My husband threw me out of the house and divorced me, leaving me and one of my children homeless. What do you suggest I do?
Question:
Hello, I have a difficult situation that I need help with. I'm a member of the Lord's church, the church of Christ.
My husband and I divorced two years ago and we have several children together, one of which my husband is not the biological father, but he raised my child since he was a baby.
My husband at the time falsely accused me of abuse and filed a TRO, putting me out of the house and onto the streets. I had not worked during our years of marriage and had no access to the money -- I had never been on any of the accounts. Eventually, the TRO was dissolved, thrown out, but during which I found out my husband had filed for divorce months prior behind my back while we were still together -- I had no idea. I was left out of the house while going through our divorce and was ordered to babysit the kids during his work hours. During the divorce, my husband split our children, putting my oldest child out (his non-biological child) because he was upset with me, leaving my child homeless with me, staying in shelters and hotels, and sometimes my car. My husband fought me for sole custody of our three children and he eventually got awarded sole custody. My husband did not want me in our children's lives. At the time he was seeing another woman. In the divorce, I did get visitation but have decided not to do it because I was afraid that he would falsely accuse me again and also because I didn't want to bring the children together and then have them torn apart over and over. So I haven't seen my three younger children in over two years now. We live a far distance away. I talk to them every day and have tried over and over to talk to my ex, reconcile with my ex and get him to see the damage this has and is causing to our children. He won't even admit fault and doesn't see any wrong in what he's done. I continue to pray and I have remained unmarried, single, and still faithful to our vows.
What advice do you have?
Answer:
It appears to me that you are clinging to false hope. Since your husband filed for divorce months prior to you finding out and because he was seeing another woman, the logical conclusion was that he was committing adultery and thought he would marry this woman.
I assume you lost custody of children because you did not have means of support. I am surprised that you weren't able to get alimony from the divorce as well as partial custody of the children. But that is now in the past. Since you haven't exercised your visitation rights, it would not be easy to get this settlement changed.
If I'm correct that this divorce, regardless of what was said, is really about his adultery, then you would have the right to marry again if you so choose. But for now, I would suggest just focusing on getting your life back in order and seeing that your child is properly raised.
