I received this email quite a while ago, it is heartbreaking. I hope you can help me. My husband went crazy and destroyed everything. We've been married 8 years and I thought we were happy. He lost his job and started doing meth with some old buddies, he might have started doing the meth before he lost his job I don't reaaly know. At first he was looking work but then he just gave up and we were living on my paychecks. It was Okay because he watched our daughter and we saved on daycare. He started pawning our stuff, his tools, my jewelry our stereo and then our CDs. It seemed like everyday something else was gone but he never had the money, I know he was buying drugs. His friends started hanging out at our house when I was at work, I told him I didn't want them in our house, theyre pigs and I know some of those girls were whores! He said it was his house and he could have anybody he wanted over. We had a big fight, the police came, they didn't do anything because he hadn't hit me. I grabbed some clothes and went to  a girlfriends. I stayed away a couple days, he called a million times but I didn't answer. I finally had to go back to get my daughter's clothes and more of my things. My house was destroyed. The furniture was broken to pieces, there were holes punched in the walls, everything I owned was broken, he cut up my clothes and threw them in the yard. I called the police but they said they couldn't do anything because we were married and so he owned allo my stuff and they couldn't charge him with damageing his own property. A couple days later he came to my job and stole my car. The police wouldn't even take a report for a stolen car. He hid the car or sold it, I don't even know. When my paycheck got direct deposited he withdrew all the money and left me with nothing, how can he do all this stuff. How are me and my daughter supposed to live. I hate him! I filed for divorce but he said he is going to fight it. Why? We have nothing to fight over, there is absolutely nogthing. How can he have this power over my life? If you have any ideas please help me.    I answered her email and thought I was done with her, but I have found myself thinking about her situation many times since then. I never heard from her again, so I can only hope that she made it through a seemingly hopeless time in her life.    Before I share my response I want to give a declaimer. The ideas I'm expressing may seem to be in the gray area of civil law, you may even think they are downright deceitful. Well, I've never been through a divorce, I am not a divorce attorney, I've never even been in a divorce court. If my ideas seem wrong to you, then don't read further and certainly don't do them.    When this lady called the police to stop her husband, the cops were right when they said that there was nothing they could do. The police deal in criminal law and cannot stop a person from damaging their own property, at least not in my state. If there was a court order that neither party should destroy, hide, or dispose of property while a divorce was pending then a police officer might be able to stop the destruction of property while he is present, but he couldn't arrest the person if they did it anyway. You would have to go back to court and tell the judge what happened and he might find the person in contempt, or hold the value of the property against the persons share when the settlement was decided.    My concern when I answered this email was not the civil divorce proceeding, but in how this poor woman could continue to live and support her daughter. The husbands actions were clearly intended to assert power and control over her by making her feel helpless and scare her into returning to him by fear of what he will do if she doesn't buckle under to him. I tried to give her a few simple strategies to take control of her life.    This is not an exact copy of my response. Like I said, I have thought of her often and come up with more ideas. I'm including those ideas here in case another reader is going through a similar situation. My response:    Hi _ _ _ _,    Wow, what a terrible situation you're in. He's an Ass.    My first piece of advice is that you should never think that going back will make everything okay. It won't. Going back will just put you back into the miserable state you were in before. You've made a break from him which is the hardest step. If you go back now, then you will have to take that step all over again and in the mean time he will be thinking of what else he can do to keep you if you ever leave again. Right now I think you should concentrate on you and your daughter's safety, and on just getting by until you can start building your life again. Being alone with your daughter and trying to make it is going to be hard, but going back and adding a drugged out husband to your responsibilities is not going to make it any easier.    Call your police department and ask them to refer you to a victim advocate. An advocate can help you with accessing some financial aid programs in your city. If you would rather do it through the internet, go to trynova.org , they can refer you to an advocate in your area. An advocate can help you get through the initial shock of being on your own with nothing, and can help you keep your head above water until you can get on your feet.    Right now, you probably think everything is against you. I would like you to at least be glad that you have a friend to stay with and a job. So many women have to go to a shelter and have no income initially.   Personal Finances  The next step is to get him out of your financial life. A jobless drug user has nothing to do but figure out how to suck the financial life out of their family and friends.    My advice is to cancel every joint financial connection you have with him.       1. Close your bank accounts. You said he cleaned it out already anyway. He may still be able to access some line of credit through the bank which you will be responsible for. That means he gets to spend all the credit and you get to repay it to the bank. Cut him off.       2. Cancel your credit cards. Even if they are maxed out and you don't think he can use them anymore. He may be able to contact the credit card company and have them raise your limits, thus giving him access to more money that you will have to repay.       