Former bro-in-law verbally abusive

[ajcook]

What is the name of your state? Nebraska

I'll try my best to be succinct (not my strong suit, sorry )

My wife's sister and her husband have divorced. The ex is (in my opinion) a control freak, and seems to get very angry and irrational (at least in his arguments) when he feels he's lost control.

He is very angry at having to pay child support (he perceives the money to be going to his ex, not his children).

By extension, he is very angry at the extended family, which includes my wife (his ex-sis-in-law).

On top of all this, my wife runs an in-home private day care. My sister-in-law chooses to use my wife for daycare. The ex-husband is court-ordered to pay half of that.

He was three months late on payments for daycare, so I helped my wife write a direct, polite, business-like letter clearly indicating the amount due, a reasonable deadline for paying up, on penalty of being taken to small claims court.

He paid after very angrily "firing" my wife by phone.

My sister-in-law still chooses to use my wife's services, so the ex-husband continues to accrue amounts due.

This weekend my wife wrote a succinct, business-like letter indicating the current amount due, demand for timely payment, and a plan for a financial penalty system for each month that he fails to make timely payment.

Tonight, in reaction to the letter (we assume), he came to our house, not to pay, but to verbally accost my wife at our front door. I was not home at the time, but my wife says he loudly called her a b*tch, a c*nt, that she was to stop playing her f*ing games, stop f*ing with his daughter's mind, on and on.

At one point, he thrust his stomach against my wife's stomach (they were on the front porch) and asked her if she intended to hit him (she didn't). She went in the house and closed the door. In anger, he continued to yell verbal assaults at her through the closed door, and kicked the storm door in anger (he didn't damage it).

My wife feels that his yelling was loud enough to be heard by the neighbors. My own 13-year-old daughter was home and listening.

I don't believe he threatened any physical harm to my wife (not with his words).

My suspicion is that he will only get worse and worse as he continues to react to having no control over where his money goes (his child support dues, and 1/2 daycare obligation), and having no control over where his children go for daycare.

What I'm trying to figure out is this...is it worth my wife calling the police and filing a report for a situation like this? Part of me wants there to be a consequence for his unreasonable and irrational actions, and to send a message that this behavior is unacceptable and won't be hidden under the rug. Even if that consequence is only to have on record that he has been verbally in appropriate.

But, under the circumstances, would there BE a consequence? Would the police take a report for this situation? Would it result in any useful action? Would he even know my wife filed a report?

Just trying to sort out what makes sense to do with this situation.

[ceara19]

Your wife is barking up the wrong tree for money. She needs to be demanding payment from her SISTER, the one that hired her, not her FORMER brother-in-law. It would be up to her sister to get reimbursement from her ex.