Worried about what might happen in custody battles when divorcing abusive H

[Amgelima]

ETA: my children are 5, 7, and 8

My H has abused me physically, verbally, emotionally and financially. I was planing to divorce him and then make custody arrangements together. I had worried about how he treated our children in the past - I thought he was too rough and lectured the children too much and had a few “accidents” where he hurt the children and I confronted him - but they were always plausible accidents. I thought that there would probably be nothing a court would actually recognise AND I had never reported his abuse of me.

However, all of that changed in January when my H hit our son with the TV remote and then a suitcase. I saw the TV remote incident. My son was crying and told me he does not feel safe around his dad. This on top of a recent escalation in my H’s lecturing of this child (until he was curled up in foetal position crying) led to me calling NSPCC for advice. They told me to report all to police and social services and I did. Police ended up asking me if I wanted to have my H arrested on three counts of assault towards me. They also investigated the children and my son did say his dad hurt him to police (I asked the police that the interview be done at school and not our home, without me there, for a number of reasons but mainly bc the children would have been more distressed by an officer coming to our home whereas at school they worked thru the safeguarding officers who my children already know), so very clearly my son was speaking exactly what was on he mind. The police detective called me to update me, but decided not to pursue charges against my husband bc the incident my son mentioned was one my H would say was an accident. However, social services told me that if I do not leave my H, they will want to be involved.

I have an IDVA and have just qualified for legal aid (my H has access to substantial finances, but only gives me £1k per month and my name is not on our home, so I qualified).

when it comes to custody arrangements, a solicitor told me I should lead with bringing up safety concerns and domestic abuse. And that is what I am planning to do. But I am so worried that this will trigger retaliation on the part of my STBX. In fact, I worry - maybe I am paranoid bc he has no leg to stand on if he says I am a bad parent - but I worry he will some how find a way to take the children from me completely if I try to limit his contact with them. Has anyone been through this?

my solicitor said that in some rare cases the abuser does unfairly get fully custody, but it is rare. I just worry bc he has all access to money and earning power and his family will hate me for divorcing him (they are an aggressive bunch) so my mind is going all kinds of places to the point where I think divorce is just not worth it bc I want to stay with my kids and protect them. I know that’s not rational thinking and I need to divorce him, but this is such an emotional and vulnerable time. Thanks for reading.

how old are the kids

Thank you for asking. They are 5, 7 and 8

I think you've had good legal advice. You need to state how social services and the police have been involved due to your husbands aggressive behaviour.

You can't stay with him anyway, social services have told you that.

As someone who has worked in the family court system I would say you have good evidence that he is a risk to children. It also sounds like the school are aware and see the impact directly. Focus on thinking about what realistic options are for the relationship with Dad given his behaviour. I can't see you have much choice really this sounds very unsafe

My ex-husband was abusive in every way except physically. He was court awarded 50/50 when our sons were 3 and 6. I'd been the primary carer up until then.
My advice would be provide solid evidence of the physical abuse ❤️
Do you work? Funds to help you leave are always a good thing.

Thank you for sharing that experience. My main evidence is the paperwork the police drew up to charge him with assault (I signed saying I was not going to press charges - I was just completely caught off guard that they wanted to arrest my husband for what he had done to me bc I was there to talk about the children). I also have evidence of a phone call appointment to the GP two times talking about the abuse. I also called Women’s Aid in 2020 to discuss it and I hope they have record of the phone counselling session. I took pictures of a bruise once but deleted them out of fear my H would find the pics. I of course have my call to NSPCC which they said I could use as evidence.

I am about to finish a postgraduate degree and should be able to work at least part time this summer and full time by autumn if need be. I will probably be able to find hybrid (office/WFH) work in my field. I was working until my first child was born and then stopped and had 3 close in age and the financial abuse started.

@Amgelima You can do this. You sound like a very strong woman x

Thank you. I agree. It is not safe. My H has also threatened to kill himself if I leave at least 3 times and twice said he thinks about driving the car off the highway with our family in it. I reported all of this. I begged him to get help for years. He finally went to marriage counselling but said he didn’t want the finger pointed at him. I even asked his family to ask him to go to the GP about his suicidal ideation and low mood and arranged a private therapist for him for counselling. All to no avail. I told him I don’t feel safe with him after he broke things and smashed things in our home. I told him he needs to address that issue and get help for it. He told me no one is perfect. He has made a few improvements but in the end he is just very rigid about seeing things his way and he sees his violence as accidents and breaking things as no big deal. Hurting the children crossed the line. I am now trying to make my plan to leave safely. I would prefer not to go to a refuge if we can avoid it. My IDVA is putting in a housing application for me and a friend offered to help pay for air b n b in an emergency.

