When they called our case, we all filed into the courtroom and took our seats. The judge was a man in his 60s with reading glasses that he kept pushing up his nose. He reviewed the paperwork for a few minutes while we sat in silence. Then he started asking my husband questions about the incident where he’d entered the house after being told to stay away.
My husband’s voice was steady and polite as he explained that he just wanted to talk to his wife like adults. He said he didn’t realize using a key he’d had made months ago would be considered breaking in. The judge asked him about the 30-day notice to vacate and whether he understood that the house belonged to me as separate property.
My husband’s mask slipped a little bit. He referred to my house as our marital home and said that marriage meant sharing everything. Victoria had warned me this would happen, that his sense of entitlement would show through once he started talking. The judge asked him why he thought he had a right to enter a home he’d been explicitly told to leave.
My husband said he was just trying to prepare his stepdaughter for the real world and that I was being overprotective. He called Lily difficult and disrespectful. He said she needed to learn that life had consequences and that I was doing her a disservice by coddling her. The judge’s expression changed when my husband started talking about Lily.
He asked my husband to clarify what he meant by preparing a 16-year-old for the real world by telling her to find somewhere else to live. My husband tried to backtrack, but the damage was done. His entitlement was right there in the open for everyone to see. The judge granted a six-month restraining order and ordered my husband to stay away from both me and Lily.
He said any violation would result in immediate arrest. Walking out of the courthouse, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in weeks. Victoria squeezed my arm and said that went as well as we could have hoped. My husband and his lawyer left through a different exit. I didn’t see him again that day. The next problem came when I tried to take my husband’s name off the utility accounts.