Divorcing sulking H - will it happen in 2020?

[jamaisjedors]

So this is my FIFTH thread, and no, I'm still not divorced and probably won't be in 2020 as my exH is refusing to sign the initial papers and so this could drag on until 2021 (2 years after our separation) when I can divorce him without his consent.

First thread from December 2019 after my H ruined my birthday weekend (and 1st anniversay of my dad's death) by giving me the silent treatment all weekend to "punish me" for not being grateful enough for him coming away and buying me a present and a card.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3448545-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking?msgid=84022238

Thanks to some amazing posters I realised that H's behaviour (which was not at all a one-off) was abusive and unacceptable.

I prepared to leave him and got plans in place but got "hoovered" back in by H with promises of joint counselling, individual counselling for him, and regular "date nights". Unfortunately none of that changed the dynamic in our relationship : 2nd thread :

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3498886-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking-part2?msgid=85957683

I started a 3rd thread in May when H and I had decided to separate :

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3580872-LEAVING-sulking-H?msgid=88239005

and that's when things got nightmarish.

As everyone on here pointed out, the most dangerous time for women is when they decide to leave an abusive partner.

In a nutshell, H went missing, had an acute psychotic episode, was admitted to a psychiatric facility and is still in there now.

Staff at the hospital warned me H could be dangerous for me and advised me to move out asap which I did, in fear for my life.

Fourth thread :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a3637219-DIVORCING-sulking-H?msgid=92845754#92845754

saw me going to court to safeguard the DC through a request for full custody with limited visiting rights.

With the help of my great lawyer we got the decision we wanted from the judge but the battle never ends over every little thing - schools, activities, money...

Now I am at the stage of entering financial negotiations with exH through lawyers and solicitors plus he has appealed the judge's initial decision so we have to go back to court in mid-February.

Fun start to the New Year which is why, a whole year on, I still need the support and advice of all of those who've been through similar situations or who are just naturally wise !

I have also come a very long way this year.

Leaving a controlling and emotionally/verbally abusive relationship was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Actually NO, the hardest thing I ever did was STAY in that relationship so long in a bid to keep our family together and make it work.

I'd love to think that by sharing this journey on here it might help others who are doubting their strength and capacity to leave - my life is a million times better now although I still have a lot of healing to do.

Honestly, I think if you must reply to him at all, you can simply say,

“We are never getting back together. It is inappropriate to contact me at all unless regarding DC or agreeing to divorce sooner.”

Could you just send him the YouTube link to Taylor Swifts video for - we are never ever ever getting back together 🤷‍♀️

I’d be tempted to reply, “nah”.

Yes deffo channel your inner Taylor Swift. Like, ever

I don't think you should feel obliged to reply to him at all. He is just using the email to try to control you and get you back into your place.
By replying, you are just encouraging him to try this tactic again, because he will see any response as a positive i.e. that he managed to get your attention

@jamaisjedors he's probably just realising he's still a miserable fucker but as he's on his own he has nobody to blame but himself this time. Glad you're safe and well.

I'd be attempted to respond with an eye-roll emoji and 'bored now'. Don't do that.

Just to use the thread as therapy, here's what I'd like to reply to him

Keep posting here when you want to be heard Jamais. It is sad & frustrating that he is not emotionally mature enough to see, understand or accept your point of view.

Expressing anything to him is a total waste of your precious time - even if your heart yearns for it to be different. Accept he doesn't have anywhere near the insight you have - no matter what he says.

Remember you receive more acceptance & understanding from team Jamais here on mumsnet than you ever got from him.

Practice knowing that nothing he does/says has any power over you.

Lots of great advice and also some suggestions which gave me a laugh.

I will be mature and vent on the thread and keep it very neutral as I did in the 2 previous emails. Definitely leaning toward referring back to them or copying and pasting them for him and then saying please do not contact me about this again.

