To hand my children over to their father?

[Montague01]

I’am tired, I cannot keep fighting him because he won’t work with me and plays dirty using the kids emotions. I’ve had front row seats for 7 years and I can’t watch any more. I’am so so tired. I wouldn’t even win against him in court so I might as well just hand them over and walk away.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Does Christmas this year fall on his weekend to have them? Christmas Day is a Friday, could it be that he's told them they'll be at his because it's his weekend to have them?

If that was the case then by rights he should have them from the Friday night until the Sunday so Xmas day night through to the day after Boxing Day, but he’ll be working Boxing Day so he’s trying to mess with the EOW to suit himself by wanting to drop them back the Friday night but having them the Thursday which isn’t what we have agreed right now. No discussion with me about this though.

And it’s my weekend that weekend.

The only way he can make it his weekend is he mentioned to me that he’s changing jobs and it’ll mess up his weekends slightly so he might miss one of ‘his’ then pick up from one of ‘mine. Then they’ll be reversed and he’ll get his way with it being his weekend. I can’t insist he keeps his job so as not to cause a reversal.

OP- ring up a solicitors firm and ask them if yiou are eligible for what is called Legal Help or Legal Aid. if you receive certain kinds of benefits and have evidence of some sort of domestic abuse (even if you have only spoken to a dv charity or done the freedom programme for example) then you may be eligible.

Otherwise alot of firms will give you a quote and allow you to pay it off over some time. My BF paid off £50 a month for about 18 months when she needed to go back to court.

Point is- there may be options about returning to court.

Longines - any advice on how you have dealt with this please

@Chumbaw, I'm still working through this to some extent, but the things that have really helped me are (1) counselling to vent and to process and understand my own feelings, (2) learning about boundaries and starting to recognise where I want my emotional boundaries to be (and how far over the line they were before!) (3) having sat in on some of my DD's CBT and learning about unhelpful thought patterns like mind-reading and predicting the future, etc that feed in to establishing emotional boundaries (e.g. catching myself when I start viewing things my ex does from his perspective as a selfish arsehole and turning it round to think "ok, this has happened, how does it impact me and the kids and what can we do about it?", and realising when I think "there's no way he's going to agree to that" that I'm shooting myself in the foot by assuming he won't do whatever it is, because then it becomes my fault he hasn't done it instead of his).

I've found that recognising that my own overarching feeling driving my anger towards him is not that he's a bad father and left us high and dry (despite that also being true), but the fact I often feel unsupported. If I didn't feel unsupported and we were thriving, I wouldn't give a shit about his motivations or selfishness. The only reason it becomes an issue for me is when I'm looking for the root cause of my unfortunate predicament. So rather than focus on him, I focus on changing my predicament. For me, that looks like getting the help I need from the council and getting advice and signposting from charities and CAMHS to make sure the DC have can have a good life and get all the support they're entitled to.

When I start feeling hopeless or angry, I remind myself that I'd rather my DC have a good life despite his fecklessness than a bad one because of it, and I ask myself what I'm going to do about it.

The other thing that has helped me massively as a mantra in terms of keeping boundaries in mind and not going off-piste emotionally is the serenity prayer: grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Before, I was mistakenly trying to change my ex and getting frustrated that I couldn't. Now I'm ok with his idiocy (after all, arseholes gonna arsehole) and I direct my energy elsewhere.

@dairyfairies that sounds utterly, utterly wrong.

What is your council's criteria for short breaks?

Have you claimed DLA/PIP? My understanding of why our council uses receipt of DLA/PIP as the threshold for short breaks is because a disabled child who has care needs as a result of their disability (easiest evidenced by disability benefits) will likely have a carer who'll need a break at some point.

I had no idea that any of this support was available for years as I didn't claim DLA when I was working as I didn't need the money, but I was still providing the care (and relying on family/private childcare arrangements to cover while I was working).

Have you requested a statutory needs assessment (including an assessment of your needs as a parent carer) from the disabled children's team at your council already?

