Alcoholic father threatening to take wife to court

[Lucyjb93]

Hello can anyone please give my some sort of advise.
My wife’s father is an alcoholic he has been for the last 40 years during this time he has self harmed on a lot of occasions.
He’s caused my wife to have a lot of childhood trauma which still effects her to this day.
We have a son who’s going to be 6 and he’s only met him about 4 times when he was 18months old which in that time her father started drinking around our son again.
He’s now threatening to take us to court because he’s been sober for four months. What are his chances of being granted access

I’d possibly send a letter back to the solicitor stating that any further contact will be deemed as harassment and a restraining order will be put in place.

@myheartskippedabeat

I'd get on the case and speak to your child's school and let them know the situation and let the safeguarding team give some advice and get this documented somewhere so that relevant parties are aware.

I worked in a school afew years back snd we had situations with randome family members trying to get information from us so if the school are aware it's better

If he knew the area and rang round the schools and said "I'm ringing up in relation to my grandson xxxxx"

School "oh yeah"

Confirms the location

Please tell them

I don't want to frighten you but better to keep them snd any childminders, wraparound providers and close friends in the loop I'd say x

Ok thank you very much. I'll get in contact with the school on Monday

@Longdistance

I’d possibly send a letter back to the solicitor stating that any further contact will be deemed as harassment and a restraining order will be put in place.

She's going to write him a letter saying about no further contact ect and send it signed for delivery

Zero.
Zilch.

As other posters have said, do not waste a penny of your money and do not allow this abusive bully any room in your head.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with AA, but some of the themes in it include not being ashamed/not regretting what you've been through with addiction, and the concept of being honest about the mistakes and making amends. While there's a sound basis for it - many addicts get caught up in self blame/shaming to an extent that it prevents them moving on unless they let some of it go - there are some who choose to interpret it as 'if I'm clean for a bit and I apologise they have to accept it'. I suspect that's where the AA 'solicitor' is coming from, ie if you get a bit of time in a court have to respect it and do something.
That sentiment (show the effort and people will react positively) is true for many of the relationships around an addict, ie the professional support and often, relationships with friends. It's rarely the case for people outside of that recovery bubble. Family experience the impact of addiction in ways that the addict is often unaware of (either due to denial, or literally, in the sense of being wasted and not forming the memories to start with)
Good AA groups/sponsors will teach the concepts of confessing and making amends with the message that amends have to be on the terms of those who you hurt, and that can include whether it is something they would be willing to agree. Some things can and should be out of bounds.

A few months' sobriety hasn't made him any more reasonable, has it?

@WalkingOnTheCracks

A few months' sobriety hasn't made him any more reasonable, has it?

Definitely not