Hello all
So sorry for going quiet, to be honest I'm just trying to keep my head above water!
Things have deteriorated further but also I've made some good steps towards resolving things and feel like surely my situation must start to improve soon.
Had a few scary moments with him - one was last weekend when he started going on about never paying me maintenance (out of the blue). I just said I wouldn't discuss further outside of mediation, and reduced to engage; which absolutely enraged him. He followed me upstairs and was extremely verbally abusive and unpleasant. Later once I was in bed, he crept up to my bedroom and suddenly burst through the door in a really aggressive way (obviously designed to scare me). He then said really sweetly 'just came to see night night' and walked off. About ten mins later I went to the toilet and locked the door. He again tried to sneak up and burst in, but as the door was locked he instead just waited outside and stood in my way in a very intimidating way, whispering more verbal abuse at me.
After that I went to sleep on the floor of my daughter's room, as I knew he'd leave me alone then.
The next morning, he came into the room while I was still asleep and took my phone. When I followed him he started shouting at me that he was sick of me trying to record him, and he was letting me know that if I tried to discuss maintenance payments during mediation then he was taking me straight to court to get shared custody. He kept throwing my phone down calling me a 'f*cking cheap bitch.'
For the rest of the day he was lingering around glaring at me, mouthing swear words at me etc. Later on I was baking with my daughter in the kitchen and he came to watch, kept getting in my way deliberately, pretending to trip me and pretending to throw knives at me and so on. At one point he pressed up against me and whispered 'fcking c*nt' in my ear.
After all of that, I actually coincidentally had a meeting booked with the police to discuss my recent 101 call, so I updated them on everything that had happened to date. They advised that there isn't any evidence for them to take any further at the moment, and that it sounded like a civil matter so I should speak to a family lawyer.
A couple of other incidents have occurred since, which involved him taking my phone from me, and him twisting my arm away when I tried to get it back. He then locked me out of the house. He managed to read my messages as it was unlocked when he grabbed at me and saw that I'm now back in touch with the OM, so that won't have helped matters. He also deliberately stood on my bare feet once I'd managed to get inside, and pressed down on them while I was holding our daughter and getting her an ice lolly from the freezer. I have spoken to the police about this and they want to take a statement.
I have found a really good solicitor who is providing amazing support. She did consider applying for a non molestation order but said that that would take ages to come through, and so the best remedy is to resolve the whole situation as quickly as possible. She will be writing to him early next week with the proposals re financials and our daughter, and warning him that his behaviour towards me must stop.
In the meantime I am staying away from the house every evening once our daughter is asleep, and also staying away for the night twice a week. I will ask my solicitor to include in her letters interim proposals for him to also be out of the house a few times a week.
I'm feeling pretty anxious, absolutely cannot be in the house with him when our daughter isn't there now. I'm just looking forward to (also terrified about) the letters hitting his inbox as that'll be the next step to resolving it. I really hope he sees it as an opportunity to negotiate quickly and bring this all to a close, without needing to involve the courts on anything.
I know you're all going to say get out, and I'm considering it, but I'm also taking the advice of the solicitor who has dealt with men like this before. I think as long as I'm just not in the house during any waking hours without our daughter, he won't have any opportunity to do anything further, and the fact that all further discussions will be via my solicitor will mean that nothing can escalate. You will probably all disagree, but I'm dealing with this as best I can and taking all of the advice that I can get hold of.
Anyway, thank you so much all of you for continuing to think of me and for all of your supportive messages. I really appreciate you all!! 