Run, girl, run!

I hope that you leave him, do the NO CONTACT thing, and please read NML’s e-book about Mr. Unavailable and The Fallback Girl…

((HUGS))

Get rid of the assclown – and your friends who aren’t friends.

Start fresh, looking at creating better/more nuturing self-esteem for yourself while gradually building healthy boundaries…

That one is easy. You are giving your permission for him to mess around, and for other women to mess around with him.

You stay where you are – with him, with the messing around, with the friends messing with him, with all of it. Silence implies consent – and your actions contradict anything you might think of to say.

That is why he continues – because you are letting him. You are giving him permission. He thinks he is being cute when he is disrespectful. When he spends time flirting with others, you *have* to believe that he is having sex partners that you aren’t even aware of. Ask yourself – how many women do you really want to sleep with, second hand? When you don’t know who they are, how can you be sure about diseases, etc.?

Then the one that bothers me. He flirts with your son’s dates. There is nothing, nothing at all, that you can ever say to anyone that will influence your son’s treatment of women, of what he thinks as healthy behavior, as the mere fact that you stay with this horrible man. This isn’t just about you – you have a mother’s responsibility to manage the environment you raise your son in. And allowing someone as disrespectful and antisocial as this to be known to your son, let alone to let your son know you know about his behavior, you teach your son to disrespect women by your acceptance and by this guy’s example. That is a terribly effective way to train your son to abuse and disrespect women throughout his life. Anything you say about this to your son will look like deceit and deceptions (when you want to set an example of honesty and respect) because you are saying one thing and doing something very different.

You have to leave this guy. He is destroying your ability to parent your son, just by being around. By being there he poisons your values and choices and what friendship means to you. Because he is there, you are tied to your past, and to his past, and to every single one of his sexual adventures – which you can be sure are happening, even when you know for dead-certain-sure that you cannot believe word One out of his mouth.

How to leave? Please start with the nearest battered women’s shelter. You qualify. You may not have the bruises and broken bones and gashes that others have, but you suffer from his disrespect, you don’t see a way to escape (or fully understand the need to get him out of your life), and you need personal guidance on safely and permanently getting rid of this guy.

Bless you for reaching out and asking for help. NML’s No Contact Rules are a great start. But the first step has to be to answer your question of what to do. And that cannot begin until you understand the damage this guy does to everyone around him, and the damage you do to others when you stay with him. After you understand that, then leaving (should!) be the next step, and you will be able to begin planning out how to protect yourself from him, and also from any attempt he makes to contact you.

Please keep in touch with us. Writing things as they happen, questions that occur to you, decisions that you make – these all become more real when written. A diary, comments to this post, a journal or blog – you can help yourself by recording what you go through. And seek out an experienced friend or counselor – pastor, women’s shelter, counseling service – but, please, not any friends that are already messing around with this guy.

NML and the other commenters here have expressed a lot to think about, and I have said some pretty strong things. We really want things to be better for you, this is one way of saying, “I love you” – by saying what we believe to be true and helpful. This is pretty cold comfort, hm? But trust me – we mean you only good things.

Blessed be.

NML is right. You have got to find the value in yourself and start loving yourself…sooner rather than later. Sweetie, you’re better than this douchebag…you’ve just got to believe it.