DS is 7 and recently diagnosed with ASD, his dad and I split up 5 years ago. DS is what would be considered 'mild' or Aspergers, he struggles with his emotions and social communication, but very little other issues. DS's dad has always been very awkward and unreasonable. Recently, DS's dad's mother (so my ex-MIL) died in a very traumatic way. Since this, DS's dad has become unreasonable to the extreme, to the point I am genuinely concerned for his mental health and his contact time with DS.
DS's dad lives in a house share with 'random' people, and due to this, has never been able to take DS to his house. His contact time wasn't working well, because he ended up having to try and fill his Saturday / Sunday outside of any house, and sometimes planned activities didn't last long enough which would lead to DS and his dad sitting round for hours doing nothing. It was really negatively impacting DS's relationship with his dad. Whilst I appreciate this isn't my problem, I kindly allowed DS's dad to use my house on his contact weekend so he would have somewhere to take DS. It has irritated me the whole time, but I have let things slide, because I've tried to do what is best for DS.
Unfortunately, two weekends ago, things blew up. I came home and my house had been left in a mess, so I told DS's dad that he couldn't use my house anymore for his weekends, it was inconvenient, and as it had been going on for over a year, it was time for him to sort his own arrangements out. This lead to him swearing and shouting at me in front of DS, and telling DS, "your mum thinks I don't love you."
After the argument a couple of weeks ago I left it, trying to reason that it could be due to his recent mother's death, but he has been repeatedly sending me rude and abrasive text messages. I snapped on Saturday night and told him to stop being rude to me. He replied with the following...
- It's his 'right' to be in my house and he doesn't need to be grateful or say thank you (he never has BTW), I only rent so it's not really my house anyway.
- I rely on other people's resources, including his. This refers to his £50 he pays a week (the bare minimum). It also refers to the fact he is incredibly bitter that I get child benefit, DLA for DS and a UC top up, he has always been obsessed with my finances.
- I was slagging him off at his mother's funeral and wake (categorically did not happen).
- Probably most outrageously, that looking after DS was doing me a favour and he was going to stop doing anything he considered going out of his way for DS and therefore stop his favours to me.
Then, on Sunday morning, he was due to pick up DS for his football class. He didn't show up, so I took him. DS was very upset that his dad hadn't picked him up. We tried to call him but he didn't answer, so I told him via text message that it's not acceptable to let DS down. Then he messaged back, laughing, saying he told me he wasn't doing me anymore favours, and turned up at the end of the football class to pick DS up. I told him that he can't just have DS now and just randomly decide to pick him up, he'd need to rearrange with me later in the day, because it's not okay just to let DS down and then pick up him at random. He then proceeded to (very inappropriately in my opinion) ask DS, 'who would you rather spend time with today, me or MarieTR?' DS chose me. I then tried to text DS's dad about arranging to have him later that afternoon and I got another barrage of abusive messages. He didn't end up seeing DS.
So now we get to the crux of the issue. DS is due to go on a weeks break/holiday next week, this is with his dad and to see his grandfather (the grandfather whose wife recently passed away traumatically, they would be staying in his house in the UK). I know from speaking to DS's grandfather that he is very much in the depths of grief. I just don't feel the week's break is an appropriate place for DS, given the grief his grandfather is going through and DS's dad's recent terrible behaviour. I'm happy to host DS's grandfather for a week so he can still see DS and spend time with him, but I really don't feel comfortable sending DS.
AIBU? Sorry, I know it's very long, I hope I explained myself properly.