Filed for divorce! On to ugly court stuff...

[Ylime]

Hi there! It's been a long road and the hardest few months of my life, but my uNPD husband is finally going to be my ex...and it seems the real trauma is just beginning.

A little recap of the past year since I haven't posted... I decided last August that we needed to separate, and in November he finally moved out. I was 8 months pregnant. For a while he still came over 3 times a week to visit with our dd, we still did family stuff and went out to dinner all together, I still let him kiss and hug me from time to time (mostly because he has zero boundaries and would just push the issues indefinitely.) I felt like I could minimize his impact on us enough to maybe not have to,divorce...at least not yet. Not now, with a baby and young child. I was willing to settle for this BS quasi marriage for a while. Anyway, along with the usual ridiculous behavior, I found out less than 2 months after the baby was born that he was cheating, and had been since I was pregnant, if not all along. I flipped out and posted a rant on social media, calling him out as a narcissist, and decided I was 100% done. The first month or so after that was absolute hell, as I grieved him and wanted more than anything for him to hold me, while at the same time coming to terms with not really ever having known him and feeling like my whole life has been a lie, or at least a pretty big chunk of it. I thought I had grieved the relationship enough little by little throughout the years that it wouldn't hit so hard, but it suuuucked. While he watched me fall apart he actually respected boundaries for a while. Then when I started to be okay, he flipped out, accusing me of cheating as if he was 1000% certain of it (Never mind i had just given birth) then diagnosing me with martyr complex and victim personality disorder, messaging my family and friends about it... Then he started begging me to take him back and sending me tons of texts and long emails. He showed up one night in April, unannounced, forced his way in when I cracked the door open to tell him to leave, and convinced me to talk to him by promising to give me "the truth about everything" This coming from a self proclaimed compulsive liar...but morbid curiosity got the best of me. He did end up telling me who he cheated on me with...or one of them at least. He tried to talk me into having a threesome with her...can you believe the audacity? At one point he actually said "if you have sex with me I'll tell you who it was..." He kept asking me if I'm still in love with him and I kept saying no, then he would burst into phony sobs. He sounded literally insane that night.  I've known him 16 years and I think I heard some new voices. It ended with me cornered somewhere, I couldn't get away, and he grabbed me and forced me into an embrace. Not only would i not hug him back, I pushed with all my,strength and kept telling him to stop. He said "just kiss me, I know you're in love with me, just kiss me and you won't stop..." I finally was able to grab my phone and call the cops. When he saw I had my phone he let go and ran out. The cops didnt understand, or care. They were like "well he wasnt being violent, he was trying to give you a hug." So that incident report is totally useless in court, in fact it may help him. The next time I saw him, he tried to force his way into my house again but I kept the door shut. I confronted him about what he did, and he said "I did that bc you said youre still in love with me" I said "no, I said the opposite" and he replied "yeah but your face said you are." He also begged me to contact the woman he cheated with and tell her its okay for them to be together, because he needs physical affection and needs someone to help get over me. I shut the door and walked away. He texted that im playing games if I wont message her. I got an order of protection soon after, and filed a custody petition at the same time. Unfortunately he got the custody petition in the mail before he got served. So as a last hurrah, he turned up the crazy and came over to say goodbye before leaving to put on his wedding tux and hang himself in the upstairs apartment where we used to live. In our child's playroom. He claims the closet rod broke but I think he yanked it down. He texted me a suicide note, so I have that evidence of his poor mental health at least. When the cops arrived he said he was fine,and just wanted my attention so he said he was gonna kill himself to manipulate me. He finally got served 3 days later, but not before more desperate hoovering attempts. He violated the order when I let him come to a park for a supervised visit with the kids, and followed me around the whole time dumping all his emotional baggage on me and crying. I almost called the police but my friend talked me out of it, trying to avoid drama. I'm kicking myself for it now.

We went to court a week after that. They gave him 8 hrs a week of supervised parenting time with the older child only. We go back in a few days though, and because he's been to counseling he expects to be given unsupervised overnights, and several hours at a time with the baby, who has never taken a bottle, never been away from me for more than half an hour, and nurses on average every 45 minutes! He has never been an active parent and now suddenly wants 5050 custody "because thats whats fair" Meanwhile, we share a business and he has been withholding income, hiding inventory, and changing pasdwords, to be petty I'm sure. I think he wants this to be so hard for me that I cave and get back with him. I'd be lying to say I havent thought about it. It's a mess. I'm terrified hes going to fuck up my kids. So I hired a lawyer who specializes in domestic violence cases. She had me detail every documented incident of abuse. I've kept a journal on and off, so I ended up sending her 10 pages. She'll tell me whats useable and then I'll send further evidence of those things if i have it...i have a few recordings and screen shots. I dont know what to expect. Has anyone else done this? I'm worried about what hes going to come back with...i hit him in the head before...and part of me wants to keep walking on eggshells and just try to work out something without making it worse and spending all our money, but there is no working anything out with him, and its going to get worse before it gets better no matter what. So I'm fighting. I have to submit a detailed account of our parenting responsibilities too. That should be fun....he did barely anything with our first kid until she was almost 2, and I had to beg him to give me some reprieve one morning a week. Hes held the baby for 5 to 20 minutes here and there, and changed a few diapers. Going through all those journals was rough. It made me feel pathetic. TWO MONTHS into the relationship (though we'd had a history for 5 years at that point) I said I felt like we were in a fucked up power dynamic. And here we are 11 years later. Still in it. The trauma bonding is real.

If anyone has an idea of what I can expect in court, or any advice, I would greatly appreciate it!

[sad_dog_mommy]

Hello Ylime,

I do not have any advice about court stuff but I wanted to write and tell you that being a single mom is hard and even harder when your ex has a PD.  You are doing a great job! 

((( hug )))

[Ylime]

Thank you!

An update... His parenting time was extended to 6 hours instead of 4 on sat and sun with the older child. The first 4.5 hours are unsupervised. I'm not thrilled with this, but shes old enough to tell me if anything messed up goes on. He gets the baby too for the remaining 1.5 hrs, which is supervised. Surprisingly, I didn't have to fight too hard for this! He seems to know his limitation and didnt really want both kids for long stretches of time...he was just acting as if he wanted that to be dad of the year. We go back in a month, to see how its going and hopefully map out a final visitation plan, which I hope can include an incremental plan for increasing the babys visitation as she gets older and needs me less. If hes reasonable, and doesnt fight for overnights or long visits that are likely to mess up the kids, we wont have to go to trial. Fingers crossed! Hes going to flip when he reads the revised petitions my attorney just filed that outline his pattern of abusive behavior and lack of parenting participation. But maybe thats a good thing. The more he acts up the better, as long as its documented. As long as he doesn't take it out on the kids...sigh...its a tough balancing act. I'm still struggling to understand that hes barely a human.   But good news for today at least!