I’ll start off by saying, I relocated from the UK to Australia to start a family with my ex. We have two babies, a 2 year old and a 7 month old. I split with him when I was pregnant with baby 2 due to emotional and physical abuse. He used to stalk me around the house shouting abuse at me. I started to lash out back at him while I wasn’t coping and once I slapped him which he voice recorded (he later edited his parts out of these clips so he could make out he was a victim and not a perpetrator). I will get back to this point shortly.
I still don’t have my visa, because he is refusing to get the necessary parts completed. I’m isolated and all alone, living with both babies and no family around. I cannot work due to the lack of visa, and childcare costs here would set me back £750 a week (yes, really)! So I wouldn’t even be able to afford to work even if I could.
I started allowing my 2 year old to sleep over at around 18 months (when second baby was born) because my ex started threatening me saying he wouldn’t pay rent, or maintenance, which would leave us homeless and I would be unable to pay for food and bills... I will also just say that he makes GOOD money, I mean £5k a day. But he lied to the tax office about his income, claimed he was making $50k a year (about £25k) and sending money back to the uk and he even made a trust account in my name and started taking all the money out to dodge tax (I didn’t get any of this money). So when I applied for child support, it said I would only get £150 a month and he was laughing about it as I cried. At present, he provides £1000 a month to rent us a tiny apartment, meanwhile he has rented himself a big house in one of the most expensive suburbs despite the fact he lives alone. He gives us £250 a week which covers bills, food, other expenses.
Recently he admitted that he doesn’t think our 2 year old is ready for overnights, and that our son tried to breastfeed from his 11 year old daughter (from previous marriage, she stays on weekends only too), and that he wakes up 3 times a night there (he sleeps through here undisturbed). I said I don’t want him sleeping over anymore until he shows signs of readiness, that he can collect him in the mornings on sat/sun and drop him off in the evenings. He is now threatening me saying he won’t give me any money, he won’t pay our rent, and how he wants to take me to court because I’m not allowing enough time (he literally gets every weekend which is more than what most dads would get). I told him he can only take our 7 month old daughter for an hour at a time because she gets extreme anxiety whenever someone else holds her, and she is exclusively breastfed. She is too young to be with him for a long period of time and he doesn’t get this. He keeps using the recording of me slapping him and other recordings of me yelling at him as blackmail saying he will use these in court to get custody. Please advise.