My partner’s ex-wife treats him appallingly. They have a son together whom he loves very much. As a result, he has to maintain contact but every time he sees her to collect his son, he comes back really angry and this upsets me. She’s verbally abusive, threatens and belittles him and his self-confidenced is shattered.
I tell him he has to be more assertive with her and suggest ways of handling her but he’s too scared to do it. I’m seriously considering calling her to try to talk some sense into her. She doesn’t frighten me and I’m sick of putting up with her bad behaviour.
I don’t know whether to tell my partner I’m going to do this or just have it out with her, woman to woman. Enough is enough!
Have you considered a third option of not interfering at all? You have a right to be frustrated as you find it painful to watch the man you love being continually hurt.
But you’ll make things much worse rather than better by organising a slagging match between you two. She’s already got your man by the proverbial balls, and if you step in to fight his battle, you’ll effectively castrate him!
He’s already feeling emasculated; stepping in to do his dirty job will make him feel even more helpless.
You need to step back now. The relationship they have is their business, not yours. Telling him what he should have said or done isn’t accomplishing anything, so stop. Change your tactic from trying to protect him to trying to support him.
At the moment, he returns from one battle scene to another: from a dressing down from her to you telling him what he’s done wrong. Why don’t you be someone he knows will make him feel better, not worse? Be loving towards him without being judgmental.
Your plan of meeting up with his ex to sort her out is bonkers. She’s obviously still hurting from her split with him and is out to cause as much harm as possible.
So why do you think she’s going to talk calmly and rationally to you the new woman in his life?
(Bunmi Sofola)
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