Help wanted please!

It's a very long story, but I will try to put in a nutshell. Married much younger foreign girl, after 3 months she tells me that if I do not help her defraud a guy she met somewhere, out of £20,000 she is leaving me to live with him. She leaves. I am a mess. Some months later, she comes crawling back, I am high on Prozac and stupid, I take her back. BIG MISTAKE!

Then ensues 5 years of on and off misery, in which she mentally abuses me on a regular basis. Has me falsely arrested, accuses me of having affairs, general abuse over nothing. She is paranoid, depressed with possible Borderline Personality Disorder. Semi-psychotic events, with extreme verbal abuse and occasional physical. She seems to feed of my pain and anguish. After her 'attacks' she is all sweetness and light. She is popular people like her. Nobody has a clue what I am enduring.

Baby appears in 2005 - she has counselling for severe PND. This is the only time she has accepted counselling. Things improve a bit. I am suffering mentally and physically with M.E. like symptoms - very difficult to find and hold down job. She is main breadwinner.

I have a small business (making small money) and look after our son who has learning difficulties and now receives DLA benefits.

6 months ago, she speaks to a work colleague about her regular 'attacks' and almost overnight they seem to have stopped. But we are getting into severe financial difficulties, although managing to get by, just.

Then a week ago she announces that she is getting a divorce based on MY unreasonable behaviour!!!!! What irony! No remorse for what she has done to me, no guilt, no conscience....The fact that it would harm our son is of no interest to her, she says 'i can give him a better life'...what a joke...

We bought our house courtesy of my inheritance, and if it goes, I will be consigned to flat renting for the rest of my natural.

But it is the thought of what will happen to my poor son if the courts give this psycho custody. It just makes me cry. I am a nervous wreck, I can't eat, sleep or do anything....HELP!!!

Hi

Sorry to hear about your situation. You will find you will get lots of help and support here as we have all been through the mill to varying extents.

First thing is that married parents have joint responsibility for their children. It is very rare for one parent to be given sole residency (the new word for custody!). You need to carry on being a good dad so you can demonstrate your ability to look after your son if it comes down to court. So you must look after yourself and try to avoid a downward spiral. I know from personal experience that it is hard to stay positive, at this time. The best thing is to try and do some new things to try and take your mind of what is happening, and make small steps into your new life

Take care

S

Hi and welcome to wiki where you will make friends and get some support and good advice.
I am really sorry to hear of your situation and a complex one it is.
There are alot of positives in your life, your son being one of them and I feel that you are thinking too far ahead with courts giving custody to your wife. You have a small business so you are a resourceful man and you manage to look after your son and run your business.You have alot of strength of character and this shows in what you have said about yourself, you have tolerated alot more than most men from this woman and maybe it is a good thing that your marriage has reached the point you are at.
Not many wives or husbands when they are the ones breaking up the marriage have alot of remorse or guilt as I am sure you will find out on this site, so if its an apology you are looking for sadly I dont think its coming your way.
I can understand your anger and your sadness, you wouldnt be human if you didnt feel those things at this moment in time.
Not eating or being able to sleep is perfectly normal given the anxiety that you are feeling, do you have any relatives or close friends that can come and support you?
Have you been to a solicitor yourself yet?
Keep posting on here as you will get abundant moral support,
Take care
Angie

Hi, and thanks for your words people, I am hanging on every one of them

Two years ago, we were living in my Mothers house, she has Alzheimers, finally then she had to go into a home and the house was sold. We moved away to Devon, partly because I wanted to bring my son up away from London and partly to get away from her family who are a very bad influence on her. The stress she felt from her family was always taken out on me.

Although the extreme nastiness has stopped, she is frankly, quite child like in her thinking. Everything is seen as 'black or white', either she loves someone or she hates them. Everything is great or it is hopeless. She comes from an almost 3rd world country where her Father used to get drunk every night, beat up Mother, disappear for weeks to see different women, went to jail for three years etc etc

She didn't have much schooling and lives on a diet of East Enders and Hello magazine. I am sure you are getting the picture by now.

Anyway, due to circumstances, I haven't really got any really good friends down here and my sister is unsympathetic with a "it serves you right for taking her back" attitude.

I am about to go and see my GP, although I really don't want to go on medication again. And I am thinking about going to see 'Relate', but cannot really afford it, and without her prescence, is there any point anyway?

I have not been to see a solicitor yet, because I am hoping (possibly in vain) that she will change her mind. Particularly if I can find a job in the very near future. I can at least understand that she has had enough of being the main breadwinner. But that is the only point on which we concur. Also, I have very little money to pay a solicitor, so what do I do about that?

Please keep writing, this is helping...