All I can say is that unless someone has a change of heart, there will be no change of nature or character.
I decided to test the waters to see if he had indeed changed at all. I initiated some emails between us and based on the things that I touched on, his responses to it would reveal to me what was going on behind the sunglasses.
Well let's just say that a leopard really doesn't change it's spots. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Once a liar always a liar. Add whatever proverb that talks about people remaining the same ad infinitum. They all apply to him.
His responses clearly let me know that he is still in the same sad place. He still accuses me of being angry, even though my emails to him have the same tone that I write these blogs in. He accuses me of wanting to exercise power and control over him. He accuses me of manipulating the children and the court system against him.
He throws out there that I can go to the court and tell them that he's a good daddy, so that he can have unsupervised visits and sleepovers with the children immediately, because he says he has never harmed them. He still doesn't realize the incredible amount of trauma his children have suffered because of him. He must think that all 6 year old girls want to kill their fathers! He must think that it's normal for kids to be in therapy because of their home life.
He continues to lie to me about things I supposedly said or did, telling me that I was refusing to take money from him that he was trying to give me, that I was telling him I didn't want any support from him and wouldn't cash checks he was giving me. He gave me one check for $500 back in January. I cashed it in January and used it. So I don't know what he's talking about or what's the point in him making up these things. It's so much easier to deal with the truth. He's truly pathological and disturbed. But it doesn't make me angry, I feel so sorry for him. He is pitiful.
This is a man that sees nothing wrong with hitting a pregnant woman. How low can you go? Most people see pregnant women as delicate and should be treated with care. Well, I guess no one told him that. He fought me through all four of my pregnancies with his children, whether early, mid or late term. He fought me 2 days after I gave birth to our 3rd child and began hitting me in the head repeatedly as I sat in the rocking chair nursing our newborn. He never gave me a moment of peace, unless he was high. Weed was like his medication. I was afraid when it ran out.
Here are a couple of direct quotes from him in these recent email exchanges (words of Jeff in blue):
"The fact of the matter is we can agree we were in a bad marriage and it needed to stop."
LOL! Again, he doesn't see his abuse as the reason why things were bad. We were just in this "bad marriage," for no real reason. I guess in his mind there are good marriages in which abuse takes place. I guess those are the ones in which the women take their beatings quietly.
"We both want nothing to do with abusive behavior or a dysfunctional relationship of any kind in our lives anymore, and we have achieved the foundation for that reality in the choices we have made."
LOL! He has the audacity to say that he wants nothing to do with an abusive relationship in his life anymore, but yet he was the one creating the abuse. WE achieved that foundation by the choices we made? Uh, I think my leaving the abuse made the choice. If I didn't leave he probably would have fought me yesterday, be having a fight with me today, and starting a fight tomorrow.
"We tried on our own and that didn't work. We tried counseling that didn't work."
LOL! There's that "we" word again. We didn't try anything. I went to counseling and support groups on my own. Toward the end we were attending "marriage counseling" sessions at the church, but he'd sometimes fight me right after those. We didn't need marriage counseling, he needed batterers counseling all by himself. He didn't try to change that behavior, he just wanted me to stop being mad about it. That's what didn't work.
"As it is said, there are three sides to every story, two accounts and the truth. You say I never loved you, I say I have, (two sides of the story). The truth is, I don't have to justify the true love I have had for you anymore than you need to justify your feelings of not being truly loved."
LOL! Clearly in his mind, you can love someone and abuse them at the same time. You can love your wife and fracture her rib. You can love your wife and fight her while she is carrying your child. You can love your wife and spit on her. You can love your wife and call her a b!t%h. So according to him, my side - that he didn't love me isn't true, and his side of saying that he did, isn't true either. He says the truth is, he doesn't have to justify the love he had for me.
"You knowingly have had all the power through out this, not the system. That's why you placed the restraining order on me against the children. You can still tell "the system" anytime that I am fit to have them spend weekends with me right now, and it would put an end to Solomon, Joshi and Stini spending limited public time with me immediately."
LOL! He says I have knowingly had the power through out this, not the system. Well, I don't know where he gets that from. He's the one that introduced the courts into our lives, but somehow he manages to keep forgetting that. He went and hired a lawyer and filed for custody of our kids against me. All I did was tell the truth. I had to say why my children and I were in shelter. It wasn't because I suddenly got tired of having a place to live and thought living in a shelter would be fun. We were in a place to be protected from him.
I had to get an order of protection so that he would stop harassing me. He called me 24 times on the day I was at the courthouse. I was told to go to the Safe Horizon office within the court and they would help me. They asked me what happened and I told them. They typed it up and sent me down to the courtroom with my petition. I never had one before, I thought it would instruct him to stop bothering me. But the judge felt based on what he had done to me and the children, that he should be ordered to stay away from all of us completely.
Now that it all didn't work out as he planned, then it was all part of my diabolical and ingenious plan to keep him away from his kids while I take over the world. Then he says I can let the system know that he is a nominee for father of the year and should have sleepovers with his kids right now. LOL!
