Abuse Hides in the Dark. Turn on Your Light.

Threats After a Court Date: “I Will Hurt You, Crawfisher”

The threat is this: "Kellie, so long as you are separate from me, so long as you choose to do things of which I do not approve, I will seek to hurt you."

[Read this entire post and more in the book My Abusive Marriage . . . and what i’m doing in it by Kellie Jo Holly.]

I listened to [a bit of Will’s] drivel, but when he said, “I told you I don’t like crawfishers.* This isn’t a threat, but -” and that’s where I cut him off.

You can pretty much bet that when someone tells you “This isn’t a threat” it is going to be a threat.

We were standing in front of the same attorney’s office to which I visited to sign the paper requesting to dismiss the assault against a woman charge that HE faced. Mind you, I just did HIM a favor (that I didn’t have to do and was very difficult to complete), and here he was telling me that because of ANOTHER of my “sins,” I was forcing him to… to WHAT?

I didn’t hear what he’d planned for me because I know two things:

  1. I do not ever again HAVE to negotiate with him one on one. I can go through the court and mediation for every piddly request and complaint if I have to. I never have to face him on my own ever again.
  2. The threat is this: “Kellie, no matter what you do for me, it will never be enough. I will continue to tell you how wrong you are for making the decisions you make. I will continue attempting to PUNISH you with whatever means are available to me. So long as you continue to be separate from me, so long as you choose to do things of which I do not approve, I will seek to hurt you.

And that is that.

*A “crawfisher” is someone who goes back on his word. Will called me a crawfisher because I decided to fight for custody in court instead of over the kitchen table.