It was a little over two years ago when everything fell apart one night. The next morning i was "forced" out of the house and told I could not come back for a few days. Had we not had a four year old child that we had raised together at that point, I would have willingly obliged.

At that point we had been together for 14 years and married for 8. All of a sudden I was this unknown dangerous man living in the house to her. I was quarantined to the basement and she had already started down the road of alleging that I was a mentally and physically abusive coke addict. Her MO was to verbally assault me in front of our four year old child, dropping every four letter word in the language while making up all kinds of lies.

Her evidence for coke was a crushed up blue Unisom in the bottom of an old pill bottle that turned a drug test she got off of Amazon.....you guessed it.....blue.

"You're not even a father"

"Dad's a cocaine addict"

"I will call the cops and say you are assaulting me"

"Let Dad eat first, he could have poisoned Thanksgiving Dinner"

"We need to X Dad out of our lives"

"When I get done with this, you will never see me or your child again"

The list goes on and on with mostly four letter words strewn in there as well. All in front of our child. I would just leave the house and walk for hours so that our child did not have to listen to her toxicity. I would always make it back in time for bedtime. She was already poisoning the well, so coming back to "not tonight Dad" crippled my emotions from the inside out, but was totally expected.

Any attempt to try to work out "a deal" was useless, as unless it was what she wanted (full legal and physical with supervised visitation) and a shitload of money.

I went online and started looking at what I needed to do. My entire life was turned upside down and I learned that if you are in this situation, you need to protect yourself.

Somehow we did negotiate a half assed custody schedule (while living in the same house) which was mostly 50/50. The weekends were like the wild west, though. I started journaling most every single aspect of my day, focusing mostly on my interactions with our child or her. Shortly after, I started recording every time I entered the house and not stopping until i vacated the premises.

I contacted/retained an attorney and she basically told me that I was going to have to wait it out to set the precedent. At this point I had lost about 15-20 pounds mostly because I was not eating and when I was, it was usually dinner and I would take my food and go and eat it and sit in the bathtub for hours with the fan on and lock the door so she didn't bother me. I remember peeking out the door of the bathroom before walking out. This was not the same woman that I knew and I did not know what she was capable of.

In retrospect, this IS the woman I knew. I just didn't know it yet.

At some point I decided that I wanted to get a second opinion and it was the best decision I ever made.

I explained what I had been doing and how much this was sucking the life out of me. She asked if the other attorney had sent a letter, done anything, etc. I explained that I was instructed to be in a holding pattern.

This attorney dissented from the other's opinion and decided that it would be in my best interest to file and get me out of that toxicity. Her ridiculous behavior was all listed in the complaint, all backed up by my evidence. Naturally she denied it all and the house became an even more scary place.

I tried to PL her out of the house, because her toxicity was completely out of control. I was just trying to coexist until we had the year "separation". I started getting 30,000+ steps a day walking all over. To this day, I still walk miles on end because it has become my safe place.

At this point i had also learned how to communicate with her. I found that gray rock. I learned that all of these years, she was playing me like a puppet with my emotions. I learned that all information can and will be used against me at a later date. I learned that she only sees in black and white. I learned that justifying, arguing, defending and explaining would just get us into circular "discussions". I learned to watch what she does, not what she says. Unfortunately I cannot explain any of this to a 4 year old.

Nothing came out of the PL hearing directly, but it did initiate a final custody hearing only a month and a half later or so. I felt like I was in school again answering all of those interrogatories. The whole discovery process in general was excruciating. You've got someone making up a lie from however many years ago and you're trying to remember what actually happened. You know that hers is all made up, but you don't want to get the tiniest of details wrong in fear that she'll say you're perjuring yourself. Back and forth with this crap for days with my attorney, that's when the fees really start racking up.

She even wanted me to take a hair follicle test. Absolutely, as long as you do as well. Both of us were negative for everything.

Two days of trial. Witnesses and lies. The good thing is, she could not control herself in court. She almost got into a downright argument with my attorney on the crosses. The other good thing that I had going for me was that my attorney was awesome. I think the judge could see who she was just by her demeanor. The text messages between the two of us were pure gold, most of the accusations that were made about my character were all disproven.

If you don't lie, you don't have to keep all of them straight.

After those two grueling days, the judge needed three weeks to write a letter of opinion. No pressure.

Three weeks later, custody was decided, 50/50 legal and physical. It was a win for our child, not for either of us.

We went through the financial piece months later (making the divorce final), which was mainly her trying to prove that I had assets that did not exist to make my side look more bloated, when in reality she was actually the one with a slightly higher net worth. I feel like we ended up robbing Peter to pay Paul (and the attorneys).

I've learned to embrace the fact that she thinks everything was and will continue to be my fault. I've accepted the fact that no matter what I do, it will never be good enough. I've learned and accepted the fact that conflict is her fuel. I've learned not to engage. I TRY not to worry about things I can't control.

One year later and I'm in a much better place now. I realized who I had become and it wasn't me anymore. I think I'm almost back to me and I've learned a lot of things along the way. Life will never be the same, but I don't want it to be.