YOu could have called the police and a report would have been filed.... not sure if that wouldnt' have been a better idea... ?
I agree! Definitely do this if he gets violent at all again.
I would also let him know that you had already forwarded all of the voice recordings from your phone to an e-mail address, and have given a copy of them to your atty.
Yeah I was surprised he did that too, if I thought he would get violent over it I would never started using the voice recorder on my phone.
Problem is, he may not appear well in court for that, but it's his word against mine. Before he left I was saying "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you took my phone and erased my recordings." He just said "I don't know what you're talking about. That never happened. What recordings?" Oh, and apparently I scratched him (his hand or something) sometime during the struggle so that means I attacked him...so he says anyway.
Puppy, I DID forward SOME of those voice recordings to my email (anticipating him trying to possibly sneak onto my phone and delete them). the most recent was not forwarded yet because we were in the middle of it! I'm sure the entire struggle was recorded, and unfortunately now deleted (unless anyone has any ideas how to get something like that back). He does not know I did the forwarding, do you suggest that I tell him? At this point I am worried about how he will respond to that information, and I don't want to be overpowered for my computer next (despite the fact he doesn't know my passwords, he is an IT guy and very, very good with computers and I don't doubt he can get things he wants off a computer if he really tried).
I will be calling the cops if anything remotely like this happens again. I guess to be honest another reason I didn't call was because I was afraid the mess would ruin his career and I didn't want to be the one to do that. But really, he is the one making these poor choices, so if he gets in trouble and it leaks into his professional life that it ultimately his own fault. Of course no job means no child support for me, and being a stay-at-home mom out of the workforce for 3 years and no college education my prospects aren't really the greatest. However, the promise of child-support money is not worth my personal safety or the trauma our son receives witnessing stuff like this (yes, he did that all in front of our son). *Sigh* I probably should have just let him have the damn phone instead of trying to hang on to the stupid thing.
I don't think you need to tell him yet that you have copies.
Save that til you need it. I think if any of his family or friends confront him about this act of violence as well as the drinknig and the cheating they can always add
"And don't lie to me.. I heard the recordings... she forwarded them to me"
it would have a lot more impact that way and he woudl have no reason go to your PC since everyone's telling him THEY have COPIES...
If you do want him to know, have your support team tell him they all have copies... don't you tell him YOU have copies.. he WILL go through your PC if hta'ts the case
And yes you can get files that were deleted from a phone, but it is an expensive process... its not cheap.
You could call a social worker or the police still and get a report put together. They might even be able to take the phone and pull the files from it, they ahve specialists to do that sort of thing... nto sure if htey would do it for a domestic violence case.
If you get areport done you might be able to get the locks changed and him out of the house if you wanted... not sure how you really wnat to handle this...
Don't worry about fighting with him for the phone it was nto expected he woudl do that.
What you CAn do if he tries again is tell him ahead of time "I sent copies to friends already so you are only deleting them off my phone, i can get copies back from tehm and have them on there again tomorrow morning...
If you think he might actually get direclty violent dont take the phone out anymore obviously...
Problem is, he may not appear well in court for that, but it's his word against mine.
The purpose of calling the cops would be to establish the baseline -- the "first incidence." Then, if/when he tries more, he'll already have a case open on him, and the consequences will be greater.
As for your "real reason," I see that you answered your own question.
Well I talked to the L a few days ago and boy am I glad I did. I realized that I could basically get stuck in WA for 16 years if we go up there with H and things don't work out, so anything I want to do legal-wise I need to do before going up there (if I do go), such as having a legal custody arrangement that allows me to leave the state w/our son if things don't work out. I don't want to go up there and us split up and I'm left with no friends, family, or job in my area and unable to leave. It would be a bad situation for me.
