Making a Mess of this Separation, Helpful suggestions/ideas greatfully accepted

[mumineedawee]

Been separated a while, less than a year.

Our circumstances are such that I moved out, taking the children with me and had to start up a new home completely from scratch as he wouldn't allow anything (jointly owned or mine alone) to leave the family home.

For years I lead a super friendly and efficient at work persona, then i would go home to a miserable, depressed dp, who never washed himself, curtains closed all day, no one washed of out of pjs, and so on. Lots of starring at tv and munching on packets of biscuits as the kids meals. It was horrible to come in from work to see the kids having been indoors all day. We live close to 2 lovely parks and the kids love going there, so in all the years we lived together, he brought them there 5 times (memorable due to the fuss he made about the state of the gates, or the amount of dogs, and so on).

He would pepper the doing nothing with super intense hothousing on specific education topics of interest to himself. The children were never allowed to choose a topic. These would start out as fun for them, but quickly they learned that it was little to do with them and more obviously to do with him being able to show them off to relatives, etc., which of course they'd hated.

It took me years of not knowing what to do before I decided that i needed to make a change or else nothing would get better. He rubbished every suggestion i made to change what we had. He also felt that our lives were not good, but felt that i needed to concentrate more on home, not work.
He has always worked in very unaccountable cash in hand positions so only he would know what he received. Therefore, i paid the mortgage, all household bills, groceries, school stuff, everything. Added to paying for it all was a hefty dose of his criticising my value for money, or shoes being bought to fit when they could be bought bigger to last, etc.

Something dreadful happened one day and it was like a bucket of iced water was thrown over me, and suddenly i knew i had to get us out of there. I mobilised every bit of inner and outer strenght and found a place for me and the children to live, and they ran into their new home with happy smiles. This move has transformed them. The never had playdates, etc, for obvious reasons, but now these are normal stuff, and their friends love coming over to play. It gladdens my heart to see them so much more part of their own world and not stuck at home all day with dp.

It hasn't been all negative for him either. The kids now only see him here. I don't supervise it, but it is my territory. They have developed a fresh respect for him, offer him drinks, etc and don't use pathetic excuses to get out of the room he is in (that's how it was when we lived together). I think that this respect and being positive towards him is down to having the distance/privacy (which he wouldn't respect, not even if they were in the bathroom) and developing a separate sense of themselves, and secondly that he is on best behaviour, listening attentively, reading books, playing boardgames and so on.


If you;ve lasted this far, thanks:
He is my dilemma
He has spent way too much time here recently and its causing a number of problems.
Firstly, he is resorting to the behaviours that made me leave him, such as intense teaching on topics for up to three hours to them (age 6 and 9). I actively intervened and he will apologise to the children for me ruining their education. That's just an example. He is beginning to attempt to curtail their social lives by intercepting parents at the handovers (the ones where another parent is dropping ours home). Its usually just a few well chosen questions relating to morality, hyjene, diet, educational achievements, and so on. The confident parent, or one who knows the story will shirk this off, but there are a few who won't be repeating the experience.
And then there are the ME ME ME issues of just not wanting him in the home i fought so hard for (mentally and financially). He is untidy and disrespectful of our house rules here. I have no peace here when he is in the house. For a man who says that being here is what he wants as he gets to be with his kids.....some how, he continually checks in with me. I even have a sign on my bedroom door if i am working from home. The kids know to tap lightly and i will answer them if i am not in the middle of an important call. What he does is rap rap rap ever increasingly louder so that the person on the other end asks if i have the builders in. So that's an extra call added to be done another day, and so on.




What worked best for me originally, was when he didn't come in here at all. The kids occasionally mentioned him, and whenever he called he took them out somewhere, like to a relative. Not ideal. The pressure was put upon me to enhance his time with them, but what we've ended up with is a dire mess and i can't take it anymore. He has his own place but needs to do stuff and says he doesn't want the kids there until the work is done.

