Kids dad attemsuing suicide

[kjc1983]

Hi. I'm new to this and just need a bit of unbiased advice.
I have 2 children with my ex dd is 4 ds is 2.
On Saturday their father was meant to have them. He picked them up at 10 and I was due to start work at 1.30. I go food shopping.
He phones me up whilst good shopping saying I'm lying about working. So I tell him I'm at tescos then be at work.
He then shows up with the kids sats bye see you in court and walks out. Dd is in tears.
He then messages me saying his going to kill himself. This isnt the first time his threatened this. I call his mum tell her. Sort my kids out so I can go into work. He then sends me a picture of him on top.of a bridge over a busy road.
I go there to get him to see sense he spits the police car. Ends up in a police chase and they take him home
The police have told me what his foing is emotional abuse. And I think I see that now. But my feelings aside I dont know whether his in the right frame of mind to be round the kids. What can I do as all I want is to protect them but dont want to be seens as alienating them. Anyone hot any advice?

The police were right it is emotional abuse. He's saying that to manipulate you. Might be worth talking to the adult mental health team in social services and explaining what has happened, or if you've got a solicitor talking to them to see what they suggest.

No, he's not fit to be around the children. I would not allow it all with him in this frame of mind. It's not outside the realms of possibility that he's a danger to them as well as to himself.

It is emotional abuse. If he does similar in the future then immediately call the police and don't run to him.

How often does he see the kids?

I'm not sure if you are going to court or if that was just a threat from him. I would not want him to have unsupervised contact right now.

That is emotional abuse.

I am generally very against kids being withheld from either parent but in the light of his behaviour can you really trust him not to talk inappropriately to them? What did he say to your DD that had her in tears when he brought her back? She is way too young to process what she is told in anything other than very black and white terms.

You said you contacted his mum, would she be willing to be around when he has the kids (explain you don't want to stop contact but your priority is to protect them if their dad is being unstable). Above all, get some decent legal advice so if you do decide you need to limit contact right now you do it "on the advice of my lawyer". Good luck x

No OP, I don't think he is safe to be around the children at all. I would stop all contact for now and insist he goes through court if he wants to see them. The court process is tough (and unfortunately not perfect) but his actions and behaviour will be open to scrutiny by numerous professionals and that gives you the best chance of a safe outcome for DC.

He's obviously not stable right now so you're doing the responsible thing by protecting the children from that. He will need to be able to demonstrate that he is stable to get through the court process so, if nothing else, it will give him the incentive to get himself sorted out. For now though it's simply not worth the risk of letting him have DC, you never really know how far a person will go.

Supervised contact only, even if that means in a centre. Whenever he threatens, don’t go looking for him, call his mum or the police and let them deal with it

He needs supervised contact only. There's contact centres of course but better if his mum or another trusted family member can be put in charge of the kids for the visit period as it's less traumatic for the kids

Thank you everyone for your replies. This isnt the first time his made threats of killing himself. He was saying it to me alot on the lead up to this, where it got to the point that I ended up telling his mum that she needed to talk to him.
He no longer has any way of contacting me so hopefully that will stop.
I thought that social services would have made contact by now as the police wanted to come and check the safety of DC. I've spoken to citizens advice and they have told me that social services is the best people to talk to. Just the works "social services" scares me

As everyone has said it is straight forward emotional abuse and manipulation. He is doing it to get his own way and what he wants.

What I did when I went through all this was to "detach" for my own good and for the good of our dcs. I stopped any form of contact (admittedly, it was after about half a dozen threats with police and ambulance call outs - it takes a bit of time to get yourself into the right headspace).

These kind of things are emotionally tiring for you and the dcs, all they do is to keep you off balance and pandering to the manipulations.

It does sound uncaring and cruel not to respond to it, so pass it off each to the to the authorities (police, ambulance, social services) let them deal with it. In the case if my ex she failed to understand that by doing things just like this the courts end up taking a dim view of their abilities to parent and they loose out even more, which ends up fueling even more emotional abuse and manipulation.

I'm sorry to say that you are in a difficult place and on a hiding to nothing with someone like that so the more distance between you and them, the better it is for you and your DC's.

You don't have to be scared of social services. You just need to show them that you're able to put the safety of your children above your feelings about your ex. For the time being, this sounds like it's the right thing to suspend contact, because he is abusing you and doesn't sound stable.

GruciusMalfoy

is right my dcs were on the "at risk register" for a long time because of ex's abuses. They are there to help you with the best interests of the children, the support they fast tracked us to was amazing,the agencies that they got to help the dcs was brilliant of them.

There is a stigma, I've lived it, but their goal is to ensure that the dcs are well looked after, at home, and are being nurtured. More importantly, not suffering the mental health aspects that the effects of this have.

On a second note, some thing for OP to think about. If your ex was properly empathic and self aware, they would realise that their behaviour is damaging to those around them. Threats of suicide in front of children is a really bad thing, no matter how dark the thoughts are and I've been there, right at the edge of doing it. Seriously, it's not good, I don't know how to stress that enough without making myself sound like an oaf.

This is emotional abuse.

This was a mistake (I mean it nicely)
I go there to get him to see sense

Don’t do it and Do not engage with him.
You were trying to help and be kind but that’s what people like this prey on.

If he threatens suicide again log it with 101 or the police.
Let him take you to court for access only give him supervised access in a contact centre

I’d be engaging fully with social services and do not minimise what a threat you believe him to be to yourself and potentially your kids

I’d restrict contact to supervised contact only. Next time he might try to kill DC too.

Don't be scared of social services, they are there to make sure your kids are alright and will be able to conenct you with support for what you're going through. I'm sorry OP, this whole thing sounds incredibly shitty.

He didn't have any serious intention of doing it, did he? His first thought was to let you know so that people would rush to save him. He's clearly unbalanced though, and I wouldn't trust him with the dc.

No, he's not trustworthy round the kids, simply for the amount of emotional distress he's causing. Well done to the police for pointing this out. Let any further threats be dealt with by the statutory services, and do not engage with him because every time you do, you're teaching him that this is a good way to get your attention. (I'm assuming it was you who left). He's not in a fit state of mind to be responsible for children at the moment. Let him take you to court - that should be interesting, although it sounds like another manipulative threat to me. Lots of fathers are able to deal with separation without scaring their kids to the point of tears.

My father made me witness his suicide attempt when I was a teenager. He then exploited the trauma he put me through for the best part of 20 years. He would threaten suicide to get me to do what he wanted (he has drink and prescription painkiller dependencies so needs someone to enable that). He would also use the trauma to ‘punish’ me, for example if I was going on a hen weekend or working towards a promotion at work he would go AWOL and not answer calls/texts to make me think he had killed himself. He couldn’t stand me having a good life, he had to make sure I was in a constant state of anxiety.

Please consider counselling for your children as they need to understand that what he is doing is manipulation. I didn’t understand it - if a child sees their parent doesn’t want to live anymore then the automatic response is the child blames themselves for not being good enough. Then the child will become wired to ‘fix’ and ‘save’ the parent by people-pleasing and care taking in an abnormal way.

I hope this is some food for thought. My dads manipulation has made me very unwell both mentally and physically so please protect the children from it as much has possible, it’s too great a burden for a growing nervous system.