Scared of his reactions

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I am finally feeling strong enough to follow through with the divorce, but I'm scared based on his recent reactions to some boundary setting I have made. I thought for some naive reason that when we decided to use a mutual lawyer for divorce mediation. I filed my paperwork, then when it was his turn he missed the appointment with the lawyer, refused to continue and now months later it is at the point where I have 3 options- to get him at bare minimum to sign the acknowledgement paper that simply acts like a personal serving, to have him make another appointment with lawyer (not going to happen), or to have him served and it then goes out of mediation and the lawyer would then represent me. I have stalled long enough, in my FOG thinking that if I just caught him at the right time I could avoid this step, saving me time, money and more conflict. He has threatened me that if I do anything to get in the way of his relationship with our children (s12 and d8) then it "will not be a good outcome". Since he has no money I know he does not mean he will fight back legally, it is more like his other verbal threats that if he feels rageful and irrational he will get me back somehow.
The sad thing is I have never to this point intended to ask for anything but the marriage dissolution and joint legal custody-not even child support because I know even if legally mandated he would or would not pay when and if he could or wanted to. Luckily I am the financially stable one and I have figured out how to provide for myself and our children over the last few years of our separation.
Does anyone have experience where there is lots of conflict and threats, but that dies down in the process when the spouse with BPD finally lets go/stops? I want to believe this is all a last ditch effort to control the situation but when faced with the reality that it is all moving forward anyway they give up. I am so exhausted already from years of abuse and chaos, I am ready to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Inneedofhelp]

I am finally feeling strong enough to follow through with the divorce, but I'm scared based on his recent reactions to some boundary setting I have made. I thought for some naive reason that when we decided to use a mutual lawyer for divorce mediation. I filed my paperwork, then when it was his turn he missed the appointment with the lawyer, refused to continue and now months later it is at the point where I have 3 options- to get him at bare minimum to sign the acknowledgement paper that simply acts like a personal serving, to have him make another appointment with lawyer (not going to happen), or to have him served and it then goes out of mediation and the lawyer would then represent me. I have stalled long enough, in my FOG thinking that if I just caught him at the right time I could avoid this step, saving me time, money and more conflict. He has threatened me that if I do anything to get in the way of his relationship with our children (s12 and d8) then it "will not be a good outcome". Since he has no money I know he does not mean he will fight back legally, it is more like his other verbal threats that if he feels rageful and irrational he will get me back somehow.
The sad thing is I have never to this point intended to ask for anything but the marriage dissolution and joint legal custody-not even child support because I know even if legally mandated he would or would not pay when and if he could or wanted to. Luckily I am the financially stable one and I have figured out how to provide for myself and our children over the last few years of our separation.
Does anyone have experience where there is lots of conflict and threats, but that dies down in the process when the spouse with BPD finally lets go/stops? I want to believe this is all a last ditch effort to control the situation but when faced with the reality that it is all moving forward anyway they give up. I am so exhausted already from years of abuse and chaos, I am ready to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

[livednlearned]

Hi Inneedofhelp,

It's likely that there will be two realities. One will be what he says, the other what he does.

My divorce experience with a BPDx husband is that he fought for control of me through our son, but in practice didn't want any actual responsibility for S15.

So in terms of the conflict dying down -- the way it worked for me is that I eventually realized much of what ex said was hot air. Nevertheless, because he was a former trial attorney, he represented himself in court and forced a lot of court hearings over nothing. Failing that, he tried to "get even" through emotional warfare, using parental alienation tactics with S15. Truth be told, he wanted to fight more than he wanted to see his own child. And when he did see S15, they mostly did things BPDx wanted to do, including bashing me.

It sounds like your H will not be able to mess with you legally, other than stonewalling (no small thing  

What exactly does he mean by getting in the way of his relationship with the kids? Has he even discussed how much time he wants with them?

What kind of relationship do the kids have with their dad?