As for the other issues I've been having, H is still making an a$$ of himself around friends and family under the guise of him doing "damage control" on me. He has been messaging friends telling them I should not be talking about him to them, not to talk to me about him and I need to keep conversation about whats going on in our relationship between myself and my counselor (I had one friend in paticular really pissed off at him for that). If I talk to his mom on the phone (we were making easter plans - she called me) he yells in the background the entire time that I am a lair and malicious. His mom could hear him easily. She was asking me what the heck is wrong with him, what's he so paranoid about, and I told her that I've been putting up with this yelling for days, ever since he found out I wasn't keeping the separation secret anymore. Basically, he makes himself look terrible and wants to blame me. Even his mom said I haven't said anything bad or malicious, just shown concern. She's getting increasingly concerned about his behavior, especially since H doesn't seem to care if our son is a witness to it.
Last night while we were watching TV he goes and gets a condom out and sets it down on the cushoin between us, and started pressuring me for sex. Then he started leaning on me and putting his arms around me even though I said I wasn't comfortable. I ended up having to walk away. Now he's mad at me for that too.
Basically, he's mad at me for everything, and everything is my fault. He claims he never brought up separation, that HE wanted to work on our relationship and I refused, that this is some big conspiracy on my part to force him to divorce me, that I am trying to bait him into arguments and aggressive behavior (when really, I've been trying to detach a bit and not argue at all) just to be able to prove how abusive he is. He's pushing HARD right now, but I refuse to budge. My counselor has been able to help me from piling all the responsiblity of this onto me, and was able to show me that we do not currently have a relationship based on equality. He's been railroading me for years, and I'm done with it.
It sounds like you are gaining control of your relationship with him LJ and that is the key here.
As long as you have control of yourself, he can't manipulate you.
Let him make an a$$ of himself if he wants to... just maintain your composure when talking to to others while he blasts away.. You know he's just validating what you are saying when he does that and everyone else will too.
He put a condom on the cushion between you two? Is that his idea of romance and make up sex? Good Lord.
You are doing a great job of fending off his behavior you just need to keep it up a bit longer I think. He will eventually go into hide mode when he realizes his reverse-exposure efforts aren't taking and everyone stops talking to him.
First thing he tells me he is getting his own phone account when he gets his paycheck tomorrow. He was grousing about the cost of it like it was my fault we have to take on this extra expense. He then managed to bring up everything he thinks I did wrong in the last 8 years, including how he has to keep his women friends a secret so I won't get mad at him, while I try to explain over and over that it's the SECRET that makes me mad, not the friends. He doesn't believe me because he says that he KNOWS me and he KNOWS I would just get mad despite what I say otherwise...
Then I was doing dishes in the kitchen when he pulls something out of the cabinet and quickly hides it behind his back and scuttles from the room. When he comes back into the room I asked him what all that was about and he just kept saying nothing and that I'll find out later. I started getting really upset at his denials and it was just too much for me and I started crying. He left the house to go take care of dogs at his moms house without telling me what he was hiding. As soon as he leaves I of course start looking for what it was. Looked everywhere didn't find a thing, but I am feeling really upset at this point. Then I go to sit at my computer, open my laptop, and in there is a card asking me out on a date.
Now, I like that he is asking me on a date, he hasn't arranged a date or outing for us since we have been living together. But I was still hurt that he didn't just give me the card and tell me what was going on when I was noticeably upset. It's like he wanted me to be upset over nothing so I could just feel stupid about being upset later. When he get's home I know he's gonna say "see you were upset over nothing" or some such thing. And why, if he had this date planned, would he have behaved the way he did this morning? I want to be happy about the date but I really feel like he is jerking me around a bit. Or maybe I'm being to sensitive? I don't know.
I'm afraid he's still playing you. Getting his own phone can leave a reasonable person with no other rational explanation.
One thing I've come to learn in my past three years of self-reflection and self-improvement, LadyJane, and that is that we -- over time -- really do teach people how to treat us. Unfortunately, I think your husband has "learned" that this passive-aggressive thing works with you. He can treat you like crap one day, and then be nice as can be later and you're OK with it.
