Seperation and Abuse

Hi all,

This is my first time doing anything like this but I need some advice. I'm sorry but this is going to be a bot long winded, bit would rather you all got the full story.

About 6 months ago me (male) and my partner (female) seperated and I moved out. We have a child which complicated matters. I would have gone to visit everyday of I could but my ex made it clear the I "have no right to invade our lives anymore". So I stayed away, repeatedly asked to see my daughter. Everytime told no. It wasn't up to me. I vitually begged for access, all denied. I was told I was being selfish. About a month later I was actually allowed to see her and it was great. Over the next couple of months I visited more frequently, to see both my daughter and my ex, getting closer again with both. While all this was going on I continued to pay all the bills on both the ex's property and my own as she said her money hadn't yet been sorted out and I didn't want either of them to suffer and risk homelessness. This however put a terrible strain on me financially and I struggled for 3 months, using the little saving I had, scrapping my car which was off road just to get by. When I ran out of options I tried to speak to her about it. She said I was being selfish. I needed to learn to live with what I got. I shouldn't expect to be just handed money. She was at this point claiming the money for the bills from benefits so I didn't think my request was unreasonable. She thought otherwise. We eventually came to a compromise. It would allow me to have enough money to get by, eat, and have a little bit of a life. I'd still have to be careful but I could manage while she still had the vast majority of what she had coming in to herself. Next day she cut me off, I heard nothing for days and I had to bug her for a response, im which she claimed I had emotionally abused and manipulated money out of her. She wanted nothing to do with me and would talk to me when she was ready. I waited for over a week and still nothing, no communication from her or my daughter so I bugged again, being in limbo was emotionally draining. I didn't know what was happening or if they were ok. I had no money left and the cupboards were very bare. Once again I was called selfish for wanting to know what was happening. I couldn't afford another month of paying out on 2 properties and told her such. I was told she would speak to me at my payday. I agreed to this as I at least knew what would happen next. I was wrong, the day before I got paid I recieved a package at work. She had sent the keys to the house to me, took all the furniture, trashed the house and run off with our daughter. I have had no contact since. All forms of contact have been blocked. I have missed my daughters last birthday and it was devistating. I have had several sessions of counselling to cope with what has happened. It broke me. All of it. I have since found that she has accused me of emotional abuse and neglect. She has put herself on a course for abused women. I have never been violent, I never turned up unannounced, I have never threatened her. She however has with me. During the relationship and after. Even now after all she has done I can't bring myself to hate her. I am doubting myself. Was I that bad? Am I really abusive? Do I not even know myself? I am constantly questioning who I am all while they are off living their lives. I don't know what to do. I am once again in limbo. I am miserable. The unknown scares me, I didn't know what to do when I split and now it's even worse. I don't know where they are and I don't know what to do.

This is quite a unique situation and I'm not sure if anyone can offer any advice. Anything to help guide me forward.

I'm sorry again that this post was so long.

I am so very, very sorry you in the situation you describe. How heartbreaking. I wish I knew how to help but sadly I have never been good at relationships.

I do know that strong emotions can cloud one's judgement. I wonder if anger may be affecting your wife's thinking and whether sadness is burdening yours. I know strong emotions make it difficult for me to keep perspective.

Is the therapist helping you? I would think a therapist would be able to help one sort out truth from the fog engendered by pain.

I think anger has a tendency to cause a person to have selective attention, seeing the negatives of a person they are mad at and forgetting the positives. It can also cause a person to over-estimate the negative, magnify it and exclude any positives in the person they are angry at. Do you think that might be the case here?

Sadness can have a tendency to produce excessive feelings of guilt and shame. When I am sad, I begin to doubt my self-worth and my past. This is also a case of selective attention and selective inattention. I see negatives in myself but can't seem to access the positives or I minimize or discount them.

I think situations that are emotionally charged can do this to people. I remember a time when I was angry at my parents. I could only access negative things about them and my past with them. Only later did I realize the thousands and thousands of beautiful and wonderful things about them.

Good and bad form a range of values. In emotional situations, people can forget this. They can lose perspective.

Take the idea of "bad." There have been a couple of men in the last 100 years who caused the destruction of tens of millions of men, women and children through genocide and campaigns of forced starvation. I am thinking here of Hitler and Stalin.

Now I don't know what you are being blamed for of blaming yourself for but I am sure you have not caused the destruction of tens of millions of people, or the destruction of millions of hundreds of thousands of people, or the destruction of tens of thousands or thousands of people, of the destruction of hundreds of people.

So I think it is important for us to keep our weaknesses and mistakes in perspective so we do not take on a sense of guilt that is inappropriate to our situation.

There is something called "Fundamental Attribution Error." Angry people tend to excuse their own actions as being driven by circumstances but attribute the actions of others as being caused my malice and bad moral character.

People who are sad and in grief tend to attribute unfortunate things they have done to flaws in their moral character while attributing the weaknesses and mistakes of others as caused by circumstances. This is how emotions can cloud judgment.

Sadly I do not have enough experience with relationships to be able to offer you anything very helpful. I hope your therapist and this site will prove helpful to you. There are a lot of people here going through relationship hell and I hope they see your post and respond to it in a kindly, compassionate and helpful way!

💔😢
Wish I could say more but this is all I have. My heart breaks for you man.
Are you not able to fight this in court, pleading your case and also requiring her to have to provide proof of her claims?