Husband says it's over, wants custody of DD

[MollFlounders]

I would really appreciate some thoughts on my situation. I've posted a few times recently about DH. There have been issues in the past but things have been particularly rocky since I went back to FT work 3 months ago (DD is now 9 months old). DH has always been quite selfish and inflexible (previous threads on this are here and here) and this has, for me, become more and more difficult to cope with since having to juggle a demanding job and of course DD. Things are at the point where counselling is required. I found a counselling group who will see us each separately and then together in a facilitated session.

So DH and I had yet another row yesterday morning. It was very trivial. I was hosting an event for some clients. DH managed to get his own last minute invitation to the same event (going as a client himself, of another host). I offered to give DH a lift in my work taxi, but on condition we operated on my timing seeing though I had to get there to meet my clients (DH is usually late to everything). DH was very pleased about the lift otherwise he was stuck with a long tube trip. We agreed, I thought, that we would leave the house asap but would absolutely be in the cab by 9am. I was up and ready, having also gotten DD up and ready for her day, by 8.30am. As it happened, my taxi arrived to collect me at 8.40am. DH had gotten up at 8am and proceeded to faff around the house getting himself ready in slow motion. I asked him a few times if it was possible to hurry things along a little as the cab was waiting downstairs with the meter ticking along. He just kept repeating in icy tones "we agreed we would leave at 9. We will leave at 9". So we left at 9.00am on the dot, with me standing around waiting for him in the meantime. In the cab, I expressed my frustration at his inflexibility and I said that I didn't feel it was normal to be so incredibly rigid. He basically said "if you want normal, you're with the wrong person. I'm not normal."

I didn't see DH again last night as he went out with a friend after the event and came home late. This morning, he was monosyllabic. I reminded him that he needed to call the counsellor for his separate session. DH said "there's no point going to a counsellor unless you tell me that your behaviour yesterday morning was totally unacceptable and will never be repeated again". Apparently I was relentless in my nagging and this is totally unacceptable and tantamount to treating him with contempt. After all, I know he hates being rushed in the mornings.

DH then asked me if I want custody (I know it's residence) of DD and I said absolutely. Asked him what he wants, he says he wants custody. She is 9 months old. We have a daily nanny but I do everything for DD outside of that. A family lawyer has told me that it seems clear that I'm the primary caregiver and that I could move out with her if the marriage ends. My main priority in all of this is DD's happiness and stability.

I guess I've got two questions. Does the situation with DH sound hopeless? I feel we're at the make or break point but I'd go through counselling if there was a chance of it working. But if he's saying counselling is pointless then can you make it work?? Other question: what do people do with residence and contact when it comes to small babies? How often would be reasonable for DH to see DD and how do you do this (e.g. him coming to my place)??

Moll - my thoughts are that he sounds thoroughly nasty. He is certainly being controlling and passive aggressive - I take my hat off to you for being so prepared to engage with him. Go for your counselling but stop accommodating the selfish fuckwit. It must be incredibly hurtful to have all this thrown at you by someone who is supposed to be your partner but I think that you need to start to think of you, yourself and your DD and let him sort himself out.

goodluck.

And, I know soooo well what you mean about arriving at the beer garden to find him being the life and soul. It almost makes you more fearful.

I have an ex who was very similar to your DH. And yes, every incident described on its own would sound petty, but it was a pattern of very controlling behaviour. Very few people would have believed it. When we split up, though, a group of my closest friends and siblings turned up to help me move out. They wanted to make sure I didn't change my mind, and it transpired they all loathed him. He did his best to divide me from my friends/family - refused to engage with any of them, had tantrums if I didn't want to spend every weekend visiting his friends and family etc etc. Our main bone of contention was that he felt he had a right to dictate what I wore. If I didn't wear what he wanted, he would go completely mental. He once pulled a phone recharger out of the wall so hard in a fit of fury that the electic socket broke in two.

Thankfully we didn't have children together.

Don't know why I'm adding all this. Just that your thread has brought a lot of that back. It was a very hard time, and I can only imagine what you are going through.

