Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Child access

38 replies

newmummylucy · 21/06/2021 08:47

Hi everyone

I am thinking of divorcing my husband who is emotional abusive to me. We have a son together who is 1 years old.

My husband is demanding he has our son from a Thursday-Sunday every week (we will be living 3 hours apart)

When my son was very little my husband made a huge mistake while in the care of our son and he got arrested for it and my son went to hospital and social services got involved - my son could have died because of his stupidity. I don't want to go into it on here incase he somehow finds this thread.

I therefore don't trust him with our son and have said no to Thursday-Sunday and he thinks I'm being unreasonable. Because I have said no he has them in turn turned around and told me he will only give me XYZ amount of child maintenance and in his words has said "you control the access I control the finances"

I have said to him he can see our son on a Saturday for the day and when he builds up my trust he can see him overnight Saturday - Sunday and then eventually Friday - Sunday....I'm not even happy with this but I know my son loves spending time with him so I don't want to get in the way of that. I am concerned for my sons safety and I think he is far too young to be away from me for that long.

My husband has been recording our arguments without me knowing (he showed them to me last night) and has said he will use them against me in court as a form of me abusing him...

He has been emotionally abusing me for 2 years. All throughout my pregnancy and birth and onwards. I have it logged with the health visitor and police and also what he did is on the police file too.

Can someone please give me some advice? Am I being unreasonable?

Thanks

Lucy

OP posts:

DoNotEat · 21/06/2021 10:59

A mistake so bad police were involved.
How bad are we talking? If it was an accident then I imagine that wouldn't have happened so I assume leaving them in a car alone or something.

Him recording your arguments I doubt will look impressive.
I don't think they'll even listen to it if it's covert recordings. And it's not going to look good that he'd secretly recording you.

Keep any texts about how he's going to limit maintenance etc as evidence.
Solicitor obviously for legal advice.

Good luck op.

Original poster

newmummylucy · 21/06/2021 11:03

It was by no means a mistake.

He abused drugs/alcohol in my sons care (which I had no idea about) and lost responsibility for my son and my son ended up in hospital

OP posts:

DoNotEat · 21/06/2021 11:07

@newmummylucy

It was by no means a mistake.

He abused drugs/alcohol in my sons care (which I had no idea about) and lost responsibility for my son and my son ended up in hospital

Good god. He'd never see the child again.

Ohmygoshandfolly · 21/06/2021 11:40

Let the courts decide, there’s no way he’d ever get 50:50 access. He’ll be lucky if he gets more than supervised visitation in a contact centre.

Steelesauce · 21/06/2021 11:48

Been in a very similar situation and I just refused access (after 18 months of manipulation to make me allow access) and I'm still waiting for the idiot to take me to court. However since then, he went on to abuse another child more severely and wont even be allowed supervised contact if he does grow the balls to take me court.

Cms for child support but be prepared for him not to pay it and nothing be done.

Crazycakelady17 · 21/06/2021 11:52

Do not let your son have unsupervised contact social services could see it as you not safeguarding your son
Were you put on a child protection or child on need plan after the incident involving the police?
The drugs/alcohol alone would be a red flag for SS let alone the incident.
Get a child arrangement order let him prove himself do the courses apply to the court that he’s changed and do not agree to every weekend build up to every other and one day in the week
Good luck op and oh get onto CSA too

cocoloco987 · 21/06/2021 11:52

Is he still a risk to your dc,could mistakes happen again? Get a solicitor, consult SS. Also don't agree to every weekend - that massively restricts your quality time with your dc where it will become a pattern of you doing all the midweek nursery and schools runs and getting none of the down time/quality time. Once you give the time it can be hard to get it back later if it's established.

cocoloco987 · 21/06/2021 11:54

He made a mistake, one which he was arrested for. The chances of him making the same mistake again must be miniscule,

How do you know that - you don't know any of the details! Are you the husband?

vivainsomnia · 21/06/2021 11:58

He abused drugs/alcohol in my sons care (which I had no idea about) and lost responsibility for my son and my son ended up in hospital
Is he still taking drugs/alcohol? Was it deemed the incident was the cause of the accident?

There's a difference with him dropping your baby who ended up with a broken leg because he was too drunk to walk straight and for instance falling asleep, baby not drinking for a few hours and taken to hospital just to check they weren't dehydrated but released immediately.

All too complex for strangers here to decide whether the child would be in danger or not with their dad now.

Hankunamatata · 21/06/2021 12:02

Contact social services and see what they say about him

EKGEMS · 22/06/2021 01:29

@Jizzle I think you are projecting more than an entire theater! This woman knows her abusive husband 1000% better than some strange froot loop on MN like you

Marty13 · 22/06/2021 01:46

Hey OP, what a difficult situation to be in !

I think that if you have serious concerns about your son's safety you shouldn't allow any unsupervised access. Supervised and indirect only. It can build up to unsupervised when the child is older and presumably less at risk.

I think your ex knows that he'd probably get nothing if he took you to court, which is why he's trying to intimidate you and scare you into submission. Hence the blackmail and covert recordinds. Don't be fooled. Refuse. And don't be worried about denying anything to your son ; if your ex truly is a good dad at heart, he will take you to court and do whatever the court demands to show that he can be trusted with your child. If he doesn't, then he wasn't that great a dad material to begin with.

I'd also not count on child support. If it comes, great. If it doesn't, no surprise. If you don't count on it, he'll have no leverage on you.

Above all, do get legal advice.

Ah, and as others said. Don't give him the weekends. Whatever access you give, supervised or not, make sure you get as much weekends, off days and holidays as him, and he should also get week days. And contribute to childcare costs if applicable.

EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall · 22/06/2021 02:06

And you stayed with him? And ss agreed that it was ok for him to stay in the house?

I'd get a solicitor, I'm not sure if you can use what happened to your child when he was younger to stop access though if SS were involved and decided he was ok to stay in the house

Flip

1 2