My Abusive Ex

Chapter 9

I returned to school for the 2014/2015 school year. Instead of going through the agency the school gave me a contract. Initially it was for one day a week, which didn't sound like much at all, but I would be first choice for internal relief work and would be paid directly from the school. The advantage of this being the pay is far better than agency rates.

There was little to do, and I spent my first day sticking labels in books and organising stationary. Tilly was back full time, and it was nice seeing everyone and catching up.

Tilly had spent the summer renovating her home and Ellen had spent lots of the summer down at the farm where she stables two horses. Ellen owns two Shetland ponies, Billy and Ethel. She invited myself and the children down to the farm to meet them, which thrilled the children. We had loads of fun but the reality of looking after ponies was fat different that the thought. The farm is pretty old and looking after ponies seemed to be lots of manual labour.

I was in school for three days per week from the very start of term. For the first few weeks I covered lessons for absent staff, which had me running all over school. Finding History classes, French room and Science labs could be pretty exhausting. The students were used to seeing me around the school and it felt really nice to be welcomed back.

Halfway into the half term another member of the English staff took ill so I was asked to cover her classes. Jane thought she had just come down with a really bad cold but as the weeks went by it seemed to be something more long term. Her GP couldn't understand what it was and she was signed off for the foreseeable.

Whilst you don't want your colleagues to be poorly, it did feel like I had touched lucky. Jane was Head of Key Stage 3 English (KS3) and had all top set classes. In the short term I had her classes, but when it became apparent that she was off for the long term there was a shuffle and I was back to taking the bottom set groups. I'm not sure who was more relieved, me or the school.

I was still having problems with Robert and people at work were very sympathetic. One morning I had an emergency call from my childminder, Thomas broke his wrist. I dashed out of school straight to childcare to collect him. School were very supportive and they know I am the primary carer for my children.

Every second Friday I'm on tenterhooks. Every second Friday Robert is supposed to collect the children for the weekend. Every second weekend there's some sort of problem. Ellen has seen the texts he sends and they make her so mad, she gets furious on my behalf.

It's a pattern, he'll send a text to say he's going to be late, or he has to go to this office, or something important has come up. In the beginning I would accommodate his tardiness but now I try to stick to the contact arrangement as close as I possibly can. I might reply 'you can't be late, the children finish school at 3.10pm' and all hell breaks loose. The personal insults start immediately, 'nobody likes you, you're a silly little girl, you're pathetic, what kind of mother are you'. Although I'm not sure what any of this has to do with him not abiding by the contact agreement.

It can be very hard to brush off, not take personally and I'm still working on being able to ignore him. I try my best not to retaliate but I decided that I will not allow him to speak to me with such venom. I guess this is where I go wrong. I should just ignore, but I'm the one doing 95% of the parenting and he's the one insulting me.

I guess this is the reason why I've gone to town on the letters to his legal representative. I don't want to get involved in a spat with him, but he needs exposing for who he really is.

There's a saying, 'Dance like no one is watching, but text and email like your words will be read out in court.' And that's exactly what I started to do.