How to actually move out

[Gerda]

I just finished reading the book Splitting, since it was recommended here. I realize that book is taking the approach of, "hope for the best but prepare for the worst," but it was still a bit scary to read and think about actually going through something like that.

That book looks like it will be very helpful for going through all the legal stuff in a divorce, but one thing I haven't been able to find much advice about is the actual moving out part of this process. I realize some of this might be questions I need to ask my lawyer (once I find one), but I'd also like it if anyone could tell me about how they accomplished the actual packing up and moving out part.

I admit thinking through all this stuff is kind of a coping mechanism for me.

I already know that I'm the one who will have to move out of our house. During fights when my husband threatens to divorce me, he always says I am definitely NOT getting the house. I'm totally fine with that! One of my husband's main hobbies is do-it-yourself projects around the house. He's got like 4 or 5 partly done projects going already (he's bad about getting started on something and then starting on another thing before the first thing is done). I also have a really long commute to work and would love the opportunity to move closer.

But I also really need to get primary physical custody of our 4 year old daughter. If you've seen my previous posts you know why my husband getting primary custody would be terrible for her, plus we live in a poorly-rated school district, so I'd also love the opportunity to move to a better one for her sake. I've read some places that courts tend to want the parent who's keeping the house also be the parent who gets custody, and I worry about anything that might make my upcoming custody battle worse. But I think these are two fairly non-negotiable things (me getting custody of our daughter and my husband getting the house). I think that would be best for all three of us.

So assuming I'm going to have to move out and take our daughter with me, I've been imagining how I could pull that off. I know that as soon as he gets the divorce papers, he's going to freak out and probably get into the biggest rage he's ever been in, because now he'll know he's losing me for good. I don't think I'm going to be able to tolerate living with him at all after that. (I can barely tolerate living with him sometimes now.) I don't have any friends or family living nearby that I can stay with, so I think I'll have to secretly rent an apartment that's ready to move into as soon as he gets his papers.

My daughter also very much needs to not be there when that rage occurs. He's already shown that he has not problem getting into rages at me in front of her. And if I take her away when he's throwing one of his fits (or even just say I'm going to take her away), he threatens to call the police on me and say I kidnapped her and that I'm a danger to her. I have read that legally I can't kidnap my own child, but he might still try something like that anyway.

My therapist said I can get "temporary orders" when I file for divorce, but that can take a month or two to get through the courts.

Then there's my stuff. I know that all my possessions I had before I got married are indisputably mine, plus some stuff I inherited from my dad when he passed away. I'm also worried he might destroy some of my stuff (since he's threatened to do that before too). When I mentioned this to a friend of mine, she said I could hire movers on the big day to move out all my separate property (which does include some furniture that would be hard for me to move myself). And it would be nice to not have to move into a totally empty apartment. Taking my stuff with me would be comforting to me.

Finally, I'll probably have to "kidnap" my cats too, not just my daughter. We have three cats. One was my husband's before we got married, and two are siblings that we adopted after we got married, so those two are community property. But I think I'm just going to have to take them too. One of those cats is bonded very strongly to me, and her brother is my daughter's favorite cat (and of course the two of them being littermates, they are bonded strongly to each other, so I don't want to split them up). I'm afraid my husband might try to fight me on my daughter's cat. I know pets are legally property, but these cats are adopted stray kittens and not worth any actual money, so I'm not sure how that will work. Will I have to pay him for the cat? Trade some other community property for the cat? Go to the animal shelter and get him a replacement cat?

I'm just thinking of worst-case scenarios here, like that Splitting book encouraged me to do. So I need to prepare for him throwing a huge fit, possibly destroying my stuff, possibly reporting our daughter kidnapped, etc. (I'm even a little worried about the welfare of the cats. I'd hate to think he'd hurt one of them directly, but he might "whoops I let them out all night and they got eaten by coyotes" or something like that.)

What I'm envisioning is doing this on a day when my husband is at work, my daughter is at preschool, and I'm off of work, which means it will probably have to wait until this summer. I'm a college professor and get a summer break. I'll have to secretly rent an apartment ahead of time, then hire movers to move out my stuff in one day, move out the cats that same day, and then pick up my daughter from school and take her to the apartment all before my husband gets home from work. Phew!

Has anyone else done something like this? How did it go?

[Tangled mangled]

Hi Gerda,
I think I know your story well.

