what if he won't leave?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2004
what if he won't leave?
6
Thu, 06-10-2004 - 12:17am
I posted a couple of times last month. After my H grabbed me and chased me to block my exit from the house and told me that 'a lot of other men would have slapped me around a long time ago', I told him that we needed to go to counseling (separately, and he needed someone with experience with abusers), and he needed to find somewhere else to live, at least for awhile. He agreed to do that, though he stressed that I have big problems and need the help. The problem is that now, three weeks later, he still hasn't done either of those things, says he can't afford it.

I've seen a counselor at the shelter once and will talk with her again on Friday, but what do I do now? We just moved into a new house, and everything is still chaotic and in boxes, and he hasn't done anything to unpack at all- it's all me, but he's still living here. I was away for work for three days and nothing--not one box-- has changed from when I left. That's fine if his thinking is that it's my house, so I should unpack it, but he's still living here (and in the master bedroom, no less- I'm in the guest room) so that can't be it, exactly.

I don't want to get the legal system involved if I don't have to, but the more I think about it, the less I want to be the one to leave and take my son to yet another new setting. What to do? Also, to me this signals that he's not interested in repairing our relationship or working on his problems (or even admitting he's got a problem, for that matter), which means I should probably be thinking about ending things, but I'm just not there yet emotionally. Any advice?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2004
Thu, 06-10-2004 - 1:26pm
I just wanted to say this was one of the hardest things I had to do. It was so hard to get my stbxh out of MY house. I ended up having to move out for 2 weeks, still paying the bills, and finally he saved the money to leave. But, he didn't go willingly. He blackmailed me in so many ways and I finally gave in. I gave him $1350.00 to move out of our home. Still regret it to this day. But, I was at a point where I wanted to count my loses and run.

I don't know your story but it seems to me you are getting to that point to. Are you ready to leave for good or do you think this space will help the two of you? I hope your heart is telling you to go. My x used to tell me I deserved to be hit to. But, I didn't and neither do you. I almost started believing it. If leaving for good is what you want to do, get the law involved. B/c these men are hardheaded. They will stay around as long as they can. Sure they say the want to leave. But, they won't. At least mine wouldn't.

Good luck. I wish I had more advice for you.

Mel
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 06-10-2004 - 10:51pm

Hi ccinnc...I think you're right.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

- Maya Angelou

Avatar for buffphone
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 06-11-2004 - 8:49am
hugs ccinc. Sweetdreams is right on, you need to do something now and do it soon.

If the boxes are still packed, I'd say you should think of getting a truck and some help and get your possesions and you and your son out of there. It will only get worse, he is threatening you with physical harm let alone the emotional damage he will do to you and your son.

You HAVE to get the legal system involved, you have no choice on that. If you don't, then what you have will never be yours, your son will possibly think that this is a normal relationship and will adopt his behaviour pattern. Talk to the shelter about getting legal help and if needed applying for financial help.

Is this house in your name? In both names? Have you closed on it yet?. You have a lot of legal issues you are going to have to work out. Most importantly is that you need to break this off now, not later. There is no good that will come of this as he's already shown you that he is and will continue to be, abusive towards you and your son.

Don't wait and let him do more harm to either of you, you have much to much life to live and it's so much better when you are with someone who has a healthy mind and outlook on life.

No one, and I do mean NO ONE is worth living with or making exceptions for who is so blatant about being abusive. To turn your back now will only bring far greater pain upon you and your son. Not to mention when he starts isolating you from your family and friends because in his eyes, they are medling in your relationship. It will come to this, it has yet not too. Be smart, be careful!

