May be a long one sorry
Split with my ex of 6 years for being increasingly abusive over a year ago. I didn’t press any charges for various reasons. Throughout this past year he has refused to take the kids, changed number of days and specific days he had them (messed with my work hugely), neglected them (social work won’t help me I’ve tried), has had no permanent job or house (main reason he keeps changing days), tried to boot through my door and then get me charged for assault when I protected myself and house (it went to trial and I was found not guilty).
About July he finally got a job, I didn’t know it was only a temporary job as he didn’t tell me. He wanted to swap his day from a Friday to one day during the week. Obviously I wasn’t interested as he can barely get himself up before 9 in the morning let alone get one of our kids to school by that time. I eventually compromised to Wednesday nights under the condition our daughter wasn’t late and she was clean, rested and ready to start the day. He lost his house one bedroom flat as he spent his rent money on other things (possibly drugs and alcohol) and moved into his brothers 2 bedroom flat. Kids have to sleep in a double bed with their dad.
Something happened one night when his gran was on holiday (she keeps him on the straight and narrow when he has the kids, thank god for her she is a saint) and I had to make other safeguarding conditions which is he will not have the children unless he is supervised by his mum at her house or his gran is there majority of the time. Once it’s bedtime I feel they are pretty safe. Social work refused to help me even though it was neglect, they said it was a custody issue.
Now I had spoken to his gran and said he is welcome to have them for Christmas dinner this year as it’s a Wednesday (last year I got called all the names under the sun for taking them to my mums for Christmas who we have never spent Christmas with) he eventually got back to me and said he’s not taking them for Christmas as “it’s not Christmassy enough” at his brothers house and he’s no longer taking them on Wednesdays due to his new job (his grandad said he has no faith in him with keeping this job). I attend college on Wednesday nights till 5pm. The usual childcarer I have for my son when I’m at college won’t do nursery pick ups so I can’t get childcare for that it would mean sieving through even more child care providers trying to find someone to be able to do it (childcare is extremely tight in my area I’m lucky I’ve got what I have) not to mention the extra money I would have to pay if I get refused funding for it. He refused to let my daughter do dancing on his day also. Kids now have commitments on the other days so he will expect them to drop that too if he changes. After arguing back and forward he’s in the mind of “your choice to go to college you find childcare” he had apparently seemed legal advice (at 5pm on a Saturday night) and they had said I HAVE to be flexible with the kids and his work. I find it really strange that in his opinion fathers get equal rights to kids wherever they want but when it comes to working for both parents it’s the father’s way or no way.
Hoping to seek some legal advice in the morning. Am I the bad person? Is it likely the judge if it goes to court will favour for him?
Every time I start to do better for myself he attempts to hit me back down to his level and stops whatever I have going for me.
He has never once paid a penny to either of these children. Maybe a hair cut here and there.
The reasons I have not stopped him having contact is
- I grew up with irregular contact with my dad and it literally killed me
- Social work said it’s down to me to tell whether or not he is on drugs when he has the kids
- If I was to stop I would be the bad person. He has refused to take the kids previously or twisted my words with my conditions and claimed to everyone I’ve stopped him from seeing the kids. When the court case for the assault was going on my step mum attempted to contact him regarding contact with the children. He ignored her. I was then approached by one of our mutual friends to pass on a message the he just wanted to see him kids.
He keeps playing mind games and it’s making me physically sick
It hasn’t went to court before as I though everything would calm down and he would mature for his kids and deal with everything civally but now I’m seeing court/lawyers/mediation is probably my best bet right now.
Please be nice, I was 16 when I got with him and believe me I get enough “it was your own fault for having kids to him” from my dad