On Thanksgiving, the year long no contact order against me by my ex wife expire and I’m terrified.

It was against me because my ex wife decided she needed an advantage in family court and pulled the silver bullet. After we had agreed on everything in mediation, she must have had cold feet on what she agreed to and started an argument about me having to get rid of our family dog we had for 8 years because our daughter was afraid of his barks (she was 4 and my son was 6 months old at the time) I unfortunately lost my cool and yelled at my ex, yelled that “I fucking hated her. Hated what she did to this family and couldn’t wait for her to be out of my life”. Well she recorded the audio and the rest is history. I was arrested, kicked out of my house. Investigated by DCYF as the kids were home and I lost the ability to see or speak to them for 2 months until the investigation came back 100% unfounded. Flash forward a year and a terrible and expensive legal fight in both criminal and family court. For which I got pretty much nothing I wanted, only the ability to have my children 6 days in a 2 week period. Just 1 day short of 50/50. But I am divorced and trying to move on with my life. I reconnected with a grade school friend and she’s been great. Taking things slow and steady.

But again, I am terrified that now, the “In-between” person who was put in charge of all communication for child related issues during the NCO will no longer be there. The buffer is gone. I am worried my ex, which she tried to do even with the in-between person, tried to attack me and over exaggerate everything to play the victim. Now she will be able to go directly to me. My family court lawyer advised me to use OFW (which we mandated in our divorce decree) and to document everything. But to be very careful and also to try and release the hated I have for my ex. She said everytime I talk about my ex, whether verbally or in writing, it is very apparent that I hate her more than anything. My lawyer said that when the NCO is up, we will file a motion to modify custody placement to get equal (go for primary and settle at equal). But that if my hatred is obvious, and if we have to get a GAL, the gal may not side with the “right” thing to do and recommend equal placement and parenting time as it is not in the best interest of the children to have parents hate each other. I just want to co parent and focus online on the children. Which my ex is too busy trying to make me fit her narrative when all along she was the abuser.

I’ve been working with a therapist for years and she is helping in this situation to relive the hatred. It’s hard. A little over a year later and I hate my ex more than I did then. How does this get better? I should be thankful for how far I’ve come and what I’ve got back that I had lost. But I can’t seem to shake the fact that I am only allowed to have visitation with my children just about equal, as to not remove child support. I’m being crushed in child support and daycare, nevermind my normal expenses to keep a roof over my head and my children’s when they are with me.

I often find myself distracted when I have my kids, as I tend to just focus on my ex and what she did to this family and the extent she went to for greed and control. The “plan” I had for our family’s future, is long gone. I am not mad she filed for divorce, it was the best thing she could have done as I realized how unhappy I was with her. But the rest of the things she did, it makes me hate myself as I allowed myself to react to her abuse and I fell for her trap.

At the end of the day I try to remind myself that I’m healthy, my kids are healthy, I have a house, I get to see my kids. Even though I’m basically living paycheck to paycheck and have debt now. The dog, a 12lb mutt “we” got together and had for 8 years, I had to rehome him, amoung the other hoops and hurdles I had to go through in order to just get my kids back.

How do you do it? How do you “forgive” yourself and stop hating your ex? I just feel in a vicious cycle and can’t get out of this hole.