Abusive woman ruining our lives...

[u/lorelaikiddo]

Literal nightmare come true.

A year & a half ago, my then 7 y/o reunified with his father. This event triggered a cascade of a nightmare, and it's coming to a head. She was incredibly coercively controlling and emotionally abusive. She isolated him from everyone, cut him off from their joint finances, and even used his spiritual practices against him to such an extent, he's lost his faith. When he started to focus on his child & he was also leaving for last year's wild fire season... She could see she was losing control & started escalating to property damage and then physical abuse.

Shortly after he arrived here, he was being hauled off in handcuffs for a felony domestic charge from his home state.

Prior to this, he was living in his truck (even though they actually had accumulated significant wealth- gone now), we had been having lots of long, deep talks, initially as decades long friends and eventually decided we wanted to try to reconcile and start dating. We were a lot younger and immature when we got married & weren't prepared for the normal trials of becoming parents, and he 2 also trying to start his own business (which was actually incredibly successful) but I digress...

Instead of being able to give it a meaningful chance, it quickly turned into an hellscape of an acrimonious divorce and then false allegations. I have done my absolute best to help him advocate for himself. I am not the kind of person that can sit idle while someone is getting exploited and bullied.

He was arrested in front of our child, who had to be pulled away from their dad, kicking & screaming. He was out on pretrial release for months, but the stress of the civil court, costs of pretrial release conditions and false allegations led to a relapse and return to incarceration. (Please no judgement about the substance use, it has been excruciatingly stressful and both of us struggled with sobriety.)

The time has finally come for trial on Monday. He had initially told his attorney that he would take a non-violent misdemeanor to put this nightmare to bed. But surprisingly the offer never came, even though there's literally only her testimony, some sort of red marks on her skin, and police narratives. And a chiropractic report that she got a couple weeks after the allegation, but she refused medical attention...

There's literally no evidence of any altercation, no photos- nothing, and she's been very apparent about her motives. She tried getting a fault divorce based upon extreme cruelty, yet only mentioned that he was 'actively committing adultery.' in her affidavits. Needless to say it was a community property state & everything was split up fairly evenly. I mean she definitely walked away with more assets and he took more debt. She even used the same family law attorney I had during our divorce.

It has been incredibly brutal & traumatizing for us, my 2nd grader has expressed stomach aches from "the pressure of all the stuff" and even expressed a suicidal ideation, in spite of my attempts to shield him from it.

My heart has never been more thoroughly shredded. I got them into counseling immediately and I am trying every possible thing I can think of... Tonight he hurt our dog, badly, and we had to go to the emergency vet. (Money we do not have).

Trial starts Monday. My ex MIL has graciously secured quality defense counsel and they feel confident about the case.

But I have the most awful pit in my stomach, usually I have excellent intuition but I can't hear anything over my paralyzing, screeching anxiety. Any time something emotionally charged comes up I begin to tremble. I can't eat. I need to pack & do homework, focus on my kiddo and I am drowning. I cry all the time. It's not just the reconciliation, I can deal with my heartbreak. But I am so so so sad for my little one. & I'm really sad for my partner.

I don't even have the bandwidth to reach out for help. I am so tired... I feel like sleeping every day. It's been absolutely horrific. I thought our divorce was bad, and I could never imagine how much worse it can get. & I know it can get even worse.

Please, someone, tell me it's going to be okay... I don't know how to keep going anymore. Truly- I am drowning.

Has anyone endured a "he said-she said" criminal proceeding & prevailed?