Truly sorry. I don’t understand your situation, nor can any of us, really, and if you want validation, I certainly recognize that your situation is a very, very tough one to be in.
I was trying to point out that divorce, the way we’ve set it up, is inherently adversarial. If either party has it as his or her top priority to see that the children are hurt as little as possible (which I wish were the case), then IMO it is necessary that each party ask: “What part of the burden of pain am I willing to take on myself, not on my partner, whose behavior could justify my shifting all of that burden onto him/her?” If you can come up with answers that are not self-serving, then I believe it is your duty as a parent to offer these voluntarily to your ex-to-be, and work out–through an arbitator if necessary–what his/her share is going to be.
I was trying to point out how your making such decisions unilaterally will, in all likelihood, exacerbate the adversarial nature of this difficult process, and result in him (or his lawyers) retaliating with what will seem equally arbitrary demands which you will very likely see as unnecesarily harsh.
It’s not always the case that the principals can overrule their lawyers’ strong counsel, but IMO you want to give yourself a chance to have your ex-to-be see you as fair and reasonable (and, yes, compasionate) in the TRUE interest of helping your kids. Throwing him out of the house is inviting him, if he doesn’t agree that he should go, to strike back. You’d be better advised to either accept that things are going to get very messy very fast, and possibly long-term, or else that you have some responsibilities in your divorce and that you’re willing to live with some personal inconvenience as a result. To justify behavior that happens to be self-serving just because it also happens to be arguably beneficial to your kids is not conducive to having a post-divorce relationship with your ex- that benefits your kids.
Look, anyone who’s not getting along with a spouse can claim “emotional abuse”; I don’t doubt for a second you feel you have tons of reasons for claiming to be a victim of emotional abuse, nor that your ex-to-be has no valid reasons to claim such an excuse. I doubt very much though that he agrees with you. Better that each of you take responsibility for your own part in causing the relationship to deteriorate, and recognize that your responsiblity entails accepting part of the burden. If this involves inconveniences in property rights, so be it. If this involves accepting financial inequities, so be it. If this involves splitting access to your kids/custody/etc., so be it. EVERYBODY GOING THROUGH DIVORCE BEARS SOME RESPONSBILITY AND NEEDS GO THROUGH MORE INCONVENIENCE THEY THINK THEY DO.
While it’s common for angry people going through divorce to claim all sorts of victimhood, and to claim that their own wishes are serving the greater good of reducing their kids’ trauma, acting on such claims usually ups the stakes of adversarial procedures. If you want to do so, that’s a valid choice. I’m not tellling you to be a saint, or to harm your own position in an adversarial procedure. But I am telling you that throwing him out of the house is benefitting YOU (quite apart from your kids’ benefit) and that, because he’s quite likely to see it that way even if you can’t, the longterm results have a built-in downside as well as the advantages that are obvious to you.
I wish you only the best as you go through a painful, confusing period in your life, and hope you are able to make the best decisions for all concerned, especially your kids. If you would prefer that I had kept this opinion to myself, then I apologize for sharing it with you.
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