# Ahh! I can't believe I am in this situation! Do you think I'm overreacting?



## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

Ok, so bit of backstory, my stbxh is very mentally unstable, and recently had some sort of mental break that precipitated our separation and my decision to seek a divorce. I have gone back and forth on how seriously mentally ill he is, if maybe I should have tried harder to reconcile, etc. But at the time when the chips were down and he was trying to tell me we can work things out, my gut told me we couldn't and to go to him would be a huge mistake. Then he blipped out of my life for two months. Totally vanished, no contact, no response to e-mails, to response to my lawyer when he contacted him, etc.

I am currently living with my parents, saving up money with the intent to move in June/July. Yesterday my parents and sister left for Nicaragua (long unrelated story as to why), leaving me to care for the other three siblings (aka the three family cats, lol), and spend what I thought would be a quiet, enjoyable week here alone.

Apparently, late last night my father got a phone call from my stbxh. I woke up half an hour ago to a text from my dad saying Josh had called him, he was nearby to me, and might try to see me. My dad said I might want to consider staying with someone else.

My immediate reaction was sheer panic. The kind you can't even move or think in. I am working on calming down now and trying to weigh the scenerio rationally. I, and my family, have a talent for grossly overreacting to situations. My parents have it even worse than I do, so just because my dad is saying I might want to leave the house doesn't mean anything. He would probably say that if he heard that someone had robbed a jewelry store two counties over, too. When it gets later in the day I am going to try to get more information from him, obviously, since what he sent me really wasn't a lot to go on.

But on the other hand, I do need to try and understand what it is about my husband's recent behavior that scares me so much that my initial reaction to possibly seeing him was sheer terror. He has no history of serious violence. He has slapped me twice, in the middle of very heated arguments (which is certainly not acceptable, but also doesn't automatically mean he now intends to do me bodily harm), and he used to joke a lot about doing much worse (one of the things on the very long laundry list of reasons he was not a good, stable partner), which is probably where I am now getting this panic from. There is always a seed of truth at the heart of a joke, and just how serious he was, or possibly has become about the level of violence he wants to commit, towards me or others I'm not sure of. He used to be an ardent pacifist, actually. THAT was the man I fell in love with. My hippy. But of late he has become more violent in his way of talking or his beliefs for how the world can be fixed, and he became very much of a fundementalist mindset about marriage. Basically he seemed to believe I was his property, and he has the right to do with me what he wanted, and I would just have to take it, and if I didn't I wasn't holding up our marriage contract. It never really became a situation where he would try to physically force me to do what he wanted, but I could see that being the logical next step.

But things could go either way with him. He might have entirely innocent intentions with coming back into my life, trying to honestly reconcile. I know that an element of my fear is also entirely unrelated to any physical harm, but rather I just don't want to deal with him. I don't want to be faced with him, faced with all the hurt he caused me, faced with making decisions of where I draw the line. Do I let him talk to me? Do I let him suck me into trying to reconcile? If so, where do I draw the boundaries on the situation? There are a million tightropes I would have to walk to not allow myself to get back into a very miserable situation, and I am afraid to have to deal with that to any degree. It is much easier for my stbxh to simply be MIA.

I am very sorry for the jumbled state of this message. Just please tell me your thoughts, whatever they are. I need to talk to people to help me figure this out, and even if you have (hopefully!) never been in this sort of situation, your thoughts would still help me.


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## SlowlyGettingWiser (Apr 7, 2012)

Glad you're here, take a deep breath.

You decided to file for divorce, so at this point you are separated from hubby.

You are staying alone in your parents' house for one week.

Your mentally unstable hubby was MIA for two months and has now resurfaced by contacting your father. Your father thinks hubby may try to see you.

Okay, think I've got the picture.

