My son (14m) doesn’t want to see his abusive dad anymore
My ex and I share two children (14M and 10F) together.
We’ve been separated since 2017 and during our relationship he was very controlling, aggressive and explosive. These are some of the incidents that led me to leave him:
-When my son was 5, he was sitting down trying to learn how to write his name. My son was crying and complaining because he couldn’t figure it out. His dad lost it, grabbed my son’s face and rubbed into his paper screaming he was dumb over and over.
-When our daughter was about 2, he would lock her inside of her cot in the dark while she screamed as punishment. I would beg and plead to retrieve her and he wouldn’t let me.
-When I tried to leave him - he beat his head over and over into a wall screaming “this is what you’ve done to me”. I called the police and they removed him and took him to get evaluated but nothing was done otherwise.
For context - i was 18 and he was 28 when we got together. i had our son at 21. There are many behaviours and red flags I wish i didn’t ignore and escaped immediately before exposing my kids to this man. But I didn’t and I regret it every day.
Since our separation he has:
-abandoned my daughter on the side of the road during an argument with her. She was about 7 at the time.
- held a fist up to my daughters face in anger and threatened to hurt her - saying this is what she has made him do.
-Drove my children to the graveyard on father’s day and told them they should be better children because his father is dead and he wish he could spend more time with him.
But honestly - as bad as all of these events are - the hardest to navigate is the constant guilt trips and manipulation. He can do these terrible things to my kids and then bribe them the next weekend so they forget what happened.
In person, he is a charismatic, charming man whose ego has been exacerbated by his somewhat successful youtube channel and online presence. He has created an online image for himself as a super dad. He receives constant praise on his instagram however what his followers don’t realise is that my children are forced to sit for photoshoots and threatened if they don’t comply
For example, on christmas he forced my kids to lineup in their matching spongebob pyjamas with their dad and step mum in front of the christmas tree, otherwise he would take all of their presents away. These guilt trips are constant.
My son is no longer falling for the facade, and the exciting trips out, materialistic purchases and is repulsed by his dad.
The final straw for my son was a few weeks ago, his dad (who is permanently late) had promised to drive my son to meet his friends. His dad refused to stop filming himself doing a youtube video and made my son late. My son lost it. He has since begrudgingly gone to his house a few times but hated every moment. He is too scared to pull the pin entirely as he knows the guilt trips that will follow.
Unfortunately - my ex is expecting a baby in the coming months with his new GF which means his desire for maximum fake happy family content for social media is at an all time high and I am really concerned how his temper and control will be impacted by this baby if my children don’t abide by his requests.
I just don’t know how to handle the situation. When I write out all of the bad things he’s done it’s really easy to understand why my son doesn’t want to go there - and believe me i don’t want my son to be around this man. It’s also extremely confusing because in person he is so charming and he is unable to ever see any wrongdoing. He never takes accountability and genuinely believes himself to be a good person and amazing father. He turns up to every soccer game schmoozing all of the parents and forces my son to acknowledge him by intercepting him when he walks on and off the field. If I call him out on his abuse - which I regularly do - he will always have an excuse - blame the kids or me somehow but honestly the next day it’s like his brain just re-sets. I can tell him he is the worst most abusive person ever and doesn’t deserve to have children and the next day we see him somewhere and he comes up and talks to us as if we are friends. It’s so confusing and forces me and my husband into having to completely ignore him. Now my son is doing the same.
I’ve already managed to get custody from 50/50 to him having them every second weekend. There are no court orders in place.
I just really feel for my son and can see he is torn between strongly disliking his father but also stuck in a trauma bond and not wanting to deal with the aftermath of cutting his dad out.