Trigger Warning for DV
Okay, so my Japanese wife and I have a 2-year-old daughter and we both love her to pieces. Unfortunately, my wife’s borderline personality disorder is really making me consider a divorce, but I do not want to lose my daughter. My wife keeps saying that she’ll definitely get custody since she makes more money than me and that I’m a man. She claims that custody battles almost always go to the moms and almost always go to the parent with the highest income. That means my wife, not me.
But my wife is abusive. She had another BPD episode today and attacked me: hitting me, punching me, kicking me… all while screaming like a demon-possessed Tasmanian devil. Meanwhile, my daughter was out in another room but could hear my wife screaming at me and attacking me. My daughter was crying hysterically and often does this when my wife goes through her episodes. I fee so bad for my poor daughter… I don’t want this to mentally scar her.
Anyways, my wife came at me with a kitchen knife last year and I called the police. They have it on record. In addition, I shared my story previously here on Reddit and was told to document everything as best that I could. So I’ve been keeping a journal of all incidences—great or small—in the Notes app of my iPhone with dates. I also secretly record sound whenever we fight. I have audio evidence of her saying things to me like, “I just want to escape. I just want to die.” “I want to make you suffer just like you make me suffer.” “I’m going to find a boyfriend on Tinder.” “I bought alcohol and had some last night. Because of you. You made me do this.” (She does not normally drink.)
I usually tell all of this to my therapist (which she forced me to go to each month) and my therapist agrees that my wife is a very “difficult person.”
I am afraid my wife will eventually abuse my daughter as time goes on. She doesn’t do it now, but with her personality disorder, I can see it happening eventually. I don’t want to divorce if it means I won’t get to see my daughter again (which my wife often threatens).
My question is: if I have the police record of that kitchen-knife incident along with my memos and audio recordings, do you think it would be a good enough case to bring to court and potentially get full custody of my daughter in case of a divorce? TIA