2017-05-29 - 7:02 p.m.

What is the ethical thing to do when your former abuser is about to get re-married?

Did a search

This came up

Send it to her as a wedding gift?

http://www.christianworldview.net/2014/05/what-should-an-abused-wife-do/

Send a package of books like The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists ?

Wishing you the best, but just in case :

https://www.domesticshelters.org/domestic-violence-books?page=1

OR Reach out and warn RUN THE OTHER WAY NOW!! in an effort to spare her beautiful children years of therapy.

I was not going to interfere but wonder it is ethical to say NOTHING.

My choice to not say anything is because I believe in power of people to grow and change and I believe in the power of love.

I don't know if that is the right call however as all of the love and patience and prayer and the belief we had a special bond of a wonderful relationship and shared passion and shared faith was strong enough to work through the issues of his anger and abusive behaviors

CLEARLY was not enough

even with all the counseling we did together!

Figured 10 years has gone by and he has grown.

The 15 yr old called the police on him about a year and a half ago when he laid a hand on her , so I know that the physical abuse which abated won't resurge again...

because his kids are old enough to not take it and they demand accountability.

One refused to live with him and a second would also like to come here.

Two will be in college within the next few years.

So what happens if all seems fine and he seems to have grown and improved much but he really hasn't?

WHAT HAPPENS to those beautiful children of hers, and this lovely woman who I hear just sold her house to marry him and move into what I know to be his house. Is this time around is he going to SHARE his home? or just welcome her into HIS home?

Will this time he criticize anything she loves which is not a part of his world? Will he accept her plants, her taste, her furniture , her things to be incorporated .. HER individuality

Will he love and honor and respect and accept HER and these children she brings with her that are not his?

If she allows him to adopt them will that be enough different for him to accept and respect them?

(I swear it was when I said NO to adoption of my oldest two BECAUSE THEY HAVE A FATHER! that he then turned sour out of hurt pride and then violent)

A friend of mine was adament I should warn her months ago but I did not want to meddle. I figured not my place and it might not work out as she might see the temper and understand it for its destructive all consuming power herself OR

Its been ten years. Maybe he did change.

Granted the call to police a bit over a year ago... but that was the worst of what I have heard and that moment seemed to have been one very quickly turned around to not happen again since.

I still believe in forgiveness and power of change.

Just hope I am right.

The one thing that makes me feel I don't have a moral obligation to warn is that this lady DOES have family not too far and she does have an extensive sort of extended family and it seems they have as a couple continued to interact. His family is involved to an extent and not far either so I don't get a sense he will isolate her as he did us. I get the sense they will be involved with family and friends and hope that does not change. Other thing is she works which is very good as she has her own money so he can not be economically abusive.

I also have heard she is aware of his lack of flexibility about some things so she is making this choice aware of some of his more challenging personality traits- aware of his judgmental negativity. When going shopping with her one of the girls said she seemed to encourage highly conservative choices saying something like she was criticized for something less revealing than an item one of the girls considered, so she already knows that he is controlling to a degree about the clothing the teens wear and apparently she has already been made aware he will comment and try to influence her own choices. So that trait of contolling about clothes has been observed, and the trait of him saying "NO" as a knee jerk reaction was observed when they went out to dinner with the kids. She apparently convinced him to allow one of the girls to actually get an item she wanted. The fact they have been out to dinner with kids means she has had opportunity to see how he interacts both with kids, with people serving him and others they interact with. If he was self rightous, condescending and self important without respect of others I hope she would have taken pause to consider such behaviors.

At least I hope she would...

Wedding scheduled in a few weeks.

I will believe it only when it happens and pray if she is best off calling it off she does so.

This is a man who dragged me outside by the hair threw me in a car took me on a ride threatening to kill me and opened the door and told me I could sign a nuptial or find myself in a ditch in the middle of nowhere

When I was eight months pregnant at the time

This is the same man who punched me in the head then cracked a picture frame over my head as I nursed his own first child of six months

Then pummeled my left arm black and blue as he was hitting me over and over

(I LEFT then; moved out to separate ; went through counseling with him)

then

this is the SAME man who punched my daughter in the head putting her head through the wall

and on and on...

and the same man who revered me and out me on a pedestal and treated me lavishly and better than anyone ever had before
the care and attentiveness
the very deep, thoughtful conversations
the prayer together
the shared movies and music live concerts then CDs
the mailed candles and flowers and then dried flower petals in romantic letters when we were not together

This is the same man who seemed so emotionally available and smart and funny and romantic and protective and nurturing and a caring provider

AT FIRST

It was such a shocking contrast from the giving, loving person who acted like I was his orbit

That is the problem with narcissists- they see the beloved unrealistically and think they are an extension of self so when the reality is then seen and the early haze of being in love dies a narcissist only sees the flaws and resents them.

OH well...

I am not interfering. I just hope that is the ethical correct choice.

Its been ten years for goodness sake.

Even if someone doesn't TRY they have to keep learning and growing through life , right?

And like the marriage counselor I really liked, who some said don't go to as he was the worst abuser of his first wife,
perhaps my ex will realize that his marriage is the one thing he failed miserably at (as our counselor did) and then have that perfectionist compulsion to get it right the second time around.

Sure he loves this lady,

but more so he loved the opportunity to prove himself.

HE NEEDS HER and her children to do so.

She is his perfect IMAGO match at this time in life I suppose.

Best healing is in relationships to others.

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