I'm feeling exhausted from it all and would welcome input. Thanks for reading this!

[cenicienta]

Hi, well done for finding the strength to get out.

I think the generally accepted advice when a couple split up is that both have their own home / space and the other doesn't enter their house. For the partner who is not the main carer, in your case your ex, access to the dcs should be away from your home, your home remaining exactly that! Your home!

It sounds like you made some very tough decisions to separate from ex, but if you're not careful you could end up right back where you started.

You really need to change the rules, tell him this is your home, your space. Do you have agreed access times for him to see the dcs or does he just turn up whenever he likes? You need to agree on access for e.g. once a week in the evening and every other weekend, or whatever works best for you. But be clear about the agreement.

You are not responsible for his relationship with his children and do not need to "enhance his time with them". Your job is to not speak badly in front of him, encourage the dcs in their relationship with him and to stick to the agreed access arrangements. He's the one who has to make the rest happen.
Hopefully some other posters will be along soon with more advice.

[cenicienta]

Sorry that should read "to not speak badly of him in front of the dcs"

[Lueji]

I can only agree.
When he gets in he invades you space.
I'd go back to the initial arrangement and only let him at times when he doesn't do harm and for a strict period.
When you aren't working (or doing calls) and kids don't have people around.

[midwife99]

He can't keep the marital home & then invade yours!! You need to ban him from your house. If he wants to see the DCS he must collect them & return them. You need your own safe haven.

[NotSuchASmugMarriedNow]

midwife99 is absolutely right. of course he can't keep the marital home and then invade yours? How on earth did you come to this arrangement in the first place. He must pick them up, take them to his house and return them afterwards. Or he can fuck off and you'll see a solicitor to formalise everything including him either seeing his children at his house or a contact centre.

[cestlavielife]

the answer is obvious really - he ses the Dc on his territory and keeps out of your space.

i do get it as I also moved out with DC (depression, agression. MH in exP wo didnt beleive in play dates etcetcetc ) and at first had him visit dc in new palce where i could kep an eye - it was a disaster. he would refuse to leave and invade space etc.

after aggressive incident this become no entry, then later over time he weezled his way in on pick ups - til it became a problem again and now it is strictly door step only. he says he feels this is demeaning etc and last time for contact with DS on his request i took ds to meet him up the road for handover (he lives close by, for now ) .

so time your ex stepped up and took responsibility for his own place so dc can see him there at set times.

[cenicienta]

When you left him what you did was create a safe place for the dcs to relax and be "normal". You said yourself "the move transformed them".

Of course you don't want them to stop seeing their dd but you do need to think about their emotional well being. That's what you did when you moved out, and that's what you need to do again now.

I would say don't let him in your house at all. Let the dcs know that this is your safe place (they will probably appreciate it) and that they must see him at his house or somewhere else.

They will probably breathe a sigh of relief.

[daffydowndilly]

He is in your home for more than 3 hours at a time, dictating what the children do, harassing other parents and bullying you when you are working? You have a big boundary issue going on here.

I understand that you want to have the children in your territory, but unless he is a danger to them, you need to let go of that. Take your key away from him and tell him he can see the children out of the house. If he can't fix the family home, then take them to a playground or his parents.

You need to get a divorce, separate financially (get your share of the house and goods), get formal contact in place. He is not a good parent. He is bullying the children by "intensively teaching them". I do get what he is doing. My XH has depression and other issues, including being a big child who has control issues around bathrooms, being terrible at parenting, compulsively developing children intellectually etc. But that is not good for the children. As for embarrassing them and effecting their social lives, that cannot be allowed to continue.

He is emotionally abusing the children and you (IMO), as for slagging you off when you intervene at the teaching sessions etc, that is very damaging for the children. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries! He is not your responsibility anymore.

[midwife99]

Actually why haven't you divorced him & got the marital home or a big chunk of the equity?