Hugs

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-03-2004
Mon, 06-14-2004 - 2:19am
Wow, dejavu. We too had just moved into a brand new home. Just 3 months before moving in, I had got off early from work and stopped at the new house to see how things were going. There was a car in the drive, and I thought it might be one of the contractors, until I noticed it was an Ohio plate and we're in Michigan. Well it was one of his x-wives, and he never told me she was comming by and I'd never met her. She came by just to give him an album of pictures she had put together of him and his sons from 2 prior marriages during his visits with them. He said he was sorry, he should have informed me and it was just for the pics and was no need for any future communication. Well he got into a fight with me Christmas morning over me going to game sites and it was messing his computer up. He was so angry he refused to go to my daughters to celebrate Christmas. A few days later, I see that his x-wife emailed him to say it was nice to hear his voice on her answering machine and hoped he had a great Christmas. She then called on the evening before New Years Eve. I answered, seeing it was comming from Ohio, she put on an old lady voice and said she was sorry, had the wrong number. I called her back, said, "Rosie, you didn't have the wrong number, just a minute I'll get him for you." I thought it was time for them to talk with me present for a change. After the call, he grabbed me up off the floor by the bibs of my overhauls saying I had embarrassed him, go ahead make a lot of noise call the cops, he'd just say it was self defense. I moved into the spare bedroom, he quit making the payments on the house and now its going into foreclosure. He's moved back to Ohio, 10 minutes from guess who? The saddest thing is, we were engaged to be married, the money to start building this home was my inheritance. His name was to be added after I got a prenuptial protecting my downpayment. So besides grabbing me, emotionally and verbally abusing me, he deliberately let this home go into foreclosure; adding financial abuse as well. He had some kind of trouble with the IRS from years ago he said and still was paying interest on that. He filed bankruptcy on that matter, so when we were married and his name was added on the house we wouldn't have to worry about the IRS taking our home. Well his lease was up on his truck, (happened before we moved in) he claims he never stopped to think that the bankruptcy would make him unable to get another truck. So guess what? Yup, I signed, he's now gone driving a leased truck in my name and registered to me but he's paying for it. He drinks and drives, and I'm worried that if he gets in an accident someone is going to try to sue me. He talked me into opening charge accounts, so we could get things for the house, to the tune of $40,000. He said don't worry, he'd make the payments, wrong. So I've lost $68,000 in the house, and now I have to file bankruptcy on the credit cards as he drives off in the truck in my name back to his x-wife. Well, when the attorney does the bankruptcy, he's including the truck since its registration is in my name. The truck will be reposessed. He got notification that he's to appear in court regarding the PPO I've filed for. He left me a message that if I do this, he won't be able to work at the higher paying jobs through the local as a pipefitter with any civil cases pending on him. He won't be able to do alot of things, and if I do that I will never see a dime of my money he planned on paying me back. I'm not getting a PPO to hurt his employment, I'm getting it for my protection, he threatened to kill me. He's ruined my future, and my credit; why would I give a darn if he takes a cut in pay? I hope for your sake, you can afford the mortgage payment on your home; I could not on my income. That was part of his control, he made sure the home we built was bigger than we needed. He could afford it, I couldn't; he wanted to controll that I would have to stay and take his abuse and philandering since I couldn't afford to leave. I'd rather leave a pauper than live in fear. My thoughts and prayers are with you hon, you'll be much better off without his kind. His kind never gets better, don't forget about what OJ did 10 years ago. You have a child to think about.

Gidgit

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2004
Tue, 06-15-2004 - 6:01am
hi gidgit and sweetdreams and others who replied--thank you.

Sweet-I did buy 'Why Does He Do That?' and have dog-eared many pages--it's amazing how many times actual things he's said to me are written down in the book. Thanks for reinforcing what I know but often don't want to face.

Gidgit--you're right about the dejavu--my H also had a bankruptcy the year before we met, but I learned about it from a voicemail our mortgage banker left when we were trying to buy our first house. REALLY would've liked that information from him before we married. I can afford the house, I think, but affording everything would be a stretch. House mortgage is in my name, title in both. Our other house (we rented it out, b/c we couldn't sell in time) is mortgage in his, title in both. Also, he took the money that we got at closing, check to both of us, and I said, please deposit this to our joint account and he said nothing, and he deposited it to his private checking and spent it all. Same with the tax refunds. He says that we had said that he could pay off his credit card debt, but what we said was he could have 1000 and we got more than twice that much, and he used it all and we'd said nothing about the tax money.

