WWYD? Dilemma

[LemonaidLime]

I'll try to keep this brief. I have a very difficult relationship with XH. Our DD's 5 & 8 have recently (the last year or so) started becoming very reluctant to go to visitation. They give several reasons for not wanting to go and the older they have got, the more vocal they are about this. They will scream and cry at him down the phone or beg to come home if they go. It's very hard for me to hear them say these things - I'm torn between guilty that I'm not listening to their (IMO justifiable) fears and concerns and wanting them to have a relationship with their father.

I have a job interview tomorrow and as its XH's scheduled weekend, I asked him if he'd collect them from school (really rare for him to do the school run) and keep them for the weekend. However, he rang today to speak to the girls and they started screaming and crying that they don't want to go to his this weekend. They really do get quite distressed at times when they realise they have to go. I've tried talking to them about their worries and encouraged them to go, explained I have an interview etc. At one point I convinced my eldest to go if I got him to agree to take them somewhere nice (she chose a particular playgym very easy to get to) as she often complains that all they do at his is sit stuck in the house with only the tv and computer or to the local cricket club so he can get drunk while the kids play with other kids whose parents are also there. I messaged him to ask him and he basically said no, she doesn't deserve it after crying about going to his (he hates that they refuse to go and gets quite angry with them about it. Recently he turned up at the house after one such phone call and he was screaming at them through the door to come out and go to his. He also blames me for them not wanting to go as at times I have listened to them rather than forcing them.

So to my dilemma: My mother collects my nephews from nearby schools so in theory could collect the girls and they are begging me to ask her to do this so they dont have to visit their dad. Do I ask her to do this and tell XH not to bother having them that night or do I allow XH to collect them and go ahead with scheduled contact? I'm really torn on the right thing to do. I really could do with the break as I'm quite ill with a chronic condition but it breaks my heart to think of them stuck at his and desperately wanting to come home because they're bored and frightened.

WWYD?

He's just called and asked me to have them tomorrow even though it's his contact weekend . I told him not to pick them up from school as i'd asked my mum and he started screaming and shouting saying I'm not stopping him seeing his children. He's insisting that he will be picking them up. I argued back, just had enough .

What do I do? I feel I'm in a desperate situation with no idea what how to resolve it .

You know him, well enough to have had 2 kids with him. You've said here that he's argumentative and defensive. Knowing him as you do, do you think your dd's version of events is true? Even if exaggerated, do you think the basics are true?

Can you skip overnight contact for a while? Make it clear to ex that this is because the dds are so against it, tell him their reasons, and make it clear that when things change you will resume overnights.

Good for you for standing up for him OP. I think it is best for you to withhold all contact until you can go through the process of having mediation and a proper contact arrangement set by a court (or other official body).

Can you call the school and tell them that he is not allowed to pick the children up and that your mother is coming to get them? Or ask your mother to pick them up an hour early (with excuse for dentist appointments etc), that way he cannot pick them up. Have her take them out to soft play if he knows where your mother lives.

I hope you can get it sorted - I truly think getting an official plan for contact is what is best - if they hear about your worries and they listen to the children's opinions (which I hope they do) they may decide he cannot have them unsupervised or overnight which may be for the best in this situation if his behaviour with them is as you have described (any other conversations I would record so you can demonstrate his screaming etc). He seems very explosive.

Hope you can sort it out

Good for you for standing up for him OP. I think it is best for you to withhold all contact until you can go through the process of having mediation and a proper contact arrangement set by a court (or other official body).

Can you call the school and tell them that he is not allowed to pick the children up and that your mother is coming to get them? Or ask your mother to pick them up an hour early (with excuse for dentist appointments etc), that way he cannot pick them up. Have her take them out to soft play if he knows where your mother lives.

I hope you can get it sorted - I truly think getting an official plan for contact is what is best - if they hear about your worries and they listen to the children's opinions (which I hope they do) they may decide he cannot have them unsupervised or overnight which may be for the best in this situation if his behaviour with them is as you have described (any other conversations I would record so you can demonstrate his screaming etc). He seems very explosive.

Hope you can sort it out

What an awful situation. I really feel for you. You were abused and now your children are being abused.

You can do this. Listen to your daughter - she threatened to kill herself rather than see her father. That's an extreme thing to say - she needs you to listen to her.

Social services may be able to support you. I'd refer to them. I bet they would have something to say about his behaviour.

You'll also probably find that your daughter might be able to start towards healing herself if she is away from him.

Women's aid might also be good backup.

Thank you again everyone. This decision feels so burdensome at times. I hear so often from him that this is all my fault and years of conditioning have a part of me believing this is true. This has to be the line though doesn't it? When he came to the house, screaming at them through the door, they were crying and shouting at him to go away. I begged him to leave it until he could speak to them calmly but he stayed for around 20 minutes before accepting defeat. My personal feeling is that all of this is an affront to his belief that he should hold all the power and cannot bear to be questioned by a child or woman. His word is law.

He is calling me every couple of minutes but I am not answering. He's also sent me a text saying he will be picking them up from school and I can't stop him. He's right of course because the school do not have the power to prevent a parent with parental responsibility from collecting their own children. I will ask my mum to collect them a little earlier and hopefully they'll be gone before he gets there.

