I can’t bear him. God I just can’t

[Williesfillies]

Ex husband. Abusive. Divorce pending.
Having abused me financially so that I’ve had to go to court for finances he is now just moving onto the next thing. The. Children.

Currently he doesn’t do overnights, he is gearing up to take me to court but right now that’s how it is.

He’s seeing them this weekend. This has taken a week to arrange because he seems to have started some rule in his head that he won’t reply to me for 48 hours, so eg “can I see them x day?”
Me “yep, what time”
48 hours of total silence, until the day before at which point he will re appear and start arranging it last minute. It’s always last minute.

This week it’s over a return time, the youngest is fairly young, but I just said “what time roughly will you be dropping them off?” Which I don’t think was unreasonable, however, apparently that’s me dictating, he can’t possibly give a time, it will be whenever it is etc etc.

I would argue that I too need a life and having no time at all arranged means he can (and probably will) drop them back really early, so I can’t actually go out.

Tried setting a time ie “ok, well let’s say 7 then” which also got refused.

Eventually had to say that no time, no children and after a full day he came back with a time that is as late as possible and that he may change.

I can’t bear it. I’m a ball of anxiety and rage over this every time we have an interaction. I try to be polite, I try to say it’s for the children’s welfare, but you just can’t reason with him. He’s decided that I “won’t tell him what he’s doing” and that’s that, so that a reasonable question just becomes a battlefield until I have to say they aren’t going.

I can’t bear dealing with him. Even with him getting a court order it will continue like this.

The only thing that’s worked for me is what fleek says above. The advantage is I don’t feel so mad either.

Kurt & OP

I really do feel empathy for you both, its really a very difficult time and its so hard to understand why the other parent won't just parent with you and want the best for their children.

Its such a crying shame for the children and so mindless

@frazzledasarock

OP has said the safeguarding issues are not just her saying it it’s outside agencies.

If the outside agencies deem him a safeguarding risk judges sometimes order interim day contact but there are usually investigations on going before contact case returns to court for review.

My DC only had day contact which was eventually rescinded to indirect contact afte investigations.

It happens.

Yes. And it also happens that Court sometimes rules contact barred altogether. For safeguarding reasons.

Have you considered using something like the My Family Wizard App. Useful for evidencing stuff and it's use can be written into the court order.

Thankyou for all the replies.
There is a safeguarding risk at his house at the moment, that’s all I can say, so it’s fine if he sees them just not at his house.
Also, children don’t want to be there due to what has gone on.

Overnights will happen eventually but at the children’s pace (or the courts), I’m not being weirdly controlling and he was like this with his Exw over contact, and he had them overnight then, it’s just whatever he’s got he moves on to the next controlling thing, so eg, he would play silly buggers over giving them back after his weekend.

It really wouldn’t matter what I gave it would not be enough because his aim is to upset me

It may well be that steps can be put in place (such as in the order) that mean the risk is not there, but until I have a guarantee I’m not budging on this issue)

The police are not interested in breaches of Child Arrangements orders, they will tell you it is a matter to be dealt with by the family courts.