LOL! Again, he doesn't see his abuse as the reason why things were bad. We were just in this "bad marriage," for no real reason. I guess in his mind there are good marriages in which abuse takes place. I guess those are the ones in which the women take their beatings quietly.
"We both want nothing to do with abusive behavior or a dysfunctional relationship of any kind in our lives anymore, and we have achieved the foundation for that reality in the choices we have made."
LOL! He has the audacity to say that he wants nothing to do with an abusive relationship in his life anymore, but yet he was the one creating the abuse. WE achieved that foundation by the choices we made? Uh, I think my leaving the abuse made the choice. If I didn't leave he probably would have fought me yesterday, be having a fight with me today, and starting a fight tomorrow.
"We tried on our own and that didn't work. We tried counseling that didn't work."
LOL! There's that "we" word again. We didn't try anything. I went to counseling and support groups on my own. Toward the end we were attending "marriage counseling" sessions at the church, but he'd sometimes fight me right after those. We didn't need marriage counseling, he needed batterers counseling all by himself. He didn't try to change that behavior, he just wanted me to stop being mad about it. That's what didn't work.
"As it is said, there are three sides to every story, two accounts and the truth. You say I never loved you, I say I have, (two sides of the story). The truth is, I don't have to justify the true love I have had for you anymore than you need to justify your feelings of not being truly loved."
LOL! Clearly in his mind, you can love someone and abuse them at the same time. You can love your wife and fracture her rib. You can love your wife and fight her while she is carrying your child. You can love your wife and spit on her. You can love your wife and call her a b!t%h. So according to him, my side - that he didn't love me isn't true, and his side of saying that he did, isn't true either. He says the truth is, he doesn't have to justify the love he had for me.
"You knowingly have had all the power through out this, not the system. That's why you placed the restraining order on me against the children. You can still tell "the system" anytime that I am fit to have them spend weekends with me right now, and it would put an end to Solomon, Joshi and Stini spending limited public time with me immediately."
LOL! He says I have knowingly had the power through out this, not the system. Well, I don't know where he gets that from. He's the one that introduced the courts into our lives, but somehow he manages to keep forgetting that. He went and hired a lawyer and filed for custody of our kids against me. All I did was tell the truth. I had to say why my children and I were in shelter. It wasn't because I suddenly got tired of having a place to live and thought living in a shelter would be fun. We were in a place to be protected from him.
I had to get an order of protection so that he would stop harassing me. He called me 24 times on the day I was at the courthouse. I was told to go to the Safe Horizon office within the court and they would help me. They asked me what happened and I told them. They typed it up and sent me down to the courtroom with my petition. I never had one before, I thought it would instruct him to stop bothering me. But the judge felt based on what he had done to me and the children, that he should be ordered to stay away from all of us completely.
Now that it all didn't work out as he planned, then it was all part of my diabolical and ingenious plan to keep him away from his kids while I take over the world. Then he says I can let the system know that he is a nominee for father of the year and should have sleepovers with his kids right now. LOL!
Oy vey! Dealing with him is exasperating, but very funny at the same time. Funny in a head shaking sad way.
In any event, he expressed to me that because he has turned over a new leaf and was happy now, that perhaps we didn't have to go back to court again and I could work out the support with him. I didn't believe that when it was told to me, and know for a fact, it is an impossibility. Besides, why would I do that after we've come this far? That would be utter stupidity on my part to drop the petition now, with only 19 days to go. Four court appearances since I filed in April, this should really be the last one now.
He won't do the right thing unless he is ordered, then hopefully, he will be afraid to do the wrong thing. His word is not his bond. His word is worthless, because he has never kept it and is not an honorable man. So I will go on over to the Domestic Relations office today and put in my papers for electronic testimony. I'm not driving up to NY again for this. God will do whatever He has already decided to do, regardless of what nonsense Jeff shows up with this time.
I told him that I will continue to pray for his redemption, because he needs it, but also because it allows God to continue to heal me. There is an exchange that takes place when we pray for our enemies and those who hurt us. We give God our pain and He gives us comfort, joy, and peace. That's why, when we feel good in spite of things being done to us that are bad, it surpasses all natural understanding.
He is supposed to start his Domestic Violence course on Monday. It's ironic and appropriate because October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. I just hope that he gets some truth and understanding out of this class from the standpoint of the victims. Most men aren't in these classes voluntarily, so there is no real desire to change. They are there because they are ordered by the court and will usually just go along and play the game, often becoming better at lying and manipulating others. He definitely fits the profile of one that would become a better batterer.
But as I said before, he's in God's hands. All I can do is pray for him, because he will go back and forth with me until the end of time, trying to convince me of how wrong I was to behave angrily toward him. He doesn't care at all that his abuse caused me to have low self-esteem, feel sad, numb, dumb, helpless, hopeless, afraid, despair, and depressed. Why? Because those things don't help make me out to be his abuser, they make me his victim.
All the talking in the world will just go over his head, because he is completely blind and in total darkness. As the devil is a liar, there is no truth to be found in him either.
When we lay down with the devil, we wake up with evil.
