'AITA for serving my husband divorce papers when he wanted a divorce?'

"AITA for serving my husband divorce papers when he wanted a divorce?"

I (39f) was pregnant and a stay-at-home mom to my toddler when my husband (39m) said he doesn’t love me and wants to split up because I “was too hormonal.” I was blindsided.

Admittedly, I’d been critical of his messiness, his challenges keeping up with household duties, & our values differed (he prioritized work and I a more balanced lifestyle, he committed to a vegan lifestyle while dating & went back on it which I was critical of).

Despite the shock, I tried to fight for us, apologized profusely, & we gave it another shot. The baby was born and three months in, he tells me he wants a divorce after I woke him up at 10am to move his laundry.

I was feeling resentful that he was unhelpful but because he works late nights, he considered this the biggest disrespect and flipped out, swore at me, and said he wanted out.

We both wanted to settle outside of court so we looked for mediators. I found 2, but it went nowhere because we were so far apart: he demanded 50% custody, immediate overnights for kids, & to pay no child support although he was the breadwinner (he said that because my parents have money, they should cover us).

He even claims we’re not married & thus it’s not a divorce just because we didn’t file the marriage license on time (we had a religious ceremony and a civil ceremony). So when mediation was going nowhere, I got a lawyer (without his knowledge) and planned to serve him a divorce.

Before serving him, he moved out, but still expected to use the house. One time, he came back to see the kids—but he was working loudly & disruptively so I asked him to leave.

This led to a major altercation - he swore at me in front of the kids & my parents threatened to call the cops. After this, he canceled the credit card I used to pay for the kids’ without warning. Then he got served the papers. Immediately he asked for my car title (which had his name on it) & the kids passports, and canceled my phone which he was paying for.

Since I didn’t have a working phone & my lawyer considered him a flight risk & he wasn’t communicating efficiently through the lawyers to make a schedule, he didn’t see the kids for 2 weeks.

We had our day in court but the final determination is delayed because he insists we aren’t married. Since he got served, he’s been furious & accuses me of being pure evil. But the divorce was his idea; I wanted to work things out.

He thinks taking him to court for custody & child support is the “most vile” thing & shows my “poor character.” He’s bad-mouthed me to family and friends. He thinks I’ve been controlling with the kids schedule (he sees them 3 days a week but I’m not comfortable with sleepovers at his house yet).

He’s also furious about the 2 weeks he didn’t see the kids. Yet, he still hasn’t paid a dime of their expenses & has more potential quality time with them than he ever did. So tell me, AITA for serving my husband divorce papers and asking for child support for my young sons instead of just letting him leave & giving him 50% custody?

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:

HandlebarWallace

Ye old 50% custody so shouldn’t have to pay child support ploy. With a newborn? Ha! You’re doing all the things. Keep listening to your lawyer. NTA.

bigfruitbasket

Listen to your lawyer, listen to your lawyer, listen to your lawyer. Also, document every visit for your notes so you don't forget his unhinged behavior: who, what, where, when, how. Bust out that cell phone to record his diatribes.

Thallannc

No. That scumbag is, diplomatically speaking, unhinged.

BeachinLife1

You are obviously NTA, and I'd love to hear what the judge's opinion of him was when he or she found out that he had basically cut off all support for his kids. Under no circumstances do you give him the kids passports, (don't even keep them at home). And set up a "flag" where you will be notified if someone tries to get replacements for them, or if he ever gets hold of them and tries to leave the country with your kids.

Fight the 50/50 while your kids are babies. He works nights and sleeps half the day, what's he gonna do, leave them home alone all night? Between the night shifts and being basically unhinged, you should get full custody.

Your lawyer needs to be going for maximum child support and depending on where you live, alimony if possible. This is a situation of his own creating, and now he can check out that "greener" grass he wanted.

strangelifedad

NTA. As a divorced man I just can implore you: listen to your lawyer. No interaction with stbx other than the children. And document everything. Either by video or audio. Always ask for consent. If he denies the consent end the conversation. Keep sny and all texts and try to have witnesses as often as possible.

grayblue_grrl

Oh man.....Just keep documenting the BS and provide it to your lawyer. Follow lawyers directions and see if you can change the locks. Let him tell everyone whatever he wants. You can add cruelty and abuse to the divorce.. When it is over, you can show anyone who asks, the documentation.

In my experience - he wants the kids because he wants to punish you. The less upset you are, or he sees, the sooner he will stop. Your only concern in the children's safety. But make sure you document all his absences and his "poor character". NTA.

OP added this in the comments:

Firstly, we had an agreement in place that he would help move the laundry over (especially his own) bc he decided to get a top-opening dryer that I couldn’t even physically reach into. Secondly, he was such a slob, he would leave his laundry in the machine for days until it reeked of mold and he had to start the cycle all over again.

I think it had been at least a full day or two of me reminding him to move over his own laundry because I had a lot of kids laundry I had to do that was getting urgent. He promised repeatedly that he would get to it before going to sleep that night. Thirdly, he does not work “the night shift” as some have assumed.

He works from home (gaming online), creating his own hours, as his own boss. So he would often work late into the night, but typically be asleep by 3am at the latest. This particular night before I woke him, he had fallen asleep by 2am and thus I actually waited until he had a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep before waking him up and asking him to do what he had promised to do the night before.

This was after 8 solid hours of sleep for him and meanwhile I had been up already since 6am running after a toddler, taking care of a newborn, still healing from birth, and having had to wake up throughout the night to nurse every other hour with a total of maybe 5 very interrupted hours of sleep.

As for the vegan thing, I was open to being with a non-vegan when we met, obviously. But he fully embraced the vegan lifestyle on his own, even coming to a raw vegan center for a couple weeks and saying that it was “the way of life” and if we were ever to break up he would still be plant-based.

This was very a big attraction for me at the start and we built our home, family, and lifestyle together with this foundation.

Then after some time he wanted to go back to meat, which was dissapointing for me and since he’s such a self-proclaimed “highly sensitive person” my disappointment felt critical to him, although it mostly took the form of making him brush his teeth in between eating meat and kissing me or complaining about the smells when he cooked it, especially when i was highly-sensitive to scents while pregnant.

So ultimately yea definitely an incompatibility thing.

As for the sleepovers, it is not in the children’s best interest at this time, as the baby is still so young and they shouldn’t be split up, children need stability and routine and my ex is nothing but chaos, he has an erratic schedule working all night and sleeping all day, doesn’t know how to put the children’s needs before his own, and from what I’ve heard his place is a complete pig-sty...

They come home from an afternoon with him filthy, ravenous, and disregulated, I can’t imagine what a whole 24 hours would do. I’ve been consulting with a child expert/child-centered mediator this whole time who has helped me work out the schedule and when sleepovers should start. I’ve always only acted in the best interest of the children.

As of now he has them coming over to his place and spending half days with them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then all day Sundays. That’s a lot more time than he was spending with them before we split. I’m not withholding them from him. I want them to have a great relationship with their dad.

I just have to set boundaries and be firm with this schedule that we agreed to and I came up with with the child expert, or he’ll try to manipulate the situation to get what he wants, which isn’t in the children's best interest.