DH filed for divorce without discussion
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Anonymous
Any woman leaving any man should have a safety plan in place for herself and her children. Sometimes the first episode of physical violence occurs when the emotionally abusive partner is faced with the end of the relationship and more importantly, a loss of control. In my years as a DV advocate and later prosecutor, I saw too many cases where men who were losing their families - even if they initiated the relationship disruption to begin with - ended up losing their sh*t and hurting or killing their kids/partners. If the husband already has a significant mental illness issue, it's even more important to have a safety plan in mind - do whatever you can to protect yourself in the leaving process. |
Anonymous
Everyone serves their spouse. Nothing monstrous about it. |
Anonymous
That is irrelevant |
Anonymous
Nah, only a monster serves the person watching their kids w/o notice or warning. This is inarguably a dick move. It's also going to work against him if he starts being uncooperative, and it's going to cost him more because they're going to duke shit out in court rather than having civil conversations and getting their ducks in a row before filing. He's a gobshite. No question. He's the AH. |
Anonymous
Are you a bot? OP isn’t leaving an abusive situation. Her husband moved out on her and child recently, and has now filed for divorce. The biggest danger OP faces is her ex husbands total lack of effs. He’s out. |
Anonymous
READ. She hasn’t been served. He did the courteous thing and notified her that he’d filed. Are you sockpuppeting, OP; or are there this many hapless people on DCUM? |
Anonymous
OP and I won’t put my safety plan here but when I woke up that first morning. I don’t know if you are the person who’s posted about them over the past 6 months here on DCUM but someone or multiple people keep mentioning it in threads and I woke up in the middle of the night and remembered that. At first I felt embarrassed and like I was overreacting when I explained my situation and ask friends and neighbors to help with it but their reaction was generous and supportive. I will say that in the last 72 hours STBX has become quite volatile and I am glad to have rehearsed the plan with DS while assuring them that it is something that we will probably never need. I hope. It’s crazy to contemplate the person intiating the divorce being mad about it, but rather than relieving whatever pent-up emotions STBX had, it seemed to have ignited them. Attorney consults start tomorrow. Lots of tears but a lot of fun these past few days, too. We’re surviving. Thank you PPs on this thread who got me through the worst 48 hours of my life so far. I mean it sincerely. |
Anonymous
I’m OP and I assure you his email out of the blue telling me I’ll be served sometime next week late on a Friday night was certainly not what I would call courteous in content, tone or intent. Not sockpuppeting. |
Anonymous
I’m OP and I won’t post the details of my situation but in a general way I will say that with mental illness comes abuse. And I will leave it at that because I think some people are jumping on this thread in the mood to pick me apart for sport. |
Anonymous
OP for the last time tonight and for the sake of anyone reading this in a similar situation- if you are in a two-party consent state, don’t do this. What I have done over the years is keep a password protected file on my phone so I can quickly document conversations and incidents that were not necessarily bad on their own but as part of a pattern were really bad. Some of it is probably more useful for therapy than court. |
Anonymous
THINK. Smart people discuss the terms of their divorce before dragging it out in front of a court. "they were separated". Yeah. SEPARATED. It's not the same. Sometimes people separate and then reconnect. Sometimes, they separate so they can cool off and file with a clear head. "Hey, btw, I filed" isn't the mature, respectful, decent thing to do. A divorce is a 2-party event. "Hey, this is happening" is a unilateral decision. Sorry you're so selfish/myopic. |
Anonymous
I believe you, OP. Covert narcissists and other pathological people often do things that look "okayish" or even fine on the surface, because they know most people won't care enough to look closer. On closer inspection, especially looking at patterns over time, it becomes clear that these people are dangerously dysfunctional, often to the point of abuse. They're hard to pin down; it's often impossible to "prove" they're being a dick. And that's the whole point. The jerk who punches you is obviously a jerk. The jerk who destabilizes your life and makes you walk on eggshells for years, then DARVOs like a pro and twists the narrative to make themselves look like the victim, is insidious, and far more dangerous to your health and well-being. If he were obviously, inarguably an asshat, you'd have left him long ago. I know the type. Just know that you'll get through this and your life will be SO much better without his BS. I'm sorry he's power-tripping on the way out instead of collaborating like a partner, but that's the reason he's on the way out. In the end, you may thank him for making it so obvious. I did. Keep going, OP. One day at a time. You can do this. |
Anonymous
I mean yes, it is an aggressive move to file immediately, but it doesn’t mean you can’t mediate and settle. It just means the filing party is serious and and wants to get things moving. There are many reasons I can imagine someone doing this. I found that the whole “collaborative divorce” thing was a fiction and did not reduce stress or help us work things out. (I did find working with one parenting coordinator to be useful because neither of us had thought of all the items that should go in a parenting plan - but another parenting coordinator was totally useless.) The faster both parties to a divorce wrap their heads around the fact that everything will work better as an arms-length transaction, the better. Filing in court is something that has to be done at some point. You’re divorcing and can no longer believe they should be taking your feelings into account. Conversely, a spouse taking actions to decisively resolve the legal and financial matters is not (without more) acting in some kind of ill intentioned way. They are done and moving on, and you should too. |
Anonymous
Lady. Your husband is divorcing you. This is a legal process. Courtesy is not really a relevant concept here. |
Anonymous
True. But it’s a really messy thing to do when you have a child/house/money and and an unstable partner involved. As of this morning STBX doesn’t understand why I don’t want to go on with life as usual as if he never filed or why I will only communicate via writing. He doesn’t get that by filing he jumped past the “let’s have some casual chit chat” and place to a land of temporary orders, etc. |