Sorry for the long post and don’t intentionally wish to drip feed. Have been with DH coming up to 12 years, we have DD1- 10, DD2- 6 and DS 10 weeks old. He lost his father due to Covid back in 2021 and experienced a mental breakdown slash alcoholism in which he was emotional abusive to myself which I tried to shield from DC as far as possible. While he sought professional help, it was a long road to recovery as he denied his issues to the therapist. Long story short, he improved significantly and we tried for baby number 3 last year which resulted in our son born 10 weeks ago. While he has been helpful to some extent (we formula feed so he helps with the night needs but I still have to be up to change nappy, make bottle, while he’s feeding while he’s watching YouTube videos on speakerphone at 2am so im not really getting any sleep benefit) while he’s been on a fitness priority resulting in 30kg weight loss (am pleased for him) but this results in him spending 2/3 hours a day at the gym. I’m on maternity leave due to return in April full time. At the moment I am looking after baby from approx 6am to 10pm (he’s goes to gym 6-730am and then cooks dinner in the evenings while on a conference call followed by the fact he has work calls many times a week in the evening as he works for a west coast firm often between 8 til 10pm. We have limited family support by means of child care. I’m physically and mentally exhausted and everytime I bring this up I am met with defensiveness and aggression. While he earns 3x my salary whenever I have mentioned divorce he threatens to hide funds and take the children away as he is the higher earner therefore can provide stability. Both children attend private school and are happy there so I could not afford to sustain this on my own. I feel emotionally and financially trapped despite my own career.
AIBU to hire a divorce lawyer and fight for majority custody (I would never deprive the children a relationship with him but he would make things incredibly difficult for me to fight to stay in the family home- I could not afford to solely take on the mortgage. I filed for divorce previously on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour and he ignored which requires me to do pay more money to reissue summons by balliff. Deep down I would rather have less luxuries (we have nice house, nice holidays etc) and not come home to walk on shells around a partner.
I guess in my heart I’m needing a little support to have the courage to press forward with a nasty divorce to put my children first although they adore him, I believe he will emotionally damage them with his continued behaviours