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.

Namechanger, I thought possibly as my h,who is British born but comes from African background,spent most of childhood there. I think has similar kind of thinking. However, I'm not blaming any of this on ethnicity, as there are many British men who are just the same.

Namehanger, I have another very difficult issue. I don't understand it. We've never shared bank accounts but h puts money in each month (about £900) Most of this comes from the rent he gets from his other house, not his salary.
H pays the bills and mortgageand I pay for everything else. I have quite high car insurance as I've only been driving 1.5 years and high petrol costs as the kids travel by car to school. (too far to walk).
ATM I do 3 school runs a day because I have one in school and one in nursery which is only half days.

Anyway, I hardly ever buy anything for myself. I don't get my hair or nails done (do it myself if need to), rarely buy any clothes over £10 and never go out.
However, it seems, like today, I literally have run out, he's made it clear he gets pissed off if I ever ask him for money. In fact he said the day before yesterday it had made him angry last month when I asked for a bit of help with petrol.

My son has very bad eczema and I'd paid for some special treatment for him (we discussed this). He wasn't getting anywhere on the NHS and couldn't sleep, in lots of pain ect...
Usually there is at least one large expense which comes out for me, whether it be a hoover that's broken down or something else.
I also had to get new shoes, uniform etc,ect..

Today, I'm sitting here wondering what we are going to have to tea when h is earning 65k (25 bonus and shares) and owns two houses!

I've worked out from his salary (after tax etc) roughly all the expenses he has (mortgagee, bills etc)

Why have we got to this crisis point? I'm afraid of asking for even £10 so I'm not. It's truly horrible.
Either this or I am seriously bad with money?

They both sound dreadful.

Freckles, could you show him the budget you've done and ask him what else there is to go on there? Then you can point out the disparities between what you each pay for and what incomes you have. As far as I can see, most people pay an equal percentage of their salary into a joint account from which all bills are paid, or have all money pooled.

I'm a SAHM so not much say there Totally reliant on him for any income.

You are not bad with money, my H told me I was the same, when I couldn't live off the £800 of my salary that he gave me each month. I too paid for everything to do with the children - nursery fees, uniforms, food, holidays, everything. I used to top up with my savings, but I have used them all up now.

H earns around £70K, drives a £45K sports car, and owns 5 properties. See how successful he is and what a good catch he is? Women like me don't know how easy we have got it, we are lucky to have such capable men.

Financial control is a form of abuse. You didn't get yourself into this situation; he chose to inflict this on you. Its a slow, drip-drip effect, and I was exactly the same as you - I don't know how things got so far, but they did.

www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic_violence_topic.asp?section=0001000100220049

DD cried again this morning

We were going to school, and discussing weekend plans - possible dance class on Sundays for them to attend.

DD2 - Mum what if its a weekend and we are going to see daddy?
Me - thats fine, you can miss the class that week
DD2 - Mum. When we went to see daddy this weekend DD1 told me she doesn't like going to see daddy at the weekend, because she doesn't like daddy
Me - oh really? Why is that DD1
DD1 - crying, but trying to hide it

As soon as we got to school I got out and hugged her and asked what was wrong. She wouldn't answer for a while but said she doesn't like DD2 because DD2 lies and says DD1 doesn't like people when she does.

I think DD1 may have said something about disliking daddy and is now regretting saying it. I think she is a bit conflicted about loving and disliking her dad both at the same time.

I also found out that DDs had bubble baths at ILs house. DD2 (aged 6) filled the bath. DD1 checked, and it was freezing, so DD2 filled it again. DD1 checked it had not over-filled, and then DD2 and DD3 (aged 3) both got in and had a bubble bath. I asked where daddy was. DD1 said 'Oh he was in bed, being lazy as usual'

FFS. They could have turned the hot water on and burned themselves, or filled it too high, or slipped and fell in face first, anything. He was in the next room, chatting to DD, but not out of bed yet. He hasn't seen them in 3 weeks, and then it was just for one day. And yet he can't get out of bed to supervise a bubble bath. My DD1 would have been the one held responsible if anything went wrong

Talk to your DD about having 2 or more feelings for the same person and that it's normal to love someone and not like how they treat you etc.

See he's a crap dad even when he is trying...

He is a shit dad, no Tuesday weekly call this week, presumably because he had seen them this weekend.

DD cried again this evening.

I talked to her for a long while, and she said she was scared of her teacher, because she took a squeaky hamster toy into school today and it made a noise in her bag and so her teacher found it and kept it in her drawer.

DD forgot to collect the toy at the end of the day and so she was scared her little sister (aged 3!) would realise tomorrow and would be upset. It was very odd for her to be worried about her sister like that; it is not DD3's favourite toy or anything like that. She would never even notice its gone.

Also said her teacher told her off for not doing all of her homework.

It difficult to believe this as I already told the teacher this was down to her dad not doing her homework with her properly this weekend and her teacher did say she would gently remind them all, but since it was the class's first set of homework this year she was expecting their to be a few people to didn't get it all right first time.

(DD doesn't need help completing her homework, but she does hate doing it and needs to to virtually pinned to the desk to make sure she does it all. She has always been like this, and it takes a lot of effort to get her to do it all. Except H doesn't seem to know this or care enough to make sure she did it)

All I can think is that DD is telling me her minor worries, and I am helping her with these, and so over time she will continue to trust me and will be able to confide in me if needed?

It might be nothing to do with H at all, I really don't know. She has a lovely life apart from that, so I have no idea what else could be causing her to burst out crying so much over the past few days.

It could just be that she doesn't know what is wrong/making her upset. It could be that twat face is drip drip drip poison on her which is upsetting her greatly. It could be that she is processing that her Dad doesn't really care about her and it's painful.