I'm going to email him this evening setting out all my concerns (again) and urging him to seek a court order to establish contact with proper boundaries and recommending he seek anger management and a parenting course.

I will also call women's aid as suggested and young minds again as they have been very helpful in the past. A part of me knows this is the right thing to do, another part is frightened fir the repercussions .

Forgot to add that I do believe my DC. My difficulties are in deciding if it's bad enough to stop contact and if that's really my decision to make.

If I asked him to revert to contact without any overnights, he would just keep them at his anyway. I convinced them to visit him this week and within an hour they had called me begging me to collect them from his. He refused to let them come home and hung up on me.

No court order - dont send them.
dont listen to his rants.

do organize childcare with your mother or other people.

do not involve him

push and push to get camhs involved with your oldest her behavior is telling you something. .

family therapy yes but without ex there.
my dds had family therapy without ex there - they the therapists did talk to him also separately but dd then 10 refused to have sessions with him and that was fine. it was helpful; older one then 12 now 16 also refused to see ex she now is completely no contact with him (for good reasons)
but you do need to be from and persistent to get the help your dd clearly needs form camhs.
tell CAMHs your daughter is threatening to kill herself - I know you want to dismiss it but dont. push it seriously with CAMHS. over emphasize it if needed. she really needs therapeutic support where she can talk about her fears and why she doesnt want contact...this will then back up anything if he does go to court.

there is no court order so you are free to make that decision.
your oldest is threatening to kill herself, so you have good enough reason.

cut contact.

push for CAMHS to get more involved
tell your dds they will have a break for now but make some kid of supported supervised contact arrangement for Christmas so he can give presents etc.

let girls calm down and hopefully be more open with you or with CAMHS as to the issues... CAMHS will use tools to get them to talk they wont ask them directly necessarily, with dd they did a lot of things like "draw your family tree" "Who is in your family" "what would your family motto be"
what do you enjoy doing? what do like doing with mum? what do like doing with dad?
basic stuff but it is carefully managed...

-I'm going to email him this evening setting out all my concerns (again) and urging him to seek a court order to establish contact with proper boundaries and recommending he seek anger management and a parenting course. -

that is pointless and you know it

he does not consider himself angry or in need of parenting course.
he will say that you are the one in need of parenting courses etc (they all follow same script...)

he is not going to listen to your concerns

just say,

"DDs wont be able to visit with you today/this weekend.

I am referring dd1 to CAMHS and I am sure CAMHS will also get in touch with you separately to discuss the next steps.

I suggest we meet at mediation to discuss a way forward with future contact. "

of course, mediation may not work with an abusive person but you can show that you are at least willing to try.

.

then turn phone off.
if he comes to door shouting call police. honestly it is something i should have done many times over and i know it is a hard step but you must.

When i did get SS involved this was drummed into me - "call police next time/any time".

"I think I will insist on him attending a parenting course so thank you to the pp who suggested that"

you cant insist he does a parenting course - he aint going to listen to you.
let a court judge or SS mandate him to do one.

dont put any of your energy into this.

(you may also find a court orders you both to do a separated parenting course, by the way...but dont worry as you would attend separately anyways)

put your energy into pushing and pushing to get CAMHS and family therapy for your dds - play therapy to work to get to the bottom of why they so against seeing dad.

offer mediation (but bear in mind he will use this to get back at you, be careful..)

cut contact. you CAN as there is no court order.
any shouting anger screaming -that is enough to cut contact as that behavior is harmful to your dds who are small frightened children - and oldest wants to kill herself over seeing him....

This is awful for you OP, I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. I don't know how you should handle your X but I know that if my DD told me that she would rather die than go to her father I would take that as a massive red flag that something is seriously wrong and I would do everything I could to stop it happening.

And I think you should inform DD school, advise them of the situation at least.

Have you mum collect the children an hour early. Call school and apologise and say a family emergency has occurred and the children need collecting by your mother. Give a code word.

Stop letting your ex abuse your children.

Learn to listen better to your children and have faith in your own decisions.

I don't know what you should do, obviously it depends on what the legal arrangements are which I don't know anything about, but I grew up in a similar situation to your girls. We were unhappy going to our Dad's and eventually our mum said we were too upset to go so it was best for it not to happen for a short while and then try again.

We never did go back or try again though, to this day we are completely NC with our Dad although he was sent sporadic birthday, Christmas cards etc up to us being teenagers and then stopped. He remarried and had a new family.

It makes us sad that this happened, at the time it was the best thing because we were unhappy visiting for similar reasons - it just wasn't very welcoming or friendly environment. Although we only visited every other weekend, for example he would have long lie-ins on Saturdays and Sundays and we weren't allowed out of our room or have anything to eat and had to stay in our room until he got up (so we didn't disturb him). That could be 10.30 or 11am which is a long time to keep quiet and not have any breakfast when you are 5 & 7 and wake up at 6 or 6.30. Also he did the thing of taking us out then leaving us to play on our own. We just didn't like it there.

