Finally told my physically/emotionally abusive H I am divorcing him...

[Namechanger2015]

I have been posting about my H since Jan. He assaulted me in Dec in front of my DC. I left in late Jan with my DC and we moved in with my parents 1.5h away, close to my family.

Since then he has offered to sell the family home so we can live together close to my parents, and enrol in an abusers course, and has generally seen the error of his ways. Except of course, he hasn't.

He has decided that he likes the house too much to sell it, and is currently enjoying living alone in the 4-bed detached house that I paid towards with my salary, which he would not allow me access to.

He has decided that the abusers course is 'a load of bollocks' and so refuses to do it. I pinned all of my hopes on this course fixing him, and he won't even try. He knows the alternative is divorce and living away from me and his 3 beautiful DC but it seems that is not enough for him. He will not do the course and he will not sell the family house to buy another.

My immediate family know what he has been like over the years and don't ever want to see him again. Some of my extended family know and are 100% behind me as well.

Last week I told him the solicitor will be in touch to start proceedings and end our marriage. It went like this:

(bland conversation about him wanting to attend a family event with me )
Me: I have spoken to solicitor and they will be in touch
Him: To do what?
Me: To end the marriage
Him: There is no end with children involved
Me: Yes. You can see the children anytime you want to.
Him: And you will hide away? We will always see each other. For the rest of our lives. There is no end.

(2 hours later)
Him: Can you let me know the kids half term dates, I'd like to have them stay for a few days if that's ok.
Me: Yes, thats fine.
etc.

So that was it. I told him I want a divorce, and he mustered up 4 sentences in a text. Nothing else. No promising to do the course, even if he did think it was crap, and no promising to sell the house to buy a place together, simply because he loves that house too much to give up.

So my marriage is over, once the exceedingly slow SHL finally serves the papers. And he didn't even fight, get angry, nothing. Just took it in his stride.

It's further proof that he never loved me, but I can't help feeling angry, sad, robbed. I could have had a life with someone else. As it stands, I have 3 young DC and no partner, and just me.

Trying not to feel to sad or worthless. I have had an amazing weekend with family at a wedding, the DC and I loved it, and my extended family are simply amazing. I could have lived in the wedding hotel with them all for ever, we have so much love between us all.

But I don't have a spouse. After 9 years of marriage. I did it all alone, nobody to chitter about what the food was like, or that I liked the brides dress, or whether the DC enjoyed it. I know the whole experience would have been different with him there, and probably not in a good way. But it was lonely, and a bit of a wake-up call.

I'm not even worth selling a house or attending a crappy course for. He would rather let me go than do that for me, after 9 years and 3 children.

I am actually shocked, surprised and hurt at how little I meant to him by the end of our marriage.

He has taken DDs this weekend to his parents. I text him at 4.30pm and asked him to text me when he leaves and can he have DDs back by 7pm as they have school and swimming lessons tomorrow.

It's now 7pm and he hasn't replied. It takes an hour to get them home so it's a late evening for them again.

But he will complain that I am not letting him see the DDs etc if I dare get in the way of his erratic and spontaneous plans to meet up with them.

Can't win with him at all but I am trying.

I hope they're home now.

What is your relationship with the ILs like? Can you contact them and mention school tomorrow? Most gps would react sensibly to that (they're probably exhausted after a w/e with children, too!).

They are not home yet.

ILs are lovely but are part of the problem. Don't say a word to him about his behaviour and really don't seem to think about the fact it gets late for DDs. We used to argue about it on weekend visits. He would insist on leaving his parents at 7pm so we would get home at around 10.30/11pm when DDs had school the next day. They would be exhausted.

I said we should go at lunchtime but he would say no. Traffic is less in evening so we go then. Even though his sister who lives near us would go home at lunchtime so her DC had time to sort stuff out for school he would not.

I can't really contact In laws as they keep saying he will be ok, we will make sure he never does this again, please don't do this to him etc. but they are totally ineffective at holding him to account.

DDs are back now. He did do DDs homework and did buy the uniform requested from supermarket. Bought DD1 a tshirt whilst they were there - that is now her birthday present from him. No cake, card, celebration, meal out, nothing.

DD1 is delighted with her tshirt and I have said its great she had a lovely weekend. I have not pointed out that he did bugger all for her birthday despite kicking off about it last weekend.

This kinds of things really muddy the waters for me. He did do homework and he did buy uniform - although part of me knows this is out of boredom as it gives them something to do.

Didn't go to opticians but fixed her glasses himself.

