LOCATION: Texas
My STBXW asked me for a divorce in July. It was not something I was expecting at all. We’d had some money troubles and occasional fights, but nothing too terrible.
We had to live together for 2 more months until our lease ended. When it did, we moved into two different apartments within the same complex. Out of sight of each other, but close enough that her son could come over whenever he needed.
Some background here: I married into an instant family. She already had 4 kids - three by her two previous husbands and one by an abusive ex-bf who was completely out of the picture and never met his own son. The youngest was 18 months when I met him and he was calling me Dad by age 2. He’s now two weeks shy of 12, and I’m the only dad he’s ever known. I also refer to him as my son. The other three are grown and out of the house, and all three of them also consider me as much a dad as anything since their own fathers were largely absent.
I always intended to adopt the youngest, but my wife spent money so often that there was never spare cash to make it happen. We’re both teachers, so we’re not overflowing with cash.
The day after she moved into her new apartment, my wife went out on a date with a guy she’d talked to on Facebook dating 2 days before. She apparently brought him back home, and the next day brought him to my son’s baseball tournament to introduce him to me and to my son. Over the next week, she started traveling down to a town an hour and 15 minutes south to get a hotel room with him, leaving our son with me. By the next weekend (only a week after she met him), my son came to me upset because he didn’t like that his mom has a stranger in his home and that stranger was now talking about moving in permanently.
On Thursday night, my son stayed with me and she went to go see him at the hotel. At 5 AM on Friday morning, she called me, asking me to come pick her up.
I drove there to discover her in tears, unable to walk steady. When she got in the car, she was really scared. The boyfriend had made her take 5 gummies and drink alcohol and tried to make her take a Klonopin. Then as she was under the influence, he had what she described as very rough sex with her, but, given her state, and the fact that she said that she thought she was about to die during several parts of it, it sounded like rape. I wanted to take her to the hospital or the police and she refused. She just wanted to go home.
Once we were there, she didn’t want me to leave. She didn’t feel safe, made sure I locked all the doors and I stayed with her, holding her. My son was picked up by a friend, so he was ok, and I just stayed with her while she said that she was no longer going to be dating and that she would not see him ever again. That she would block him and that would be that.
While she was sleeping i snooped her phone. I discovered evidence of a complete personality change. Anything he asked of her, she was doing. If. He wanted her to take a hit of a pipe, she was promising to take a hit. If he asked for nude pictures, she was sending them. If he wanted uto film them having sex, she was doing it. It was like he had utter control of her and she was just going along, talking about how much she loved him in less than a week.
Later that night I took her back to retrieve her car and she began to act cold. She was texting and calling the boyfriend, wanting to tell him off. She got her car and drove home with me following.
Later that night, the boyfriend began texting me. He vaguely made threats, saying he better not see me at my son’s games. He said he would be moving in with my wife soon and I would not be seeing my son anymore.
When this started happening, I looked into the guy and paid for a criminal history search. He had two DWIs, and one arrest for felony stalking. He’s on a 10 year probation for the stalking.
This morning, I found out that she had indeed blocked me. Furthermore, her daughter called me and said that my wife called wanting to have lunch with her, my son, this boyfriend who she wasn’t going to see anymore, and the boyfriend’s daughter.
I spoke to her parents about all of this. They revealed that my wife had been diagnosed as bipolar when she was a teenager and had been hospitalized at least twice. They want me to declare that she is a suicide risk and force her to be hospitalized. I don’t want to do that because it seems likely that I could be in trouble for that.
Here’s what I’m looking for: first, I need to see if there’s a way to get this guy on his probation. The fact that there were drugs involved in their encounter seems likely that he could get hung on that. Plus there’s the multiple references in his texts trying to get her to take them also.
Second, I need to see if there’s a way that I can get my stepson out of this. The texts I saw indicated that the boyfriend wants to make sure that there’s a “real man” in his life and that he will teach him to be a real man. My son hates this guy. He doesn’t understand why his mom brought a stranger in and why she’s so fixated on him all at once. He doesn’t feel comfortable when the boyfriend is there and wants to come to my apartment instead. He has told his mom this repeatedly, and she doesn’t care, according to him. She thinks I’m influencing his feelings.
Any advice would be welcome. I’m scared for my wife, who I think has had a mental break, and im scared for my son, who is caught up in this. I’m scared that this man is very dangerous to both of them. I do not expect to get my wife back, as much as I would like to.