If he takes you to court and asks for a reasonable schedule, that won’t be him winning. It will be you winning because you will have a document that defines the schedule and you can just respond “I am following the court order” over and over again. No negotiation, no real responses, just, I am abiding by the court order. It gives you the freedom to just be a blank wall to him. If it does go to court, I would also ask that non-emergency communication go through an online service. It provides a record of what he says to you and for many co-parents essentially forces them to polite behavior because they know ever communication is being tracked.

As for your child being lost previously, this is tricky. If you believed she was completely unsafe, you shouldn’t let her go with him until he goes to court. So I’m interpreting here that you are extremely worried, but it has not to tipped over all the way to child endangerment. In that case, you have to assume he learned his lesson. If it happens again, you will have the ammunition you need to go to court.

If you had a few days of true rest, you would realize leaving your children behind is not the solution. Be their safe harbor when you can.

Also, @Purpleartichoke has just reminded me, OP - google the Grey Rock method for dealing with STBXH and his exploits.

dairyfairies that sounds utterly, utterly wrong.

What is your council's criteria for short breaks?

Not sure what it is officially but the social worker who rang me said they just don't have enough funding and need to prioritise and that shit needs to really hit the fan so to speak such as threat of homelessness, substance abuse of the carer, serious illness. Besides, I was told I have a part time job. If I really need a break, I can stop working (I would but I have a mortgage and with UC, we would lose our home). I spent months trying to get some support but I won't ask again.

and DD gets DLA (high rate care) - has since she was 3 as her needs are pretty severe.

I have requested an assessment but was told I don't qualify. And I was also told by the local MASH team that since I receive DLA I am expected to self fund all respite as that is what DLA is for so I would not get respite because I am getting DLA for DD.

a Down syndrome child

You can sod right off with that shit.

And losing him is actually pretty difficult. And to do it multiple times is unacceptable.

He doesn’t need to come to mine, it wasn’t a summons, it was a kindly meant invitation to include him so he didn’t miss the fun.

@nc600

"I still can’t see how to find the energy to keep dealing with him, the curveballs he throws at me"

If you simply had formal access arrangements then no curveballs would be thrown. The one thing that can rid you of this uncertainty is court ordered access. It really isn't as bad as you think and it's certainly not about who "wins". It does formalise your arrangements though so everyone knows where they stand.

There is a lot of truth in this. He can choose not to stick with a court order, but it would a lot harder for him to claim that it's in the children's interests to mess them around, if a court has made a judgement based on what is in their best interests.

A friend of mine had an ex who took her to court because he wanted to change their arrangement order from EOW, one night a week, and half the school holidays to 50:50. My friend contested it. It was very unpleasant as the ex worked on the DC and tried to coach them before their CAFCASS interviews etc.

The result was that he ended up with reduced access, as he was judged to have acted against the children's best interests.

My friend has had to endure only minimal dealings with him since. He has tried to argue with the revised court order, but he gets the 'grey rock' treatment.

It really has helped.

I took legal advice when my DC were younger, and was told that a court would order that XH have unsupervised contact if we divorced because he wasn't quite abusive enough not to have this . Hence I didn't leave him until they were older. So I do understand some of what you are going through.

And, OP, you are very kind to include your STBXH. But it's muddying the waters. There needs to be more clarity about your family relationships for all your sakes.

I will look up ‘grey rock’ as it has been mentioned a lot. D.C. has come back from dad’s tonight after two days in pain requiring medical attention which was not given, nor was regular pain relief so off to hospital shortly for assessment after talking to 111. DC have been asked what they want to do for Xmas and had all options explained to them, they have elected to stay with me for Xmas eve/Xmas morning.

There is plenty of clarity, Xmas and birthdays are the only time we have combined and only for the children.

My mother who was a criminal psychiatrist

Said the worst thing is for a child to be taken off her mother. To never see them again. (We don’t include adopted children. As they have a ‘mother’ figure) She believes a child doesn’t fully recover from it. I also worked with a child psychologist who works on the papers that CAHMS uses. She said that children have a memory. Not as we see it. But before the age of 2. Traumatic situations mean that a child never really gets over it. It can be controlled with intensive LIFE therapy but never gotten over as such.