As you will see from my posts, the key point that I have been making is that whether OP splits up from her DH, because of DD she will have an ongoing relationship with him.
She needs help to establish that and deal with him behaviour as he is not going suddenly stop acting like that. Mediation can help with that.

I actually agree with you Dittany in relation to the views of the courts. However, ordering mediation to assist both parties agree their relationship with their child is a good thing. If the parties can't agree, then it is a judge. Who wants that type of decision taken away from them? So if at all possible, it is strongly advisable for the parents to still keep control and try and decide what will happen with their child between themselves. Just because DH is (apparently) a bad husband does not mean that he will be a bad father, therefore he should be part of that decision making process. If he start acting like a twunt, the mediator will tell him that (albeit not in those precise terms!)

It is a 50:50 dynamic at the moment because she is STAYING with him. If she goes (as I have said she may very well do), it stops being a 50:50 dynamic in relation to their emotional relationshp as she has just disengaged. I can't think of a stronger
boundary or message than than that.

When you stay in an abusive relationship, it is never a 50/50 dynamic. That's the problem! Even when you leave, if you leave it's still not 50/50 because both emotionally and abusive ex-partners will still do their best to manipulate and control their former partners, sometimes for years on end if there are children involved, that's why a lot of people stay in them.

I am not saying and have never said that it is half anyone's responsability. What I am saying is that there is a 50:50 dynamic as there are two people in the relationship. That is something quite different.

I don't think I am jumping the gun. I posted the information as you seemed quite certain that counselling or mediation would not work in this instance due to OP's DH being allegedly emotionally/verbally abusive in your opinion.

I don't agree. I think that counselling and mediation, together or alone as appropriate can and could assist. Whether they are together or not.

She is in a distressing situation and, following your (rather absolute) logic, not able to obtain external assistance from objective third parties - whether she stays or she goes. That is not the case and I would not want her to think that.

I did say leave him but only because I have watched friends slowly become more controlled until they are unable to leave ( even as the higher earner). Of course that needs to be moll's decision and of course there willbe an ongoing relationship - but she can't engage him or share 50% of the responsibility when he is acting the way he is.
20 odd years ago I had a Saturday job in sainsbury's. One day a couple came through the till. The man went off to get something, huge queue I carried on putting through the till the woman sort of wrung her hands and said ' 'oh he won't like it'. I didn't really know what she was talking about so ignored her and carried on. When he got back to the till he turned to her and said ' I have told you not to let these girls put items through the till when I am not here'. He then refused to pay me until he had checked every item on the receipt. I told him I had a huge queue and he could pay then check and any discrepancy would be sorted. He made it known that I was scum he was in charge and I might have added items on without his knowledge. He got the receipt ( thank goodness it was fine). I went home and complained to my mum about his behaviour and moaned that his wife hadn't stood up to him. My mum sat me down there and then and explained to me about abusive/ controlling relationships. I was 17 or 18 then I'm nearly 40 now and I can remember both their faces. It was a good lesson. I hope she got out.

When he left all the people in the queue joined in discussing how vile he was.

Obviously this is not the same that man was extreme but that lesson made me very aware of control and I simply couldn't exist in a controlling relationship.

I don't think there is always a 50 50 dynamic. My sainsbury's beast was 100% one way. No dynamic at all.

Well my mum has a sister in a controlling relationship (I now realize) so it a was probably close to home

Once again - courts only order it usually in relation to children not to get the couples back together. It is to allow the couple to retain the power in deciding what happens when splitting up.

If either party feels that they don't want mediation then the court can make the decision for them. However, that means handing over the decision about key things in your life to someone else.

Bunny - dittany is talking about couples counselling, not mediation to sort out child access.

Why do you keep going on about that? OP hasn't even worked out if the relationship is ending yet - she's made no mention at all about child access.

Also, dittany is right about not doing joint couples counselling with an abuser. It doesn't work at all, and generally makes the situation worse for the person being abused.

I note this with regards to Moll's husband:-

"He said he'd go to counselling but didn't see the point- he has done a lot of reflection in the last few months and knows exactly what is going on. He said that he thought that in a few years I would look back on all this and realise I'd made a huge mistake".

