Fed up of my ex and to go home early?

He has now just advised me that he will be taking me to court and how he is going "to tell them everything".
I asked what did he mean?
He said me stopping his access and stopping his family from seeing them.

Tell him that's OK because you can show the court he uses these threats as a way of controlling you and placing you in fear.

After you've said that to him tell him to fuck off.

^^ This. In spades.

Excellent news. Let him take you to court, they will instruct him to use the parenting app and they will tell him which days you have to make the children available to him so he won't be able to mess you/them about. They will probably make him come to you or meet halfway too. And all that will cost him money 😂

Tell him to bring it on.

You need to stop listening to his lies. He is saying things that are not true because he needs to manipulate the situation. He is selfish and doesn’t really care about anyone except himself.

your sleep will only be disrupted for a short time whilst your kids are young. You need to build your own life and on your own terms. Stop asking for his approval.

he sounds borderline narcissistic. Highly likely severe ADHD (massive issues with responsibilty).

Stop giving a shit what he says. My ex blames me for everything, and anything. We all know it’s him, he’s the lazy arse that wants his children on his terms and anything else is me stopping him seeing them. Just smile and nod, and tell him you welcome a court date. Other than that, step away. Dont engage unless it’s about him collecting and returning the children.

Do you look up to him? No, so dont worry what he thinks about you.
Quietly go home, no big fanfare or drama, just pack up and go home.

Go home, don't tell him. What a looser. You owe him nothing after he has messed you and the children round this weekend. Make sure you detail his actions this weekend in writing and all the other times he has let you down. I doubt he will take you to court these chancers are full of talk and threats but short on action.

I agree with the others, he is controlling you from afar. 35 minutes is nothing for two decades my daily commute was over an hour each way 5 days a week.

Don’t even bother let him come to see them if he can even bring himself to do that. He is a waste of space

So he blames you for his own and his parents failings and anything else he can think off. Stop jumping through hoops in the hope he will ever be the father your DC deserves. He would never take you to court because that takes effort and the only thing that man has energy for is himself!
I would go home without letting him know and only let him message through the parent app.

Mediation will be before it gets to Court

Let him crack on.

Tell him their first suggestions will be:
Set routine
Parenting app
Mediation.

He's lazy and selfish!
Set up an app, give him all the log in info, and leave him to it.

Oh, actually, him.telling you he will "take you to.court" is BRIlliant.

So, first, he wont. Its a control tactic. But you get to act as if you do think he will. "Great, I know the courts like parenting apps so I will start using it" or "let's let the court settle this as clearly we cant".

BecUsr in the very very unlikely event he does take you to court, you have done NOTHING but behave appropriately so the kore crazy he is, the kore it works for you. You didnt move away. You dont routinely not turn up for contact time. I assume you are paying all child related costs.... yiu are golden!

You need to stop making the effort, as hard as it is. If you want a coparenting app then you can download one and tell him that all communication must go through there, Our Family Wizard is a good one but you'll need to pay (unless you get a year free for example via mediation)

In your shoes, I would suggest mediation to get some consistent, reliable contact. Get something drawn up and then have a solicitor look through and sign it to make it legally binding. Its much easier to have something in writing than not knowing if and when he is going to show up.

A 35 minute drive is no excuse not to see your children properly FFS.

OP, go home, and never go out of your way to facilitate contact again.

Offer SET, routine contact on a pattern that is doable and in the kids best interests and only offer contact during those times. If he skips it, he skips it but he can't swap and change.

Block him on everything except a parenting app. He can use that or nothing.

Time to get tough and protect your peace and sanity as well as protect your kids from being messed about.

He will either stick to contact or not but you will have offered and will soon know where you stand.

He's not interested by the sound of it. Your kids won't be harmed by not seeing him so really dont bother chasing him.

YANBU.

You need to start drawing some bounaries. Remember, he won't respect those boundaries, they're for YOUR benefit, not his. So you decide what is and is not acceptable and you have a very clear knowledge of what you will do outside of that.

So, you tell hi you want to agree set times or weekends. You agree what those are. If he doesn't show up, you take the kids and go out. If he turns up later, you tell him he can't take them etc etc.

You do have to accept however that if you do that, the chances are his time with the kids will decrease even further. So make sure you've got whatever child support payments in place, or go through CMS asap.

I booked a place for me and the kids in the city where my now ex now resides for Easter so he could spend time with the kids and visit his family etc.

You tried. You literally laid everything on a plate for this man to have a nice Easter with his children, and he couldn't be arsed

Learn from this, it's not the distance, it's HIM. It's not that you're trying to keep them apart, it's HIM. It's not that you make things difficult, it's HIM.

Grant him no more grace, and definitely never again spend money that could have gone on you & the kids, trying to do anything to make life easier for this man.

Its only 35 mins away, get yourself home.

tomorrow have a day out, you & the kiddies & have some fun.

stop making all this effort for a man that can’t even drive to see his kids on a regular basis.

you are way too nice, you have facilitated this whole weekend when he should be looking after them with no involvement from you in his time.

why is he not collecting them on a Friday & returning them on a Sunday night/to school on Monday at least every othet weekend. In addition to the midweek, this should be the minimum.

get contact to be through one of them apps for arranging contact & make the absolute waste of space actually look after his children

Im confused why you would book and pay for a place closer to this loser? Why?

What difference would it make it he used a parenting app rather than messaging directly?

Why don't you set down set times for him rather than him rocking up when he wants? Get something from a solicitor to try and get him to agree to whatever it is you want.

You can't change his behaviour, but you can change how you respond to it. If he sees the DC at weekends, you only need once a week contact with him. So don't read his messages except for the one day and time you've decided to set aside for it, hang up when he calls, protect your headspace from his interruptions.

He's doing this deliberately to fuck with your mind. Let that sink in.

Send him one message to tell him to use the court approved app only from now on. Send him a link so he can't say you told him the name wrong.

Block him on everything else.

Let him start the court proceedings, just sit tight and do nothing in the meantime. I bet you a pound he won't pay for the solicitor or costs as he's too tight.

Claim CMS.

Stop facilitating a controlling and manipulative man to have access to children. Only a fool will think they will be "safe" from his abusiveness. He's damaging them right now with not turning up at the hotel.

Go home. Don’t bother to tell him so he is ffing inconvenienced tomorrow if he shows up. Find your inner rage and for the love of god tell him to fk off to the far side of fk and then fk off some more.

Go formal legal routes and don’t let yourself be sweet talked into whatever suits this self centred ass

Go home now, and the message him to say that all future arrangements will be via a parenting app. I would suggest you then pick a time each week which suits the children, and tell them that they will be available then.

Then block him, other than one email address and the app.

So he's basically controlling you, by having you running around according to his whims and wishes. He is acting that way because you are letting him. Formalise visitation so that there is a set schedule. Do not travel up to his city, let him and his family come to you. Stop waiting for him. You are a single parent, you need to work out what is best for you and the children. They need consistency. He might end up not seeing them I'm afraid, and I suspect you are tying yourself in knots trying to prevent that from happening. You need to stand up for yourself and DC, he isn't going to change and it isn't your job to make him become a reliable responsible father.