Ending Marriage / Husband Using Child as Pawn

After years of living in a physically and emotionally abusive marriage with a controlling husband who didn't contribute much financially, I moved out of the house with us splitting time with our 5 year old son. I have been moved out for several months, living with my parents. During this time, H has continued to verbally abuse me, use threats, threaten my male friends if they continue to talk to me, and the worst of all, he has used our son as a pawn. It has been absolutely disgusting. Anyone in their right mind would file for divorce right away, right? Easier said than done. For some reason, however, I rode it out for 6 months. I felt guilt about leaving, and was fearful of his threats. He said if I followed through, I would never be happy, he would make my life a living hell. Any man I would ever date would be severely hurt in a hospital, and worst of all, my son would hate me forever. After a few counseling sessions, I was able to gain the strength to finally stick a fork in this situation and say "it's done." I secured a lawyer this week and am moving forward with a divorce. Of course, H is irate and throwing out more threats and refusing to let me see my son again (he had his time with him on our schedule we came up with ourselves and won't let him come back). Nothing is legally bound at this point, and my lawyer said there is nothing to stop him. This is extremely damaging to my son, being used in this manner. Has anyone here had any success in proving their spouse unstable to gain custody of the child? If so, how? I don't want my husband to not see him, the ultimate goal would be shared parenting. I am sure my lawyer will shed more light on this, but he told me it's hard to do. I just want an opinion from the group. He is clearly in need of some psychiatric help, and until he's healthy mentally, I will NOT sit back and watch this happen to our child.

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