I told you I would jump around as I share my story. So here we are in the present and I am sitting with the most recent event, one in which my children were hurt—one in which my daughter was deeply hurt. My little lady Grace just turned five. I call her that because she is one—a little lady. And she is most certainly a Grace.

She’s sweet and strong and vulnerable and she hides her feelings well. As her mother I can easily recognize her fake giggle and forced smile when she knows people expect her to feel happy. She wants to please them.

Her older brother is perpetually impressive and I sense she feels a need to keep-up as best she can. She’s perceptive this way—figuring out what people want and finding a way to give it to them. And at her own expense but this does not seem to factor for her. She hides this well too, from most. But I am her mother. For me it’s like seeing the light of day.

When people see her they assume she must be fine, the theory being, if there was something wrong with a young child then the signs would be evident, as children that young simply do not hide their feelings. First I will say that my daughter is well—but not without damage. The wellness of my children is relative to things they have endured.

Second, while I do not disagree with this generalization about wellness, or lack thereof, being evident in a child’s behavior, the problem occurs when strangers and acquaintances assume that signs of a problem would be evident to them. Such an arrogant assumption—by anti-experts who pretend to be wise and all-knowing—have hurt my children and I am still not okay with this. The domino effect of their actions continue to hurt my children today.

Here is the disconnect between assumption and reality, which, for lack of pride they may have seen. Without knowing the true nature and behavior of a particular child—the way a mother knows her child—the way close family knows a child—then one will have no frame-of-reference by which to accurately measure this child’s behavior, and consequently no frame-of-reference from which to accurately measure this child’s state of wellness. Practically a formula it’s so simple.

What I mean is this…while certain observable behaviors may be within a normal developmental range for a child of a certain age, this does not mean these behaviors are normal for one particular child. I am not a doctor, but I do know this—regardless of developmental standards, which quite frankly have a very broad range, a true indicator that a problem exists is the onset of a new problematic behavior, particularly when it coincides with negatives events in a child’s life.

I know my daughter in a way that others do not.

I will repeat this thought process later, as it applies to my story—to a particular event in my story. A very big, very important event. One that changed our lives and our futures forever. One that is dictating our present. It was the beginning of the domino effect. Oh, but for that very first one…

It is the present and soccer season has begun. I will take you there momentarily, but first you must know that my ex is profoundly controlling and deceptive. You must truly understand his willingness to hurt our children in his schemes to punish and hurt me.

His arsenal is largely comprised of tactics framed to punish and control. Each time I fail to do what he wants I should expect a punishment of some kind. This is to teach me a lesson—there are consequences. And these consequences are inevitably far worse than any negative consequence or inconvenience or struggle I may have endured had I simply given-in to his demand in the first place. He plans it this way and never fails in his consistency of punishment, just as a parent must be consistent in the discipline of a young child—consistency of consequence inspires obedience. I’ll talk in more detail about this aspect of the abuse later. But for now I will share one example, so you may see the truth and the degree to which he will go to control.

When my son was three-years-old, his father disassembled the straps on the back of his car seat, where I could not see them. In the front, he had tucked the ends into the open slats above his shoulders, but left them fastened to nothing. They were attached to absolutely nothing in the back where all the straps of the five-point-harness work together to ensure a child’s safety. It looked safe, though. A trick.

I am anal about car seats. Always have been. To this day, I do the two-finger test each and every time I fasten my child into the seat, no matter where we are going or how short a trip. So on this day, February 17, 2007, as I tucked my two fingers between his shoulders and the straps, the straps were still loose. So I did what you do when this happens—I tightened the shoulder straps by pulling the single strap that rests on the bottom of the seat. Still not tight enough. I pulled it further. Still not tight. And so assuming I must need to pull the two shoulder straps out, away from the seat, far enough to take up the slack (parents will know what I mean) and then pull, again, on the bottom strap to finally tighten them to a safe position—at this time as I pulled, the two straps above my sons shoulders just slid out of the slats—they were fastened to nothing.

This was my punishment. He knew I had somewhere important to be early that morning. He knew I would be rushing with my two young children in-tow. He knew I had never assembled one of these things before, but had only watched it being done, once. He knew I would be emotional and distraught at discovering what he had done. He knew I would consequently be kept from being where I needed to be early that morning for lack of time and lack of experience putting this thing back together, the challenge of such a task being exacerbated by the rush of adrenaline and racing heart, overwhelming anger and confused thinking. He knew.

I believe he knew I would discover this, my car seat diligence a constant annoyance to him—always performing this test, going behind him to check even after he had fastened one of our children in a seat, as his standards were never equal to mine.

