Danger-Loving DH and concerning parenting

[Baggytrouser]

I want to leave DH.
I am not fulfilled in my marriage and haven't been for around 5 years. It is time to go. Our children are 6 and 8.

However, I am terrified of how he will parent when I am not around to protect them. He has a love of danger and pushes the children to embrace danger. I never thought he would be this type of parent, although I knew he enjoyed adrenaline when we met. He also drove erratically which was always a worry but I just thought he would be different with children in the backseat. I was naive, however I guess this is partly understandable given his job as an assistant headteacher!!

The danger I'm talking about:
-Encouraging our weak swimmer child at age 5 to go in the sea when choppy without swimming aids and her getting into trouble in the sea. It absolutely terrifying her. She nearly drowned.

-Encouraging the children to play with fire unaccompanied- he is convinced that this is how they learn danger. He literally created a bonfire in the back garden and left them alone to play with it. I came home horrified ans he called me a hypochondriac for panicking and moving them away.

-Driving at 100 mph with them in the backseat of the car.

-He left our youngest child playing out front on her own when she was 3. Our driveway is not gated.

-He keeps talking about building a "danger slide" in our garden as we have split levels. I have no doubt that he means literally dangerous.

If I ever took him to court over custody, my claims would be laughed out of court. He's an assistant head with a record of excellence. He has taken secondary age children on numerous trips with no accidents to date.

Yep. I was a fool for having kids with him, but I can't go back now. Do I need to remain married to him to protect my children?

At the end of the day she wasn’t around to protect them from playing with fire, it was only when she came back home she saw what had happened. I’d say she needs to leave and push for supervised contact at a contact centre. Easier said than does yes but if she feels there is a safeguarding issue she has every right to stop contact between him and the children until it has been through court. This would not go against her in court as she is protecting her children from harm. OP would be in more trouble if she stayed and something did happen to her children as she would be seen as allowing it and not taking precautions to prevent it.

No, you’re probably right. I do agree that there does definitely need to be some kind of record of his behaviour.

Ok my dh does ‘dangerous hobbies’ and has taken the dcs to do stuff that I consider dangerous.
Thats NOT what your DH is doing.

He is reckless. You can do dangerous things whilst having an eye on safety (and have different interpretation on what is safe).
Instead, he is putting your dcs in danger as seen with the trip to hospital or the swimming incident.

And tte worst thing is that you actually have a record (eg hospital trip) of him being a danger to his dcs.
And despite of all of that, I’m not sure you can do anything but to keep a clear record of all those incidents…

Would SS be interested too?
I mean if you’d hear about a random parent doing those things, would school report them? Would it be seen as a child protection issue?

Btw if he has had no issue when taking children out with school, that means he KNOWS what to do and he is CHOOSING to put his dcs in danger.

Do you have evidence of all of this?

OP I agree that I actually think he is trying to put them in harms way. He works at a school and knows the difference between right and wrong, otherwise if he didn’t he’d be putting everyone else’s kids in danger because of his warped view of safety. He KNOWS exactly what he’s doing! He performs well at work and wouldn’t dare treat a kid at work like this so why is he doing it to his own. He knows if he ever behaved like this at work then he would no longer be working in that job. Trust me he knows. Nobody is seriously that stupid to think it’s safe to do the things he’s done.

I'd personally keep a detailed.log of these incidents for court. Don't assume you'll be laughed out by anyone. If a judge reads them all out to him, he'll probably make a tit of himself.

As has been said. Start it off with as much as you can remember. I'd be properly terrified in your shoes. I'm sorry man.

Well yes, of course I agree, but them not seeing him at all isn't an option is it?

Seems to me the options available to OP are stay with him (and then they're exposed to his risk taking all of the time) or leave (and they're still exposed to risk taking, but at least it's less of the time).

I don't think family courts insist on supervised contact or block contact based on a parental difference in things like ideas about risk tolerance, especially without proof or previous harm. If they do then great, leave and take it to court. If it's unlikely contact would be restricted because of that, then it's probably better not to have any court order in place. Court orders rarely actually protect children and instead just make things difficult for the sensible parent who is then not legally allowed to turn up and take them home when they phone her saying help, dad wants me to do this and I really don't want to.

I agree with PP that other sounds like he has psychopathic tendencies. Personally I would be getting advice from a decent family lawyer, social services and the police, and keeping a record of absolutely everything they say to you and a record of all the the idiotic stuff he does that endanger the children. I think you need to go slowly and carefully, and don't let him know that you're doing any of this stuff. Do you think you will be in danger when you tell him you're divorcing him?

Well I have been through a family court myself with absolutely no evidence against my EXDH and I got what I wanted from
it. He certainly didn’t get 50/50 shared custody put it that way and although he was physically abusive to me, he would never put his children’s lives in danger like this.
A family court can rule whatever they see best for the children so if that’s supervised contact then that’s what they will rule. As I said to op, she really needs to seek legal advice as they will explain her options and if supervised contact is the way to go.

As I said in an earlier post, if op was to stay with her DH knowing the dangers he has put their children in, then if anything happened to those children she would also be held responsible for not safeguarding and protecting her children and will most likely end up in trouble herself.

As op has stated, she wasn’t always around when the children were put in such dangerous situations ie. the bonfire incident - where she arrived home later to find them playing with it. So they are no safer if she stays in my opinion. The best option is always to leave in a situation like this. Op’s DH sounds unhinged and definitely not normal. What he is doing is nothing short of child abuse.

