DC, bed time cuddlies, age and removing them....?

[Nocuddlies]

NC obviously.

My DC are barely 9 and 6. The last three years my ex and I have been divorcing. Things have pretty terrible, he's passive aggressive and I've been in counselling two years coming to terms with his behaviour, including the affair he had. Not the point of this thread.

So bedtime cuddlies. My two DC both still very much have to have their favourite cuddlies for bed every night.

Ex has not allowed them to have their cuddlies at his house last weekend. He says they are fine about it. He walked DC to the wheelie bin outside my house and made them throw their cuddlies in. DS ran away from him clutching cuddly but now doesn't want to ever visit again. DD is far more compliant to him and threw them away. I'm not going to say any more about her reaction as I'd like to gage MN response.

If your DC still have cuddlies, how old are they?

I feel for you OP. Anything I send with my DD to her fathers house that has any special meaning (a bracelet, a picture of us together she asked for, a tablet so she could Skype me) either gets 'lost' or 'broken' and the picture was outright thrown away. Even the clothes I return her in are disliked and she is told to remove them.

Even with him behaving neglectfully in other ways (hygiene and health), it wasn't enough to have her returned to my care (he refused to turn her after I was made homeless and sent her to him while I sorted it out) because it's not bad enough to change the status quo.

I'd recommend mediation if he continues with behaviour like this. That way a neutral third party can point out where he is behaving in a destructive way towards the children. CAFCASS wouldn't likely see it as a reason to stop contact, so Court wouldn't be useful I don't think, but if he shows himself as completely unreasonable and doesn't listen to mediation, you have that on your side if things do get worse and you do have to take it further.

You'll probably now get some lengthy response claiming it's in the best interest of the children/that YOU are stopping them becoming confident and independent /reference to how they are happy without them at his blah blah blah.

If he does I would say "I didn't ask you to defend your decision to throw them away, but whether to allow the children to have them at yours as this is what they are asking for". I.e. keep it simple and refer back to what you've emailed rather than get drawn into a discussion on who is right.

I thought your email was great by the way