just letting you guys know it is NOT as easy as you think it might be.
Well done. Some 90 percent of the folks here would have YOU put in jail for your effort. What a bunch of animals. Sorry for your pain, but thank you for adding a touch of sanity to this thread.
Thanks. Living with mental illness is like living with drug addiction or being beaten - there is no way a person who has never experienced it can really appreciate what it takes to handle it. I remember the husband saying he never thought she'd hurt the kids - I can tell you that it is very easy to fall into self deception like that. I remember so many times when I'd say, "I never thought he would do that" - because they do something new and different each time and it is easy to be caught by surprise. And they go through months of fairly decent behavior and then whoops, they are chasing the electric man down the street or something, because you REALLY needed to go to work on time that day and you thought, they have been so good lately, surely they can just give the man a check at the door for you. Well, surprise, they can't. And sometimes it takes a lot to realize that, because, gosh, darn it, when you married them they were normal. Why can't they be so now - and it isn't fair - and you can't PAY for someone to deal with them.
You can't throw them out on the street, and no one else will take them, so what do you do? Your best, and at all cost, protect the kids. But trying to compensate and denying the problem are two different things. I happen to homeschool, but I sure wouldn't leave him alone with the kids. And when he got bad, he had to live with his Mom for a few months until we could get him stable. And I will tell you this - I SO desperately wanted more children, and once he got diagnosed, that was for having kids. Because it would have been irresponsible for me to do that to a child. And that really hurt. But such is life.