M
Melissa
Guest
Indeed, it is well known that abusers use that whole reconciliation as a means of getting the victim back under their control–it is part of the whole cycle. My marriage was an abusive one (verbal/emotional, not physical) and I stayed as long as I did because I feared even more what would happen if my husband had unsupervised access to my children. He hasn’t been formally diagnosed, but when I was going through criteria w/ my therapist (who had started out doing marriage counseling with both of us before reopening the case as just me as client, so she’d met him) for Narcissistic Personality Disorder–you need 5 of 9 ‘yes’ answers to make the diagnosis, there were 9 of 9 yes answers. He is not above using the “if you were a real Christian (or true Catholic), you would forgive” as a means of manipulation. I’ve seen him do so to others, I’ve seen him try it with me. Now, of course, it’s not just me that I have to consider, but also the well-being of four young people (my children whose ages range from nearly-11 to 18).
How did I finally escape? When he raped another woman and was arrested for that offense. Yes, ultimately, he did pretty much “get off” as he told me he would (interesting that he never once denied the offense to me, though–we had three conversations while he was in jail awaiting the preliminary hearing. One of his sisters who is his supporter said that he “didn’t have time” to deny it to me … really? He had time to try to demand that I come up with the bail money, including robbing my oldest son of his life savings and/or asking my parents to put up their house, he had time to tell me that he would “beat this charge” but not once tell me “I didn’t do it” or “I didn’t rape her” It took him almost a month to come up with the defense that it was consensual sex.) Yes, I do believe he was guilty of exactly what he was originally charged with. While he was in jail, I got an order of protection that prevented him from returning to the house. Then I got food stamps and medicaid, got all of us into counseling, then I auditioned and chose a divorce attorney and filed.
My children have been in counseling. My oldest still is, my youngest son still is, my middle son should be, but he’s unwilling to work at it. Only my daughter seems to have managed with just the family counseling that we had for 11 months before our move.
During the period from when I filed until his arrest in January '11, he fought the order of protection and got that reduced (because I didn’t want to put my son on the stand as he could have corroborated everything I said), he tried to take me to court for custody (that got tossed because the divorce had already been filed), and he stalked me. The stalking (and thus violation of the order of protection) was why he was arrested in January and that led to the six weeks of peace that we had before the last court date in early March when I was granted everything that I had originally requested.
Ultimately, he pled guilty to the criminal contempt (a felony) for stalking me and was sentenced to two years. As part of the plea deal, however, they broke it up so that he also pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge relating to his rape victim so that he has “1+1” instead of 2 years, which allowed him to stay in county jail rather than being sent to state prison.
Part of the divorce decree is that he has only supervised access to the children. Part of the criminal case results is that I have a full order of protection against him valid until 2019 (the longest period that an order of protection could be issued for in NYS). Reconciliation and resuming marital life would be, at the very least, imprudent and irresponsible of me. I’ve forgiven him but I cannot trust that any sorrow on his part is more than sorrow that he is, at long last, facing consequences for his actions. What would it take for me to believe that he is genuinely contrite? For starters–he would have to never once violate the order of protection (which means no contact whatsoever) and not attempt to see the children outside of the supervised visitation that he has been allowed. If he does violate the order of protection (and just driving to my house and sitting outside the house with no other contact would be a violation), it is not a lack of forgiveness on my part which would lead to me calling the police to have him arrested again (and on a second offense of violating the order of protection, he would be going to prison).
So that’s where my lines are drawn and why they have been drawn. This would also be why I object to Bryan’s over-simplifications. My particular story may be more extreme than some, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t many others for whom reconciliation would be imprudent, if not altogether irresponsible.
You must have been posting while i was. From now on, I will pull quote boxes. And now re-reading my post, It looks like I’m laughing at the initial thread starter’s post. I was actually just poking at the fact that this conversation has really evolved into a multitude. The starting post is heartbreaking and is a very difficult situation.
