There is absolutely NOTHING that you did that means you deserve to be abused.

It is your birthright to be peaceful. It is your birthright as a human being to be safe and to feel what you feel. None of this is your fault.

Before I blocked communication with my ex-husband, he texted and emailed me multiple times a day blaming me for his unhappiness and anger.

Eight years after our divorce, these messages are still coming, even in response to simple logistical questions like “can you pick up our daughter from school.” His constant harassment and the way he jabs at my abandonment wounds invades my thoughts and keeps me awake at night. His accusations even make me short-tempered with my daughter, which breaks my heart, because all I’ve ever wanted was to be the mom I didn’t get to have.

In his communications, he threaten to leave her, or to hurt himself, and claims that his life is worthless and that it is all my fault. These messages have been so consistent lately, that I am starting to wonder if he is right.

One of the symptoms of emotional abuse is feeling like you are the one to blame for the conflict and doubting your own experience. “Gaslighting” is a subtle tactic of manipulation in which your feelings are invalidated, and you start to believe that the abuse is your fault and that you are the one with the problem.

My ex’s behavior is exactly this — by shifting blame back to me, he avoids responsibility. By making me question my reality, he keeps me locked in the cycle of defensiveness and co-dependency. If he can make me feel as scared and alone as he is, only then will he feel “understood.” He keeps me trapped here as a scapegoat, so that he can feed off of me, because he is a vampire and I have been his energy source since the day we met. I still refuse to let him steal my joy and my passion for life, but I do fear that if I stop letting him suck me dry, our daughter will be next. Read more.