To find this H comment annoying

[Ginge88]

If I forget something or use the wrong plug or something, DH says loudly

"And the 356th way Ginge has fucked up today is...."

Or whatever number is in his head. Frustrating thing is I actually don't mess up things v much and it's him that needs reminders of everything

But yes if he notices says the milk is left out or something il hear him say "and Ginge succeeds in fucking up for the 455th time this week" and chuckling to himself

I've told him to stop. He tells me it's a joke. He does now do it less but he clearly thinks I'm being totally over sensitive

Am I?

I know I'm repeating myself. And I'm sorry for dragging this sorry mess out. I first posted in August FFS

5onight I had to work late (from home) which meant doing dinner/bath with DC and H and then at 7pm I had to join a meeting. So H just had to finish the last bit of bedtime. DS (3) was beside himself. I cld hear him crying and shouting "I want mummy. Not you. Not you. Where is mummy". I tried to leave the meeting to help but H was saying "I need to sort this" but I don't trust him. I worry he restrains him. I can't shake this horrible feeling that when I leave I lose all control. It was horrible enough tonight but I've got to accept losing control up to 50% of bedtimes

I know you've all explained it before. And I can hear the exasperation from you all but how do ppl cope or learn to accept their kids being looked after by shitty, angry men without them being there?

What do you mean by retrains him?

I understand the fear of leaving your kids with someone you know can be angry and lose their temper - and the thought of not being there to defend them when they need you. I guess you’ll have to rely on your children to tell you if he’s done something bad and then you’d have to go down the legal route of supervised contact and not allowing them to stay over. I’m not sure what the burden of proof would be.

How would you deal with your 3 year old if they were constantly getting out of bed and getting upset and it got to midnight then the early hours and you had work the next day, and they still wouldn’t settle or get into bed bc they were hyper or had decided they didn’t want to do it? There isn’t an ulterior motive to the question, I’m just interested to hear other parents strategies.

Just when DS gets upset and tries to leave the room, H sometimes tries to "comfort" DS by kind of firmly holding him to the chair or the bed. Not to hurt him but insisting he stays put and putting pressure on him. I don't like it. My gut feels uncomfortable and I've told him and he stopped doing it. But tonight I wasn't in the room. Sorry - I'm being an idiot. You've all said a million times better for DC to be in safe home 50% of the time. That's not always true though I guess. Depends on how unsafe the other 50% is.

hi @Ginge88

I was in a very similar position to you before I split with exH in November 2022. I think i’ve posted on here before. My kids were then aged 4 & 8.

I was terrified of 50:50 and that fear is only now starting to abate. ExH has my kids EoW and officially half the holidays. In reality it’s EoW and frequently not at all during holidays - he will pay for his share of school holiday programmes and I book, drop off, pick up etc etc to make it super easy for them to stay with me. I’m in NZ where it’s currently summer holidays - ex has kids physically for 5 days of the 7 week holiday.

I’ve achieved this through a combination of factors:

• I have photos and videos of ex’s domestic abuse (screaming abuse, smashing things etc) that I would no hesitate to use in a custody battle and he knows it. I have also logged his abuse with met/the kids GP and the police. It’s low level abuse (generally - in 2015 he hit me and gave me a black eye - the family courts seem remarkably forgiving of such things!! but handy to have everything independently recorded if necessary)
• ex is extremely tight with money. He does not want to spend $$$$ on legal fees and he would need to do that to get a 50:50 court order
• I make life easy for him. He never pays for a babysitter - I have the kids. He pays me bare minimum child support - $1500 a month for both kids. This doesn’t cover the wrap around childcare costs I need (I work full time in an exec level job, he also works full time and is a workaholic). It would be more expensive for him to have the kids 50:50.
• I provide the kids with love, stability, fun - I mortgaged myself to the eyeballs to buy out the family home when he wouldn’t, their cats are here, we have a fun happy life the 3 of us. I have a boyfriend but he doesn’t live with us and won’t for a few years. They do not want to live with him and are almost of the age where their wishes will be taken into account.

I think most angry abusive arsehole Hs don’t actually want 50:50 but use the threat of it as leverage. Does your H have family support to enable him to follow through? I was exactly like you - I would have been terrified to leave my kids with him for any length of time when they were too little to communicate with me. ExH would routinely refuse to allow the kids to call me when he had them until I got them their own phone. I have an amazing nanny who has been with us for years who lives with me during the week. I have no family support - thankfully I have a great job and earn good money but it’s still been tight. If I can do it so can you ❤️❤️❤️

Agree it’s not always best for a child to be in a safe home 50% of the time if the ex is abusive the other 50% of the time. Your H sounds scary an abusive and I can understand why you stay to protect your kids. Log everything. Consider secretly recording your challenging him on restraining DS.

