wanttobehealthy

As many of you know, the moronic judge in my divorce disregarded my input and my lawyers saying that having xAH come HERE to my house to get our children for school in the morning was a bad idea...

Said in her ruling that the petitioner (me) was not being cooperative and that my suggestion of meeting at the police station or somewhere public was disruptive to the girls and that as a well respected coach and teacher (him) she trusted that he and I could be civil and exchange the girls etc... She totally gave me an attitude frankly and it was BS but I have lived with it since Fall bc I am not a judge and I had no choice but to go with it.

So I made the best of it and acted with safety being in the forefront of my mind and for months and months I held firm to my telling him he had to wait in the car and NOT come to the house itself...

Over the last month I loosened those boundaries and said that it was okay for him to come up to the door and we were even able to exchange some info that way and it was largely okay... I let my guard down... STUPIDLY. I thought he was able to behave sanely and I forgot that he is and always will be an abuser and he reminded me the hard way of this lesson yesterday.

Yesterday he showed up in a rage, tried to barge in... Thank god I leave the house locked all the time. He stood on the porch screaming and yelling about his having been served with charges of being in contempt, that I am crazy and out to get him etc... I texted him to go to the car and that once he did I would send the girls out and that he could not be in the house itself anymore...

Instead, he stood on the porch steps for 40 min texting me that I was refusing to send the girls out and was in contempt myself and that I was making him late... When it got to the point that I was about to be late to work and I assumed he was going to be calm and just take the girls and go, I unlocked the door to send the girls out and he blew up, came barging in swinging and yelling, hit me repeatedly etc... Girls witnessed it all and were and are traumatized.

I called the police immediately and he took off and went to work.

They arrested him at work-- he is a teacher and will probably lose his job as he should-- and he was charged with 3 separate counts of assault and there is a no contact order that will remain in place indefinitely at least until his arraignment at the end of March. My lawyer filed for a permanent restraining order today and a temporary one was granted for 30 days so he will have no contact with me for that time frame. Whether he will be able to have some kind of supervised visiting with the girls during the next month remains to be seen.

So, lesson here is that no matter how calm or tame an A seems to be acting NEVER EVER let your guard down...

And as bad as this was this is the first time I haven't waffled about how to react. I stood up for myself immediately, was calm when the police came, was matter of fact and I showed my daughters that no man will EVER puts his hands on me and walk away without consequences.

I wont make the mistake again of ever letting him close enough to do something like that and I am pretty sure the idiot court system in this state might want to rethink forcing an ex spouse to have her abusive ex come to her house daily...