Long story but I REALLY need help. I am in an abusive relationship. Have been for the past five years. I need out. We now have two children who are 3 and 21 months old. It has mostly been extreme emotional abuse, but some physical. It was never bad enough that I called the cops and the few times it was bad, he said if I did it would be my word against his and he'd tell them it was self defense and have me put in jail and then not let me near my kids. He said that since he had a degree, a much better income, a steady government job with security clearance, etc. that they would never believe me. I have no proof of the physical stuff except for a couple of pictures I was able to take but the police said they were not admissable. I don't think the courts really care about the emotional stuff. Only someone who has lived through it could ever really understand.
We are not married and his name is not on the birth certificates as I was getting food stamps and medicaid for the kids and he did not want the state to come after him for child support.
He's always said if I tried to leave he would fight for custody of our kids. He literally makes five times what I do so I am already at a huge legal and financial disadvantage. I cannot afford to go to court with this. With no criminal record and only a bad driving record to his name, there is no reason he would not be awarded custody.
My sister lives in the state but other than that I have no family and no friends. If I can make it to Misouri, I have relatives there who can help me with a place to stay for a couple of months while I find a job and everything. THe only problem is leaving.
He told me that in NM if a parent wants to leave, they are allowed to, but it is rare that courts will allow the child to leave. NO WAY I can leave my kids. My sister has advised me to run. Take my kids and go without telling him. Try to vanish without a trace and if/when he finds me, hopefully enough time will have gone by that he will give up or we will be established enough that the courts will not make us return. I seriously do not believe he will give up easily, so I need to vanish well. I do not think I will get more than one chance at this so I need to make it count.
I found out that he has a conference scheduled for early December that he cannot get out of. He will be gone for two and a half days. I think if I start to stash a little grocery money at a time from now until then, he will not notice. Same thing for clothes, a few articles each week will not go noticed. I also plan on changing my last name next week so that it will be done by the time and if he starts looking for the legal postings then, there won't be anything. I can only hope he doesn't look back this far.
I intend to get copies of the kids's medical records so that if we need them, I will not have to have the hospital send them, in effect, leaving a paper trail. My sister said I can file my federal taxes under her address. If I want to continue working on my degree, I will have to have official transcripts sent to the new schools, but I think I can get past this by requesting several sealed copies to take with me before I go, eliminating that trail. If the title transfer of my car can be traced to a new state, I will leave it here and take a bus. It's not worth risking. I can replace it eventually. I just don't know how easily tracked that kind of thing is. There's got to be so many things I'm not thinking of, but I'm hoping that over time I can figure them out before I slip up.
Any ideas/warnings/plans would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!