18 months ago, I was in the same shoes as your in rn. I didn’t know about BPD, I thought I was dealing with a narc, I had just woken up to this narcissistic/bpd abuse as my parents are narc/bpd.
I was physically assaulted in front of my son who was 4 at the time, the police were called but since my child was the only witness, even though my husband was arrested, he wasn’t charged.
Lesson #1 evidence: your husband is raging at the moment, believe me he will get worse, and he might already sense you have reached your limit of tolerance.
I continued living in same home with mine after the assault: not advisable. Apart from the actual assault, I’m still suffering from PTSD from living in fear of being attacked for 7 months.

I eventually moved: now to your question

I moved 300miles away with my children, I used credit cards to pay for months in advance of rent.

In my case he knew I was leaving as there was no going back from a physical assault. The police were aware and whenever he started getting agitated I didn’t hesitate to call the police and in those 7 months he was taken into custody for a second time after the incident. All he had to do was raise his voice at me and once the police heard him yelling at 10pm , they came in quickly to take him away. Unpleasant for the children to witness and it was just all round a terrible experience.

So about actually moving,
I did this in steps
I started by moving important items away into a self storage space- eg photos, passports and documents, clothes and shoes that were expensive, cameras etc . Anything of value that belonged to me was moved while my husband was at work.

If it’s possible, I will advise you to make the police aware of what’s going on. You can call the non emergency department to discuss your concerns.
Ultimately, fear of what he might do will keep you stuck.
I remember at one stage during those 7 months, even though I was getting weekly support from a domestic violence charity and knew what I had to do , I was frozen and paralysed mentally. I dug into my stuff and found a poem I wrote in my late teens and my hurt inner child’s message in that poem gave me the courage I needed to start the process of moving out. Within 2 hours on thesame day I loaded 3 suitcases full of stuff that I took into storage and I did not stop until I left.
He continued raging until the day I left but knew the lines were drawn. I also started putting my camera whenever he started raging as this was the advice received from the police.

I

[Gerda]

Hi Tangled Mangled,

Thanks for sharing your story. My husband has never actually physically assaulted me, only threatened to. I'm in the situation where I kind of wish he went ahead and did it, because that seems to be when the authorities actually take things seriously. But as it stands he's only verbally/emotionally abused me.

But I do know that when you are leaving, their behavior tends to get much worse. Which is why I feel like I need to take every precaution.

Most of what I've read is about women leaving relationships that are physically abusive. Bad enough that the woman can get a protective order. I'm not in that bad of a situation. Just a situation where my husband could make my life very unpleasant while all the legal stuff is going on. That's why I'd want to move out as quickly as possible. Plus I don't want him to think he's going to be able to change my mind. I can imagine him oscillating between raging at me and begging me to reconsider.

Renting a storage unit sounds like an idea for me to consider. I could sneak out some things that he probably wouldn't notice ahead of time. That would give me less to do during the Big Day. But I wouldn't be able to take things like furniture or anything else that would be really obvious until the very last minute.

I don't plan on moving very far away, at least at first. I don't want my daughter to change schools right away, to minimize how much change she has all at once. She's in preschool now, and I thought I'd wait until she ages out of her preschool and is old enough to start elementary school, then move closer to my job and enroll her in an elementary school there. That is, if I'm legally allowed to do so. I'll have to ask a lawyer how far I'd be allowed to move.

I do have some recording I secretly made of a few of his rants and rages. My therapist advised me to try that if I can pull it off. Even if I can't use it as evidence in court for child custody battles or whatever, it's nice to have them so I can listen to them every now and then if I ever doubt myself and wonder if leaving him is really the right thing to do.

[livednlearned]

I hope this isn't too much information at once.

I had a son (9 at the time) and dog and like you, didn't care about the house, and didn't want my son to be exposed to the fall-out if there was a fight that would scar him beyond what he was already dealing with.

In the state where I lived at the time, there was a law called divorce from bed and board. Talk to an L to see if that exists where you live. Then plan accordingly.

My L encouraged me to stay if I could, but to be prepared to keep me and my son safe if it came to that. I focused much of my efforts on exiting safely while I waited for the right time to initiate divorce. I paid the lawyer's retainer and then got my ducks in a row.

To be able to rent an apartment, I had to show income = 3x monthly rent. My employer (former DV survivor) increased my hours and enabled me to get health care. I started to put part of that paycheck into a separate bank account. I also got a credit card in my name only, a PO box, and a burner phone that I kept on the property.

