Oh, I guess what you mean is to not allow him in the house at all, ever, as you wrote a few posts up. Well he is not living here, like Seeing Red. But you are right the thing of seeing S in my home is problematic. I have to get my courage up and see that lawyer. I spoke with a woman tonight who just went to mediation to petition for full custody of her daughter. She is going to help support me through this and answer questions for me.
1. Have his mail redirected. Here in Canada you can pay a small fee at the post office to have mail in his name redirected wherever you want. 2. You pack his things and put them in dry storage, give him the key. You pay for maybe one month of storage and have a friend or family member give him teh key and tell him he can do with the stuff what he pleases. 3. Talk to your lawyer, even if its only to find out what you CAN do to change your life for the better. 4. Waiting it out? You don't want HIM to THINK you are waiting it out. You want him to THINK you are taking the safety net out from under him and that he can't just jump back and forth between women anymore like he has been doing. You want him to THINK you are CLOSING the DOOR to ADD PRESSURE. 5. And yes the drug testing, the child custody, all of that puts PRESSURE on him.. brings REALITY to his doorstep so he has to GROW UP or GIVE UP
For way too long now in my opinion you have been making it EASY for him to AVOID making a choice...
I use this model often, so I will offer it up again here.
Your Husband has three basic choices of lifestyle here :
a. Continue to see you, and his affair partner (cake-eat) b. End his marriage, minimize contact with you, and pursue affair partner 100% c. End his affair and work with a FT to reconcile with you 100%
Right NOW, you have been making option A AVAILABLE to him. He can see you as often as he wants, whenever he wants, and you are all smiles when he does. You even make him dinner or whatever.
When you cut OFF option A he has to make a choice between two ugly options to him. He does NOT want to end all contact with you, or he would have done that already. He does NOT want to end all contact with his OW either.
YOU take actions to STOP A from being available as an option. Until you cut off option A he will KEEP TAKING IT and NEVER recommit and YOU will continue to feel increasingly miserable.
Cut him off at the knees by removing option A.
You cannot force him to choose option C, but you CAN STOP him from choosing option A by NOT being available to him anymore.
You have been making yourself available 100% so he's been cake eating... it won't help you.
Cut him off at the knees. He may choose b, he may choose a, but at least he will have made A choice and you can stop feeling miserable.
So H took S5 to his apt and introduced him to OW without discussing it first with me. I have told him clearly I am not ok with OW being around S, and when confronted, claimed he never heard me say that. He also said he thinks I'm lying when I say that I see S have tantrums literally for hours each week, the day he returns from dad's. He said he is going to take S to his place when he wants to and introduce him to whom he wants to without consulting me. Oh, yes, and of course, I am crazy.
I am talking to a Lawyer tomorrow. I am rereading all of your posts here, including Allen's. Any more support and advice welcome.
My state has 50/50 custody laws so I'm scared it's going to be a big battle.
I have gone dim, and H has been cutting out the verbal abuse, except for last night when I tried to talk to him about how he crossed a boundary and disrespected me. Of course, the abuse returned.
So I'm back to NC. Only emails. No pleasantries. Help!
Yes, all good advice. Sadly, we have a separation agreement which says he has 50% custody, which is the usual in our state, but of course he has never taken, but always threatens me with. If I don't do things his way, he'll take S 50% of the time. That's what he is threatening me with now, and he wants OW in the house with them some of the time.
So this is why I do hand-offs myself - if I were to have my parents here, H would immediatly insist on only having S6 at his place only which means I can't supervise anything. My toss up is between having S and H hang out here, as they do frequently, and supervise as much as possible - or have S out of site with this abusive man, far too much of the time.
I would ideally like full custody, or legally supervised visitation only - but it's tough in this state as I said. I'd be lucky to get 80/50. Frankly, I don't think H even does that. He spend at most two hours, but usually not even that, with S on weekends - so he can be with OW. I have taken S because A) I want him at home and with a stable person who pays attention to him and B) I did not want OW around S which H would be casual about, I"m sure.
This has worked out fine for quite a while which is why I haven't wanted to go the Lawyer route which would mean at least every other weekend unsupervised at H's place - probably with OW and babysitters so H and OW can go out partying, as they often do.
However, I do not want to feel like H is holding this 50/50 thing over my head anymore. It's a way to be abusive to me. Things have to go his way, or he makes his threats. And if he is planning on pressing for this 50/50 thing anyhow, I need to be ahead of the game and ready.
PS the psychiatrist I've been seeing for my panic attacks (which always occur hours before I see H) says she would call child protective services in a flash. She believes I am being emotionally abused and this is potentially harmful to my son. I am scared to go that route becasue what if he lies (as H has done many times) and they take S away from me? OR from both of us?
A long time ago, when S was three months old, H and I had a fight and H called the police and had ME hauled off to jail, showing them a pimple on his neck and claiming it was where I had "attacked him" lol. They dragged me to jail. He has no problem doing this, you see. Oh, and then he had the nerve to claim I was the one who threatened to call the police and lie to have him dragged off. But that is what he did.
Does anyone have experience with child protective services?
I will def. ask the L tomorrow about that.
Also, since I have gone dim, the emotional abuse has stopped and Mr. Nice Guy has returned. This does not help my case to prove he's an abusive man. But my panic attacks were getting so bad, I had to do it so I could emotionally cope.
