I am looking for general advice from those who have been in something similar. The situation is a little complicated but in a nutshell my wife has been abusing our children, I went to file for a protection order on my own at the Courthouse and she showed up and filed her own against me after I filed mine, so it was obviously reactionary even to the court. They had us before a judge an hour later and me and my 15 year old daughter testified to what my wife was doing to my daughter and her two siblings. My wife in turn made up a pack of lies, not one thing she said was factual and had easy ways to counter the veracity of them. But the female magistrate dismissed me and my daughters protection order and granted my wifes. The judge said she was not ruling on the children and they could go with who they wanted. The children chose to be with me of course, the sheriffs dept gave us 15 minutes to pack a bag for 7 days and leave the house. While we were doing this my wife showed up to the house and got into chest-to-chest yelling arguments with the police (one was a woman one was a man) and almost got arrested on the spot.

We are staying in a hotel until next week, Thursday, when we will have to appear in court to see what the outcome of this will be. I was told it could be a restraining order up to a year against me at the most, or dismissed at the least, and anything in between. I was advised to get divorce proceedings underway and get this into family court asap. I have Met Life Legal Plan from work and was given a list of 40 lawyers in my state that cover Protection Orders AND Contested Divorce, I spent Friday emailing and calling all of them. By the end of the day Friday I did not have a lawyer set yet but I think it's because most lawyers cut out early for the weekend and I'll hear back Monday from most.

She has been getting steadily more mentally unstable for the last 5 years, and when we try to get her help she goes off the narcissistic deep-end that it's not her it's everyone else, she says that her truth is all that matters, and she makes our lives literal hell for weeks just for trying to help her. She became hugely financially unstable, spending thousands and thousands of dollars per month on junk. Just stacking boxes in the dining room not even opened. I cut her off from the finances six months ago and just started getting us above water when this all exploded. I make over $200k/year and live paycheck to paycheck because of her.