Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for all your replies.

BB77 - I have done exactly what you have suggested, and I will be seeing my solicitor tomorrow at 9.30am. He has raised this possibility (moving away from this area) before, but then last night he SMSed me about it again and has been pushing the issue all day (BULLYING is totally the right word!!). All I have said to him is that I will not discuss it with him as I am about to get legal advice. I've made it clear before that I have no intention of moving just because he wants to.

The whole "proving me an unfit mother" is a constant theme of his. I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder not long after my younger daughter was born, and went through cognitive behavioural therapy as well as going onto Zoloft (as an anti-anxiety med, although I was probably suffering a bit of PND at the time too). I'm still on the meds, so as far as he is concerned, I am mentally ill. Let's just ignore the fact that I sought help and went to therapy and I have benefited greatly from the medication. Unfortunately for me (although really I think a magistrate would laugh this out of court - that doesn't stop him bringing it up at every opportunity) when I went to CBT, one of the "homework" exercises was to identify specific situations where my anxiety levels were going through the roof, and identify what I was actually saying to myself (eg OMG the world is going to end, this is such a disaster) and then say something more constructive to myself (eg this isn't so bad, I can deal with this). So one of my examples was when my kids (about 2 1/2 and 9 months at the time) were going completely bonkers and XH was at golf or somewhere, and I was saying to myself "I yell too much, my kids will hate me one day" but then turned it around and managed to get myself calmed down. Well guess who has the notes that I wrote..... I totally didn't even think about the fact that they still even existed, but he keeps telling me that he is going to show them to the world to show that I am a self-confessed horrible yelling mother who will never be able to cope with raising the girls myself!!!!!

Some more background, I was emotionally abused by him for the entire 10 years we were together, and that is why I left. He claims now that he basically raised the girls single-handedly - which he "proves" by telling about how he would always to be the one to get them ready each day before they went to daycare, I was always begging him to give me time off etc etc etc (his interpretation: I didn't want to be with my kids). For starters, I wanted time off like he got 5 hours off each week to play golf. Secondly, I offered a MILLION times to get up earlier and change my routine by getting up earlier and spending more time with the girls and getting them ready in the mornings. But of course that would have meant going to bed earlier and then maybe he wouldn't get to harrass his way to getting sex every night, so he wouldn't hear of it. Often he was a devoted, loving husband, but that was always underpinned by possessive and abusive behaviour like criticizing the clothes I wore if it showed the slightest bit of cleavage (and I mean VERY slight) or insisting that my boss hiring me had nothing to do with my talents or carrying on for days and days if I even dared suggest going to lunch with someone other than him (we work in the same building), let alone what I would cop if I DID actually go to lunch, and woah, if I had a glass of wine at lunch with other people, and actually had FUN, look out. I did that a few days before my birthday last year and was hearing about it for weeks after.

And yet my constant anxiety was about me being an incompetent mother???

Sorry for all the waffle, but it's been a really big day. Just after I started writing that, he started sending nastier and nastier emails. Basically his logic is this:

I am a completely unfit mother.

He WAS willing to share custody 50/50 with me anyway (wtf??) but now, since I refuse to consider moving, he will fight me for full custody.

And if the girls seem at all distressed between now and our day in court, he will take action to have them removed permanently from my custody.

I hate him. I really do.