" I wasted Money to see my son, I could've used it to buy drugs!"

[CraigN24]

I am a single full Time dad to a beautiful son who has a wide range of learning difficulties. His mum walked away when he was born because she wanted a girl ( he is now 7) since then she has seen him a handful of times and it's been awful... ( very homophobic - I am in a same sex relationship )

Today she turned up unexpectedly demanding / shouting to see her son ( only seen him 4 times!) This resulted in my son having a massive melt down and crying in my partners arms .. I told her that she can't just turn up out of the blue and expect everything to be ok.. She then turned around and said " I want my money for my Taxi back... I wasted my money to see my son, I could've used it to buy drugs"

I AM FURIOUS! :@

She saw him once at a contact centre but my son was very distressed and left early and a couple of other times here and there which I regret because little man always gets upset.

What can we do ?!

Wow no advice but what a prize she is!

Maybe give her a load of money for drugs on the condition she signs away any parental responsibility. No idea if this is actually legal!

if you want my opinion i would just stop her seeing your son.it is obviously not good for him and unless she takes you to court i would just ignore her .ignore her nasty comments children need loving parents ie you and your partner .hope you are all ok .

So sorry you are struggling with this :(

Do you have a contact order in place? I would have thought so if she has seen him at a contact centre before. Would that prevent her from coming to the house?

How absolutely horrific. Agree with aprilanne. It is detrimental to your sons wellbeing for contact to continue.

Yes I really wouldn't allow her to see him unless she takes you to court, which sounds very unlikely anyway.

contact center? Are social services involved?

legally I don't know what exactly you can do.

but I do know your poor ds shouldn't have to have anything to do with that awful woman :(

he's so much better off with you and your dp

Can we please know more about the process by which you got sole custody?

I say this because we may be able to advise better if we know what services are or have previously been involved.

If there are no services currently involved then i think you need to contact your local CADT - Central Advice And Duty Team.

There has to be some involvement though if she's a drug user.

You cannot change her. Ask your son if he wants to see her, and if he doesn't want to, then don't make him.

Also, make sure he knows it's not his fault that she cares so little about him. Children tend to blame themselves for that sort of stuff. (Though maybe less so considering that she never was his main carer)

Clearly there's a significant backstory. No mother 'walks away' at birth because she wanted a child of the other sex - clearly she has addiction problems and MH issues, at the very least. And while you say you're single, you also mention a male partner - were you previously in a relationship with your son's mother, or do you mean she carried a baby for you and your partner? Either way, the intermittent contact is harming your son.

My unstable ex also started turning up randomly and scaring the kids. I went to the Family Courts and there was an interim order ("prohibited steps" order) I got at one of the very first hearings which kept him at bay whilst the courts then set in train the whole thing to decide residency/contact. Ex fought me tooth and nail to see the two kids he'd never paid a penny towards or bothered about - he put in a counter attack, asking for residency (custody). He ended up getting no direct contact whatsoever - just 4 mailings, per child, a year.

He used to send creepy messages scrawled on prayer cards from a dodgy church he joined.

The prohibited steps order stayed in place - when I got residency I also was given an order that said he can never come to my house or the boys' school.

Later, in a criminal court, I ended up getting a restraining order eaning he cannot contact me at all in any way. In theory this shouldn't affect the earlier court order saying he can mail the boys 4 times a year. But the reality is, he doesn't contact them either.

We had a nightmare scenario where he turned up randomly, after vanishing from their lives, one christmas. It was after that I was advised to go to the Family Courts and get orders in place. I got Legal Aid. I was told that there were other ways I could have got orders that did the same as a Prohibited Steps. This was about 10 years ago. Not sure if the law is still the same.

You sound like lovely parents, you and your partner. Wish you all the luck in the world. It's a sad thing, having to actually get court orders but that is the best for our kids in these situations.

I found the courts to be very good. A lot of rubbish is written re. the 'secrecy' of family courts but that is in place to protect the children.

I'm wondering about the back story wrt the contact centre meeting and the substance misuse as well.