Things have taken a turn for the worse--I gave him until the end of last week to find a counselor and a new place to live, and on Thursday, he videotaped our conversation (he had mentioned doing this previously, on the premise that if 'someone was watching' we wouldn't get out of control). Creepy. I'm worried about it now b/c he's taken a bunch of video editing classes and I don't know what he'll do with it. When I went to get it to make a copy the next day, he had it in his car. I have a copy on the computer now but don't know if he doctored it first. There must be a way to tell.

Anyway, the conversation was surreal--first he says he wants to make the marriage work, then proceeds to tell me why he wasn't going to do the two things I told him were necessary to do so: move out (it might be construed as abandonment) and why he didn't want to see a counselor (then I could throw it in his face that he knows he has an abuse problem, look, he's in counseling).

Then came the main point--if I didn't want to make the marriage work, I should leave him and Max in the house and find another place to live and he was going to pursue sole custody. Now even when I've been the most upset, I've always said we could make a creative joint custody so that my son could have both of us present in large roles in his lives. I'm being manipulated, hard. Everytime he said he wanted us to remain married and work it out, the next sentence was about taking my son. It's a threat, I think.

You know, I'm writing all this down on counselor's advice, and I remembered that once when he was still divorcing his ex-wife, he came to visit me (I lived in another state) with his hand all swollen and bloody. He said he had punched a wall, and fool that I am, it didn't even occur to me to be worried. I thought at the time it was an immature reaction, but nothing more. What an idiot.

I talked to my counselor, also talked to the legal advocate at the shelter, who said many things, among them that I should be worried about the hunting rifle in the house. I've done some safety planning (identifying rooms, hiding important docs, telling a few people who check on me discreetly). I shouldn't go into detail on here in case he finds it.

Wish me luck--this may get ugly. It was a mistake on his part to threaten to take away my son. It's made some things much clearer for me.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-03-2004
Wed, 06-16-2004 - 2:33am
Like imel240 said RE: blackmail, after I began sleeping in the spare room, he said he had talked to people that told him (probably voices in his head) if I'm not sharing the same bed with him he shouldn't make the house payments. He wouldn't dare tell anyone he had not invested any money toward building this house, in fact he lied to his x-wife that he had invested $40,000. I told her, if he had invested ANY $$, do you think he would have risked foreclosure? Foreclosure is the same as reposessing a vehicle you haven't made payments on; you won't ever see a dime of your downpayment again. They always tell a rosy story about themselves, and you are the crazy one. He refused to make the payments, to get what he felt he was entitled to...sex with me. He began buying the grossest of hard-core pornography; all of them were with more than 1 man and all sodomy. My mother lived with us (Danny's idea, made him seem even more like a wonderful man), one evening I wanted to watch a video as she was watching her favorite nighttime game shows. He was at work, so I went into the master room to plug in the video, and discovered his smut. These women would recieve it up the rear and then take him in their mouth, yuck!!!

I would never take him back, in fear he would force himself on me that way. He was scary that awful day, I will never forget. "When someone shows you who they are, believe them." Like imel said, and I did the same; cut my losses & ran.

My mother got herself a mobile home, the day my family was moving her out; he was sleeping as he doesn't get home from work until 6 am, he was in bed asleep. The truck wasn't in the drive, so I opened the door and asked where was the truck? He played dumb, and said "What truck?". So I said you better get your a-- out of bed, cause that's MY bed and it's getting taken apart now. There were 6 of us present, there was no way he was going to show his violent side with so many wittness's around. It really was rather funny, and if I'd known it would be that simple would have done it sooooo much sooner. He rapidly called his x-wife and borrowed her teen son to help him move out his antiques. He had hidden the truck somewhere in the sub, saying he figured there must have been a huge moving van comming for mom's stuff and wanted to allow room!!?? I think he was afraid my brother-inlaw was going to go with me to return the leased truck paying the penalties for returning it before the contract was up, leaving him with no vehicle to drive. Yeah, like I had $8 grand laying around. He too had for months claimed HE couldn't bear the stress and was gonna leave stay in a motel, and send $$ for the mtg, but never did. They don't leave, until you force them out. Cl-sweetdreams, gives very excellent advice. Read information re: restraining orders, for the state you live in. Buffphone, also had important info for you. Little boys learn how to be a husband and father just like their own dad. It sounds like you have the perfect situation if you were to leave him legally through a divorce; he could keep the house that's for sale, you could keep the other. Only you can make that decision, the shelter would direct you to finding legal & financial help. My x-fiance began to form a close bond with my mother, as soon as we moved into the new home. Then whenever she & I were at his side helping him hook up vcr's etc, he would begin to snap at me that I wasn't holding the light in the right spot, that mom was doing a better job. He was trying to cause a wedge between my mother and myself. Probably so that when the abuse was to begin, she would be on his side. Understanding his anger and abuse toward me, since I couldn't do anything right the way she could. Then maybe she would spend more of her $$ buying him more tools he needed to finish the wood trim in the house. She had bought him a laser miter saw, which we made sure he did not take. I lurked on this board for months learning as much as I could. I prepared by getting a cell phone, kept on vibrate only so he wouldn't know I had it; in case I needed a phone quickly.

