Hi sparkiejd,
sounds like you are faced with severe emotional and physical abuse . As you shared previously even the police got involved and you are afraid for your son.
You need really a safety and escape plan also taking into account the needs of your son. It may be worth posting on our legal board on how to handle the domestic violence from a legal perspective. As a man it is not as easy to deal with DV. Plan and resource your emergency plan. You may not need it but it is critical for you to have it in place. You need that peace of mind!
From a boundary perspective you are in a deep hole. She seems to be getting away with everything. The question is what is a strategy that has a chance to dig you out? To plot your individual course you got to have a firm grip on the fundamentals:
1) Abuse tends to escalate from emotional to physical. Stopping it earlier is less painful. There is a tendency to letting smaller abuse go when one is used to much bigger abuse. Not a good strategy. Now going straight to zero tolerance of abuse is not an option either as no sensitivity for what constitutes abuse exists and the change would overload the capacity of everyone to deal with just the change. But still it all starts with small abuse that has no consequence.
2) Intermittent re-enforcement. Random feedback is a disaster as it strengthens the neural pathways leading to stronger reties and it gets even harder to squash the abusive behavior. So it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to ACT CONSISTENTLY with respect to a newly established boundary. Serious boundaries should not be tried or experimented with but need true commitment.
3) First encounters with boundaries, particularly the very first ones are often accompanied with quite escalating extinction bursts i.e. escalating dysregulation and even more extreme behavior.
4) Boundaries need to be under your control. Which requires planning. Diligent planning matters as clean execution is less messy.
5) Boundaries need to be grounded in your values otherwise you won't have the guts to carry them through and accept the consequences that come with establishing boundaries. Basic boundaries may be physical safety for yourself etc... You know you have a right to be secure and that nobody is allowed to take away from you.
Other hints:
- prepared SHORT validating phrases keep you from getting into JADE (justify, argue, defend and explain) mode. Read up on validation, invalidation and SET
- boundaries can be practiced in real life: Shop, services, boss, co-workers etc. A little more focus on respect can be real positive in the long run in that area too. The advantage is that these folks typically are less extreme as our partners.
If I take a timeout she will put an arbitrary time limit on it like 5 minutes, then she will come wherever I am and "get" me.
Sounds like 5 min are not enough for her to cool down. I would see 30min as an absolute minimum and maybe 2-3 hours minimum her getting physical. She needs to come down and basic rational thinking needs to have started.
I have tried locking the door she just tries to break it down.
Did you lock it? Did she get in? What happend?
