Your experience with mediation and emotionally abusive ex?

[Graceym]

Hi everyone,

I am really at my whits end with the father of my child who is a beautiful 5 month old baby girl. He was really emotionally abusive during my pregnancy and after, he suffers from ADHD and bipolar (not sure it's been diagnosed). He used to call me names and make me feel awful everyday even though I had done nothing wrong. He would always realise the next day, apologise but keep repeating the cycle. I stayed with him for 2 months after DD was born as he was still shouting at me and calling names when she was around and I couldn't have that.

The issue now is he would still message me saying horrible things on Facebook and will do to my face now as well. It got so bad I had to block him on everything and I now contact him through my mum. I thought this would solve the issue but he still talks to me absolutely horribly, calling me names and just being nasty. He has asked me to write a letter saying he can have access to DD twice a week but I am waiting to see a mediator to see what they advice. I have said I will not write this letter until I have seen them and he is proceeding to blackmail me and not give me any child support until it has been written and won't have her when I want him to.

I just want to know if anyone else has been in a similar situation and what the outcome is with the mediator? I don't even really want him to go through my mum as everything he says comes back to me and it is really upsetting when he is trying to blackmail me.

He was so used to getting exactly what he wants now I'm not giving in he is being so horrible to me and I just can't deal with it anymore. I know he is a good dad when he is with her which is why I can't take her away from him no matter how difficult he is making my life.

Thanks everyone I would love to hear your experiences x

[FlissMumsnet]

Hi Graceym,

Thanks for posting - we're not sure we can offer much in the way of advice on this but we wanted to jump in and say hello and we're sorry you're having a rough time of it.

Hopefully we've given your thread a wee bump now so there should be someone along shortly who can give you some advice and support.

If you'd like to please feel free to post in Legal to see whether you can find some helpful ideas there.

[user765]

Hey, hope you are ok. Mediation is not appropriate in domestic abuse cases. You dont have to do it but you do need a certificate to ‘prove’ you have been assessed and it is confirmed that it is not appropriate. My ex did similar things in terms of harrassment, emotional abuse, Facebook posts etc and I had to go to court (ironically he made the first move). My solicitor said I did not have to mediate and she arranged for the mediation service (can’t remember exactly what they are called) to call me for a chat. I explained what had been going on and she agreed mediation was not appropriate and produced the certificate to show this. I had to pay for this and I think it was about £50. My ex has since given every excuse in the book and has constantly made me out to be ‘unreasonable’ because I ‘refuse’ to mediate but he has just ended up looking like the unreasonable one. You cannot mediate with someone like that because people who are emotionally/psychologically abusive are NOT rational and not cooperative. Also, you need to feel safe to mediate and an judge told me that if you don’t feel safe then you can’t mediate (and it can mean just safe from harrassment). Emotional abuse is very manipulative and these people will try every possible way to worm their way back into your life because they know they can hurt you and it makes them feel better about themselves

[user765]

Also what I would say is keep screenshots of all his nasty texts and Facebook posts and copies of emails. Don’t respond or reply back to him. If you have to, report him to the police for harrassment. They will tell you they don’t get involved or ‘it’s just a bad break up’ or whatever, like they did to me, but be persistent. Eventually they will have to do something about it. There are things you can put in place re contact with the kids so you don’t have to be involved. Don’t let him bully you! You are your daughter’s role model and she will grow up thinking that it is the norm for a man to treat a woman like this