Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want set visiting time from my sons father?

33 replies

Ratatatawhoosthat · 23/10/2022 19:07

Hi, trying to include everything to avoid drip feed.

I met my ex partner in LOCATION A (trying not to be outing lol) and we moved in together. There were a lot of red flags but stupidly I ignored them. I got pregnant assuming he would change (Jesus how did I become that cliché??) but soon realised the extent of how emotionally abusive and controlling he was. It wore me down and I eventually had a breakdown over it. I thought my life was not worth living and my self esteem was entirely ruined.

We broke up and I moved back to hometown and in my parents in LOCATION B, 6 months pregnant with no money and a whole lot of shame and sadness. I’ve been living there since. My lovely son is 11 months old.

Ex comes to visit every weekend. The drive is around 3.5 hours but there can often be up to an hours worth of traffic. Because it’s such a long drive and he has no “base” here he will spend the day at my
Parents or often he stays here at my parents for the night. It makes it tough as I cannot properly form boundaries with him. Some weekends we get on great and others it is utter hell. Really it depends on how he wants to treat me that weekend.

I am drained from the rollercoaster of it and it’s severely effecting my mental health. I am having therapy and have been prescribed anti depressants (though I’m not taking them as hoping the therapy alone will help me).

I really want to put in boundaries so I can move on and feel free of his abuse. The boundaries that I want are:

A)He cannot call or text me. All correspondence is to be over email. This means I don’t have to feel anxiety every time my phone pings and can just check my inbox when I feel okay to.

B)We have a set time that he visits and a set time that he leaves. I can therefore make plans to be out during this time.

The problem is. It’s not really working.

A)I explained to him over the weekend that I want us to only communicate over text. My Mum however is part of a WhatsApp group with him and his Mum were she sends daily updates about our son. She has done this since our son was little to keep him in the loop with what our son is doing every day, and so that his Mum feels more involved (she lives about 8 hours away from us all). Today however, now that he’s blocked on my WhatsApp, he has used the group as a platform to send unkind messages about me instead and so I am now so anxious that I am going to be hounded during the day just like before. I must admit I wish she didn’t update them daily but I’m sure I am being unreasonable on this one. Even when they’re texting positive things, it still means he is on my mind and I can never switch off from thinking about him as she will ask me what she should write on there.

B) He has said he wants to come every Saturday. Because it’s such a long drive and there is a chance of traffic he is refusing to give a set time that he will be here. He is saying that he wants to leave his home at 8:30am in the morning and hopefully get to me for 12 but ultimately he will arrive whenever he arrives, which could be up to an hour late. He says he will then stay until 4pm. I feel this is just another way of controlling me. I believe he should make allowances for the hours traffic. If he is supposed to be here for 12 then he should aim to get here for 11 and if he’s early maybe grab a coffee round the corner or do some work emails in his car. That’s what I would personally do.

Regarding Point B - am I being unreasonable to want a set time for him to get to me? Please can I have some advice on how to manage this situation. Please keep all advice constructive and kind, I am really struggling with my mental health at the moment. I realise that it might seem like I am exaggerating a small thing, but I have endured so much manipulation from him that I’m extremely sensitive to everything now. I also am struggling with the pressure of being the main carer of our son, hence why the four hours he wants to visit (12-4) are precious to me as “me time” and I don’t want to spend a whole hour of that waiting for him to turn up.

Also, I don’t trust that he would actually leave at 8:30am - I think he will leave whenever he likes and blame it on traffic.

please help and please be kind!

OP posts:
Midnights · 23/10/2022 19:17

This is really tough!

I do think YABU about the timing issue, you moved 3.5 hours away and he's doing a 7 hour drive on a Saturday to see the DC - if he tells you 12 ish as it may be impacted by traffic, he can't predict delays / accidents so I don't see why he should leave extra early just incase then sit doing work emails in the car.

Communication is a hard one too, can you just turn notifications off for him for messages / apps, then only check in if you need to? He definitely shouldn't be sending rude messages on a group chat though, that's totally UR!

Is there a reason you're not driving halfway to meet up and drop off the DC for his contact time? Eg. You drive to location C, drop off DC with dad, they go do their 5 hours, then you meet up and drive DC home?

Icedlatteplease · 23/10/2022 19:16

I think you're lucky, if it ends up in family court it wouldn't be unusual for them to say meet half way or as you moved you do the transportation. I think that makes it hard for you to lay down the law much, potentially you have much more to lose.

Offering Every Weekend on a 3.5 hour drive is a bigger problem as you've set a precedent, if I was making any changes it would be with the aim to getting down to every fortnight.

Much of it depends on how likely your ex is to make an application. He's maneuvered himself into a strong position, trying to balance it out if he digs his heels in will be hard

Original poster
Ratatatawhoosthat · 23/10/2022 19:15

BattenburgDonkey · 23/10/2022 19:13

The best answer would be that he collects his son on the Saturday and takes him back to his own home, and then drops him back off on the Sunday. You could look into a more formal custody agreement but it would risk him asking for more him which you may not want.

I think 3.5 hours on Saturday and Sunday is too far for a baby to travel each weekend. Also our son is breastfed to sleep each night still. I don’t think his Dad would want to do a ‘night shift’ anyway luckily xx

OP posts:
SpinningFloppa · 23/10/2022 19:15

Why is he doing all the travelling when you moved away? Surely this will be changing when your son gets older?

BattenburgDonkey · 23/10/2022 19:13

And rather than communicating via email could you ask him to just communicate with your mum instead of you?

Brigante9 · 23/10/2022 19:13

You need to get your mum to block him, why the hell is she sending him daily updates? He’s abusive to you, why is she communicating outside of contact times and undermining you? You can tell him to go to court for contact, but as you moved, you may be told to take the baby back and forth.

BattenburgDonkey · 23/10/2022 19:13

The best answer would be that he collects his son on the Saturday and takes him back to his own home, and then drops him back off on the Sunday. You could look into a more formal custody agreement but it would risk him asking for more him which you may not want.

Original poster
Ratatatawhoosthat · 23/10/2022 19:09

I meant to say “I want to us to communicate only over email” **

OP posts:
Swipe left for the next trending thread