I have decided it’s time..

[Bara]

I can’t keep going anymore and I need some advice as my situation is a tough one to find a path out. After the most recent blow up W has crossed to many limits and I’m done. I am in touch with an attorney but I wanted some anecdotal advice from the group.
Married
Own home together
2.5 yo son
I work remotely at home. She takes care of our son.
No friends/family to stay with in our area.
Most important thing is my son and not subjecting him to the BPD behavior of his mom.

I see no path. If I leave then I could lose custody. Also she can’t afford anything without me. But I can’t stay in  the emotional abuse  any longer at this point she follows me around the house and berated me trying to get a reaction. I am tempted to take my some with me and find a new place but I fear the reaction she would have. But again leaving my son there with her is off the table. Ideally I would get her to leave but I fear the only way to do that is to stoop to her level and bully her out of the house due to the fragile ego she has. I don’t want to do that as I would be no better than her and the ammo it would give her in a smear campaign would be bad.

What are my options here that won’t heal or doze my custody chances?

[ForeverDad]

You have just made your first step forward, the hardest step, acknowledging the current relationship status has failed.  Many here described their past dilemma on what to do as forever hoping the last rant and rage was the last... but it never was.  The sooner the reality is accepted, the sooner you can pursue a solution, not pretty or easy of course, but at least "less bad" than continuing down the same path.

#1 An excellent help is Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by William Eddy & Randi Kreger.  Inexpensive either in digital or paperback format.  Do NOT share this with her!  Keep it and other crucial documents in a safe place away from her access.  It is especially helpful in guidance for finding an experienced proactive lawyer and protecting yourself from the common errors we make when entering the brutal legal landscape.  Our disordered relationship partners have often lived their entire lives learning how to expertly manipulate situations, evade consequences and sense just how far they can push others.  In short, they know just how far they can go before something becomes "actionable".  Meanwhile, we are often clueless about everything and prone to stumble into all sorts of mistakes.

You have a right to personal privacy and that includes any resources you build here, with attorneys or with trusted family and friends.  Beware of mutual friends, simply because it is hard to predict where their loyalty eventually shifts, or that they may accidentally disclose what you need to keep confidential.

Actually, if you were trying to make the relationship succeed then sharing information would be vital for trust to be rebuilt.  Sadly, that time is in the past.  Your lawyer and we here in peer support can help you maintain wise perspective in what is to be shared and what to hold confidential.  There are certain basics in ending a relationship.  Some details about the adult matters (joint ownership, mortgages, joint accounts and similar) should be shared, especially as a divorce proceeds.  Expect her to demand more than what you are required to divulge.

On the other hand, your life remains yours, including your parenting.  Yes, you do share certain parenting details such as schedules and exchanges but other aspects are your life, your decisions.  Your spouse has no right to dictate to you about your life just as you can't about hers.  (And would she even listen?)  Sorry, that's reality even if she wants things her way.

The dilemma is what to do right now.  Seek legal advice, confidentially.  Don't stop at one lawyer.  Don't let them intimidate you either.  They work for you, even if you're clueless.  A good lawyer does not expect to get hired by everyone walking in the door.  A valid question could be, "If you were facing a difficult and obstructing case like mine, who would you trust to handle you case?"  From that question alone you can build a short list of candidates for the sort of lawyer you need.

Right now you're in the middle of "no man's land".  While you do have equal parenting rights they are "equal but undefined".  In practice, mothers in past decades have usually had the court's default preference, some of it is the hangover from outdated "Tender Years Doctrine" which assumed mothers were always the best parents.  These days it is less so, but still there in the background, unwritten and unjustified.  Why?  Judges and magistrates are allowed significant discretion in their rulings.  And one of the unwritten ones is that when facing a new case, default to mothers.  (Well, that was my situation.  My spouse had just been arrested for Threat of DV, I received a temp order protecting me in my home granting me temp possession during the temp order, but she went to family court and ended up with temp custody and temp majority time for two temp orders covering the two entire years of separation and divorce.  I mean, I get a few months of protection and alternate weekends, but she gets the kid?  Does that mean she's a bad adult but a good parent?  That sort of thing (policies and procedures) is what you deal with in the legal scenarios.

As I wrote, either of you could take the kid and vamoose, no legal obstacles there, at least at first glance.  While you might get lectured and hung out to dry or worse when she emotionally screams bloody murder (my spouse once tried to get an Amber Alert on me but failed) but she might get away with it for a while.

"The one behaving poorly seldom gets consequences and the one behaving well seldom gets credit."

Ask prospective lawyers whether you can get a separation initiated sooner.  Do not settle for "mothers get the kids and and support while dads get token alternate weekends".  Since  you're a work-at-home dad and able to parent more than many dads, that is an especially valid point.  Your HISTORY is of substantial parenting.