My ex was in the habit of locking me out of the house so I had a stash of things in a shed outside I might need just in case I got separated from my purse -- he also had a tendency to hide my purse in the house so there was that too  

He had activated a tracking app called Google latitude on my cell so I wanted a way to communicate with my lawyer and others in case I had to leave that phone somewhere to prevent him from tracking me. I wasn't sure if he was going to be physically violent but he was beginning to escalate what my L called "environmental abuse" like throwing things (he threw our dog), slamming the door when I was trying to go through it, punching the wall next to my head, locking me out, etc.

I rented a storage locker and over a period of time I started to put important papers and nostalgic items in there. A few times my ex took things I cared about and broke them so I slowly collected photo albums and other nostalgic things and stored them there. I also put clothing and anything I might need if he locked me out for days, then things that my son might need if we had to flee.

When I finally left, I moved into a county where the court system was known for being more fair. My L counseled me to make sure my son talked to ex that night to show there was no intention to "abduct" S9. Abduction isn't really a thing until papers are filed but we didn't want any allegations to stick. I'm so grateful for that advice because in retrospect the other county system was a "good ol' boy" family law court and my ex was an attorney.

This wasn't a concern for me but I read an article the other day that sent a chill down my spine: If you have a newer car and you're trying to keep your location secret, make sure he doesn't have access to the car app because if he does, he'll know where you are.

I made pretty elaborate plans to move out while my ex was at a conference, but things got really tense the week before -- I was at work and suddenly got notification that he had canceled access to two credit cards. You know when you know, I guess. My ex didn't have tender cycles like some people describe here. It was more of a downward trajectory, although he did stop drinking for 5 days leading up to our split, something that actually made him more menacing, which I didn't think was possible.

My boss knew my circumstances and encouraged me to get out before something worse happened, so I left work a week earlier than I anticipated and went to my son's school and met with the family counselor and principal to give them a heads up. Without a court order, either parent can pick their child up but I wanted them to know that depending on how things went S9 might not be at school until emotions had settled a bit, depending on what lawyers recommended. Then I took S9 to a friend's office while I went to my house. I called police and asked them for domestic assistance and they gave me 20 min to gather essentials.

This part was hard -- they wouldn't let me take my dog because she was considered marital property. One of the cops teared up while I was saying good bye because I was genuinely concerned what would happen to her with me gone, especially with a history of my ex being cruel to her.

I think it got to the cop because he said, "You can't take her while we're here, but we're leaving, and what you do next is up to you." They left, then I left, and then I turned back to get her, but as I was doing that I saw ex's car turn a corner and had no choice but to go without my dog. I guess in some ways it's fortunate because ex figured I didn't want the dog, which made him try to get rid of her, so a few weeks later she ended up with me.

That night I stayed in a hotel, then at some point -- it's all a blur -- we moved in to an apartment I had lined up.

This is the crazy part. A lawyer will not advise you to "take everything" from the house, but my L told me "I've had clients who have come home to houses stripped of everything, including the toilet paper. And there isn't much the courts will do about that."

It's so common that I almost suspected that lawyers thought you were dumb to not change locks on your house or, on the other side, take as much as you could.

I didn't take everything, but I did hire a moving company to get furniture that was mine, and all of S9's stuff, so that his room in the new apartment would be similar to what his old room was like.

I'm not proud of doing all this, but my kid had an almost seamless experience. His dad was becoming more erratic, more mean, more drunk, more manic. When my son was a bit older he said to me in the car one day, "I wish you protected me sooner."

Sometimes you have to break your own code about what's right and wrong to take care of your kid, who can't do the things only you can do.

Something I also started to do before I left -- I kept a Google calendar to track what was going on. I would enter incidents, appointments, etc. as events in a calendar I labeled "Legal" and then when it came time to summarize, I printed it out in agenda view to see a chronology of what had happened, including important dates. I didn't submit this to my lawyer, but it helped me in ways I can't put into words. Things move quickly and there are a lot of emotions and it's hard to remember what happened when. When I moved out, I also started to attach emails to certain dates so I could keep track of the ones I needed to help with my case.

Everyone has a different story about how they did things and yours will be unique to you. I'm sharing mine to show the level of detail I felt was necessary to make sure I was 10 steps ahead. My ex was a former trial attorney and he would threaten things like "no judge will believe you." I should thank him for tipping his hand  

At the time, I really believed what he said, because I knew nothing about how the family law court worked. Looking back, he was blowing smoke. But when it's about your kids, your survival, your pets, it's hard to know what to believe.