What I am sorry about is that contact was never resumed at all. It's not that we should have been forced screaming and crying to go, but I don't think completely never seeing him again was the best thing either. It left a hole in our lives and a lot of unresolved issues.

So I don't really know what the answer is, but if your girls are that upset in going then more conversations need to happen with your ex. Maybe if they stayed over one night until lunchtime instead of two? Maybe if he takes them out just for the day somewhere specific (cinema/bowling) and everyone has fun and then go back to sleepovers when it seems to have settled?

contact your local children's centre, ask if they can do supervised meetings. try bar pro-bono for legal stuff and the citizens advice (although they've been shredded by this govt.) some solicitors will give you half an hour free and you can talk this over. or a university that does law and see if a lecturer could offer advice or one of the students for some court experience?

As there is nothing formal in place and the children are obviously traumatised by the visits tell him that access will be through a contact centre. Your and your children's safety and health (mental as well as physical) are priority. My biggest fear would be that he could not return the children to you as he is the father its not 'kidnap' either. x

Sorry X posts. I can see the situation is worse than original OP. You must do what you need to do to keep your girls happy and safe x

Cestlavie, thank you.

This was my most recent experience with CAHMS:

I was referred by my doctors and was called within a week by CAHMS. I was asked lots of questions about our circumstances and about DD for around 15 minutes. After this, the adviser told me that he believed her issues are behavioural only and recommended I read 1,2,3 magic and self referred to sure start. I was working at sure start at the time and knew that this wasn't the kind of case they deal with. The adviser told me that she almost certainly would have mental health issues as a teenager but the risk of her successfully committing suicide was low and we had more chance of being involved in a car accident every time I put my children in the car so I was to put that risk into perspective. He also called me back 10 minutes after that call talking about suicide by overdose before realising he had the wrong family and asked if I was the mother of 'named child' so he breached data protection as I then knew how another child in this area had attempted suicide. They are fully aware of my DD's issues - they just don't want to help.

Apologies for any cross posts. Started typing this while on hold to Gingerbread. They have given me some resources to try and explained that any court fees would be waived due to my low income which I was unaware of. I will still have to self represent. She also confirmed there's nothing I can do about him collecting the children today as he has PR.

The ball is in your court, op. please don't send them, you must go with your gut about this. There is no court order, so you can decide if you can trust him with your dds. . He is clearly a control freak of the worst kind, and well done to you for breaking free of him, you dd need to be able to do the same. You are doing your best by your girls and can continue to do so by trusting your feelings and your dds. Keep strong.

Please contact women's aid. He is abusive and has swindled you out of money and neglected your children, exposing them to risk.

You must get professional help to keep your girls safe.

Please go back to CAMHS, threats to commit suicide should be taken seriously. Your older dd is acting out abuse and bullying on your younger child. Where has she learnt this? Your bullying ex maybe! She and you and your youngest dd need help to escape this monster.

Ps I lounge on the sofa in front of my kids! It is not neglect. What he has done IS NEGLECT.

You ask whether the situation is bad enough to justify cutting contact? Yes it is.
Your daughters mental health is paramount. Have confidence in your decision making, your gut is telling you what to do.

Just to confirm does he pay any maintenance?

Get legal advice you cannot send a child screaming to her father if he is neglectful.

If he attempts to take them screaming could you secretly record footage or audio on a mobile phone - IF it is safe to do so!

you need to try and be very specific that you are asking for family therapy help (remembering that this does not need to include ex in the sessions at least initially) so that dds can have a future relationship with their father (everyone is very big on this idea...) [the fact they may or may not is irrelevant at this stage, phrase it as tho you really want things to improve, which you do in a way...if it is possible...]

go back to GP get re referred to CAMHS and if you get same adviser ask to speak to his supervisor instead.

keep telling ex you waiting for CAMHS support and family therapy and he will get invited.

there will be hopefully a branch of CAMHs that does specific family therapy work in these situations, make it clear this is what you looking for : to explore the dc concerns over contact and present it as you want to work to move forward. .

if ex then hears it from a therapist that he needs to do x or y he may listen...he certainly wont ever listen to you.

yes it does take some pushing to get the right response nd support from CAMHS (it took ages with dds, at one point i had stopped contact and ex was getting serious MH input from local adult MH services and GP/SS supported me in stopping contact...you not quite in that situation.

but when ex got "well" again it got back to being like your situation - an angry man who screamed and shouted and dd1 who didnt want to go at all. dd2 kinda wanted but had concerns also.

.

currently, dd1 16 does not see ex; dd14 does see ex ad hoc about once/twice per week - she arranges herself now;

oldest ds sees him also weekly.

your dc are young and you have many more years of this.

focus on getting them family therapy help, which would involve therapist working with them (you would likely sit in) then maybe bringing ex in as well, also they would talk to ex and hopefully help him see things and improve... this would be over many months and is your best way forward.

meantime stop contact.

don't put dd thru this.
let her have some time away from him.

if she was same about going to school you would work to get to the bottom of what was bothering her. and that might mean stepping back, holding off then gradually with support building up on her terms.