olivia2501

This is my first post. I will not go into the long story of my AH since it sounds like we all have similar stories. Brief synopsis, I have put up with it for 4 years, he has been gone from our house after I kicked him out 8 months ago and nothing has changed. All the broken promises, damage to our home, all the verbal abuse, nothing at all has changed except for me, I am done! I am filing for divorce this week.
I have told him this and get the denial or the blame game and that this is all my fault and I am abandoning him. When he is sober and listens to what I am telling him his response is that he is going to make it a point to get joint custody of our 5 year old. This absolutely cannot happen. He is not safe with my husband who passes out every night by 9 o'clock. I have evidence, videos, pictures and the damage to our house so my attorney feels that we will not have a problem proving the alcoholism and me obtaining primary custody.
My question for you guys is what have some of you done to allow your husband to see your child if he is sober? I plan to discuss this with my attorney but just wanted some ideas of what Others have done. I was reading some posts about tests they can make him take? Can they make him go to AA? What are some options?

Forward12

Welcome to the forum. With having a good amount of evidence, I would highly doubt anything other than full custody would be given to you. What happens with visitation will come down to the judge. You can talk it over with your attorney, but often times you may be able to get supervised visitations only, also others use soberlink which is a breathalyzer required to be used during visitations to prove they are sober.
They can't force him to go to aa or to get sober, but can make visitations strict if he refuses to do so.

PhoenixJ

I would not dare offer advice on this.
I do offer empathy and support. Stay safe.

sauerkraut

My stbxah insisted on shared custody too. When I balked, our mediator sent us to a coparenting therapist who got him to agree to test via soberlink 3 times daily when he has our kids. That agreement was for the first 2 months, and then he got mugged while extremely intoxicated (not while he had custody of our kids), and I got the agreement extended indefinitely, but he insisted on just two times per 24 hours. Now, after a year of managing to test clean, he's asked the court to discontinue the monitoring. We'll be in court to discuss this week.
He's not in recovery and makes no such claim. However, he has been more sober this last year than in the previous 20.
You can get some idea of the standard soberlink testing protocols on their website. Also, you might try calling them with questions. In my experience their customer service is quite good. I mention this because where I live, no one seemed to know much about soberlink, including my attorney and the coparenting therapist. It's new technology, so you may need to educate yourself and others if you think it will be useful in your situation.