Hi,

            I haven't been on here in a while. Last time I posted, I was going through the slow agony of grieving the loss of my marriage...at the time, we were still living under the same roof. AH was still drinking. He had been having an affair and I knew it, I was just in denial, sorting through my feelings, all the loss. I knew I could never trust him again, and he was doing nothing to stop drinking, stop seeing the woman, or anything, but at the same time, was still trying to keep one foot in the door with me, in case it didn't work out with his mistress. I would and could no longer put up with it. It tortured me and the physical stress was enormous. Plus we have two young children, one 6 yrs and the other 4 yrs, one who might be on the sprectrum and another who has a genetic issue that might become learning issues in the future. And the fact that he continued to treat me like a doormat and lie to me, whether sober or not, was too much to put up with any longer.

So for 8 years of our marriage, I have grappled with whether the alcohol caused the mental/verbal/emotinal abuse, or whether he was like this either way. I don't know why this matters to me. I guess I want to blame something for his behavior, because I don't want to believe that he can be this bad of a person in his heart and soul. I read online the 10 warning signs of a sociopath, and he fit every one. Everyone likes him and thinks he is charming. He can be helpful and go above and beyond the call of duty with neighbors. He can appear to be completely sober, non-confrontational, a nice guy. He is handsome and attractive to women, but he only wants older women who can take care of him. He did go through a period of time where he stopped drinking because of a DUI and for two months he did become this person who started to take ownership of the things he did and stop blaming others. But that only lasted for a short time...that was the last time I saw that dear man, in that renewed state.

Now I realize that he is an abuser, with or without the alcohol. He has never had any respect for me. I had had enough and even after he confessed to his affair, it took me several months to get him out of the house. I was still trying to be nice and not cause conflict, I guess still the co-dependent part of me. He confessed in Febuary, then continued to live in the house when I asked him to be "a man" and move out. Instead, he continued to see her every other night, and then would try to come into the extra bedroom I was sleeping in to have sex with me, and I would literally have to fight him off and threaten him. In the end, I went to a domestic abuse counselor and spoke with her, it was a great help. He kept making excuses that he didnt have time on his lunch hour to get a money order and pay for the apartment he had applied for. He was also waiting on public housing assistance...these apartments were based on income. Finally I asked him to move in with his girlfriend and he did for over 2 weeks. However, I needed help in taking one of my children to daycare in the morning, so he would come back in the morning and drop her off, meanwhile, going upstairs and using the restroom to go number two, taking a shower and eating my food and continuing to drink beer in my house even after he was with his mistress and leaving beer bottle tops on purpose everywhere. This went on for several more weeks until I'd had enough and I took away his key. He was extremely angry about that and caused a scene in front of the kids. He is a very angry person when drinking so I was trying to cause less trauma for their sake. Friends said I should put his stuff on the lawn, I should get a restraining order, but I was trying to do my best to make this pleasant for him so that he would be encouraged to move out. I guess I hadn't had enough of being a door mat. I wanted the kids to have a relationship with their father, but perhaps that is naive thinking.

More excuses were made about moving into the apartment on the time frame we had talked about, so I took his money and actually went to the bank, got the money order myself and went to the apartment complex and paid them and got it done! I wanted him out!

But the abuse wasn't over. He said that he his best friend wasn't going to help him move out (he'd burned all his bridges), so he told me "I had better leave with the kids when he moved out over the weekend because he was bringing his girlfriend over to help him."  I went balistic. I told him no way was his mistress coming over to my house and I was going away (first I didn't trust him and what he would take) and she was not stepping foot in my house or I would call the police. He had to move every single piece alone. The worst thing I did was drop all of those beer bottle caps into the bottom of every single one of his moving boxes. By the end, I didn't want to cause any sort of rift between him and his girlfriend, because then he would try to come crying back to me if she dumped him. I wanted things to go smoothly. I am over and done with this marriage completely. I get stronger every day.

However, the worst part is that I have asked him to not have the kids over at her house. He already confused our DD enough when he was having the affair over the winter and DD was seeing them kiss and spend time together. Yet he still has the kids around her, they have had pizza at her house (even though my DS is supposed to be gluten free) and many other times where they have been with her. The girlfriend has her own abusive personality, which is another thing...she was married as well when they started their affair but with no children and she tried to control her husband's drinking. Her ex and I have talked and he said she thought he was an alcoholic (he claims he was not but who knows, I don't know him) and that she would not tolerate drinking in the house. And now she was having an affair with my alcoholic husband! Sooner or later they will not last and I know they will break up. I will have to get very strong when that time comes, because now my ex has been in his own apartment for over 2 weeks now. When it is his turn for the kids and I have the night off (he keeps them overnight..but it is right now on his "terms" when he wants to, often when his girlfriend is on a trip somewhere and he doesn't want to be alone and he is already taking advantage of me in that respect and getting most of the weekends off...I am hoping to change that in the divorce and custody). Anyway, each time he has the kids, he calls me ten times in the night, leaving messages that the kids are sick (lie), that he ran out of peanut butter and to bring him some because the kids want it, etc. He asks where I am, who am I with, what am I doing, etc...I am very strong and I tell him none of his business, etc. The other day, I had a girlfriend coming over for dinner, but I told my ex-A that I had a "guest" coming over soon for dinner because he kept bugging me with phone calls. He screamed on the phone that I could not have "boyfriends" over at his house! (We own the house in both our names...a big mistake on my part) and we would lose money if we sold right now so I am living in the house with the kids indefinitely. I told him that if he wanted to keep the house in his name then he needed to pay me half the mortgage, which he can't. I make twice as much as he does and now that he is on his own and has a fairly new job that pays nothing, I have only one income since he can only afford to give me $300 a month, half of our DD's daycare costs. That's it. He spends his money on alcohol and other things and has never known how to manage his money. We have 25K in credit card debt, most of it his, or over half of it, from him being unemployed and never living up to his potential. We couldn't keep up with the daycare costs. I went to a credit counselor and had interests reduced, but I can't pay that anymore either. Most of the cards are in my name, but I don't think it matters. It will still ruin his credit, too. I will have to file for bankruptcy. I have even had to go to a food bank some weeks, because of the high cost of living here, the enormous daycare costs. It would be hard to move, since at my older age, it would be hard to find another job that pays this well, and I have a career with 16 years in already.

My question to those of you who have been through this, can I file a "no contact" or "restraining order" and still ask him to pick up my kids from daycare? I would like him to stop harassing me and contacting me when he has the kids, and even when I go to his apartment, if I bend down to pick something up, he puts his hand in my crotch. He also tried to pull me into his bedroom the last time his girlfriend (who has her own house) was away. I am trying to get legal aid for a free lawyer even though its a 50/50 state, to see about my rcustody rights and child support. I want to go thru with the divorce right away before his relationship ends with his girlfriend, which I am almost certain it will. Then he will become a stalker. I wanted to say that I don't think he could be harmful physically, but then again he has tried to pull or grab me already into his room. It would be nearly impossible for me to take and pick up my kids from daycare since I live so far from work and would not be able to get to the daycare before closing time and also put in 40 hrs a week. I have some friends, but they do not go in the direction that I do for pick ups.

I have a lot on my plate, but my HP is coming around. Suddenly I have more women friends who are coming to me and lending their support. My kids are happier and healthier and we have a more peaceful home. That is more priceless than anything. I am so much happier now, if only I can get him to stop bugging me on my days off from the kids. I have thought about getting full custody (I have lots of good justifications for it not even mentioned here but in past posts), but he would definitely get ugly and fight me on it. He is very, very sick.

Minaret