ExH has suggested mediation to sort out some
ongoing issues around child access etc.
We’ve been divorced for 10 years and until recently he had the DC every other weekend and all was fine. A year ago he moved back to our home town, down the road. Since then things have been tricky- initially we stuck to EOW with set days in the week, but the DC didn’t always want to go on their set days. Recently he has said they can just come and go as they please, which means I never have a clue where they will be. When I try to raise this and ask for a routine he says I’m being controlling.
Eldest DC (15) has taken to going to his house at the weekend because he lets her stay out til all hours whereas I give her a curfew. Last week, while I was away for the weekend he also went away and let 15yo stay overnight alone with friends, without telling me. When I tried to discuss it with him he shouted at me to fuck off, right in my face in the street. Later in a text he said “sorry if you were upset, I’m not offended by swearing”.
Yesterday I found out from the DC that he is away for 2 weeks. No communication from
him to me. When I raised this he replied with a stream of abuse telling me that I am always looking for ways to be angry with him and listing horrible things the DC have allegedly said about me (I don’t think they are are true, or at the very least are massively out of context!)
There are so many other things- he never does their washing so they turn up with crumpled dirty uniform on a Sunday night, he underpaid child support for years then called me money-grab img when I called him out on it. I don’t know a way forward, the situation is making me so anxious. Out of the blue exH has suggested mediation. Has anyone actually tried it?
He can be very persuasive and charming (I think he’s a narcissist) and my worry is that either he’ll convince the mediator to take his side or, especially if the mediator is a woman, he’ll decide that they are biased towards me and not agree to what they say anyway. That was his view of my solicitor/ the judge back when we did the financial settlement for the divorce, they were all feminists and biased towards women apparently 🙄