Call your local non-emergency police dept. number to make sure of this but here, you cannot just kick somebody out of your home if they’ve been staying X number of months. (Your husband’s stay long exceeds that.) If you do, the officers will make you let him back in.
You’ll need to go to the courthouse and for around $100 file some kind of “landlord” thing (can’t remember the phrasing) to evict him. I think it gives the person 30 days to get out. If he hasn’t by that time, THEN the officers will “escort” him out for you.
Don’t threaten him with this, DO it and then tell him.
Go to Al-Anon. It’s a good group.
What everyone else has said and…
Good Luck!
That’s one thing about him, he wouldn’t have the wherewithall to question whether the cops could protect him and use that to his advantage.
What are you looking for from this board? Clearly wishing you luck is a non-starter as you don’t need luck. We can’t say anything the therapist didn’t say, and you didn’t make any changes at that point. We’re all going to say the same things she did and you sound like you’re going to delay doing anything useful now.
Honest question: What do you expect to be different by asking for help from an online message board when you’ve gotten the advice you need and you won’t/can’t act on it?
Seriously, figure out the legal hoops you must jump through to have him evicted by police. The exact steps vary tremendously ** from one location to another.
Do not wait until some night when an argument has erupted and you have finally worked up the nerve to tell him to leave right that moment. The police, if called, may not have the legal authority to forcibly evict him under those circumstances. Such is the case in my jurisdiction and I constantly field 9-1-1 calls that fit such a pattern.
He’s NOT going to leave without being forced out. Deep down you probably know that. Dragging this out is not good for you, for the kids, or even for the ex.
**(For example, here you must give 30 days written notice to vacate. After he fails to leave you apply to the court for an order of eviction. Once you have that, only then can the police force him out.)
Let’s be honest here- you’ve posted enough about your life on this board that certain facts are known.
You are also an alcoholic, which complicates your feelings of abandoning a fellow alcoholic exponentially.
You are, in fact, married to him- you aren’t, as one poster above stated, not married to him, and he is not your “ex”. This also complicates things.
You definitely can’t put him and his things out and change the locks. This is called a ‘self-help eviction’ and is most definitely illegal. It would be illegal even if he were just your roommate or even a guest that has stayed a certain number of nights (varies city to city or state to state), and not your husband.
If you truly want (and at this point, that is in question) to rid yourself of this person, you’re at least going to need to consult an attorney. If you don’t have the money to retain one, you could look into whether you qualify for legal aid in your city.
I guess I’m hoping someone will say something that will “click” and I will be able to say to myself OH! :smack: Yeah! THAT’s why I should do this, or, Yeah! THAT would be a way I could do it that would make it easy on me. Always looking for easy way out, that’s ME. I guess I need to keep reminding myself of how he received help from others (financial) and squandered it away so irresponsibly, and that he’s not this innocent, upstanding person that I picture him as in my head.
As for the police advice, I honestly believe, though I could be wrong, that once I ask him to leave, he will just leave, and not put up a fight. Granted, he may threaten suicide or possibly beg to stay. I just cannot imagine me asking him to leave, and him saying, no! and just continue sitting on the couch in my tiny apartment. I mean it’s not like he could go lock himself in a room and be away from us. He’s literally just, right THERE. How awkward would that be for him! To be told to leave and just sit there and say no! Realllly awkward!
Stop fighting it and accept the fact that he will live with you forever and that this is what you really want. The problem isn’t that he’s there; the problem is that YOU think it’s a problem. Just learn to live with it and stop arguing with yourself.
“What you do speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
If and when you ever get tired of him being there then and ONLY then will you do something about it. Until that day comes, stop thinking about it and just hand him another beer.
Next case.
More awkward than sleeping on your couch, drinking your booze and taking food from your kids’ mouths? Believe me, awkward isn’t an issue with him.
StG
Oh wait, they are married and she is an alcoholic too??
The only thing that can and could work is your kids. Why are you doing this to them? Is this what they deserve? You are literally taking food out of your kids’ mouths to feed this loser. You are also teaching them two great examples: you can never, ever stand up for yourself, no matter what, and hey, it’s perfectly fine to live in someone else’s house mooching off them whether you want it or not.
You are damaging your children. Not in the future, but right now. I presume you are a woman and your ex is a guy but either way you are severely damaging they way your kids see relationships, and you are doubly damaging your same-sex child, teaching him or her that this is just the way things work.
He gave the right answer. You’re asking the wrong question.
