How to interpret this

[Casey_03]

After telling my abusive ex and father of my son to basically F off in our last email exchange (I told him not to contact me anymore and that I will only deal with him in court - after he accused me of child abuse and said he was petitioning to have my son placed in foster care), he emailed again asking for pictures of my son and saying he thinks I'm "doing a great job" raising him.

I'm very, very skeptical, and this makes me wonder what he's plotting now. For over a year now, he has been consistent in saying he's going to "take" my son away from me and never let him see me again, and accused me of being an unfit mother despite not being present in his son's life himself (no financial support, no nothing, just verbal and emotional abuse and harassement of me).

His out-of-character email came after I told him repeatedly that I will not come to any out-of-court agreement with him, and after I refused to hold a last-minute Skype session with him and his family. Every time I refused to do what he wanted, he escalated and just got more and more aggressive.

I'm fairly certain he suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, and he has literally never said a single nice thing to me about me raising my son. So this latest email has caught me off guard and makes me think that either a) he's trying to get on my good side in order to start making demands of me again or b)he finally consulted a lawyer and was told that he basically stands no chance in hell of getting custody.

I haven't responded to him, but am wondering if others on here familiar with narcissists can tell me -- is this the calm before the storm?

 

[EveHarrington]

I question why you are still in contact with this abusive person.

Nothing will change until you kick this abuser out of your life. For good. Meaning no contact, blocked on all fronts.

 

[Casey_03]

I'm not in contact with this person. This person has been contacting me on my work email - I can't block him there unless I want the whole office to know about the situation, and I most certainly do not. Getting the IT guys to block him requires me to go through the upper chain of command - I already checked. My last contact was telling him I will get a restraining order if he contacts me again. He did anyways; I did not respond.

 

[WishfulThinking123]

Hi Casey, I'm sorry to hear that he is still giving you so much trouble! My X has this disorder, everybody is different so, I can't tell for sure what his "game" is but, if this had happened with my X, this is what I would be thinking: That he probably did consult a lawyer as you said above and he is going to have you refuse to send the pictures and then he will take literally these two emails to show to his lawyer and then again to the judge. Your x will probably keep taking pieces of evidence like this and show them to try to paint you in a negative light without the full picture that's why its important to save all emails to your hard drive- this saved me big time! I know you had mentioned in another post that you are fearful of him- I cant remember do you have a restraining order? If not- is there any way to obtain one? Also. I understand that he is a complete ass and a jerk and makes a lot of threats but, unfortunately you cannot deal with a narcissist like you would a normal human being. You have to play their game. The following are a few tips that continue to help in the communication between me and my sons father.

1. Don't get into personal discussions- keep it strictly about the child- don't even discuss court- you can just say a bland statement like we will leave it to the judge to sort out (sounds like you already did this)
2. Give as little information as possible, the more details the more he will try to twist. If he asks a direct question about your son just answer that question with a simple answer.
3. This ones important- don't get into an argument with him because a narcissist is great at arguing and will never let you feel like you won so, its just VERY tiring and fruitless no matter how much logical sense you are making you will not change their mind. Just state your opinion and if he tries to drag you into an argument either just restate it or ignore it

Just keep it almost like a business relationship- with a narcissist this is the best you can hope for. There is no real chance of co-parenting- at least in my case. Keep email responses as short as possible only answering what is necessary. Narcissists are great at making you feel like you have to jump when they say so by their threats and harsh responses- just breathe and remember you have left him and you are in control now! If he sends you an email calling you names or threatening you- don't even respond to that trash.

Do with my advice whatever you will, just trying to give you some advice from personal experience- 3 year long custody battle with a narcissist. If it was me I would send the pictures because- what could be the downside? Also, I am sure your a great mother and you seem to really care about your son! *Hugs*

 

[Casey_03]

I cant remember do you have a restraining order? If not- is there any way to obtain one?

No, I don't. I tried to get one through a domestic violence shelter but they told me to come back one he makes newer threats, and he hasn't since then, so I have nothing to use.

That's what I was thinking about the pictures too -- that he is trying to portray me as a woman with a personal vendetta against him who is blocking his access to his son. So he sent the email counting on my refusal, and then plans to try to use it against me. That would make sense.