It is only when you are free of him Moll that you will perhaps realise the extent of his overt need to control. He cares not a jot for you and your daughter; to him you are but mere possessions.

I think this man will never go to counselling and has only told Moll that he would consider counselling to keep her both quiet and acqueiscent. Counselling is no good for controlling abusive types; it can actually justify their abusive behaviour further in their own minds. He would certainly steamroller a counsellor verbally.

Counselling could help Moll in that it could clarify her thoughts further.

Abusers as well can be extremely plausible to those in the outside world. They can also be nice to their victim on occasion but their true nature soon reemerges as they cannot hide that forever. Controlling men as well are often angry men too.

I am posting on the hop because I can only do it when DH not looking. Some people have asked whether DH has redeeming features, whether I knew how he was when I married him, why I've stayed, is this a sudden change etc etc. Well, SGB hit the nail on the head much earlier today with the post about how things not only creep up but sometimes don't really show up until the first DC arrives. I tend to be a bit of a "pleaser" type of person i.e. I tend to accommodate others when they have a stronger view about things. So I'm generally happy to go with the flow (not saying these are good traits, btw, just saying that I think this is what I'm like). DH has strong views about things. He's not in the Sainsbury's couple category but he does like certain types of holidays, certain types of restaurants, certain types of areas in which to live, certain types of.... pretty much everything. Before we had DD, I was happy to go along with his stronger views (yes, pathetic but it wasn't a big deal for me). Our wedding is probably an example of this. However, so far as DD is concerned, there is no way I'm going with the flow. I have to be 200% happy with everything being done to her, in relation to her, for her etc etc. So it's probably only since she was born that I've been trying to direct things more. And then when I went back to work, the situation was compounded because I have so much on my plate (I've got a pretty full on job). This change in dynamic has thrown a spotlight onto how rigid and inflexible DH can be and how he reacts when one tries to push back against him.

There have been weird incidents in our past relationship. I have posted under a different name before. Why haven't I left? Well, saintlydame says that DH's behaviour doesn't sound like what normal loving couples do. I've been with DH so long, and am so used to how we live, that I don't really know how normal loving couples live. We live in an isolated way- we don't spend much time with friends at all. I've got nothing to compare us to. Plus I also worry that I am responsible for all of this and that if I behaved differently DH would actually be a wonderful person.

'Plus I also worry that I am responsible for all of this and that if I behaved differently DH would actually be a wonderful person.'

And, that, my friends, is why people stay in an abusive relationship. The abusive partner wears them down and alters their self-esteem to the point where they honestly believe they are in some way responsible for their abusive partner's behaviour.

I really feel for you and your DD, Moll. You both deserve so much better.

Better to walk alone than badly accompanied.

If you suspect AS you could read an asperger's marriage. I haven't read it but have heard good reports. It certainly goes with inflexibility but I'm not so sure about control. Having said that an elderly person I know lived in a controlling relationship for years and knowing what I know now yes her dh had AS.

I don't think DH has AS. I'm no expert (well, that's a major understatement) but he doesn't seem to fit the symptoms I've read about. He's extremely able socially (he has been successful in a very sophisticated working environment and, outside of work, is very popular, everyone thinks he's a great guy), very good at sports, and an excellent sleeper. I'm going on wikipedia here, but when I read about AS it doesn't chime with DH. I've just looked on the NAS website as well. I don't think it's AS.

Now Wiki 'emotional abuse'.

Moll, I don't have much to add to what other posters have said, but I just wanted to add that you sound like a very intelligent person, and a great parent, and I'm sure that you will be able to find the strength to do what is right for you and your DD.

Moll, it's not Aspergers, because he only exhibits this behaviour towards you. This is the single biggest indictator of a man being an abusive fuckwit and his behaviour being a conscious choice and a deliberate decision to bully, intimidate and control you, rather than it being something he can't help. He's nice to his friends (I wonder how many of them are arse-kissers though), can hold down a job - yet throws childish tantrums and sulks for weeks with you.