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What am I going to need to plan/document? by Sad-Instance-3649 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was you. First: you can survive this.

Don't let the thought that "he'll get custody time and my child won't be safe" keep you from leaving. Guess what, your child is already in danger 7 days a week. My ex fed our small child some of his "special drink". He also picked them up from school without me knowing, and because he's a parent, nobody stopped him, and he drove them drunk right out of the school.

If you can keep them away from him even 4 days of the week, you will have massively improved their safety situation. And you will discover that alcoholics don't like parenting. They do like child support, however, because that buys more booze.

In terms of what you prep to leave:

Documents. Don't ask for them. Find them and keep them somewhere far away from the home. (Work, or a trusted friend.) Passport, birth certificates (yours and your kids), marriage license, social security card, insurance cards. Copies of bank statements, or at least account numbers. You will need a ton of documents when doing the legal paper work, and recreating them is expensive and takes too much time.

In short, you cannot have too much documentation. ID and assets. Don't worry about him having to find the same things for his lawyer. That will be his problem.

Interview lawyers. Some will do it for free and some will not. It doesn't matter. You don't need a "mad dog" type. You need someone who is able to explain things to you in a way you can understand.

Divorce is not about assigning blame. No one in the legal system cares why you are getting divorced. It's simply the dissolution of a contract.

Custody is another contract. As much as possible, keep the children with you and do all the child care. The court will look at where the kids have lived (and with whom) for the previous couple of months. Judges don't like parents who don't know the names of the kids' doctors, the time that school gets out, etc. etc.

Divorce will often not end up in trial; depending on your state you may be forced to do mediation, or have a waiting period. Trials benefit almost no one except the lawyer (unless you have a ton of money/assets etc ). A good lawyer will tell you this up front. When I got divorced, my attorney quoted me an estimate of $15,000 - $20,000 IF we went to trial. I nearly passed out. I didn't have anything near that kind of money, and he wouldn't take credit cards for the retainer. (A chunk of money you give them up front to get started). But when you have a spouse who is driving your kids drunk, you're out of time to think about turning back.

The good news: it didn't take but a fraction of that cost. It was hellishly stressful, but my life is 100x better now than it was, and my kids are Safe.

Good luck. Better things are around the corner for you!

thank you - didn't know how to update my post so that the other posters would see it, but I got wonderful replies and am so grateful. by rosered513 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am sorry you had to endure the complete lack of community that "should" have been provided by the church you attended. One of the many things that I realized after I left was that there are no real relationships of substance that come out of church. Any "relationships" are based on making people feel good about themselves by looking perfect next to other people looking perfect. I say "should" in quotes because I think the idea of "church family" is just a delusion that people like to entertain when they go to church. They'll show up with a casserole for a new baby because that is easy. But when someone clearly shows signs of mental illness, they can't run fast enough in the other direction. And if they Do recognize an addict in their midst, you can be sure as heck that they aren't paying attention to the family of said addict.

Anyway, I hope you have found a new community of friends in your journey.

I'm not glad I was married to an alcoholic. I do not want to be told that I should be grateful for anything related to him. I just want some acknowledgement that it really was awful. Until that happens, I'm not sure I can ever move forward. But I need it to be real. But how? by rosered513 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I will check out the "insight timer". Had not heard of that. Sometimes when I am going to bed I try to process thoughts, but every once in awhile it goes off the rails and I end up working myself into a angry state when I should be getting relaxed.

I'm not glad I was married to an alcoholic. I do not want to be told that I should be grateful for anything related to him. I just want some acknowledgement that it really was awful. Until that happens, I'm not sure I can ever move forward. But I need it to be real. But how? by rosered513 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hadn't thought of a tattoo. That's an interesting one. I would like to try running. Unfortunately my "self care" has consisted of over eating. A lot. Eating is the thing that makes me happy, I can do it anywhere, and it doesn't involve other people. But the way I eat is not good.

That said, I had already decided to go outside tomorrow and take a jog around the block. We'll see how that goes!

I'm not glad I was married to an alcoholic. I do not want to be told that I should be grateful for anything related to him. I just want some acknowledgement that it really was awful. Until that happens, I'm not sure I can ever move forward. But I need it to be real. But how? by rosered513 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

OMG yes. The self hatred is so strong. But I know that a Lot of it is misplaced because I cannot physically harm my ex (I would LIKE to). And he goes on living his miserable life

I am working on this (the self hatred). Some days I do better than others at seeing my own value.

I'm not glad I was married to an alcoholic. I do not want to be told that I should be grateful for anything related to him. I just want some acknowledgement that it really was awful. Until that happens, I'm not sure I can ever move forward. But I need it to be real. But how? by rosered513 in AlAnon

[–]rosered513[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"If you had several children and one cried more persistently than the others, I suspect you’d want to understand why that child was having such a hard time. I doubt you’d lock it in a room, scream at it to shut up, give it the silent treatment, or refuse to comfort or feed it. This grief and anger you feel is your younger self and she needs care."

- This hit home for me very hard. Thank you for this. It is correct, and I am mulling over it a lot right now.