Weirdly, I think all that planning actually helped him. Because I wasn't in a free fall, I could make decisions from a more grounded place. I definitely made mistakes and there are things I wish I could've done better with less drama, but overall having a detailed plan helped keep me more sane, and that was better for S9 and for ex.

Leaving like that was shocking to me and I'm still in disbelief things came to that. I hope it isn't quite so dramatic for you, but if he's making you feel unsafe I don't see how people like us can ignore that, even if it's mostly cage rattling. Better to be safe than sorry has never meant so much to me as it did then.

And last, get a therapist! You need someone with a flashlight to guide you through the dark night of the soul. I don't know if you can get to the light without going through the dark park, but the light is there!

 

[Tangled mangled]

Gerda,

Do check your DV laws in your state. I know that threats of violence or any threat of harm is considered and taken seriously. It might help to have a body camera on you - perhaps a small one that can be concealed.

And just to reiterate, my husband was not physically abusive throughout  our 10 year relationship but he had threatened physical abuse 4 years prior to the actual assault. Looking back I can see how his fear of abandonment contributed to his aggressive behaviour.
Lnl made a good point about environmental abuse: breaking items, loud noises, slamming cabinets doors, working out in the kitchen, cooking very late in the night, I mean grilling foods so the smoke diffuses upstairs as all doors and windows are shut at midnight.

In the months leading up to the incident, mine too was rapid cycling between asking for forgiveness and blaming me. I was taking the blame for most things and he assaulted me because I challenged his victim hood. Not advisable.

Stay safe
At this stage, as there’s so much planning to be done, it might help to make a list on a device he had no access to. Approach the list one step at a time.
It all boils down to your financial situation really : if you have access to funds then moving out can be done quicker

[ForeverDad]

A few pointers here.  If at all possible do not depart without support. You have no idea what your spouse may say, threaten or do if you don't have support with you.  (You could ask the police to come and provide a safe zone while you quickly pack but that in itself could ramp up the conflict.  Of course, be prepared to call them if an emergency arises despite your precautions.)

Never leave your child behind.  You're right, it may take a few weeks or more before a court sets a "temporary order".  Until then custody is a virtual free-for-all, whomever has possession has the leverage.  What you'd like to avoid is this:  If you go off to work and your child is at school or a daycare, your spouse may decide to swoop in and claim her.  Each parent at this point has equal but undefined rights to the children.  That's the value of a temp order, it specifies some basic ground rules.

If you decide a divorce is in the future, then go ahead and file first.  Can your lawyer include in the filing that you be assigned as custodial and primary parent in the temp order?  If so, do that.  Don't be timid to ask for the reasonable most in the temp order.  Why?

One of the greatest risks we reasonably normal Nice Guys and Nice Gals face is that we are literally too nice and too fair.  Yeah, likely good intentions and niceness got us and kept us in this mess far too long, right?  So... henceforth... forget your Nice Gal impulses to be "fair" or to give "fair" notice.  Sure, do the legal minimums but no more.  The lesson to learn, if you haven't already, is that being nice or fair will end up enabling your spouse to sabotage your goals.  As long as you're not nasty, court won't care at all whether either one of you is fair.

[Gerda]

livednlearned,

Thanks for sharing your story in detail. I'm actually very interested in reading stuff like that to give me ideas, even if my situation is unique in its own ways.

I'm glad you eventually got your dog. I really don't think I could stand to leave my cats. I'll put a question about them on my list of questions for lawyers, but I really, really would feel bad leaving them.

ForeverDad,

I'm the one who usually picks our daughter up from preschool anyway, and I do that before husband gets off work, so as long as he doesn't suspect anything, I should be able to pull that off at least on the first day. Between that day and when the temp order goes through might get tricky though.

[ForeverDad]

ForeverDad,

I'm the one who usually picks our daughter up from preschool anyway, and I do that before husband gets off work, so as long as he doesn't suspect anything, I should be able to pull that off at least on the first day. Between that day and when the temp order goes through might get tricky though.

I was the working parent and for the 3 months we didn't have a temp order my then-stbEx always kept our preschooler with her.  I couldn't retrieve from school or daycare since so far as I ever knew she was never apart from him.  And as a father I didn't have the social perceptions on my side.  Police and others had no compassion for me as they would grant to a mother.