It doesn't point to an abusive or bad dad does it? I am not wrong in my judgement but he is good-ish to the DDs sometimes and that's when I wonder.

He has has shit parenting role models and didn't or couldn't parent. Now when he has to, he does do it. He doesn't actively chose to, but if I make him do it he does.

But when married if I made him do things he simy wouldn't do them. They were my job. But he is doing it now. Is he becoming a better dad?

He is perhaps becoming a better dad to them for now. However that isn't difficult considering he did zero parenting before, also how long will he keep it up for???

Anyway it doesn't matter whether he is a good parent or not now, you are divorcing him on the how he WAS, he was a bastard dh and a very bad role model for your dds.

Ugh I stand corrected. Sheet 1 of homework complete in her very best handwriting. Sheet 2 not even attempted. He did this before - he says he didn't realise there was a page 2 even though it's stapled to page 1.

So basically he hasn't supervised her homework again. It's due in tomorrow.

You are right in that he has gone from zero parenting to a small amount. It's not good enough really.

Ok the homework thing is annoying and is reminding me what a rubbish dad he was!

Yes, was and actually still is.

Further down the line he probably won't even be able to keep this minimum effort up!

Am actually quite annoyed he made zero effort for DDs birthday too.

Today the girls got up and I was talking to DD1 about normal stuff and she burst out crying. I asked what was wrong, held her and comforted her and she said she doesn't know what's wrong.

But she did notice little things like they stayed in all weekend and that he didn't take them swimming as promised. So I don't know if she was crying because deep down somewhere she was disappointed in this birthday weekend with him. My heart breaks for her.

I am referring her for counselling and will also try my absolute best to help her through this. Any suggestions welcome.

This kinds of things really muddy the waters for me. He did do homework and he did buy uniform - although part of me knows this is out of boredom as it gives them something to do.

These are also things that he can point to as "evidence" of his parenting skills and your lack of. In his mind "Of course I have to help the girls with their homework, and buy them their uniform, as NC is just rubbish at that sort of stuff. I expect they would be bottom of their classes if I hadn't taken over."

It's a very shallow, superficial type of parenting which is purely designed to make him look like Dad of the Year to any casual enquirers. We rail against Disney Dads on here, but at least their actions are motivated by the child: "I want my kids to love me best." His actions are purely motivated by his public image - he doesn't give a shiny shit about how the girls feel.

As you've discovered, he can't even sustain interest to 50% of their homework. Just enough to persuade his parents that he's doing the right thing. Cock.

Poor DD1. I hope you can get her some help soon, and I'm sure that she has many feelings going on which she may feel unable to express to you. Having seen her dad hit her mum, she may feel horribly torn for still loving her dad and wanting him to love her, but feel disloyal to you for that.

I am sure her effusive praise for the t-shirt was covering up her sadness that he couldn't be bothered with anything else. A fucking t-shirt, Jesus.

If you can get her into CAMHS soon I think they will be a big help to her. They were marvellous with my son after his dad died.

he's very selfish. he's not cut out for the long game that parenting is. expect things to deteriorate further, sadly. i suspect you will have to do the lion's share of child raising, until your children are adults.

he's a prick. well done for getting away from him.

Today DD1 failed her spelling test - so he had not gone through these with her either.

I am fine with doing the parenting, I actually prefer to do it myself because then I know things are done. But his crap attitude and the effect it has on the children is very disappointing. If he is going to get worse, I wish he would just go now rather than drag if out for all of us by continuing to have half-hearted contact with them.

A t-shirt when he is earning £70K+ and pays nothing towards the children. I hope he realises what he has done one day.

sorry to hear DD1 is having such a hard time.

i see why you prefer to do things yourself so that they will actually get done.
of course you know what he will do.............
he will continue to wear you all down through half arsed parenting. eventually you will have to put your foot down, which he will of course twist around to make you look like the bitch.
he's just another selfish prick.

He won't, Name. Your DC are very lucky to have all the parent they will ever need in you

Poor little dd and some delicious

Do they get their spellings the previous week? Get some index cards, write each word in big letters on a card - one card per word -and stick the cards on the wall opposite where dd sits for meals. Ask her casually while you're eating, to spell each word, and let her read them off the card, it's not a test. Do it twice a day. With luck, she won't need to worry about spellings beyond that.

I'm sorry, I don't really have much helpful to add. I am so sad for your girls.

Namechanger, there is a difference between me and you. I can honestly say all my feelings for him have gone. Apart from guilt maybe or the bad ones. I was shut up with silent treatment so many times, I think I just put a wall up to defend myself.
I'm sorry you've had to deal with all this. What a horrible realisation that you were just a 'thing' who brought up his own children.