So this was my punishment. But what if? What if I had not done this test on this day and never discovered that my little boy had nothing holding him in his seat? What if there was an accident?

This man risked the life of our little boy to punish me and teach me to be obedient—to assert control. Do you understand what I am saying? He will cross lines. He will hurt our children. He has and he does and he will. Period.

But for now I am living with the most recent incident and the painful image of my little girl. My God, she is so innocent. The sound and sight of her will not leave me, ever.

Dean’s soccer practice Tuesday night. The standing plan is for my ex to pick-up both kids from school on practice nights. This was Dean’s practice night, so Grace would watch with her father. He wanted me to meet him after the game so he didn’t have to be inconvenienced and drive them back home, but I did not agree to this. He got angry. He decided he would pick-up our son, but not our daughter.

He actually passes our daughter’s school to get to our son’s school—they are literally less than two-minutes apart. My son’s school is attached to his father’s community. We are talking about ease and convenience in ridiculous proportions, relative to the drive for me—more than an hour for one round-trip, which I make twice per day since my children live with me. You get the picture. But he was angry and said he was not getting our daughter. This meant that for failing to agree to meet him part way, I would then be forced to drive all the way to get her, or she would simply be left. My consequence.

I told him I had a commitment, which I had made, in advance, given our standing arrangement that he would get them both on such days. He insisted he would not have time to enter our daughter’s school and retrieve her. Practice started at 5:30 in the field on the grounds of my son’s school. I called, emailed and sent text messages that I would be held-up and still needed him to get her. I suggested he get our son in gear and on the field, then retrieve our daughter a stone’s throw away. I kept leaving messages, asking him to answer or please return my calls to discuss and resolve this issue. He didn’t.

He left our daughter at school. Again, his excuse being, there was no time to retrieve her. She waited for him to come and get her, just two minutes away, but he never did.

Soccer practice was cancelled due to rain that afternoon, so they never even went. But in spite of my calls and emails pleading with him to retrieve our daughter, as she was expecting, as I needed him to, he still left her there.

He got our son though. He picked him up from school, took him home, cooked dinner and ate with him, then settled in for a game of Stratego. Grace was left waiting. He didn’t answer my calls to him, but instead ignored them. I know this man is capable of such an act of neglect, so I called the school to see if she was still there. She was. I raced to get her and made it by 5:58pm—they close at 6:00pm and everyone was gone but the two teachers who waited with my daughter in the school’s office.

She asked why daddy didn’t come to get her. We drove by the empty soccer field, no one there due to the rain. I pulled into his community to retrieve my son and take him home, assuming my ex would be spitefully pleased that I had saved him any part of the trip he did not want to make. My son was there, of course, having finished dinner with his dad and now playing a game.

But my punishment extended beyond the unnecessary round-trip of more than an hour, and beyond the pain of knowing he left our daughter—it even extended beyond the punishment of seeing how hurt she was that he never came to retrieve her. There would be more.

When I arrived at his home and rang his bell, I saw my son through the glass as he rushed toward the door calling out to Mommy and to his little sister. His father pushed him aside and looked out through the window. He would not open the door but spoke to me through the glass and simply said, “Get out of here, Christine. You’re not getting Dean.”

Thinking it was over because he had gotten what he wanted, I was a bit shell-shocked by this new development, I will admit. Our daughter, just five and seeing her father and brother through the glass began calling to them excitedly. I repeated why I was there. He screamed at me to get out of here. My daughter, now hanging on the doorknob asking for daddy to let her in, began getting upset by the locked door. She began crying and calling to her father, “Daddy why won’t you let me in your home. Daddy, please let me in. Why doesn’t Daddy love me. Daddy doesn’t want me in his home.” I could see him grab my son by the arm and take him away as Dean called to me and to his sister.

I rang the bell and knocked and pleaded with him to either let Dean come out or let Grace come in—she had begun crying for her brother. He disconnected the doorbell and disappeared, while my daughter sobbed on the ground outside his door, repeatedly asking why daddy wouldn’t let her in his home and crying that she wanted her brother.

He would not return to the door. I got my daughter into her seat. The only thing she wanted at this point was her brother and I knew she could not have handled leaving without him after all this—her pain would have only gotten worse. I had to choose between the potential harm of exposing my children to another police intervention, or the emotional impact on my daughter if we left without my son. I know my daughter and I saw her pain as she pleaded for me not to leave without her brother—I could feel the pain coming from her. Mother’s know what I mean by this.

I called the police and they came. A few minutes later my son emerged from the house and we left. All this because I would not agree to meet him after practice to shorten his drive. My punishment. In reality, though, it was my children’s burden to carry.

Domestic violence is about control. Physical violence is only one tactic used to assert control. But it’s all painful.