My husband and I have been married for 8 years. The last year has been a little rough with both of us being depressed. Mine due to multiple deaths in the family; his due to not knowing how to be supportive of me and deal with the normal girly teenage 14 and 11 year old girls do (my daughters). On our anniversary in May, he said that he would give our marriage another chance--amid all of the verbal abuse that he dishes out to myself and my oldest daughter. It lasted 3 weeks--and it was back to before.
He ignores/avoids/otherwise treats my oldest daughter without respect and without just cause. Eg. "Hates" her for her hair escaping out of a barrette and "touching" her eyebrow. (Yes, that little of a thing!) I am not sure what happened this last year for him to be sooo angry and raging all of the time. But on Tuesday morning, he walked into the bedroom and served me with Divorce papers and dropped his ring on top of them. It stated he did not see that it could be reconciled or counceling would work. On Thursday, he said he didn't want one, and he wanted to work on it. I told him, I needed to see proof by his actions: Counciling, respect, care and putting someone other than himself first.....nothing is happening yet....I am so confused...what do I believe? What do I tell my girls? Mediation isn't until December....he took back the papers...

ChristinaS, Are you sure he isn't having an affair?

If he's treating your daughter like this saying he "hates" her don't you think this is SERIOUS? Does he drink? Are there other problems, job, etc? Not that it excuses his behavior, he sounds like a big baby like so many men are these days. What do you do when he treats your own kids like this? By not leaving you are in a way defending this jerk rather then your kids... your kids are watching and LEARNING by this. If you are a door mat, then they'll be doormats for men when they grow up, don't you think? I know love is crazy, I know how hard it is to leave when there's abuse and I don't know your whole story - but if I were you I'd be getting some SERIOUS counseling now for you and your kids at the very least. And think about the long term impact of all of this. I took my boy and ran when he was 8 months old so he wouldn't remember my angry vicious husband. These little boy's go from jeckyl to hyde quicker then you can blink so don't leave your kids alone with him at the very least...