I've posted before about my ex, who is, to sum up, intimidating, bullying, jealous, and verbally agressive. We have a 7 yr old DS but split when I was pg, have attempted to be friendly in the past but are now acrimonious.
I have had contact with my local police's domestic abuse unit, ex has never hit me but he is threatening and nasty esp by phone and text.
Ex has DS for one overnight per week and one evening/dinner, I let him pick DS up from my home as long as he doesn't come up to the front door or attempt to speak to me in person.
Two problems have manifested recently. One is, ex's behaviour on pick ups. I always give a half hour window for him to come eg 4.30 - 5pm. He agrees and then turns up early. Yesterday Ds and I were heading home from the park and ex was standing on a street corner just along from our house. He followed us home (half an hour before pick up time), I didn't notice. He texted to say "You do know I'm waiting outside?" I replied that he was early/we weren't ready and he texted something nasty back. He was right outside the house, I peeped through the curtains, he stood there leaning on my car the whole time.
The police advisor said I should phone them and report it if ex acted in any way threatening or harrassed me. We dicussed how it would be a grey area if he wasn't actually doing anything to break the law or 'disturb the peace'. In retrospect now I'm thinking maybe I should have called them while he was here. AIBU? Would that have been a massive overreaction? I've been awake since 3am thinking about this. Like I said, ex has never been physical but knows I am easy to frighten in the sense that he can do 'small' and apparently (to other people) insignificant things which actually do leave me quite anxious. Also, would IBU to still go ahead and file a report about this? Would the police think I was overreacting?
Second problem (bear with me!) is ex's behaviour while ds is visiting. For one, he is telling ds that 'mum doesn't like dad but dad still likes mum.' Hence ds coming home and asking me (repeatedly) why I don't like dad, why won't I be friends with him, please can we be friends, crying about it etc. Also ex's conduct when ds is visiting. This is more of a parenting issue I guess. Ex works saturday night and has ds on fri. It's apparent he keeps him up until round about midnight. I've phoned ds at 10pm and he's in the middle of a film eating sweets. I think ex does this to get a lie in on saturday. DS doesn't get a lie in though, I pick him up to take him to a sports class which starts at ten am and the coach notices when a kid's too tired to cope. It's an important class for ds, for his self-esteem as much as anything - he's come a long way and made a real effort to do it and has recently been selected to compete. Also of course it impedes on the rest of his weekend. He's wrecked for most of saturday and needs to go to bed even earlier than his normal time.
I've told ds to try to make sure he gets a good night's rest when he's at his dad's but of course he's only 7 (a young 7 at that) and this is not nor should be his call. Speaking to his dad is difficult because I just get abuse in return and also for the sake of my own mental health I am trying not to have any contact with ex except the bare minimum. So, next AIBU: would it be wrong to tell ex that I want to pick ds up at bedtime on fri (say 9.30pm) and bring him home to sleep?
FWIW ds often complains about going to his dad's. I encourage it (not entirely sure why anymore) and I think he enjoys it while he's there however he complains to me about being 'hardly able to wake up' or unable to get out of bed on a saturday morning.
Thanks for reading, this is long. So 2 AIBUs: police report, and cut the overnighter. Please be honest if you think I'm being a control freak. Or any other kind of freak.