You get recordings of the times he’s alone with the children. A judge will talk to the children, too and take their wishes into account. My ex lost custody of his kids totally simply on what the children told the judge. He hasn’t seen his children since they were 8 and 9 and they refuse to see him.

From how you have described him, 50:50 will either only be used as a threat and never amount to anything or will be short lived.
He can ask for 50:50 but at that point of negotiations you can explain why you aren't happy with that and what you could prefer. Can you record what happens when he is putting the kids to bed (kids crying and asking for you). It may help and be used to support your request for alternate custody arrangements.

@Ginge88 have you logged everything?

Yes I have a log of a lot of stuff on my phone. I have some recordings of him being awful to me but not much with kids. He's not that explicitly awful to them. Actually plays with them and says nice stuff. But he does get fed up with them and the younger one just doesn't want to be around him. Hard to evidence that. But I will try.

@Ginge88 how awful youngest isn't happy around him.

Never let a man talk to you that way. Call it out every single time, if he doesn’t stop…leave. If your partner isn’t improving your life and building your self esteem, and instead doing this every day, hell to the no. Not the one.

And to vary it, ask him if he can list the actual 365 ways you've messed up - and keep on asking!

In the trash with this one. He hates himself and is projecting it onto you, that’s a little narc right there. Especially accusing you of starting conflict when you set boundaries or try to stop the abuse (because it IS abuse). Blame shifting is its official name, please read up so you know what you’re dealing with.

OP- if your mum stayed loyal to your dad who treated her badly, that was her choice and it obviously affected you. Your mum didn’t leave and decided to stay. She decided to stay even though it was bad for her and her children.Again her choice .

But you don’t have to stay. You have the choice. There’s a generation of women out there of a certain age who out of loyalty stay with abusive men. Because it was perceived that there was shame in leaving a marriage.

But it’s 2025. Times have thankfully changed.

Who own the house ? Who pays the mortgage?

As already suggested, speak to your mortgage lender. They are probably more understanding than you think , they will want to help. A mortgage holiday until the house is sold is a good idea.

Children can often be good judges of character when very young. I said, after getting out, I’d run any new guy past the grandson and the dog. Both hated exH . Joking of course..I’ll never take on another guy

@Paul2023 house is jointly owned. But I pay for it by myself. He doesn't even know which bank it is.

@Ginge88 I think recordings of him to you are helpful. My exH was also not abusive to the kids but didn’t care if they saw him being awful to me. Exposing kids to that behaviour is psychological abuse.

Most banks now have a protocol for financial abuse, coercive control and domestic abuse.

If you ask for the department that deals with coercive control of mortgage customers within domestic abuse, I would imagine they have specific staff trained to deal with it.

He forces you to pay for everything.
He refuses to paybfor his children.
Gather proof.
Explain you would like a morgage holiday so you can rent another house to flee this awful man who is also abusing your children.
Tell them the morgage holiday is until the house is sold.
Spell it out.
You can do this.

Yes, indeed. When he shouted at me & called me a "fucking cunt" in front of our kids, I was shocked. But I was more shocked that he seemed to feel no regret afterwards and entirely dismiss it. Not just about me but that our kids were scared and it was in broad daylight while ppl were nearby dropping their kids to school.

Thank you for your advice further up thread - I wish H had more work/social life to distract him but he truly is a miserable arsehole who couldn't care less about his work so I worry his rage will be focussed on me forever. But I absolutely take your points about making it easy for him. I will do or say anything to minimise the hurt to the kids and if that means letting H off the hook without hurting his pride somehow - fine. I also feel confident that finances and housing should work out as I have never not worked. I think I'll be poorer but I've got another 30 years at work to pull myself back up.

No, nor would I. I will never live with another man ever again. I see very few women who benefit from sharing their home with a man to be honest.

You can do it, I've been following your posts for a while. Would it be useful to talk through your plan here?

You may be poorer financially yes, but happier for sure. It won’t be nice for your children swing you being abused like this.

I rather live in a bedsit and be happy than live in a castle with a toxic partner.

It really does seem like most of his interactions with your children are actually a device for him to hurt, belittle and upset you.

Once you are not there when he is looking after them, two things are likely to happen:

1/He behaves better towards them as there is no scope to get a rise out of you
2/He washes his hands of looking after them because it is too hard, and so he doesn't seek 50/50 at all and actually has them as little as possible.

I think this is spot on!