An interesting thing about him seeing me as an object, he said he was missing "his companion, his wife, the mother of his children".

Not ME, jamais.

Kids are with him tomorrow, I think I will email him while they are over there when I have some space and peace.

Just realised looking back that this will actually be the 4th time he's written about reconciliation.

1st was in December (then I got the court summons for the appeal from his solicitor the same day)
Then New Year.
Then 1st week of January.

So I am definitely justified in sending a very short reply back and referring back to my 3 previous emails which either say "lets now find a way to co-parent" or "my decision is final".

No ambiguity whatsoever.

I will also tell him that I will not reply to any future emails which are not about the divorce or the DC.

Preparing for him to start being uncooperative again.

It's a definite cycle - each time he was about to send me one of these emails he started being cooperative and "nice" in arrangements.

Then I reply and he pings back into not answering any requests or messages from me or being deliberately obstructive.

He has recently emailed me about dates for the summer holidays.

We seemed to be agreeing but I will get my proposition down in writing now and possibly official through my lawyer.

Reading through that is the 4th email I think you should just ignore.

You have told him 3 times, he knows the answer he just doesn't like it.

There is no direct question in his email that requires an answer is there??

Has he actually said "I would like us to start over" or just "I would like us to talk".

I think your silence will be more powerful.

So maybe break the cycle this time and don't respond to this email. Only respond to emails about the children. The lawyers can respond to emails about the divorce. Didn't take my xh long to realise that he could send long emails about how his love for me transcended the norm and how I shouldn't be divorcing him, blah, blah, blah but that I would not be responding to them. I didn't have to tell him so.

I saw it as somewhat like training a toddler ... ignore the behaviour you don't want and respond to the behaviour that you do want!

If history shows, when you brush aside his declarations of undivided love🤣 he becomes vindictive.
Best to sort out summer holidays before telling him you are thwarting his devotion

An interesting thing about him seeing me as an object, he said he was missing "his companion, his wife, the mother of his children".

That is so telling. He is missing HIS plaything, HIS housemaid/nurse/cook, HIS children's nanny. It's all about him. Not "I miss your smile, I miss you telling me about your day, I miss us playing with the children together..." No, just "I miss MY possession, I don't want you to be your own person, I want you to be MINE.

He will become difficult when you reply? So don't reply. Without the trigger of your reply he might just simmer down without spiking

I was going to say sort out the holidays and then think about replying.
Tbh I think I would send a version of your rant. Get someone else to read it to make sure it can't be used against you.

Exh, yet again your email has confused me.
You swap between missing me and calling me vindictive (etc)
I appreciate that you might be missing our marriage and am sad if you are sad but if you look back I tried to make things work, we went to counselling together. Our marriage failed and we cannot go back. We can only move forward and be the best parents we can for the boys.
So with that said please do not email me again about tying to save our marriage as I won't respond.

Thanks for the different points of views about replying/not replying.

No rush either way for sure.

Talking to a RL friend today and I realised that I will probably just do a short reply with a request not to contact me again about our marriage.

In another context I might just ignore his email but right now the world is a scary place.

Once I've warned him that I will not be replying I will be able to ignore/block whatever with a clear conscience.

The summer holidays are so up in the air at the moment with the current climate that it's hard to know what to agree to.

The way Exh has cut up the holidays is scrupulously fair - but we are sharing the 8 weeks by alternating every 2 weeks and the handover dates he has suggested make it very difficult to go away Saturday to Saturday for example.

But I have no idea whether I will be able to do any of the things I wanted to do either on my own or with the DC anyway (international travel may be out of the question soon, same with campsites etc.)

I think I would do well to specify handover times and dates too as for the moment he has suggested for example :
4th July - 18th July Dad
19 July - 31st July Mum

When I look online it seems a handover at midday is the norm, or at the time the holidays started so 5PM for example...

