Wife escalated to physical attack after I set boundary

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I have set a boundary of not speaking to her when she gets mad or tries to force me to do what she says.
Even if I enforced that a few times successfully, it never solved anything, I just managed to get some breathing space before the next storm.

I also had just started enforcing a limit, I limited my time with her spending Monday to Friday in another house, as I worked from home and she constantly disturbed me throughout the day, preventing me from working, so I lost several jobs and my career got ruined eventually.

She also deprived me of sleep, that is why I started sleeping in this new house too.

She hated that after several warnings I actually moved to another house for weekdays, of course.

What happened this time was that she got madder and angrier with me refusing to do some things in our home routine in the way she wanted me to, I really believe the proper way was somehow else.

After me insisting I would not speak to her in this mood, she cornered me in a room, very angry, of course with very humiliating phrases, got closer and closer and when very close she put her arms up, to try to intimidate me with her physical presence.

I was telling her I was afraid of her and that I wanted her to leave us alone, our 3 year old toddler was behind my back all this time, hiding from her.

I then feared for the worse, and grabbed my phone and started recording video.
After some more screams she attacked me, grabbed my hand and my phone and threw it against the wall.
The video caught this.

I was already recording audio before that.

This left scratch marks in my hand, with light bleeding.

I managed to grab my phone again and started recording again, insisting on her leaving us alone.

She then told me I had 10 minutes to leave the house else she would call the police for me. What would she tell them I don't know, but she could just say she wanted me out of the house and probably they would have taken me to the police station at minimum.

So I left, am somewhere else now, filed a police report including the audio, video, and picture of my scratches.

I was already afraid of her, now I am very afraid of her.

I also feel very sad, as physical violence was the line I drew for divorce, and we had talked about this several times over the years, that we both had this line, that we would leave the other if the other had hit.
Yet she did it.
Systematically and progressively violating every limit I had.

I'm in the middle of the book "Stop caretaking for the BP...", so far it said that if abuse happened, most likely the only path forward is without that spouse.

My sadness comes mainly from my shattered dream of having a happy family, wife and kids in the same house.
We even had plans for a second kid of ours after some time.

But I have to look at her, how she actually is, right now, right in front of my eyes, and how she got worse over the years, instead of my dreamed up version of her where she is what I want or suddenly becomes what I want.
She hit me.

I know I can try again with a new wife eventually, but still this saddens me too much.
I really love being with my toddler every day.
This pains me the most. That I will no longer be with my kid daily.

[xios]

I have set a boundary of not speaking to her when she gets mad or tries to force me to do what she says.
Even if I enforced that a few times successfully, it never solved anything, I just managed to get some breathing space before the next storm.

I also had just started enforcing a limit, I limited my time with her spending Monday to Friday in another house, as I worked from home and she constantly disturbed me throughout the day, preventing me from working, so I lost several jobs and my career got ruined eventually.

She also deprived me of sleep, that is why I started sleeping in this new house too.

She hated that after several warnings I actually moved to another house for weekdays, of course.

What happened this time was that she got madder and angrier with me refusing to do some things in our home routine in the way she wanted me to, I really believe the proper way was somehow else.

After me insisting I would not speak to her in this mood, she cornered me in a room, very angry, of course with very humiliating phrases, got closer and closer and when very close she put her arms up, to try to intimidate me with her physical presence.

I was telling her I was afraid of her and that I wanted her to leave us alone, our 3 year old toddler was behind my back all this time, hiding from her.

I then feared for the worse, and grabbed my phone and started recording video.
After some more screams she attacked me, grabbed my hand and my phone and threw it against the wall.
The video caught this.

I was already recording audio before that.

This left scratch marks in my hand, with light bleeding.

I managed to grab my phone again and started recording again, insisting on her leaving us alone.

She then told me I had 10 minutes to leave the house else she would call the police for me. What would she tell them I don't know, but she could just say she wanted me out of the house and probably they would have taken me to the police station at minimum.

So I left, am somewhere else now, filed a police report including the audio, video, and picture of my scratches.

I was already afraid of her, now I am very afraid of her.

I also feel very sad, as physical violence was the line I drew for divorce, and we had talked about this several times over the years, that we both had this line, that we would leave the other if the other had hit.
Yet she did it.
Systematically and progressively violating every limit I had.

I'm in the middle of the book "Stop caretaking for the BP...", so far it said that if abuse happened, most likely the only path forward is without that spouse.

My sadness comes mainly from my shattered dream of having a happy family, wife and kids in the same house.
We even had plans for a second kid of ours after some time.

But I have to look at her, how she actually is, right now, right in front of my eyes, and how she got worse over the years, instead of my dreamed up version of her where she is what I want or suddenly becomes what I want.
She hit me.

I know I can try again with a new wife eventually, but still this saddens me too much.
I really love being with my toddler every day.
This pains me the most. That I will no longer be with my kid daily.

[Tupla Sport]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I got a knot in my stomach reading your story. My ex used to threaten me with police too. Admittedly I did inevitably lash out which seemed to have been her plan. You are a better man than I was.

I hope you get full custody.