Thank you so much. ❤️ That is exactly what I need to hear bc this has been so hard but I am rising to the occasion.

I know you don't want to go to refuge and it can be a challenging environment but it would be a really good place to manage a court case with support and add to your evidence. It also sound a bit more stable than your other temporary options. You can refuse to give him the address without any argument as you are not allowed to share refuge addresses as they are kept safe for everyones sake. I would really focus on getting out this sounds really risky

Would it help to focus on two things and keep going back to them when you feel overwhelmed?

1. You have no choice. You need to leave / divorce because of 2.
2. Your number one duty in life is to protect your children. Everything else is noise/ secondary

My advice would be to get social services involved and on side before leaving him. If they are involved with the family during the divorce/child arrangements process then they can do s7 report instead of cafcass, and in my experience that's very likely to be to your advantage. And before the child arrangements order is in place, they can advise/tell you to not let the children's father have unsupervised contact, which strengthens your position substantially.

This is amazing advice. Thank you so much. The social worker I spoke to did tell me that he thought it might endanger the children and myself for them to be involved right now bc my husband does not know I reported him and I am afraid of him finding out before we leave the home. However, the social worker suggested they do well-being work with my children while they are in school, and I said yes please. I want my children to have the support and input now. I don’t know if that counts as the proper involvement. I can get back in touch with the social worker - he told me it would be voluntary. I know we will need the support to help recover from and unlearn the abusive dynamic that has permeated our home. I don’t want my children to grow up believe it is ok and I want to give them the best chance possible to recover.

I am actually thinking that reaching out to social services for advice regarding the custody will be good as I would truly like their advice. I just feel so weird having this entire thing going on behind my husbands back but at the same time I cannot tell him. I am terrified to tell him.

@Amgelima definitely don't tell him and make a safe plan to leave asap. If there is children's services involvement they have to consider involving the father and justify why not but if you do not give your consent, there are clear risks and it's at the voluntary level (it's called child in need) it should be ok. If children's services (that's what social services is called now) are involved and a report is required from court they have to write it if they are currently involved or have been involved in 12 weeks. It can help if the social worker knows you already. They can also be part of a multi agency safety plan. It can be hard to get a child in need service so I would grab it while available. Do you have women's aid or another agency involved now? They have specialist experience

Women’s Aid told me that they can’t remain involved while I have an IDVA (independent domestic violence advocate). I did speak to them prior to being allocated the IDVA.

My biggest fear is that by raising all of this it will kick off some huge response from my H that will lead to him fighting until he has custody. From what many of you are saying, It really seems that many people here don’t think that will be successful if that does happen. I have seen horror stories of women seemingly being punished for raising DV and trying to protect children by having the ex partner come back at them successfully with parental alienation. But it seems that none of you really see that as a likely successful threat? Some things I’ve read have left me fearful of raising DV at all.

@Amgelima the thing is people mainly post horror stories. It does vary between courts but there has been case law (law from individual cases) reviewed recently in relation to how courts respond to domestic abuse and there are laws to protect you. You do really have good evidence and your children have clear views. You don't have to see him directly in court you can have protective measures. I think you are torturing yourself a bit and need to get your children to safety. Your IDVA will be able to help you with that and has probably mentioned that there can be a shortage of refuge spaces so you might want to see what is available at the moment. Social workers in cafcass and the local authority have to protect children that is their job. You have information from the police, gp and school and your children have traumatic memories. It also might not be too late to request a criminal prosecution. You could go back to the police and say you felt too scared at the time and see if it's still possible. That's not necessarily for family court though the evidence level is different.

Thank you. I think you are right and I am torturing myself with all of this. I need to stop reading horror stories and stop googling and just stay focussed on getting out. That’s reassuring that you are saying I have good evidence.

@Amgelima I just wondered how you got on with everything?
I have just read this thread as I'm goimg through the process of making a child arrangement order.
Hope that everything worked out OK for you.