I recall one call I made to the police in her area.  I asked whether they would come with me to see my son. They declined, said it would only get involved if I had a court order in hand.  Then when I asked if I still went to see my son anyway and she called them, it was a total reversal, they confirmed they could come rushing to her aid.  I couldn't risk facing false allegations and possible arrest, so I had to wait for the court hearing.

[PeteWitsend]

Hi Gerda,

I also used a temporary storage unit, and endorse that approach.  It made moving out much more manageable, as I already had a place for stuff and didn't have to do it all at once.

And I got a second bank account and kept a modest "emergency" savings amount in that.  That was important too, and my attorney said it was okay, because I was not trying to steal money I was no legally allowed to, I was only taking less than the half I was entitled to and keeping that separate (saving it, not spending it)

One bit of caution: pay cash and to the extent possible do not give them your home address.  Use your work address or register a P.O. Box.  Here's why: even if the clerk tells you they won't mail anything to your house, it's likely their corporate office has deals with all sorts of marketing companies and other junk mailers and will start spamming you.

I got junk mail offers for additional insurance for my "secret" storage unit sent to my house... I was LIVID when I did and wanted to go and stuff them down the face of the moron that rented me the unit and assured me nothing would go to my home address. 

[PeteWitsend]

In any event, the emergency savings account was key.  Even though my ex-wife told me she wanted a divorce and we agreed that was the next step, she apparently didn't think it was real, and figured it was just another fight (she seemed to enjoy the high drama stuff in a way).

But she then had a meltdown on a Monday morning while I was at work, after asking me (via text message) where our daughter's passport was.  when I said I took it, went and took all the money out of every one of our joint accounts she could get her hands on.  She thought this would stop me, I guess, or keep me from leaving, giving her all the leverage?  Who knows?

 The court ordered her to preserve all the money in a separate account and I got my half of it in the end anyway.

[Gerda]

I was the working parent and for the 3 months we didn't have a temp order my then-stbEx always kept our preschooler with her.  I couldn't retrieve from school or daycare since so far as I ever knew she was never apart from him.  And as a father I didn't have the social perceptions on my side.  Police and others had no compassion for me as they would grant to a mother.

I recall one call I made to the police in her area.  I asked whether they would come with me to see my son. They declined, said it would only get involved if I had a court order in hand.  Then when I asked if I still went to see my son anyway and she called them, it was a total reversal, they confirmed they could come rushing to her aid.  I couldn't risk facing false allegations and possible arrest, so I had to wait for the court hearing.

I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'm pretty sure my mom has BPD (or at least some other serious mental disorder), so I know first hand what it's like to have a mom like that, and my dad just kind of stood aside and let her do all the parenting and was hardly involved in my life. He probably had his own psychological issues, but he's deceased now, so I guess I'll never know.

On the other hand, I kinda hate to admit it, but I hope those kinds of social perceptions help me a bit since my husband likes to threaten to take our daughter away from me.

It's ironic because my husband loves to lean into those traditional gender roles when he's trying to get out of doing any of the hard work of parenting our daughter. When our daughter was born it was like all of a sudden he wants a 50s housewife. I love my career, worked hard to get through graduate school to get it, and am absolutely not giving it up (we've had huge fights about this), so I'm left working a full time job plus doing 90% of the parenting, because according to him, that's just how things are supposed to be, women are just better at that sort of thing than men.

But then when the subject of divorce comes up (usually with him threatening to divorce me), suddenly according to him I'm this horrible neglectful, abusive, incompetent mother and he's going to spend whatever it takes to get the best lawyers ever and take me to court to get full custody of our daughter to "protect her" from me because I'm so evil.

I'm like, "OK, if I'm so horrible, then why do leave her with me most of the time?" He never has a good answer for that.

I have friends who went that route of being SAHM's and are happy that way, but that was never my plan for my life even before I met my husband. I also have friends where both parents work and they also both seem to split the parenting and housework equitably (that's what I wanted for my life). The thing that really irks me is my husband's view of "this is YOUR job, but also you're terrible at it and I'm afraid to leave our daughter alone with you, even though I do it all of the time." It's like the worst of both worlds that way.

My therapist has commented a couple of times that in many ways I'm living like a single mom already.

[livednlearned]

in many ways I'm living like a single mom already.

I felt like parenting solo in a marriage was harder than being a single mom. At least, it was in my experience.

My n/BPDx had the same message: You're a terrible mother; do all the parenting.

Then he fought for as much custody as he could on paper while giving away the time he had in practice.