So don’t walk away from your children. Please.

@dairyfairies

Please pm me. I’ll pm you

@Montague01

I will look up ‘grey rock’ as it has been mentioned a lot. D.C. has come back from dad’s tonight after two days in pain requiring medical attention which was not given, nor was regular pain relief so off to hospital shortly for assessment after talking to 111. DC have been asked what they want to do for Xmas and had all options explained to them, they have elected to stay with me for Xmas eve/Xmas morning.

There is plenty of clarity, Xmas and birthdays are the only time we have combined and only for the children.

OP keep a diary.

this isnt acceptable parenting (from him)

your babies need you, walking away from children as their mother who birthed them,really will mess them up for life.

Ask for help, go to the council,phone anyone and ask for help. You have to shout the loudest.

Op, I get it. It's easy for some people to judge. And it's easy for some people to say go to court. It might not be the reassurance you're after but I found the court systems, even as recently as a few weeks ago, are so totally in favour of fathers contact that they overlook the evidence of abuse, even towards the children. Even my ex's own barrister told mine when negotiating the final order that we were unlucky because there was a lot of evidence against her client.

I've felt like walking away, my kids are young and there's still so many years ahead to me before I get to escape. It's exhausting, and fighting my ex had driven myself and my new partner to a near breakdown. All I want is the best for the children...

But please don't. They will see in the end. My partner deals with my ex for me, so I don't have to do the day to day exposure, is there someone who could facilitate handovers? Could you get a second phone that's exclusively for your ex to contact you on, that you can turn off, again to limit exposure to him?

The only other advice I can give is record everything. Keep copies of texts, keep a diary.

I won't end by telling you to stay strong, but I will say you are 100% not alone, you're not crazy.

So you've VOLUNTARILY included him in christmas, birthdays to his benefit. You have AVOIDED court (never repeat the words "because I wont win" they are untrue) and now you've had enough.

So now YOU scrape up any cash you can and get a schedule in place through solicitors or a court order.

Avoid saying "he excluded me" he has every right to NOT spend christmas with you and you have had them for celebrations up until this point. . .albeit having to share with him, but that was your choice (the courts are not always capable of empathy where coercion is involved)

Likewise you have EVERY RIGHT TO NOT SPEND TIME WITH HIM, but you have done.
That will either work in your favour or you may be portrayed as wanting to keep a hold on him (yes I see how shit that is when HE is the one crashing your family celebrations)

You want a court ordered schedule. You are legally entitled to extracate yourself from this. YOU WILL GET IT

I know me feeling excluded isn’t fair or right. I get that. I know it was my choice to involve him and I have no right to expect to see them on his turn. Once again, that wasn’t the point, it was the unilateral decision made by him that going forward they were with him for the entirety Of Xmas eve and Xmas day. It was the exclusion of me from that discussion when we’ve never had turns before and also the exclusion of his children’s wants. It makes no odds now, they’ve said that given the options they they would prefer to stay with me and see him Xmas day afternoon.

Montague, your most recent post suggests that you're ok now because your DC have said that they would prefer to spend Christmas with you. If there's any nice and gentle way to say this, though, your problem remains, and you still need to formalise the arrangements. Otherwise this will keep rearing its head, and you will react to 'things being done to you' - whereas if you had a clear arrangement, it would remove the uncertainty and you might feel a bit more settled.

Honestly, it won’t in this case and I refuse to go to court for the reasons I’ve stated but thank you. Not ok, not even close really. But I have made contact for legal advice so I can try and work things out privately. I cannot afford actual legal help and get no help with any costs ( I’ve checked and legal aid isn’t available to me).

I’ve made clear to the children the choice is theirs and they will be supported if they change their minds. It really wasn’t that that bothered me, it was the constant making decisions that should involve me and them and only doing what he wants with no thought to anyone else. It’s just been a very draining seven years having my life essentially run for me.