NEED ADVICE

[pudgy1977]

Hey all. New here. I am going through a mostly amicable divorce. No lawyers, 50/50 with kids and expenses.
My Ex has always had a volatile temper, often yelling, name calling, punching walls. A few times of pushing, grabbing, and spitting. Hence the reason I left him about a year ago.
My Daughters often say things about how the only thing Dad does is yell and we have a very open discussion about how much that stinks and why it's not okay but it just breaks my heart. But last night I got my kids back and the oldest was in "a mood" and had a little melt down (yelling and throwing things at her sister, and then yelling at me)
After getting her to calm down, we had a talk about what was bothering her, and she told me that over the weekend her Dad got very intoxicated and they got in an argument. He got angry with her for asking him why he was still up. Anyway, he got angry and started yelling and calling her names. When she sassed back (this girl never backs down) he pushed her, told her to go to fucking bed and he didn't want to look at her face anymore.
She doesn't want to get her dad in trouble, and makes excuses for her. I just don't know what to do. Please any advice would be great

[Twillow]

I've had similar situations, it's horrible isn't it.
I've tried:
calling him on it (gets very defensive and blames me for everything)
making the school aware of the reasons I left and that there are concerns re ex
giving dc a secret phone for contact in emergency
telling them it's not ok, explaining that while arguments and anger are fine, abusive behaviour is not

And yes, the bad moods on return are a definite sign of stress.

[pudgy1977]

I am just so scared that if I let them stay there the situations will just escalate. At least when I was living there I could shield them. UGH.

I like letting the school know what's going on. I think I will do that.
Thanks!

[MrsBertBibby]

How old are your daughter's?

[pudgy1977]

They are 12 and 15

[MrsBertBibby]

They shouldn't go back. I assume there is no order in place?

[pudgy1977]

No order. We are not all the way divorced yet, and we have agreed on 50/50, and we are not using lawyers. I am so screwed.

[MrsBertBibby]

You can't send them back. You know this.

You should be talking to the police.

[JaffaCakesMum]

I'm going through a dreadful divorce. My girls are 16 & 18 and in the summer I went to the police for advice. It ended up in him getting arrested for threatening and abusive behaviour against me and assault against oldest, When it went to court he pleaded guilty to the threatening and abusive behaviour but not the assault which was accepted. The problem in our case with the assault was could it have been discipline. I feel safer now as he now knows that I won't put up with any of it anymore. I'd also recommend keeping a journal and pressing the record button on your mobile phone when things kick. off.

[pudgy1977]

I did start journaling this behavior, but love the record button on our phone calls. Although I'm not tech savvy so I should figure that out.

[JaffaCakesMum]

I have an older phone but it has a pre installed app on it called 'voice recorder'. If you don't have the app I'm sure you'd be able to download one. The difficult bit is remembering to do it in the heat of things. The police referred me to Women's Aid but you can contact them direct yourself. I found them extremely supportive.