At the moment exH is saying that of course we can be flexible to avoid the kids travelling up and down the country on 2 consecutive days for example but I'm not sure that will last once I've put my foot down about the marriage.

Also for the moment I'm not sure whether he'll be having them overnight or not.

If the judge's decision (30th April) says he can have them overnight then I can make plans for myself while he has them in July.

If not I will have to wait til August when apparantly he is planning on going on holiday with the DC with family (info from SIL x 2).

Actually perhaps I would be best to do a short reply this weekend and also mention that it is too early to finalise the dates and handovers for this summer as we don't yet have the judge's decision.

That way I have it in writing that there is no agreement yet and can use that for leeway with my lawyer if there is a serious disagreement.

I don't think it would be sensible to agree holidays when you don't know what will happen at court.

If he gets overnights do you really want the boys alone with him for 2 solid weeks, I'm not sure that would be wise at all. Far better alternate weeks apart from when he also has family there.

You don't know what will happen in court OR what will happen with lock downs and travel restrictions. To avoid antagonising anything could you just make some kind of non committal vaguely positive response saying that sounds reasonable but considering the current uncertainty let's wait to see what the situation is after April before we finalise dates.?

@RandomMess - good point about the 2 weeks solid if it's overnights.

In fact I think I would be wise to reply about our marriage being over in the same email as mentioning that it's too early to agree on dates for the moment seeing as we don't know how his mental health is yet and how he will react to reducing his medication (if that happens).

The original basis for no overnights was that his psychiatrist said he needed to have a year on treatment and then if there were no further psychotic episodes he would gradually reduce medication.

I'm thinking I will reply to everything in the same email, and then if he suddenly starts being uncooperative again, and we have to send emails to the judge, I can point to the fact that his lack of cooperation is linked to my position on our relationship.

This will also be a barrier to joint custody as the parents have to manage to communicate well for the judges to accept it.

If his cooperation is dependant on our (non existant) relationship then it is not a stable basis for the DC.

This is pretty much what I think nowadays anyway - when exH is being cooperative everything seems possible. And then he goes back into "hate" and ignores my messages - for example when DS2 was off school a while back, he just ignored my messages asking if he was going to pick him up the next day or not.

@jamaisjedors - your eldest must be approaching 16 now, how much longer will the question of formal (enforced?) contact go on? I know things work differently in France, but the court's influence about his contact would be coming to/have come to an end over here.

I haven't commented before but have read all your threads. I'm 100 % behind you, and in awe of your strength and resilience through all of your tough time.
Fwiw it strikes me that you shouldn't be agreeing to anything yet in terms of the contact arrangements through the summer holidays. We're in such a period of madness and uncertainty with cv, and I think the general situation and the isolation in particular, may affect him and his mental health, severely. In your shoes, I'd buy myself some time and not commit to anything at this stage.
Could you just say something to the effect that it's impossible to plan anything effectively at the moment and you'll revisit the summer arrangements at the end of May? It doesn't matter whether he agrees with this position or not really, as there's not much he can argue with in that statement.
With regard to his declaration of how much he appreciated you in the marriage and misses you etc, I'd just gloss over this with a bland statement something to the effect that ' I think we both need to move forward separately now, and look to the future'.
The advice to give him less head space is very good advice. I know from past experience how all encompassing it can be.

Take care and stay strong and safe in these worrying times.

IF the court hearing happens end April ?
& what the result is.
At the moment he can't even gave them overnight. It's a big leap to 2 weeks each.
Also dont accept Saturday changeover, it will mess up potential bookings.

Just ignore the reconciliation nonsense.

Definitely do not accept Saturday changeover. That’s entirely unreasonable for everybody. I’ll bet he wants weekends away.

16 would be way beyond what the court would normally be involved in. My kids were both under 10 when they were interviewed by the judge and their opinion was taken into account. Their Dad is clearly abusive to them and everyone else (me, his mum etc) so not the same situation. Also Jamais' kids want to see their Dad.