deer me

[deer me]

Hello, I am new to this forum. In fact this is all very new to me. I have recently separated from my husband – though he doesn’t accept this and still thinks we can be together, however he has moved out, to his credit. We have 2 young children. In the last few weeks it feels like a veil has been lifted and I can suddenly see how unhealthy, emotionally abusive and controlling this relationship has been. I have always known that it didn’t feel right but I have tried a million ways to make things work, especially for the sake of the children. He’s not an awful person, he’s got mental health problems, suffers from depression and anxiety which he recognises in his weller moments but still doesn’t get help for. He’s basically driven by fear and that somehow justifies his controlling behaviour. Anyway I realise I sound like I’m making a excuses – he has no end of them.

I feel like I’ve needed support to help through these next steps of separating and making things coherent and stable in some way for the kids – we havent told them anything yet and theyre both under (age removed by moderator) but he’s been worrying me by saying he wants 50/50 custody and won’t ‘lie’ to them by saying we;ve come to this decision to seperate together. I.e he’ll emotionally manipulate the kids. Our eldest already has lots of behavioural issues (separation/school anxiety, violent rage, extreme sensitivity) which I now think are caused by the terrible tension we’ve had at home and clashes with her dad who can’t regulate his emotions and has in the past got very angry and blamed her meltdowns for causing all our problems.

I phoned the national helpline and they put me on to (name of local service removed by moderator) and I have a meeting tomorrow but its all escalating really quickly. They have let childrens services know, the school knows, we’ve had to cancel a meeting with a couples therapist who now wont see us, I’m being asked if I have a solicitor (we have no money/savings, I have no income, we rent), being told to take notes, that he can’t have unsupervised contact. Its scareing the hell out of me. He has no idea that I’ve spoken to anyone and would absolutely blow his top if he found out. Then I would be worried for our safety.

I am still hopeful that he’ll come around to accepting the decision and will accept supervised contact (he wants to see me anyway and the children seem happy enough to be with him when I’m around) I will have to be extraordinarily boundaried but feel I could cope with seeing him with the kids a few times a week. I am terrified though that if this all comes out he’ll just loose it and deny any wrong doing, he certainly doen’t see his behavior as abusive. He feels like the victim that I’m crazy to end our marriage and destroy our family. He doesn’t accept I’m unhappy and thinks we’re fine!

I dont know how the system works with child protection and if anyone can offer any advice before (removed by moderator) tomorrow id be very grateful. I dont want horrific conflict with an angry unreasonable man, legal battles over the children. We’ve had enough stress and things at home are just starting to feel better with him not in the house. I know its unlikely that he’ll wake up and suddenly be perfectly reasonable to negotiate all this but coming out and accussing him of abuse to me and children will pull the biggest trigger ever and I don’t know how we’ll come back from that.

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