Ponder how best to handle The Leaving.  Society perpetuates the concept of father leaves, mother and kids stay.  That becomes true only unless you redefine the narrative.  You both will in time have separate homes.  That's a fact.  How you get there depends on your determination, practical situation and your lawyer's strategies.  Likely she will get at least some child support.  Your theme every time in court is that she needs to transition her life into building a separate life.  Sorry, she is not entitled to living off you for the next 15.5 years until child is grown.  Some child support, sure.  Maybe alimony for a few years, but not for very long.  Alimony these days is basically to aid the disadvantaged spouse to get on his/her feet while transitioning to post-marriage life.  Typically alimony is no more than half the length of the marriage, often much less.  Yes, reality will bite, how much is unknown at this time.

What you do NOT want is for her to "frame mischief" against you and have you start your separation at a major legal disadvantage.  Never lose your cool.  Don't shout or rage back at her, always imagine your court is perched on your shoulder watching all your responses.  That is a protection for you.  You will be shocked how she can make so many missteps and still get away with it but you step out of line once and whammo!

Ask lawyers what sort of split can be proposed so the acrimony in any separation is minimized.  Get your decent but not comfortable offer out there.  Remember, you don't have to be super fair or super nice.  Court won't care.  Court won't care.  While court may pay no attention to how nice or evil you are at first, over time your GOAL is to become known to all the professionals and court that you are the Problem Solver, not the Problem Parent.

The sooner you get a decent temp order in place, the better.  I'm not saying it has to be tomorrow, you do need to get some ducks in a row.  Sadly, in "no man's land" a mother can often do as she wants until an order is issued.  (My preschooler was always with her and so for her 'possession' was 9/10ths of the law.)  I recall calling the police to accompany me to her new residence so I could see my son, we were between temp orders and she had no legal incentive to let me see him.  Police declined and told me to wait for a court document in hand.  I asked what they would do if I went to see my son anyway and I was told they'd come rushing if she called them.  I decided I didn't want to get arrested and so waited a full 3 months before I saw my preschooler again, with a court order.

Over time I went back to court, went from the final decree's equal Shared Parenting for full custody (Guardian ad Litem was inclined to split the difference)and again to get majority time (GAL was finally fed up with ex).  However, from separation (2005) to last court appearance (2013) my preschooler grew to middle school age.  The reality was I was unable to 'protect' my child from everything during those years but at least my time with him was not at her whim.  My home was one of love, peace and stability.  (And I was not the parent who put him in tears by threatening to disown him, as happened more than once.)

As I wrote above, my temp orders were hardly temporary.  Our sort of cases typically last one, two or more years.  If she gets a favorable temp order, as mine did, she will drag it out as long as she can.

[BigOof]

Also, make lots of recordings of the abuse, and in particular, abuse towards your child.

[PeteWitsend]

I will endorse everything ForeverDad said here, and also say from my own experience, do NOT let ideas like "dad's never get primary custody" or "courts always side with the mother" or even "BPDers like conflict so I need to give up more than I fight for to avoid this getting expensive"... affect what you're willing to fight for here. 

You may not be able to prove she's disordered enough to get primary custody, but you need to fight for as close to 50/50 as you can get.

If she has primary rights to designate the home, the schools, etc. she can move around and limit your contact and make it as difficult for you to maintain a relationship with your son as possible.  And that's EVEN with your court-ordered rights to see them.

Remember, if you get custody at a certain time, no one is going to ask whether that's reasonable or not.  Kids get dismissed at school at 3:30... how do you pick them up when your XW moves a county over, and it's now an hour drive each way?  No one is going to care that this might not be fair to you, they'll just look at the terms of the divorce decree and say "she didn't violate anything.  deal with it."

[ForeverDad]

Regarding the children's residency...  eventually it will mean something when he approaches school age.

I recognized this as a concern early on.  In the temp order she had temp custody.  I needed her permission - which she never gave of course - if I was to speak with the counseling agency she chose for son.  He entered kindergarten with no input from me.  However, I was fortunate that he had an excellent teacher.  She invited me to join the class a few times and so I was able to trim papers and watch my son.  Teacher asked that I not tell his mother about this since she was banned from her classroom.  Really!

As Trial Day approached I already knew the Custody Evaluator wanted to try Shared Parenting.  He knew it might not work but he wanted us to try.  So when I arrived at court that day I knew where the professionals leaned... something relatively equal.  But I knew she would still feel in charge and dictatorial.  When I was greeted with the news she was ready to settle, after two years enjoying an order in her favor, I said I was still prepared for trial.  (Months later I found out her lawyer had told her she'd probably lose at trial.)  I had ONE condition to move forward on Shared Parenting... that I be the parent in charge of school.  (That included residency for school purposes.)  Both lawyers insisted it didn't mean anything.  Looking back, my lawyer never admitted it but he had to eat his words.

Her school was agreeable to him remaining the last 10 weeks of his kindergarten year.  But there was one too many incidents and school gave me one day to register him in my school.  She couldn't even behave herself for a couple months for son's sake!

Lesson learned:  Schools suffer in silence with the parent they're stuck with.  But if they can get rid of a problem parent, they will.

That's when I had confirmation I'd been wise to set that as a condition to settle.  It gave me a slight edge when everything else was claimed to be equal.