Hi all, first time poster here. I didn't think it was possible for a woman to be misoygnistic but now I'm not so sure. Apologies for this v. long post. The background is that I met my exh through online dating. We dated a few months before I found out I was pregnant. Decided to move in together to make a go of relationship, everything went well and we got married when our first daughter was 4 months old. Problems arose when I became pregnant with second daughter. He confessed a few weeks after she was born that he had misused substances (drugs). He assured me he would never do it again. He did not need any professional help etc. Like a fool I believed him. He slowly became very controlling over time - he didn't want me going out at all (even to nip to the local shop) if he wasn't ok with it while I was on Mat leave. The furthest I went for a while was to his mum and dad's down the road. I never had a set of keys to our council house (he had the keys only), when I brought this matter up before I returned to work he said I could "bang on the door/window and he would let me in or if he was not there for me to go to his parents house" or on other occasions he said it would be too expensive to get a set of keys sorted out. He didn't want me to take our daughters to visit my parents on a Sunday at the weekend. He became very aggressive and argumentative if I didn't agree with him on things. He has always favoured our eldest daughter - he never wanted me to have our second daughter. He only wanted one child (as this would be easier for him to control). We started arguing more as he hardly did any housework - left it all to me even though he was supposed to be the stay at home parent. He would go out of the house several times a day (supposedly to run errands/get shopping for his grandma). In reality (and I only found this out after the divorce) he had a big gambling problem and went back to using class A drugs. November 2014 was the first incident of violence - he kicked me hard on the back of my leg. I was in utter shock as I had never had this happen to me before. His mother was in the next room at the time. She left soon after- he blamed me for her leaving saying I had "created an atmosphere". We split up for a few days a few months after this incident- he just shoved eldest daughter into her pram and took her to his parents house after we had an argument. I took youngest daughter to my parents house (half hour drive away). I went to his parents house and asked to see our eldest daughter - he said if we split up that he would keep our eldest daughter and I could have our youngest daughter. I was shocked at this and said "you can't split them up- they are sisters". His mum was sat right next to me on the sofa when he said this and said not a word to him. This should have rung alarm bells to me at the time. I returned to work in June 2015. My parents had youngest daughter one day a week to ease pressure on now exh. I tried to persuade him we should put eldest daughter into nursery for a day or so a week to help with things. He didn't want to do this - overruled me on it. Said he would be fine and would cope well. Every day when incame back from work I took over with the children immediately to give him a break and asked if he was coping ok. I was up in the night with youngest daughter etc. Anyway in July 2015 I had just finished work for the week. I returned home and he started asking what we should do that weekend. I said we could take the children to see my parents on the Sunday. This set him off. He stormed out the house to his mum's. His mum came to our house and said she would "take his name off the tenancy", and verbally assaulted me saying that everything was my fault, look at him he can't cope with the kids, I know nothing of the pressure he is under etc etc. I started answering back - he then pushed me on the sofa and got on top of me to pin me down and his full weight was on me so I could not move. I felt panicked. He then started putting his hands round my neck and squeezing my neck. I was in shock but literally couldn't do anything. His mum had to yell 3 times for him to get off me. This all happened in the living room where our two children were (they were only 2 years old and 11 months old respectively at the time). I said to his mum that I would phone the police - she threatened me and said if you do that I will ring social services. I said to them both to get out of the house. Children were v.distressed and I wanted to comfort them and get help from my family. My family were terrific- they came straight at once to support me. I gave a statement to the police a few days later- the (female) police officer seemed to be rather amused by the whole thing/ didn't give any sympathy etc. Now he's Contact went through the courts, (5 court appearances in an 18 month time span). The (female) judge was all on his side until the drug testing showed him positive for cocaine. I then felt vindicated as I was made to feel I was the unreasonable one at the start of the process. Ex h's mother lied at every turn for him and tried to denigrate my character in solicitor statements. It has only been in the past few months that she has had contact with the children again. I am very worried though about what she may do in the future (i.e try and turn them against me - undermine me to the children in some way, or pass on her attitude that men have a higher value than women). I certainly don't understand how anyone can prioritise an adult over two very young children like she did. Apologies for v. long post (I have left out some events though). Would welcome comments/views on this matter.