Ah Freckles I'm so glad you are one step ahead of me with the emotional side of things. I despised H by the time I left but have a freakish stubborn streak which means I never want to give up on anything. Especially not our 9 year marriage. But that's been the undoing of me I should have given up years ago.

Another random memory.

I kept my maiden name after marriage, partly because I was/am v v attached to it and it's a massive part of my identity, and partly because I didn't want to lose any work connections I had built up over the years.

He said he was ok to start with but then hated it. But wouldn't approach it rationally. DD1 was born with my surname. It lasted about a month and then he raged and made me change it to a surname that is traditional to his culture but is not his surname. It's a surname commonly given to women in his culture. So I changed it reluctantly with mine as a middle name as agreed.

Then this annoyed him and a few months later made me change it again, this time to his father/family surname. Which he himself has not got.

So I have surname 1. He has surname 2. And DD has surname 3, same surname as his parents. I am nobody in the scheme of things really.

And when I say made me change it, I mean screaming at me with my baby in my hands, making her jump and cry.

When I called the registrar (twice!) and explained she was concerned for me and kept asking if I was ok and if she shoud send name changes to me in secret or if it was safe. I thought it funny at the time but she must have realised how controlling the situation was.

Anyway, he continued being annoyed at me for not changing my name. He refused to wear a wedding ring until I changed it. I hated that he wouldn't wear one but he said not until I changed my name.

I told him there was no point be coming surname 3, because he was not surname 3 anyway, plus it could affect my working life. He disagreed and thought I should still change it.

A year or so ago my cousin got married. The invite was address to Namechanger surname 1 & family. That's my real, proper legal name.

Unknown to me, H called my cousins dad and said he was obviously not invited as the invite was addressed to name changer & family (using surname 1) and not to H & family (using surname 2/3). My uncle ended up apologising to him.

The first I heard of this was when bride-to-be called me and asked if everything was ok, and she hoped she hadn't offended him. I pretended I knew what she was talking about but had no idea.

I confronted him but he refused to tell me - said it is between him and brides dad (my uncle, who wrote the invite) and nothing to do with me. If I wanted to know I would have to ask my uncle because H was not going to tell me.

I turned up at the event and had literally no idea if they were speaking to each other or hated each other or it was a minor disagreement. It was all over a name. But he would not approach it rationally and sit down and explain how he felt etc. just a bulldozer approach to getting something he wants.

That's probably quite a weird and culturally influenced memory that might not seem so bad. It was just horrendous to be a bystander whilst he acted like a twat around my family.

Sounds pretty bad to me.

Of course, I understand. We're about 7 years, married and had kids quite quickly though. It's horrible seeing everything you have given to turn into this.
I know we can both and all the others in our situation make something again though. Our marriage has been shaky from the beginning I think, but I've not had the courage to stand up and be me.
I used to travel a lot (worked abroad a lot), played music, had friends, went out etc) Now, I sit at home in the evenings with nobody, totally alone. I never go out (because of his working hours) and my life is really incredibly dull. I don't expect a great social life with 3 kids but I do want 'a' life!

Is your h/ex British or does he come from another culture?
Sorry, being nosy about the surname thing!
All sounds very far fetched and a bit crazy!

That was bad, Name. Really bad.

Freckles I was the same. Worked abroad, great social life, travelled for work and for pleasure and led a lovely life. Looking back I feel like my life stopped when I got married.

Suddenly holidays were too expensive, I had very few friends in his city. If I went out in the evening he would sulk and go quiet. Would not stop be going but subdue things like coming home from work half an hour later.

Or suddenly claiming he we going out that night oonsoninwould have to be home early so he could then go out.

I put the lack of social life down to having young children. But looking back it was only me who lacked a social life, not him.

Now I have left I am living with family and I have done so much this year. Lots of it has been with the children; both they and I have a great social life now and feel wanted and part of a bigger community.

Things can change so much freckles

We are both British born and riased but our parents are from a different country. Mine are quite happy in their skin and live life to the full - holidays, social life etc. His parents came to England at the same time as mine (45/50 years ago), but didn't really learn the language and stick to their own community etc much more.

ILs are lovely people but haven't really moved on from their very traditional lifestyle and H is the same. Wants a very subservient wife to look after him and his children (even though he knew I was educated, had a great job etc. A trophy wife maybe?)

Not loving your H makes things so much easier. I am nearly there