It’s father’s day here in Ecuador. The first time in 5 years that I spend it without my daughter. Generally, we don’t do anything special for it, as it always falls close to my birthday and that’s more fun for Lily. We used to share my birthday, so she could celebrate it here with me and her friends, and then on her actual birthday again wherever her mom lived in that moment.
One part of the story that I haven’t talked about much is abuse. And there are good reasons for that. For example, a story like mine can be easily instrumentalized by other men as an argument against women. Which is a bad excuse, I know. The more I talk about it, the more I realize how common it is that men are victims of co-parental-abuse. While it is true that most physically abuse crimes here are against women, especially, sexually motivated ones, studies indicate that when it comes to parenting, it’s quite evened out.
It’s not what I grew up believing.
I sided with women most of the time, because most of the time they were the victims. But when it comes to alienating the other from the child, it’s a draw. And that makes me wonder these days if my strategy was the right one. I admit that the constant attacks, false accusations, blackmailing, alienation, contact blocking, lies and deceiving did help me grow as a person. I did a lot of therapy to deal with it, read into psychology and stoicism, got myself a great kit of mental tools to deal with the mother so her aggression would always be let out on me, not Lily.
I made myself the victim.
To protect my daughter. But also because there wasn’t much of a choice. The law here protected her, still does. She takes away Lily, I have no idea where they are, and based on unfunded claims of “harassment” and “abuse” I’m the bad guy. Not to anyone who knows me. Not to the witnesses that I have on how I treat the mother, and how the mother treats me (which is the exact opposite to her claims). But legally? I’m aware enough to see the attitude of the person in front of me changing when reading the accusations. And they’re not treated at those. They’re treated immediately as presumption. Based on an accusation, I’m presumed to have caused intra-familiar violence. Doors closed.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Try proving that something never happened. That’s how it is here now, because too many things did happen and went unnoticed due to lack of interest and believing. I’ve been in the groups of fathers trying to change that. And I left. Because I felt that many of them indeed are what the legal system is trying to prevent, vengeful ex-husbands who care more about hurting the mother than the child, while the child is the best way to hurt. It’s a disease. And that’s one reason why never wanted to speak up. I don’t want to give ammunition to a killer, so to speak. But there is a more important one:
The example I give.
And that’s the complicated part. I do want Lily to know that I fight for her (and I am, crawling and clawing my way through the legal system), but I also want to be the best example possible, be as coherent as possible. There is a disbalance of powers between the mother and I, in almost every sense. Except for her standing as a mother. That’s the only power she has over me, and that’s what she’s using relentlessly. I will not. I will not abuse the power I have. I will always use it in benefit of Lily, whenever it’s necessary, but always within the boundaries of moral. I will not be like her mom.
And that’s me victimizing myself.
It would be so much easier to go down to her level. It always is. Moral and ethics and all that what holds us back from taking justice in our own hands. But I believe in that. I believe in very little, but being strong enough to withstand the injustice, be the rock against the sea, stand up for what I consider right and just – that I do believe in. Not blindly. Analyzing, taking as many perspectives into account as possible. Which then leads to a very interesting question for another day:
If you to decide be the victim, are you still a victim?
What do you think?
Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
Post written for the #weekend-engagement by 
This is my response to:
Were you ever victimised? What happened and why?
Thank you for reading!
