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?

Surely the fact he is an AHT makes this all the less understandable. Yes an element of risk is important to dc but a teaching professional should understand more than lost how this absolutely needs to be done in a safe way. I don't know the answer, I'd have the same concerns as you about him having them alone. As above hopefully they are at an age where they can understand how to keep themselves safe to some extent. I've had to trust in this with my own dc when court dismissed all my (provable in my case but they didn't want to see) concerns. I speak to them regularly about things like water safely especially when he decided to buy a blow up boat and take camping breaks by the sea.

Yes it’s a very scary situation. I just cannot believe an assistant head of all people would put his own children at risk, especially after all the extensive safeguarding training he will have received through his job. If this was happening to another child in his school he would have a duty to report to ss and he knows that. This is what baffles me! I don’t like to through a diagnosis around but he actually sounds psychopathic, seriously. Playing the charming, well respected assistant head at school while being a child abuser behind closed doors! It’s one of the most concerning threads I’ve read for a long time.

Wow. There's loads of evidence for the benefits of risky play, and I'm firmly in the "children need to learn how to assess and take risks" camp, but your DH is being negligent.
Age appropriate risky play at 6-8 I would say is stuff like
• learning how to build and manage a fire under close, constant adult supervision (which could be fairly hands-off except to prevent the child doing anything dangerous)
• using simple manual or power tools (hammers, electric screwdrivers etc, not chainsaws!) under adult supervision
• climbing trees, climbing frames etc without supervision, assuming that they've had plenty of opportunities to practice climbing, balancing and falling since they were little
• using knives to help prepare food, with a little or a lot of adult supervision depending on ability.
Risks around water or traffic are a hard no from me - the stakes are far, far too high.

I think there's a good chance he's doing this deliberately as a way of making it difficult for you to leave him (because if you leave him he will lose his free servant and his life will be more difficult)
it may be all or partly unconscious.
you will have to be very clever careful and strategic in the way that you leave him, you will need to build a case against him so that he can't have contact with them.

Playing the charming, well respected assistant head at school while being a child abuser behind closed doors! It’s one of the most concerning threads I’ve read for a long time
He enjoys the kudos prestige and power that he gets from being this charming well respected person, the reason he treats children at school well is because his reputation that he so enjoys is dependent upon him doing so. It's not because he's genuinely cares about it their well being and he clearly does not care about the well-being of his children they are just levers to pull to get what he wants, and what he wants is a wife who does the wife work so that he can carry on with in his role that gives him the status and prestige that he needs.

Well it sounds like he knows how to stick to the rules/play the game at school, but at home the way he perceives it there are no rules so he can just do what he damn well likes. He sounds very two faced and it is scary.

This is what I’m saying and why I said his behaviour seems psychopathic. It really does take a certain amount of coldness and an uncaring, unloving cold heart to behave the way he is doing. He does not care nor give a shit about whether his children come to any harm or even get killed. It’s almost as if he wants his children to come to harm actually…. for the sake of his entertainment and ‘living dangerously’. He wants to build a ‘danger slide’ for what? So that he can watch them break their bones? All while putting on this perfect facade of being the perfect assistant head to people on the outside and loving the power trip he’s getting from it.

You would need physical evidence of the dangerous behaviour I would say or some kind of input from Social Services confirming this. He sounds truly unhinged I don't dispute that, but from a family court perspective, they only work on the basis of fact and the burden of proof is on whoever's application it is to PROVE that with evidence.
I can tell you that a factual report from your therapist won't really count as evidence, as it's labelled "hear'say evidence" it's evidence based on what you have told her, not a factual representation of what has happened.
Ideally you need police reports providing his arrest, or input from children's services or even evidence that the children have reported this behaviour to the school.
You need facts OP - this is not to say that in the interim you should get as far away from him as humanly possible, but long-term, in terms of court proceedings they will look at the factual evidence more likely than not.

Unfortunately OP I think you need to stick this out until the children are older. If they are alone with him and voice fear about a situation he has put them in, he WILL ramp it up. He gets a thrill out of putting his children's lives at risk. He knows what he is doing. You said yourself, work him is an act and deep down he doesn't care about anything. That includes his children. Start building you and your children a safe, loving home and keep a close eye, I wouldn't even let mine go in a car with him.

Oh and start telling people what he is like. The next time he pulls a stunt TELL people.

