched an interesting YT video by Richard Grannon “Defeat The Narcissist Control Your Finances”. He talks about slave conditioning by those in power (the wealthy, the church) who propagate a lie that money doesnt matter. I always thought I was not “materialistic” as it was part of my personality, and FW used a bunch of tricks to keep things that way. Now I can see how my conditioning made me a sitting duck for financial abuse. I wont ever get my thrills from spending up at the shop, but I understand at least how I ended up in a trap.

Dear Flowers, it’s scary to think you’re alone. But it can also be empowering. Alone means you get to decide and no one insults or degrades you. Alone means peace and healing. No dick pics getting emailed to you!! No in-laws from hell. I’m with CL that there are non profits and women’s organizations that can help. If you are employed, does your employer have an employee assurance helpline? If your children have medical conditions, there must be assistance for you as their primary caretaker? Staying with FW is limiting your ability to think of and access other options. I am sorry you are going through this. But it sounds like you are a strong and responsible woman who needs to recognize she is in a crisis. My FW got violent. You don’t want to wait so long that it turns to that. Please figure out how to get yourself and your kids to safety. Wishing you peace and healing.

Do you think it’s going to be easier when he dumps you? Because he will eventually. And then you’ll still have no support and you’ll still be the bad guy and you’ll be older and it’ll be harder to start over. It’s not fun, ask me how I know.

Raccoons in the chimney! Lol! I had that and it sucked. It sucked 1/100th of being married to a cheating FW. At least I could hire someone to come out and “rehome” the raccoon.

When I finally threw out my cheater, he left behind bed bugs (from his week of BDSM cheating at Burning Man). It took 2 years and heating up the entire house to 130 degrees Fahrenheit to get rid of the bed bugs.

The only thing worse than the bed bugs was if FW had stayed.

Helpful note: any reputable bed bug exterminator will laugh awkwardly and say no when you offer to pay them extra to rehome the bedbugs to your ex’s place.