I'm so sorry to hear about what you are going through Emmarose...I have to agree with Pattyann though, having just gone through a similar scenario myself: if you vacate the house it can be construed as you abandoning the marital estate.
My ex also wanted to remain in the house and was perfectly willing to sleep in the SAME BED as me until the divorce is final: he could not understand why it was such a big deal to me. I was so angry with him after 20 years of emotional abuse and insensitivity that I was unable to relax and fall asleep next to him for months. As I lay awake all night I noticed that my hands would be clenched in fists and my body was rigid, and recognized that I was so furious that I could not bear to be anywhere near him. I would wind up sleeping in the basement to get away from him. He of course would fall asleep in our bed the minute his head hit the pillow. He eventually agreed to leave the house temporarily but only after I became hysterical one afternoon and thought I would lose my mind. I think that he was afraid I had actually snapped. Of course as soon as he left the house he consulted an attorney and immediately regretted his move. So he started coming by the house and harassing me,threatening to move back in and physically puffing up to exagerrate his size like he was going to hurt me. He screamed at me infront of one of my children, repeating over and over again that I had thrown him out of his own home. I was very frightened but screamed right back at him to get out of the house. As soon as he did, I called an attorney and found out that this was considered menacing and threatening behavior as he is considerably bigger than I am, and I was advised that since he had moved out of the marital dwelling even temporarily, it was now within my rights to change the locks on the doors. Not only did I do that, but I went to Home Depot and found out how to reprogram the garage door openers so that my husband could not enter the house in the middle of the night or while I was out during the day. The hard part was getting the kids not to let him in when they were home alone.
The attorney also told me that I could file a restraining order but explained that they were not very effective...and should be used as a last resort because it would piss him off even more.
The other important thing I have humbly learned from all this is that while I do not believe in keeping older children in the dark about the divorce since it is affecting them as well, I do agree that it will only hurt them and alienate them from YOU if you badmouth their father. It is nothing short of dumbfounding to see how my kids can still love their father in spite of how cruel he has been to them and to me. But I keep hearing the same story over and over again from other women who have been through this. I have a friend whose husband threw a vente sized cup of hot coffee in her face in front of her eight year old (they were in Starbucks making the weekly child exchange since they needed to make the exchange in a public place), and believe it or not her child shrugged his shoulders after witnessing this horrific act and muttered something like, "Yup, that's my dad..." with a very sad look on his face. It did not stop him from going directly to his father's house for the week. I know this phenomenon is hard to believe, and I would not have believed it myself had I not seen similar behavior from my own children...
While I agree with Songbird that your attorney should have your children's best interests at heart, the truth is that often lawyers just don't care. Maybe it's because they've seen too much injustice and have become disheartened themselves...I went through two attorneys before finding one who was willing to fight for my children's safety. The other two felt that it was a losing battle and not worth getting into. They told me to brace myself for the inevitable and save my money. Hopefully this third attorney (who is a mother herself) will be able to help me. Since we are still in negotiations I cannot tell you yet how it will all turn out. But I feel for you and wish you the best of luck and cannot emphasize how important it is to vent as much as you need to without feeling guilty and to stay strong. There'll be plenty of time to cry later.
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