Jensen, emotional abuse is also grounds for a Restraining Order. You have no idea how female-friendly the domestic violence laws are. As long as you say he is harassing you with emotional abuse, you can ruin his life and put him in his place. You need to file a Restraining Order immediately. If you can bait him into hitting you or just say he did, even better.

Jensen, a restraining order could also prevent all contact with his children as well as yourself. It will destroy the *******.

I totally understand trying to survive a passive aggressive ex. I wish I had some helpful words for you, but the truth of the matter is that I'm in the same boat, just haven't sailed as far as you have. Ex, by delaying getting documents to the prospective house buyer (7 weeks delay), single-handedly drove them away. Now we're relisting in July, when the house was originally listed in Jan for a too-high price (his doing). I get what you mean by thinking you don't want to ruffle feathers, a smug passive aggressive can be easier to deal with than one who is forced to face his own crapola. It takes everything I have not to tell him how his actions are financially choking me, but if I do that will just give him more ammo. I'm just recently divorced, but he has pretty much done nothing stipulated in the MSA and is behind on support (thankfully it's now directly taken from his pay), isn't paying his half of bills, isn't even taking the kids every other weekend like he asked. That's the thing I don't get, he didn't ask for 50/50, said he wanted every other weekend and "whenevers" yet he barely sees them. Two weekends in 2 months, and a few weekday after work get-togethers. He sees his friends more than he sees his own boys. They're teens, young adults really, old enough to see through things, but I don't know if they believe his excuses. I think these PA POSs have to find new "victims" before we're free and clear of them. If you have children and any kind of financial ties, you're screwed (sorry, not in me today to be uplifting). I don't think most people (police too) understand that PA behavior is intentional abusive behavior. It took me a really long time to understand that his actions and inactions toward me were specially designed to hurt me. After all, we all forget stuff, procrastinate on doing things that may be difficult, tell little white lies. We all do, a little. For PAs, it's their go-to method of dealing with the things they can't deal with, which in my ex's case is just about every bit of responsibility he has. Hang in there, you're not alone.

Jensen: We learned not to depend on ex for anything. He took me back to court several times, had shoved me during the marriage (made a special trip in the car to do that, unprovoked). Other posters have written about things like this. It takes a lot of energy to do what he's doing. Eventually, he will get tired of it. The kids will see him for who he is. One poster had a friend examine text to see whether or not they were of an abusive nature. You could do so with regard to the e-mails. If he's not following the agreement and you have the money to take him back to court and can stand the stress.........you could take it all back to court. My heart goes out to you and the kids. Best wishes.