I'm just a guy, booksmart at times but I have a tendency towards social naivety. I'm in a seemingly unending continuation of the emotional abuse I suffered at the hands of my now ex-wife, a 39 year-old, pregnant former stripper who has milked the system her entire adult life in pursuit of the ever-arching goal of not working.
I'm not an angel by any means, but I feel like every aspect of my life has been consumed by the emotional manipulations this woman employs. I can't date, due to both: a dizzying array of recently acquired relationship fears and the fact that she gave me herpes on purpose.

The most soul-smothering aspect of the grindstone of abuse she still wields is that she uses our children in particular to hurt me. I am a devoted father, as anyone who spends literally ANY amount of time with us will see. I love my kids more than anything else in the world. Somehow they love me too.

The problem that most occupies me is the custody and child support issue. My ex mislead me into assigning her primary custody. She wanted to qualify for food stamps and needed us to have separate addresses, so she concocted a scheme to convince me to get her oldest son (18 at the time) to move out by renting a crappy apartment. He was being a pain in the ass at the time, coming home drunk late at night, waking the babies, being belligerent, etc., so I guess I was a bit susceptible. I don't remember the lies that convinced me to sign the lease for him, but the absolute next workday, she strolled into the "Family" "Advocacy" center and applied for good ol' SNAP. Medicaid too. I learned of this twist when I was mailed a summons to family court for assignment of child support. Of course she intercepted the letter and was waiting with a long and winding (much like this story) tale about how she was just going to use the apartment to help us feed her youngest 4, besides my two boys. Yes, that is a total of 7 children, of which my boys are the youngest. She pleaded for me not to dispute the addresses with the court, because although her and I were married and things were generally good between us, she had previous run-ins with the law and had recently been the object of a TPO, because she struck me and ripped my scalp. Again, more lies and I capitulated. I had no lawyer, at her suggestion, because why would I need one? The magistrate apparently was more than happy to hand custody of my boys to my wife and lien a large support payment on me without a word of explanation of what was actually at stake there. I admit my complete foolishness, but as I said; I'm booksmart. Addendum: Not law books. Other books. Give me a break, I can't read everything. This occurred in 2014. Within days of that court hearing, my not-yet ex-wife was off clubbing, sleeping around, and coming home with breasts engorged with white Russians. After several months of weekly unwilling, unhappy cuckolding, I lashed out. She laughed at me when I first grabbed her, saying "I got your ass now", I let my pent-up frustration rage out of me and choked her, threw her to the ground, and slapped her several times, very hard. I'd never hit a woman before. Or since. Although I realize now I'd never before let myself acquire such a reservoir of disgust, resentment, and hate. She poured it out with her words like arsenic coffee, and I soaked in it out of desperation trying to save a doomed marriage. 5 years I spent being verbally, financially, and sexually abused by my wife, and her orchestration of the demise of our relationship has locked me into a decade and a half more of financial slavery, with my children as hostages.

Two years ago I engaged a lawyer to help me get a better arrangement, as despite a 6 day work week, I had my boys no less than three days a week. I had recently bought a house to live within the same school district as my sons, because just under a year after our divorce was final, my ex remarried, and moved to the edge of the county.

About 6 months after I moved to my new house, the ex leaves her husband, claiming domestic violence. Come to find out she was sleeping with her boss at the first job she ever held for at least 6 months. (still the record, btw). I refused to let her move in with me, so she went back to the other end of the county, and moved the kids back to the other school district. My lawyer talks a good game but screws up the date on the serving papers to her, so she gets an extra month which she uses to find a pro-bono lawyer. We go through mediation, she moves a boyfriend in with her and OUR kids despite only knowing him for a couple weeks. Her youngest daughters start having significant psychological issues and get abusive with my sons. My ex conceals the fact until my older son tells me, months later. I demand in mediation that her daughters not babysit, as they were unfit. She accepts. We come to an agreement for custody, but she backs out. Summer rolls in.

The next 6 months were a blur of her shifting from boyfriend to husband, back and forth, changing residences, until her mom fell out of remission and kind of withered off into death. The 2-month period during her mom's slow-motion egress from the mortal coil consisted of the ex spending most of her days at her mother's side, trying to patch things up with her husband, and begging me not to expose her pregnancy (not by her husband, or her boyfriend,.... or me, for that matter) to her mother on the deathbed. It disturbs me that she would even think of such a thing. And all this time, despite being regularly updated, my excellent lawyer managed to acquire absolutely nothing.

Anyhow, just before my ex's mother died, my oldest step daughter asked me if I could do her a favor and let her have her 20th birthday party at my house. She lived in a rathole apartment and had pissy neighbors who wouldn't let her play music, etc.. I agreed over the phone but insisted that no one underage be drinking. She assured me that she would be vigilant and I wouldn't have to worry. I'm sure you can see a pattern here.

Still paying my fines, but I'm done with my time. I got house arrest, and still managed to have my boys every weds night and every weekend fri-sun. Now the ex is resorting to sending insulting, accusatory text messages and demanding more money. I fired my lawyer, because wth am I paying him for? He managed to piss her off and failed to come away with any permanent changes to anything.

I honestly just want to kill myself. I have fought and fought to provide my sons with a safe, stable home, plenty of room to grow and play and learn, and my ex is incessant in her hatefulness. I recently learned of the term "gaslighting" and holy crap did that blow my mind. It was like reading a book about the past decade of my life. I'm in a piss poor position, I know, and she is relentless in her verbal & textual assaults. I dunno if you've ever had a stalker, but that "DING!" when a text comes through? It is the worst sound ever. Especially when it's followed by 10 more. Or 20. I am literally only on this planet still because I love my kids too much to depart that way. I hate her.

What do I do?