I wish I had a good answer for you OP, I'm in a similar situation, except I divorced him before I understood how dangerous he really was, and now I spend half my time panicking that I can't keep them safe. I took legal advice and the evidence I have isn't enough to win full custody. He wants 50/50 because he likes playing the role of dad, he's not into being dangerous in the same way but there are some startling similarities - I also ended up having to take my son to hospital because ex had let him get badly dehydrated (he'd been throwing up any water, was his reasoning, so no point in giving him any more) I referred to this incident the other day (relevant to the conversation) and he didn't even remember it. He doesn't really care about them. I feel despairing most days. To everyone else, he looks like a great dad etc etc. In your position, I think I'd probably have to stay with him until the kids are mid teens. It's horrific position to be. I basically got told my hands are tied until he causes serious harm. It's no life at all.

@Desmond4th
I suspect that men like this do it because it's a way for them to feel as if they have control of you, it's about wanting to keep the upperhand and keep you off balance. He might not be consciously aware of why he does it but in my view the need to be the boss/ in control of things is what's driving it.

Jesus OP, I have no advice but just want to hug both you and @Desmond4th for what you’re both going through.

I hate to see a man have this much of a hold/so much power over a woman but I know I wouldn’t be able to leave my kids alone with a psychopath, I’d rather make my own life miserable and try my hardest to keep them safe, while trying to build evidence in case the opportunity to leave ever comes up. I really really feel for you and I’m so pissed off on your behalf that he gets to strut around like king d*ck after pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.

So they are no safer if she stays in my opinion.

I agree, whcih is what I said in my first post.

I agree legal advice is a good idea. I would not have thought of doing that.

Yeah sorry I'd stay til they are older. I'd also overfill their days with activities including ones where they do managed 'risky' activities (eg Scouts, bushcraft, swimming) so that they get a) less time alone with him and b) experience of how other adults manage this stuff.

Getting legal advice would be good. I'd keep notes of dates, events and witnesses somewhere, but I wouldn't rely on it much. Can you get the hospital records from when your child was hospitalised? - maybe the discharge letter?

My late dh was nothing like yours but I still knew I had to take the lead on safety quite a lot. I put a few things in place in case anything happened to me. Make sure you share a copy of that record of events with a trusted friend or family member, ideally one who is already going to take the children if you both die. See what your options are legally after your death too.

The issue with staying with them is iIt creates a whole new issue altogether- a safeguarding issue. Any professional you approach ie. A solicitor, therapist, GP etc has a duty to report their concerns which would most likely cause a visit from social services. Even a passing comment to the teacher from one of the children about how their dad lets them play with bonfires etc will become a safeguarding issue which the school will have to take seriously. Ss will most likely tell op she needs to leave to ensure the safety of her children. If she does not take the necessary safeguarding measures as advised by ss then they will have no alternative than to go down the route of removing the children. What the op has described is nothing short of child abuse.

Also, as I’ve said before in other posts, if anything does happen to the children and op stayed in this marriage knowing full well the risks to the children’s safety and what her dh is capable of, she will also be classed as an enabler and will be in far more trouble than if she left.

She is but she is right to worry because he will at contact and even shared holidays so this is a tricky one as I'd rather be there all the time then leave him on his own..

As I have stated on another post though, op is not there with them 24/7. The bonfire incident happened while the op wasn’t there and she came home to find the children playing with the bonfire unsupervised. Again,
as stated in my post above this one, if op stays knowing that her dh is behaving this way this also puts her in a position of negligence by not leaving to protect her children’s safety and would be in serious trouble if those children came to any harm while she stayed knowing the risks her husband has already taken with their lives. It is a difficult one I agree, it’s certainly not a situation I’d like to be in. Court battles are horrible but even if op took legal advice, I doubt a solicitor would advise her to stay if I’m honest.

Is he winding you up. Certainly sounds like hes unhinged, and an idiot to boot. He's creating a really strange dynamic. You can't dump him in case something happens to the kids! What an arse.

OP, your therapist should really have reported all this at the time you disclosed to them, as it's a child safeguarding issue. I would go back to them and ask that they do so. If I knew you and you were telling me all this, I'd be phoning social services myself, because it's part of my professional registration requirements around safeguarding.
It sounds as though he is able to keep his risk-loving self under control at work but it's coming out at home in an uncontrolled way. Is he seeing how far he can push you before you walk? And endangering the children in the process? It's all really troubling.

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