Help!
I left my narcissistic and emotionally abusive husband 6 months ago. The situation went from bad to worse for 2 months after leaving with all sorts of threats. Then he enrolled on the Everyman programme and my 2 year old was really struggling with being with him 40% of the time and I started going around to our family home to put her to bed etc and hanging out as a family. He put on an okayish show for 3 months, but various little warning signs were still there and quite frankly I just don't think he's a very nice person. I have a son who isn't his and he's been fairly horrid to him over the years and I have a stepdaughter too. He uses their relationship and me ensuring it continues as a way to emotionally blackmail me.
For the last few weeks I have been trying my hardest not to put a foot out of line and keep things on a good level. (Anyone who's been in a relationship with a narcissist will know it's just impossible to please them.) The reason being that my son wanted us to spend Xmas day with my ex and my stepdaughter and the daughter we share. My son loves his stepsister to bits and finds it all very difficult. But the situation is impossible, he continues to harass me if things aren't going his way and yesterday was shouting at me in the street in front of people. I've had to think a lot about the situation but decided today to say that we can't spend Xmas day together. I just can't deal with the abuse, the walking on eggshells, not knowing if he will kick off and ruin everyone's day and nearly every other day he cancels it saying he won't hang out with me because I'm unpleasant. I'm at ransom constantly.
I am in a situation now where I have said that I will spend Christmas separately. My family all live elsewhere and I'm in London. So I have said I will have my daughter for a week and go back home and try make it amazing for my son who is quite sad at the moment. Then he can have our daughter boxing day onwards. Then next year he can have our daughter on xmas day so we take it in turns. He went mental as you can imagine and threatened all sorts of things. I'm worried he won't return her around this time, but is there anything I can do to safe guide my child? Are there any steps I should take to make this more of an official arrangement? If he does take her, what should I do? He has said in his past relationship he did this.
I am also not happy with him having her 3 nights and myself 4 nights but have been forced into this. He's called me 30 times to day and left me 10 voicemails knowing I'm in meetings all day and has made all sorts of threats and then had picked up our baby to have her this eve. I don't like her being there with him knowing he's all heated up. In general, I would prefer 1-2 nights max at her age (2) so she has a strong settled base at mine. He only has his other daughter alternative weekends. He has also been involved with social services with them when he separated from their mother for similar bad behaviour. She got a restraining order. He's 18 year old son, hasn't spoken to him for 2 years. He justifies everything and when we first got together told me she was this physco ex. I've been very foolish, tried so so hard to make our marriage work as it's my second marriage but it's been impossible and in the end I had to leave to protect my children. How can I set up this schedule and enforce it? He won't stick to it and even keeps trying to take days of mine. He's very possessive of our daughter and often refers to her as 'my child' as if she's some sort of belonging to him.
I'm also going to start divorce proceedings in the new year, I've had to leave our marital home and rent somewhere with my children. He is saying he won't sale our home and I won't be getting a penny etc. I know he can't do this but he's going to make a battle out of it all. He spent a fortune on lawyers when he broke up with his ex. Any advice on lawyers in London who don't cost the world but understand what NPD is and how much conflict these people cause and can make a court understand how unreasonable these types of people can be! He lies and manipulates and I'm really afraid to go to court and have them believe him.
Any other helpful advice would be massively appreciated. I feel completely lost and under so so much strain with no family and very few friends near by. I've considered moving home for more support, but again I'm really afraid of what he would do.
Thanks