Thanks for the input everyone. Bunch of views, not one reply. Not even a hug. I'm hurting, I'm questioning myself, I'm questioning my parenting abilities because I'm not the hard *** my ex thinks I need to be.

I had to sit in a small room with my abuser for two frickin' hours and hear "pffft" and have my words waved away with a hand. If I was answered positively, it was with a flat voice and a "whatever" tone. He even brought up things that happened three years ago, had nothing to do with my kids, and that I believe I even told him about and he laughed at. I called my ex landlord a name while standing in a parking lot, so he reported it and I got fined $213 for disorderly conduct since I was dumb enough to admit to it when the cop called and asked if I said it. Yep, really worthy of taking my kids away isn't it? Yet his drunk driving charge shouldn't carry any negative weight as far as he's concerned.

One thing he used to always do was tell me I don't have an opinion of my own. It was because my opinions were never good enough for him, so I just gave up after a while. Yesterday he said that he doesn't have a choice but to make all the decisions about the kids, because I can never come to one. I just can't come to them on his speedy time table. Besides, it doesn't matter WHAT I think, he thought he had veto power and could go over my head at any and all times regarding the kids. He was set straight on that by me and the mediator. In a 50/50 split there is no primary custodian.

He thinks he should have the kids more because his house is cleaner and he's stricter and has a lot of friends, and because his home is more "family oriented" meaning there's a woman in the house too. Yeah, a woman who gave her own kid up in exchange for not having to be stuck with any debt after her divorce. Real damn family oriented that is.

Then he suggested that by freeing up my schedule and removing "obstacles" I could pursue the life and any career I want and be able to live wherever I want. Um, excuse me, but every other weekend and 2 nights a week does free me up to live wherever I want. Where's the logic in that? And when I asked if he was referring to the kids as "obstacles" he denied it but didn't say what the obstacles are. In the beginning of the meeting the mediator goes "so you're the jilted husband because she wanted the divorce. Are you still feeling like the jilted husband?" "No, I don't believe I am." And yet the things he's referring to, the having the life, etc., that I want, are things he used to beat with up with in the past.

He insisted because I was friendly to the guys who cut my hair and did my nails, that they were who I wanted to live with, that they were who I was leaving him for. He also insisted they were gay and that I was going to be having nonstop orgies with these supposedly gay guys. So, if he's not feeling jilted, why is he still bringing up old arguments. And If I was leaving him for these two guys, shouldn't I be having a huge social circle of all kinds of gay friends? Oh, and shouldn't my house be spotless since all gay people are notorious clean freaks? :insert huge sarcasm smiley here:

He refused to agree with my request of not hitting my daughter. Even the damned mediator asked him "so, when you hit her, did it calm her down?" "Yes" "So it was effective discipline?" "Yes" Again, he said he doesn't hit her often. My argument was that the more it happens, the more it will happen, especially if he found it effective once. He said that he doesn't see it happening more in the future since she's getting older (she's 14) and it probably won't be necessary in the future.

I guess I am crazy, if a mediator and social services believe he's fully justified in hitting and leaving bruises since it was effective.

I guess I am crazy because I want to know my kids aren't going to be verbally and physically abused and I want to know they aren't stepping into a car with a drunk driver.

I guess I am crazy because I got emotional when he suggested my kids be taken because I'm an unfit mother, and he sat there cold and emotionless and unbending.

If he wants me to have almost no say in their lives, no influence, nothing, WHY should I stay in their lives? So I can continue to be subjected to his condescending attitude towards me?

He tells me we need to work together. There IS no working together. Working together means "don't question anything I say, just agree to it" and then I get ridiculed for not having my own opinion. He refuses to listen to my opinions. Even the kids can't talk to him if they have a problem, because he doesn't listen to them either. When I brought that up in mediation, that the kids have a few concerns with things at home but don't feel they can talk to him, his answer was "They need to talk to me........but I'm not going to let them run slip shod over me."

There are some things I did wrong yesterday. I kept "beating a dead horse" as the mediator said (but so did my ex). I brought up things that the mediator couldn't address. I got emotional, and I cried, but it wasn't meant to be manipulative. When you're attacked for not having any friends and that you shouldn't have your kids because of it, I think crying is a fairly normal reaction. I was initially told that I shouldn't have the kids because I was going to have too many friends and wouldn't be there for my kids, that I'd just be partying all the time, because, since I wanted a divorce, that's what I was obviously going to be doing. He twists everything. When I mentioned that he threatened to drag me through the mud and I'd never see the kids again if I fought for more time with the kids and child support, he said that *I* was the one who told *him* that. The "mud" he was talking about was my SA and the fact that I had a disagreement with his dad and sister-in-law like 5 and 10 years prior.

The few saving graces for me were when the mediator said that he shouldn't have called and tried to make my daughter feel guilty for deciding she wanted to stay with me instead of him during a recent schedule rearrangent because of his vacation plans. That by doing that, he was making things difficult for her and me, and it was unnecessary. Regarding raising the kids, "If you don't let her have a say, of course she's going to be pissed." Something along the lines of "If this is how she was treated, maybe that's why she wanted the divorce." and the parting words to my ex "when your son comes to you at 30, bigger and stronger than you, and tells you how he felt at 12, do you want him to say his dad was an arrogant SOB?" and he didn't say anything to me about what bad things my kids may come and tell me when they're 30.

I would be MORE than willing to go to counseling with him, because then maybe he would finally see that I am not the one who did everything wrong and if I would just change to what he wanted things would be perfectly harmonious. That's most likely the very reason he doesn't want to go, because he would find out that it wasn't all my fault and that he has to do some changing of his own in order to get me to make some changes. We BOTH have to make changes, me included. I'm trying, I'm staying calmer for longer periods, but he just keeps doing the same thing until I crack, and then it's right back where we started. He's right, I'm wrong. He's better, I'm incompetent. He's smart, I'm dumb.

I don't know how to get out of this situation, being belittled and brushed aside, when I have to see this guy every week and be reminded by his actions how worthless and undeserving I really am for forcing a divorce on him and everything that followed. How can I be considered a "survivor of abuse" if I'm still putting up with it? I'm trying to change, but it's hard when you're your own therapist. There's no one to be accountable to for not following through with the lessons you're supposed to work on. Even with a therapist, I know you have to want to do it for yourself. But it might be easier because you have someone to answer to.

You know, I have opinions, but I'm afraid to ever voice them because they might not always be popular. When I do voice them, I'm accused of just parroting what someone else told me to say. It's kind of a lose-lose situation. I want to be heard, I want my opinions to matter, but because I can't express them with flowery words backed by years of research and experience, they don't carry any weight. They're just fluffy and too emotional, and tossed aside with the breeze from the hand of an annoyed listener or reader.