Likely if/when you leave, your disordered spouse to slant the reality.
- "Your dad doesn't care about you."
- "Your dad doesn't love about you."
- "Your dad probably has a floozy."
- "Your dad is a terrible person."
Whatever may be said, you should validate the reality. Ex will try to distort and twist the facts with emotional claims. As Richard Warshak (writer of
Divorce Poison) wrote, taking the high road and remaining silent when the children are pressured or fed blaming claims is the wrong way to handle it. If even adults have difficulty figuring out the facts, then it is virtually impossible for the children to do so independently. They need helpful guidance to counteract the distorted perceptions. In other words, fight fire with fire. Ex will use blaming, confusion, pressure and invalidation, you have to use facts, stability, love and validation.
We recommend getting a court order specifying a parenting schedule before you leave. (I know this will sound silly, but why do you have to move, why not the misbehaving spouse? Yeah, I know.) If you do move, try to avoid staying in a small temporary place, try to get a place large enough for the children to live with you too. The longer you are away from the children the harder it will be to get meaningful time with them. Then if when you leave make it clear you expect to have the children. Likely ex won't agree but that's when you turn to the court and seek a schedule stating that ex is blocking or obstructing your parenting.
In my case, I didn't have to leave. My then-spouse had made death threats, she was arrested for Threat of DV and I had protected possession of the house for a few months and by the time the protection order ended I had already filed for divorce. So she never returned except to get her personal items. Sadly, despite her not having a place to live and having a DV court case pending against her she immediately went to family court and got an order giving her temporary custody and majority time. Apparently the court reasoned parenting history meant more than a pending abuse case and a mother's homelessness or perhaps my local family court defaults to mothers. (Believe it or not, she resided at first in a "House of Peace" for abused women despite her being the accused.) Whatever the reason, the schedule didn't change until the final decree two years later after we settled on Trial Morning for Shared Parenting and 50% parenting time.