3. Close any kind of account or bill that you currently have, even if his name is not on it.       4. Become a virtual ghost. Don't sign up for anything that you have to attach your name to.       5. Cancel your cell phone. I know that for a lot of people this seems impossible. You are in a desperate situation, you must take desperate measures. Get one of those pay-as-you-go phones that you don't have a contract with.  Don't give the number out to people who might give it to him. Give your friends some credit, they see what you are going through and they will understand if you're out of touch for a while.    Personal Property    Obviously, you need a phone, a car, a credit card, an apartment, and every other little thing that we have in our lives. I'm not asking you to become a monk with no worldly possessions. I want you to have all these things but I don't want any of them to be in your name. Unless you've managed to burn every bridge in your life, you should have at least one family member or best friend that you can turn to and ask them to put all these things in their name. Tell them that you will pay all the bills but that you can't have anything in your name until your divorce is finalized. The biggest obstacle to using this strategy is that your friend must trust you to not destroy their credit, and you must trust them to not try to take your property since it is in their name. For this reason I suggest you use a family member as your first option.    If your name isn't on anything, then he has no rights to sell it, take it or destroy it.                           1. If your apartment is in your friend's name, your husband has no right to just walk in. The apartment manager can have him trespassed from the complex, security can remove him, the police can arrest or cite him just for being on property. If the utilities are in the friends name, your husband can't turn them off.       2. Get a car in your friends name and get full coverage insurance on it. If your husband takes this car then you can report it stolen because he has no interest in it. He can't sell it. If he damages it, your friend can press charges.       3. If you buy anything of value such as a TV, computer, or anything that your husband could take and resell, then have your friend buy it with their credit card and you pay them back. Using the friends credit card shows definite ownership and he cannot try to include it in your divorce settlement.       4. Tell your payroll department to cancel your direct deposit and receive an actual paycheck. Keep your money in cash, pay your bills with money orders. It's more trouble to have to go to the post office or store for a money order, but you've already seen what he will do if you have a checking account.    These strategies will help you keep whatever you acquire while your waiting for your divorce to become final and will save you from having to give him half in the settlement. Insurance    Buy insurance on everything: Car insurance, life insurance, and renters insurance. Insurance companies make money because the average person never makes claims equal to what they pay for the insurance. You are not an average person right now. Your husband's drug use and violent/destructive behavior puts you at a high risk. You are far more likely to have things stolen or destroyed, and to be hurt or killed. Don't tell yourself that he would never hurt you. Yes, he will. A year ago you would have said that he would never sell or destroy everything the two of you had built together. He did just that and he probably blames it on his drug use, and says it's not his fault. Face it, he is not the same man you knew and loved.    Your car is now "owned" by your friend. Have them get full coverage on it with a small deductible, it's likely you will have to use it.    If your car is taken, or things are stolen from your home, your friend can now report the theft and if the police charge your husband with the thefts, he can't use your marriage to get him off. If you don't have a witness, or hard evidence that your husband is the thief, then don't tell the police that you suspect him. Your insurance company may delay or deny your claim if the police report says that a family member is the suspect. I'm not suggesting that you make a fraudulent claim. I'm suggesting that you report the theft based on what witnesses or evidence is available, not based on your fears. Worst Case Scenario    You have a husband who thinks you have done him wrong. When he is high on Meth, he probably focuses on how much he blames you for everything, and he loses his inhibitions. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, you are in real danger of being killed by him. You really need to focus on you and your daughter's safety. Go back and read my page on "should I buy a gun". The most dangerous time for women is when their partner realizes he has lost control over them. You are at that stage right now.    Take a moment to think of "worst case scenario". If he kills you and then goes to prison, then who is going to raise your daughter? Do you have a will? We don't like to think about things like wills but I think you should. You should be the one to decide who will raise your daughter the way you want her raised. You know which of your family members will nurture and love her. You also know what family members you don't like. If you leave no will, then the state will decide who gets custody and the odds are just as likely that your daughter will go to the relative you like the least. Contact a lawyer or go to a local Legal Forms store. I checked a couple websites that sell Legal Forms on the internet. The website that I thought had the best prices can be accessed here:   Legal Forms    As always, shop around and get the best price, I just give this link as a place to start.    Along with a will, you should think seriously about life insurance. If you already have life insurance then your husband is probably your beneficiary. That seems kind of pointless, to have him be your beneficiary when he is your biggest threat at the moment. If you have life insurance through your job, go to payroll and change beneficiaries. If you already have a policy that you and your husband purchased together, you may not be able to take him off the policy. You may have to buy a new policy and make the beneficiary the same person you named in your will to care for your daughter.    I just re-read this email, I realize that I'm giving you a lot of tasks and it may seem overwhelming. Don't be discouraged, just take the tasks one at a time, concentrate on cutting every connection you have with him that he may turn to your disadvantage. Go forward from here leaving no traceable links back to yourself.