All you can do is love and reassure and hope she opens up to you

Yes I spent 10 years trying to figure out what was wrong and blaming all sorts of things. So it might just be taking her time to work through. Feels like her self-esteem has taken a bit of a blow as she was so scared of her teachers when we spoke last night.

Can't sleep or work properly for worrying. I hope she is ok. Wish there was something more concrete I could do. I've spoke to school and will call Gp for a referral today.

DD cried again today. We had another chat and this time she said (again) that she doesn't like school. But said she told dad she didn't like school, and he said she should go and live with him then, and she should talk to mum about it.

Except there are no places in DDs old school, and he knows this. It's massively oversubscribed. And he couldn't/doesn't want to care for her anyway.

She was asking me lots of questions about why we split up, and I was as truthful as I could be - daddy hit me, that and a lot of other things were making me very unhappy. (she said again: he was angry and he won't do it again).

I said I tried to fix things but couldn't. I thought really hard and I didn't want you to be sad and grow up sad so I decided we should move. We will have a different life, but it will still be a good life.

She asked if she should tell dad what I said.

I said I didn't mind, she could talk to him if she wanted to and she wouldn't get into trouble from me or from him about it, but its grown up things, and me and dad had already talked about where DDs should live. If anything else happens me and daddy will talk about it. I thought it was strange she would want to report back to dad - I don't know if he has been questioning her and saying things, or if she has taken it on herself to want to fix this.

I stressed that this is for the grown-ups to fix, and she shouldn't feel like she has to fix this, that is her parents job.

So I think that if she hates school enough she thinks we will go back to our old city/life. I spoke to school again today, and her teacher agreed that is sounds like she is transferring her feelings about everything onto hating her school.

We have a GP appt for a referral to get her some counselling.

Feeling much better

Called the GP and they squeezed DD in for an appt today. I spoke to DD beforehand and explained that I have been sharing my problems with someone called a counsellor, and sometimes its better to speak to someone you don't know because then you aren't scared of upsetting them or worrying them. She was very keen and said she would like to try.

GP was lovely, she talked to DD and then to me separately and I explained the violence and control DD had seen, and how he was still manipulating her. GP totally agreed with me and has referred DD.

She also said H would not be in with a chance of custody if there is violence involved, told me to keep diaries, etc. She was very, very good, almost made me wonder if she had been through it herself before. She really understood.

The waiting time is quite long - a few months so I may need to consider private counselling.

But DD seems much happier tonight. She didn't cry, asked some more questions about the counselling and generally seemed happier.

Feel like a weight has been lifted already - so glad to get the manipulation on record and glad we are doing something about it. Family are collectively supporting her as much as we can as well.

Tomorrow I am off to meet a solicitor for some more advice. Ready to do this now.

Do try to keep a diary of the things DD says. If she has a sympathetic teacher or another adult at school she can talk to, that might help in the meantime? Or a member of your family - just make sure they know: never to promise to keep secrets (if anyone is at risk of harm the information must be passed on), and to be neutral (regardless of what they really think).

She wants her counsellor visits to be kept secret from DD2 as she is likely to tell anyone and everyone about it so I have agreed.

DD seems quite worried about people knowing what she is thinking and keeps saying she doesn't want people to know. Not sure how I should handle that.

Her teacher has said she will have a word if the opportunity comes up to offer some support, my sister is great with her and my SIL is a counselling psychologist (not child specialist though) and so I will ask them all to keep an eye out.

Will also ask my brothers to spend some more time with her so she can still have some sort of male figure she is close to. Very difficult to know what would be right and what would make her feel like we are distancing her from her dad though.

GP said to her 'you must feel like you are being pulled in different directions' and she nodded vigorously. I think she really needs this.

I will add to diary about what DD has been saying - tbh i started one but then found it easier to post on here and use this as a diary instead. But I will formalise it into a document.

That all sounds so positive Name, and I really do think you are dealing with all her concerns brilliantly, very naturally. You are doing a great job. (Hope that doesn't sound patronising, not meant to be of course, just know from experience how hard it is to be looking out for the kids, seeing them struggle and dealing with your own emotions about that too, and how that can make you feel as a parent.)

for you both.

You really are doing everything right, Name.

Argh. Going to meet with sol today and found out H sold one of his flats to his dad back in March. Disposing of assets I suppose. Dirty tricks.

Does your Sol have experience of this kind of thing? Do they know a good forensic accountant?

The timing is suspicious, and even any profit would be a "marital asset". Admittedly it may come to you having to go for the best deal you can get - which may be less than totally fair but still more than he wants to allow you.

They have in house forensic accountants so hopefully are well accustomed to this devious behaviour and hiding or disposing of assets.

Long road ahead.

Have you not registered an interest in all of the properties so they can't be sold??

Sadly, but not unsurprisingly, it sounds like he has been saying things to the dds to distress them - laying on the guilt etc.

Have not registered an interest - he sold it just 3/4 weeks after I left when I was still picking myself up off the floor and he was promising me he was a changed man.

DDs said today daddy said he might buy a pet. A little doggy.

It's sold to his dad so quite an obvious and transparent move.
SHL did not seem too concerned.

I don't know how to register an interest?

Nor do I, I'm afraid. Ask your ShitHotLawyer, she's bound to know.

Namechanger, just catching up. I'm trying to take note as you are one step ahead (or a few more)
I know You work but do you mind me asking how you are funding the solicitor fees?
I'm scared I'll never be able to afford it! Any tips here?

I still need to register an interest too in the property. Gosh, so much work to do!
Sorry your kids are having such a hard time. I have that to come. Not looking forward to it. You are so brave and courageous.

I think you can put a caveat on the title.