I, like beetroot, have followed this thread carefully. My ex used to hit me, not regularly, he had 'spells', never on the face, and it took me ages before I could tell anyone as I was ashamed. That really does sound so crap to anyone who has never been there but its true. I have just come thru a very nasty divorce and financial hearing, and feel for you and your situation so much. My advice after coming thru this and being on the other side is as well as going to relate, book yourself a half hour free appointment with a solicitor - you can find 'family freindly' ones in the yellow pages. They will advise you as to exactly what you could expect from a divorce settlement. Even if things work out for you and I hope and pray that they work out as you want them to, you will have the information. In my financial hearing, what happened was, all the assets were totalled, including the house, pension, his savings, and then they were split 65/35. So for my 65% I got the house and 20% of his pension. I wwent for three fo these free half hours over a period of years before I could pluck up the courage to leave. This was my biggest mistake. I should never have left. The last time he hit me (for sitting in the wrong place in the living room), on my solicitors advice, I rang the police. Both my sons were there when all this happened, they were 4 and 8 at the time, my daughter was out, and from screaming at him to stop hitting me, they went to screaming at me to not call the police. I dialled 999 then chickened out and put the phone down, but the police had traced the call and came anyway. If at that point I had wanted to press charges, which is what my solicitor had advised, I could have applied for a court order to remove him from the house, but I didn't and so he has been able to stay in the house after the children and I left, we have lived in three different rented properties in the past year while waiting for the financial hearing to be settled and there was nothing that I could do to get him out of the house as it was in joint names. Regardless of our nomad existence, the children and I are all happier, I dont walk on eggshells and they dont see their mum get hit. When you said about friends coming over and 'he will be nice' that could have been me. When I told out closest friends what had been happening they just couldn't beleive it.
I know that if it happens again it would be very hard for you to call the police, but it is what you need to do, it took me 20 years to get out of this relationship and I know how hard it is. I looked at the nice house that we had, the good times that the children had with him,the nice holidays, the comfort of just having another person there as opposed to being a single parent (yes I know it was a violent and abusive person) and I stuck with it for years. I use to beleive that it would never happen again, and he used to apologise and tell me that it never would, eventually I told him to stop telling me that as we both knew that it wasn't true. Sorry rambling about me, I feel for you so much, and am glad that you have found a mumsnetter to talk to about this. I hope that everythig happens that you wish for.
Hugs
L xxx