Dear Mrs Macaulay, My husband was abusive and had multiple affairs throughout our marriage and eventually left to live with another woman. During our marriage, I worked, while he stayed home with our child, and did small jobs on the side. He is asking for spousal maintenance because I earn significantly more than he does, and he wants custody, and I know that this is just because he wants maintenance. Does the fact that he cheated and was abusive matter?

This situation in which you have lived is unacceptable, and the fact that you did nothing about his abuses of you when the law exists to protect you and your child from such conduct, is incomprehensible. Surely you cannot say that you knew nothing about the existence of the Family Court or the Domestic Violence Act, which you could have used to put such a disgusting specimen of a man out of your home and thereby cease his violence against you and your child who was present in the home during the abuses. You failed yourself and your child by not acting in good time for your own protection and for that of your child.

You did nothing until he left you and went to live with another woman and is now compounding his humiliation of you by demanding maintenance and custody.

It would have been cheaper, safer and better for you and your child in every respect to have employed someone to look after your child, than the arrangement you had with your no-good husband. I hope you did not permit him to take your child to this other woman’s home and that the child is still in your care!

I would suggest that you first employ someone to assist you with child and home care, and then go immediately to the Family Court and apply for sole legal custody, and care and control of your child, with supervised, minimum access to your husband. In addition, refuse to provide him with any maintenance as he is not incapable, and since you have a carer for your child, he can no longer say he is caring for his child.

You must concentrate on doing all you can to protect your child from this man who is devoid of any moral standards and is not at any level qualified to be in charge of any child. In fact, your child should have counselling sessions to clear all of his father’s influences and beliefs of how a man should act towards his wife and in the home.

If he has already filed claims for maintenance and custody, then you must obtain the services of a a lawyer to act for you and your child to strenuously oppose his applications. You cannot allow this man to take full control of your child. You would need the services of an experienced family law attorney-at-law anyway, because once you and your husband have been separated for 12 months, you can have your petition filed to divorce him.

You have asked whether it matters that he cheated and was abusive. His wrongful conduct does matter, but you must remember that for divorce the singular legal ground is that your marriage has irretrievably broken down and that you have lived separate and apart for 12 months immediately preceding the filing of your petition. His cheating and abuses of you would be related in the petition relating to what caused the breakdown of the marriage.

These are also important for you to detail and use in relation to supporting your application for sole legal custody and care and control of your child, and stringent, tight and specific access of the father. Or, if he has filed for custody and maintenance, the facts of his cheating and each instance of abuse of you — physical, verbal, mental and emotional — and the fact that the child was always in the home when these occurred, and that you are very concerned about their effects on the child’s development, are important.

Please act as quickly as you can and use the Family Court, the Domestic Violence Act, and the provisions of the Maintenance Act and the Children (Guardianship and Custody) Act to argue that your husband is capable of working and providing for himself, but he just chose to live off you and give himself time to be repeatedly unfaithful and engage in multiple affairs. State that he eventually went off to live with one of his paramours, and that such a home is not an acceptable environment for your child as his lack of standards and morals are adverse to the best interests of and the wholesome development and upbringing of your child.

I wish you and your child the very best.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.