Advice after leaving an abusive partner

[valderee]

HI all, I'm a first time poster but hope I can benefit from some of the great advice I have read for others. I have been living apart from my partner for almost a year now. It has been a constant roller coaster, him being manipulative and controlling even from a distance. He is nice one minute but very soon goes back to his usual self, being aggressive, dismissive. I left him because his emotional abuse became physical and we have a very young baby. Its a long story but from what I can gather he appears to be an emotional abuser, I am not allowed to disagree with him, he control's everything; If i try to break things off completely he threatens to end it all. I have been trying to fix things but I know I can't.

Most recently I said that we needed to stop playing a being friends and just communicate about our son, he was very upset, accused me again of being cold and un feeling. He had our son on Sunday and was supposed to bring him home on Sunday evening, but he didn't come he wouldn't answer the phone, reply to text or phone calls. Eventually after 2 days of this I contacted his parents and asked them to try as I was so worried. In the end they get hold of him, they texted a brief they are both ok and that was it.

This is really the final straw for me, I know he is using our son to emotionally bully me and I need to sort things out.

The thing I really need advice on is how to untie myself from this man apart from our shared parenting role. When we lived together he was out of work, I supported him financially and as he believed it was a short term thing he lived off credit cards that were in my name. This ran up a debt of over 20k in 2 years keeping up with his living costs, he bought a car (lost his company car when he lost his job). Now we have separated I am left with all these debts. He seems willing accept they are his but I don't know where I stand legally. I would like to transfer the debts to him but don't know if i can do that? as it is I have had to take on a debt management plan and I am paying £180 per month towards this- whilst he pays nothing as he says he can't afford to. If the debts were in his name he could declare bankruptcy??

Any Advice would be really appreciated. Thanks

Get legal advice (ring around local solicitors and ask if they do free 30 minute introductory appointments). Not sure if you're eligible for legal aid, but find out.

You're doing the right thing by saying that you need to limit your contact to childcare communications. Note that you don't need his approval for this. You won't get it. Just do it.

Think seriously about getting a court order for access arrangements. That means if he doesn't hand back your DS, you can go to the police and get him back. My exH has done the same disappearing act with my DD - it's absolutely terrifying. I've had to involve the police twice, which he absolutely hates - it works to put limits on him.

I can't advise about the debts - someone else might know better.

Good luck with it!

get to a solicitor and get a legal arangment for contact - you cant have him disappearing with ds fo two days !

ps my exP reguarly send msgs telling me how cold unfeeling abusive etc i am. just ignore...

In addition to getting legal advice regarding access arrangements, just stop caring about what he says. Don't take any bait. ignore ignore ignore. Any comunication which isn't factual information about visiting your son can be ignored or deleted. This works even better if there is a formal arrangement for contact, so he can't fuck around and bully you about that either.

Thank you all for your replies. We have been apart almost a year and he is still playing his wicked games. I am picking my son up this afternoon - his response is to go into victim mode now and tell me how sad it is that I don't trust him and that he bets I will stop him seeing his son now. He can not take an ounce of responsibility grrr I know he knows he is wrong it was a conscious decision to worry me. Git!!

Re the debt situation give Women's Aid a call and ask to be referred to their DAME project, details here. It provides specialist financial advice for women experiencing domestic abuse. It's very common for women to be left with huge debt by their abusers. Regarding the child contact situation, you need to see a solicitor urgently and get a residence order and a contact order. The contact order will set out when he sees your son and for how long. The residence order will mean that if he keeps your son away from you again the police can get involved. The only way to deal with abusive twats like this is to have everything very formally set out and not to communicate with them directly. They manipulate, twist and control everything and it sounds as though he is a text book abuser.