1.) You are NOT obligated to answer the door, talk through the window, acknowledge hubby IN ANY WAY if he shows up uninvited at your parents' house. Tell him (through a CLOSED door, shout if you must) to leave as you do not want to see him. Then walk away. If he continues, knocking/bell-ringing/shouting, simply call 911 and tell them that your ESTRANGED husband is trying to demand entrance into your parents' home. Tell them you are SEPARATED and he is mentally unbalanced and you do NOT feel safe with him there. The cops will come, they will make hubby go away.

2.) If hubby contacts you by phone (call or text), YOU decide whether you want to talk/text him or not. You are not OBLIGATED to answer the phone because someone calls you...it is there for YOUR convenience (cannot seem to get my 14yo to understand that.)

3.) If he persists in annoying you in person, call the police again. You may want to invite a friend to spend the night as back-up (with a cell phone) or you may choose to spend the night somewhere else. YOU are in control, NOT hubby. If he persists in annoying you by phone, turn it off (cell phone). Make sure you have a phone (I assume your parents have a portable, ie walk-around-with-it, phone) in their home. Make sure the handset is within 3 feet of you at all times (even in the bathroom) in case you are spooked or if you honestly feel harrassed by hubby.

The reason I recommend the portable phone OVER the cell phone is that on a cell phone, you have to TELL THEM THE ADDRESS. If you are panicked, you're not always thinking clearly. On a land-line phone, the address should register AUTOMATICALLY with 911 when your call is received.

4.) Do not allow your parents (however well-meaning) to escalate your fears! You are an intelligent person, in control of her faculties, aware of her situation, aware of POTENTIAL (not absolute) dangers, and you know how to act to protect yourself. Do not become a hostage to fear.

5.) If you are not already in Individual Counseling, get in it NOW. Even BEFORE saving money to move out. Getting yourself on firm emotional ground is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do to insure a happy, safe future.

Stay safe, stay happy, stay peaceful!


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## melissa68 (Feb 10, 2012)

Your initial reaction was panic....not anger or frustration or confusion but panic...trust your instincts. The first thing that popped out at me about your post was that you've been staying with your family for two months and he's made no contact....they just left for a trip and you are alone and all of the sudden he makes contact? Could be a coincidence but be careful. You do not have to talk to him or see him just because he initiates it. Do you have anyone who could stay at the house with you maybe? 

Be safe and don't do anything you're not comfortable with. Trust yourself


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## SilverPanther (Feb 2, 2012)

Thank both very much for your replies.

Called my dad and got more of the story from him. He is not overly concerned, he said my ex was calling him to see about coming to pay me a visit, which Dad strongly dissuaded him from doing. I am a little mad at my Dad because he did mention that they were in Nicaragua and I was staying here alone, which it seems my ex didn't know already. But it didn't seem that my ex was in a particularly unstable place, just more of the BS he's been doing on and off. I did think a lot about staying somewhere else, and decided against it. I have no evidence my ex is coming here anytime soon, or that if he is that he would be a danger to me. To run and hide now would set a precedent for my life right now that I do not want. Unless I decided to go into hiding in some way, if my ex really wanted to find me, he could, whether here at my parents, at my job, or when I'm living alone in a new apartment. And I am not going to live my life afraid. That's part of what I'm trying to change about my life now that it has taken this dramatic turn in the road.


That being said, I have been very nervous today. I am a panicky person on the best of days, and again this is just something I want to face and improve. I am not going to be stupid or reckless though. My stbxh should know the way to approach me respectfully and with a desire to reconcile is NOT to show up uninvited at my door, and if he does show up there, I will ask him to leave. He has to prove to me he can respect the boundaries I have set thanks to his behavior, before I will see him. I hope he doesn't show up at all, but if he does, I have a plan in mind for how to handle it. 

I just wish this had not happened. I was so looking forward to a nice, quiet week to myself. :-/


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## 2nd_t!me iz_best (Feb 28, 2011)

do you have anybody that can come and stay with you for a couple days maybe?
other family, friend?


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