 

[WishfulThinking123]

You can file for a restraining order through the court house- anyone can file. The judge will set a hearing and the judge can choose to grant it or not but, you shouldn't be blocked from at least petitioning. If you go to the court house there is a victims advocate usually on the lower floor by the offices for traffic violations, etc.. They will help you fill out the paperwork? However, if you file be prepared to have to testify against your x in court. I eventually dropped mine because I was pregnant at the time and couldn't bear the stress of testifying while pregnant. However, his "stalking" behavior did stop once I filed. If you feel like you are in danger I would definitely see if there is a different route you can go to file.

 

[Casey_03]

Yeah, I talked to the victims advocate at the courthouse and she said the same thing the domestic violence shelter did -- that if the threats are weeks or months old, the judge won't grant it, and petitioning for it anyways will irritate the judge and hurt any future chances of a restraining order. They said to wait until he sends something new that is threatening and bring it in within a day or two, and then I can get it.

The other problem is that nothing he says is explicitly threatening. It's more that what he says is clearly meant to cause distress. But there are no threats of physical harm. And he doesn't live in the same country as me, so I'm not in immediate fear of danger.

 

[WishfulThinking123]

Oh I see. That's too bad :/ Well I'm glad you're not in immediate danger.

 

[squeakyboots]

Hi Casey, and sorry for what you have to endure. I have been there, God knows! All I can tell you is stay strong and DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. Basically everything that @WishfulThinking123 mentioned is perfect for how to handle a narcissistic ex baby daddy. Good luck x

 

[Fadeaway]

DO not reply to any of his e-mails, EVER. He can use them against you. I would not interpret it as anything other than he is making a case for himself under the facade that he is trying to cooperate with you and be a supportive co-parent and that you aren't.

 

[Suzetig]

I'm right in thinking he's in the UK? You'd not be able to enforce a restraining order against him from the US anyway simply because he's not there to enforce it against.

The UK does now have an offence of domestic abuse which includes coercive control - meaning there doesn't need to be any actual violence or indeed face to face contact for the offence to be committed - it's very new legislation so there will be some settling in but it would be reasonable to think it could be prosecuted in respect of someone outside the U.K. It may be worth looking in to that.

Otherwise the same restrictions that affect your being able to act against affect him being able to act against you. The US court aren't going to force you to give your child to a non-US citizen rape silly given he isn't resident in the UK and the UK court couldn't enforce any legal order in respect of a child not resident in the UK. There's precedent to show they legally have no grounds to make any order even where children are considered at risk of abuse and the father is habitually resident in the uk. The child isn't resident and wouldn't be considered resident even if they came to the UK for contact visits.

So, reply to him, ignore him, do what ever you want with him that lets you focus on keeping a roof over your head and raising your little one.

 

[Casey_03]

The UK does now have an offence of domestic abuse which includes coercive control - meaning there doesn't need to be any actual violence or indeed face to face contact for the offence to be committed - it's very new legislation so there will be some settling in but it would be reasonable to think it could be prosecuted in respect of someone outside the U.K. It may be worth looking in to that.

Thanks, I think this is the legislation I was looking into when he started threatening my family while I was pregnant. It never really went much further though, because when I contacted domestic violence agencies in the UK, they told me to go through the U.S. system and that they couldn't do anything. But they may not have known what they were talking about.

The issue with the citizenship/residency is that if he gets paternal rights, he can petition to have my son get UK citizenship. And in that case, as far as I know, the situation changes pretty seriously in his favor and he can get court-ordered visitation in the UK. Not sure how easy it would be for him to do that, but a lawyer did warn me that is possible.

Honestly, it's just harder to know what his game is when he's being "nice." I didn't respond to his email and don't intend to, but this is usually what happens just before he launches some sort of full-blown harassment campaign.

@Fadeaway Thanks. That is sound advice. I haven't responded and even in previous cases, if I did respond, I responded with vague, one or two word responses or questions (that was what the lawyers advised -- either don't respond, or offer only very brief answers). It is pretty obvious from what he writes that he's trying to provoke me into responding a certain way so he can use it against me. I bet he thinks he's being very clever.