That’s your other alternative. Do you really want your kids to grow up with him leaving that imprint all their lives? Do you really want that imprint there until one of you dies?
Right – you might try a new therapist. But …
Nothing will go click unless YOU DO IT.
If you’re resigned to having the imprint until something else fixes the problem, well, you get what you choose. I suggest you choose to get rid of your ex. No, it won’t be easy. Get some support from friends & relatives. As mentioned above, consult the local authorities to find out what your legal options are.
The last attempt to move didn’t work out, but don’t stop trying. That’ll be the easiest – at first. Eventually he’ll find out where you live, so you’ll still have to have a strategy for keeping him from taking advantage of you.
You’re not doing him any favors by letting him stay, either. Keeping his stuff? ok, sure. But him? nope.
Definitely stop buying the beer, but don’t expect any miracles.
I filed for divorce a couple weeks ago. I do drink a lot, yes.
Didn’t you write him a letter asking him to leave by 12 days ago? And he didn’t?
I’m going to help you imagine it. Close your eyes, enter your living room, open your eyes.
For the record, this would not be described as “not putting up a fight”.
Are there any legal beagles here who can explain how one would go about getting a spouse kicked out of their home? Couldn’t he declare a similar right to the homestead?
want2befree - I know it seems like we’re all piling on you, and we are, but it’s because you are new, and you’re pouring out your troubles to virtual strangers and expecting us to have a magic bullet. You’re saying the same thing over and over, and yet you don’t hear what you don’t want to hear. It’s sort of like a coworker who comes by your desk day after day complaining about the pain when she walks, but won’t take the stone out of her shoe. After a while you think she just likes to hear herself complain.
You have to decide when you’re done with him. Then you have to act. If you haven’t acted yet, it’s because you aren’t really done.
Good luck to you.
StG
If he is your ex, (in name only perhaps, with or without the paperwork), that assumes that at some point you had the ovaries to change the relationship to your requirements. I’m having a hard time imagining it, from your answers and attitude here, and can only imagine that it was extremely difficult for you. No one needs to be psychic to understand it was therefor also very difficult for your children too.
Even if you have no regard for what letting him back into your house does to you, how can any parent so callously disregard how cruel it is to put your children through such a thing twice?
This is codependence, straight up, textbook style. And it takes two. You are a willing participant in the dance and not a darn thing will change until you do. You do not appear to have learned the life lesson from your first separation from this man, and so life is serving you up a second dose.
If you feel you need only ask and he’ll leave, then why is he still there then? You want someone to say something to you that will click?
You’re a grown ass woman and mother, who drinks too much, in a codependent dance with an alcoholic ex, in your home of chaos and dysfunction, your kids along for the ride! And you want advice? Something to click?
How’s this? Get off your sorry ass and do something to protect your damn kids from dysfunction and alcoholism, and the thousand fold ways it damages them. (That alcoholics can never see.) Oh, and try and do so before you take the drink destined to send you down the same rabbit hole he’s fallen into, okay?
The alcoholic male has proven unable to steer the ship that is your family and you seem unwilling to step up and do what needs to be done. May God help your children. Since you’re unwilling to!
I was raised with an alcoholic parent and I think what you are doing to your kids is a crime. You should rightly be ashamed of yourself, but I’m sure your drinking helps take the edge off that.
Or just do nothing and soon you’ll be an alcoholic just like him, I’m certain that’s exactly what you kids see, regardless of what you say.
I wish you enormously and great good luck with all of this, as I think you’re all in for a world of pain, and will need every drop!
Go out and rent/borrow/steal/barter a spine from freakin’ somewhere.
Also, I hope for your kids’ sake they don’t wind up hating you if you do nothing.
For your sake, if you do nothing, I hope they do.
haha oh my, this thread. Maybe the alimony she’ll owe him will cancel out the child support he’ll owe her.
Want2befree,
I responded to you on your thread about quitting drinking. You also had a thread about trouble disciplining your children iirc. Between those things and your ex, there are many things in your life that you are having difficulty managing. I’m not going to preach to you, but I’m going to tell you from my own experience that when I quit drinking, the crazy shit in my life got less crazy. I wasn’t shitting rainbows, but I was able to get a handle on the important things. Drinking the way you drink is exhausting. It makes all the hard shit even harder. It makes it hard to figure things out. For me, it was like I was going in circles all the time looking for someone, anyone, to tell me what to do…to give me the fucking answer. Fuck if I didn’t have the answer the whole time. I was just too clouded to see it.
I hope it gets better for you.