I'm cornfused, printed and re-read your post, did the other home finally sell and he spent all the $$?? On what for cripe sakes? Sounds like you wouldn't have to split the other home at all with him, if you leave him. He got all the money from the other one and spent his share. You have a child, the courts would feel you and your son need the home.

When you re-read what you've written re: one minute he wants to work it out, the next taking your son, you can recognize the double talk he's giving you. It's all meant to keep you off balance, like brain-washing. You can't have both sides of the coin facing up at the same time. You can't work on the relationship, and discuss who gets custody of the child in a relationship that's working on staying together at the same time. They manipulate and twist your words around to cornfuse you.

Another reason the therapist has us write things down, when you're all cornfused you forget alot of incidences that have happened, it's normal under stress. Writing them down helps you to remember other things; you also begin to recognize and catch them in lies you may not have noticed if they weren't written down. Abusive men are chronic liars, I think they begin to believe their own lies. Writing also helps you to heal. Hind sight is indeed 20-20.

I read somewhere on this board, not to use the same screen name he may recognize in case he does find this site. Always erase the history on your browser, so he can't click on this site and learn what you planning. Never walk away from your computer with this site on the screen as you go to answer the phone, without closing it as I did one day. All hell broke loose, he began to accuse me that we have problems with his computer because of the sites I go to. He angrly disconected the cable to the computer and forbid me to use it. I had to use it only when he was not around to see. I even caught him at the sign in screen to yahoo (where I have an email account) trying different passwords he thought I may use to get into it. He wanted me to use the cable email, which all you had to do was switch from his screen name to mine and read each others mail. I had my yahoo email for 7 years, and wasn't about to notify all my email friends of a change of email if it wasn't necessary. He didn't like that I could get into his email and he couldn't get into mine. I told him he could set up his own yahoo account if it made him feel better, but that I have always had this email address and it wasn't necessary for me to change it. Before we moved into the new home, I informed one of my friends of the other email. Sure enough, I had caught him reading my email. They were just forwarded jokes, but I think he was hoping he'd catch a love letter or something from some guy. Maybe he thought I was as decietful as he was. I feel emotionally wonderful again in spite of the financial disaster he has caused me. I love doing what I enjoy without being criticized that I'm wasting time, or doing whatever I am doing the wrong way. I enjoy the person I am, and have learned from this experience. I have learned if I EVER have any little inklings about a man I meet, and their were many tiny little flags that went up early on I shrugged off as just a little quirk didn't mean anything; I will put the pedal to the metal in high gear and RUN the other way. When I first met him, he took me in from head to toe with just his eyes walking slowly toward me. I felt uncomfortable, I felt like I was a used car in a lot, and half expected him to kick my legs like they were tires on a car. I've learned that it takes 2 1/2 - 3 years, to begin to see some edginess in their behavior and little mean streaks I will never overlook again. They can only hide their dark side for so long before they itch to let it all out in little increments at first. Then look out. If I ever get involved with another man, I will date him for years before I accept a proposal, if ever I do again. Keep us posted, write to vent, take care of yourself. May God bless, and keep you and yours safe.

Gidg