Could you suggest couples counselling and let him think you really want to work on your marriage. Let some of your worries come up and see how it’s discussed with a third person. If it’s brought up by him and he replies honestly you will have documented evidence of his risky behaviour.

another thing is how long would it take you to get together things so you could leave? 12-24 months?

Your children would be a little bit more mature, you could talk to them more honestly about dangers and what to do if they don’t feel comfortable in a situation and educate them on what they can do (a bit like the consent talk) - maybe the oldest will be old enough for a phone at that point. So if they feel danger they know they can ring you/granny or certain contacts and you’ll help them. That way if you did separate and he has contact - they are aware of what to do if they are scared or uncomfortable and have a way out of the situation. I’d explain that sometimes some people like to do things but to others they are too scary or risky (fast rides at amusement parks, parachuting, fire walks etc) they can all be done safely, have an element of risk but not everyone wants to and that’s ok.

realistically what level of contact could he have if he works full time as a headmaster? EOW? Has he got family you can talk to about his behaviour and your fears?

Good luck @Baggytrouser and massive squishes.

I've heard it put like this. With some men, even if the children are biologically theirs, they see the child as 'the woman's child'.

When they stop loving the woman, they stop loving the children also.

That's how so many are able to just walk away and be deadbeat dads.

The relationship is not good. If he is a psychopath, maybe he was just ticking the 'wife and two kids' box from the start.

He's now mentally checked out.

People like this rarely admit anything. They deny, deny and deny again!
Couples counselling really isn’t going to cut it in this case. He is abusing his children by knowingly putting their lives in danger for a bit of fun, I wouldn’t be messing about trying to have counselling to see if he admitted to anything on the off chance. In fact, even if they did have counselling I imagine it would be the therapists duty to report this to ss as a safeguarding concern anyway.

Thinking about it, I would say that OP needs to let her DH know that she has reported her concerns and that he is 'on notice'.

So that HE KNOWS that if something happens 'accidentally' there will be an investigation.

He likes his 'headteacher, wife and two kids' veneer, and won't want that tarnished.

He will know all this. He is an assistant head teacher. Schools are very clued up on safeguarding and have extensive training. He’s not daft. He knows the dangers he’s putting his children in.

I personally would be wary of what this man is capable of seeing as he thinks nothing of almost drowning his then 5 year old and not just allowing but encouraging both children to play with a bonfire unsupervised and talking of building a ‘danger slide for them!

I wouldn’t be telling him anything. I’d be quietly gathering as much evidence as possible and finding a way out of this marriage and take my children with me. The man sounds unhinged and the more I think about it the more i feel he his actually seriously wanting his children to come to harm and trying to make it look like an accident!

He doesn't sound right in the head at all, I wonder if actually it's the opposite of what a PP said and he sees the kids of an extension of him - so if he seeks danger for himself he's doing so for the kids too.

OP you need to keep a detailed journal, try to work out the dates of the incidents you mentioned in your OP. It sounds like another key problem is he just doesn't listen to anyone about this stuff. The question is what's his endgame here. Like when your little one nearly drowned did he say great, we've toughened her up? Does he think "learning danger" is about learning to cope in some weird twisted way, like did he have a really hard life and he's trying to teach them how to be survivors?

Nah you don’t teach your kids how to be survivors by taking a 5 year old into choppy water and almost letting them drown or lighting a bonfire and telling them to play with it! The way to teach children about dangers is by raising awareness of what will happen if they do play with fire or swim in dangerous water.

He will definitely see the kids as extensions of him… my abusive ex also sees the kids as extensions of him too. However, he knows where to draw the line whereas op’s DH doesnt. Or does… but doesn’t care. As I said earlier, it’s as if he wants them to come to harm and then try to pass it off as an accident.

I do agree though that his upbringing could have had a lot to do with it. I’d love to know how he was himself as a kid and how his parents raised him.

Is he very hands on on a day to day basis? Do you think he would want 50:50 custody and stick to it, if you split/divorced? The best scenario would be that he loses interest in the dcs once he has a taste of the single life.

Do the children go to his school? If not could you make an appointment with the school safeguarding lead to discuss issues and ask for advice.

@Baggytrouser You wouldn't be laughed, you could request a CAFCASS report be done which would highlight his lax attitude towards dangers

I don't think he should see the children at all except in a contact centre. I'd encourage him to go on a world tour to find himself and I'd hope he stayed away. He sounds absolutely awful.

What are his relationships like with friends and family? Do you feel he's acting there, too?

obviously I don't agree with what he's done! he sounds absolutely bonkers and I really feel for the OP panicking about him having them unsupervised.

What are you thinking to do, OP?

Advice for now:
Get cctv set up within your home and garden and the ringer door bell recording.
Send your children to survival activities that drone into them risks and how to reduce them.
When you collect them, mention the almost drowning situation or almost bonfire situation to the instructor and how grateful you are that your children can learn the dangers.
Leave the instructors to raise their own safeguarding.
Inform your family and children's friends parents of things that are basic common sense "remember not to put x in bath if you haven't tested the temperature" etc and when they look at you like you're an alien look surprised and mention the slide and how your husband needed reminded it's not age appropriate so thought it was everyone that needed reminding of dangers.
Maybe you can use any of the above as evidence.
I probably wouldn't leave until they're 8 and 10 and that's only if they're emotionally developed enough/could send them to boarding school for the week days for their safety.

You need to contact social services when you leave & also get legal advice. Social services will absolutely support supervised access while they investigate - but you do need to push for it.

In the meantime I would contact the police (anonymously) every single time he does something illegal / dangerous. This will help build a case for you to get 100% custody