How is contact going to work when other parents lives so far away?

[MBailey99]

Son has been having supervised contact with his dad. I am trying to get over the idea of sending my child to his abusive parent for every other birthday and Christmas, but what I'm more concerned about is how regular contact is going to work. He lives 3 hours away when traffic is good, 4+ in rush hour traffic. Son is starting school in September. Will the court be happy with him picking him up after school on a Friday, driving potentially 4 hours home, then having a day together on Saturday, to then drive another 3/4 hours home on a Sunday back in time to have a good night of sleep before school on Monday? Obviously I will have to just grit my teeth and get on with it, however I know my son will find this very difficult. Would it be realistic to do this every other weekend? Does anyone have any other suggestions as I am being asked what my proposals would be? I don't want to get in the way of them having contact but having been abused for so many years and finding this quite emotionally difficult, I could use some unbiased opinions.

have you reported the rapes? Is this part of your case?

does he still have his older child regularly? What are the chances he will lose interest quickly? Or grandma will?

And then realise he has to take time of work fir something other than himself, and not want to do it.

I reported them but was discouraged from pursuing it by police as they said it had a 0% chance of going anywhere as it was my word against his. They are right of course but every single thing he ever did to me is on a police system.

So the onus is on him to travel. Not you or your child?

How invested in contact is he? Is contact happening mainly because he wants to build a relationship with his child or mainly because he wants to annoy you?

You could almost be too generous - agree to contact every other weekend, but he has to stay somewhere close by, in a hotel or decent b&b, or holiday park - they do short weekend breaks - if available. Especially to start with, as it would be too much to expect your child to be too far away from home until they feel comfortable with him.

He may decide that's too much and want it reduced!

I think a bit of both. He has intimidated and undermined me at the contact centre though and ensured that we would come into contact with each other which isn't allowed. Contact centre think it was a mistake but it was clearly orchestrated.

OP,

I am so sorry.

You did the right thing moving away.

I think you need to hand over every single journey to him.

I think you need to repeat again that having any contact with him is deeply traumatising as you were repeatedly raped by him.

I think you need to contact Women's aid for advice and support.

Personally I do not believe your son needs a relationship with a rapist, even if he is his father.

Hopefully that travelling will put him off quickly.

You have every right to put yourself first in this situation by not wanting to see this thug.

Do not be afraid or slow to spell out what he did to you.

Let the system and courts facilitate this without your help.

But reach out for support and advice.

I am so sorry.

If he’s waiting for his dd to get out of school that’s way too late to be picking up a 4yr old, so that could be your way out of that one. It’s too much travel for such a young child anyway. I would be pushing for him coming to see him in your area until your child is a bit older.
Surely it won’t go from supervised to weekends 4hrs away anyway? It will need to be built up over time.
So he travels and takes him out for a couple of hours, then builds that up longer. Maybe he could book an airbnb close by and have the child overnight but back 1st thing and just extend it slowly. Wait until there are holidays and built up time before he goes to ex’s house.
Anything else I think will upset the child and set the contact up for failure.
Is ex likely to do the 7hrs driving every other week with kids in tow?

I feel for you.

Your ex sounds worse than mine but I was in an abusive relationship and I can understand your concerns.

How long has contact been in place in the contact centre? It seems excessive to go from no contact for 4 years to EOW, never mind the travel issue.

Given your DC is starting school, perhaps part of every school holiday, or one weekend a month would be more appropriate but are you sure the court will be looking at as much contact as this from the start rather than a phased build up?

I think because my son has developed a bit of an obsession with his dad, who he sees once EOW in a contact centre, with gifts and toys involved and lots of fun activities, they see this as them developing a deep bond and my son being completely safe and content. They don't really see the bigger picture. My son is the kind of person who would walk off with anyone if they gave him sweets and toys and were nice to him. I foresee that the real issues will begin when the contact becomes unsupervised and we are further removed from the court system.

Could he get the train or fly to shorten the travel time? We live an hour from the neatest large town so the kids are used to traveling but it will be hard at first

The family court system really is so depressing. You'll have to play along but I do think it makes sense to suggest starting with short spells of contact in your local area before building up to anything more. It's not in your dc's best interests to be regularly travelling long distances at the age of 4/5 but make out you're all for it once your dc is older.

So the court order hasn’t happened yet? Hopefully they won’t order this much contact with an abusive man as it doesn’t sound to be in your son’s interests. I know they’re very pro contact and a relationship with the father blah blah, but if they’ve already accepted he’s abusive re your move that’s something.

I think go in expressing everything in terms of your son’s interests. So how the travel will impact on him not on you, etc

As he gets older, he won’t want to be away from mates every other weekend.

The best thing would be for as much onus as possible to be on your ex, so he’s more likely to get sick of the hassle. Don’t say that in court obviously! If he was out of the picture for 4 years it sounds more hopefully.

I still live near my emotionally abusive ex and it is a pain that he’s so close by, but my case isn’t as extreme as yours.

Cross your fingers and hope he very quickly gets bored of the 12 hours plus driving each weekend. If he's got any sense, he'll book a cheap hotel room, but he probably hasn't got any sense.

how often is rape not one person’s word against another?! Ffs. Ridiculous system.

Keep insisting that your objections and reservations are noted on the records with the court and make it clear why.

We've been doing this for the last 14 years. DH doesn't drive, so it's a 3hr train journey each way, he collects DSS from school on a Friday EOW (he has flexed his hours at work), and takes him back at about 1pm on Sunday. It's a long journey for DH but obviously DSS has only ever been doing half at a time.

It was DSS's mum that moved but she started refusing to do the journeys so there was no real choice about it 🤷🏼‍♀️ In the last couple of months since he turned 16 DSS has started doing half the journey on his own - the bit to London - and that has made a big difference.

I would say that actually it's turned into nice time together for them without us and the other kids - it means they get a little one on one time in a low pressure environment. Obviously it's not ideal, it's expensive and time consuming, but the alternative (not to see him for 6 weeks at a time) wasn't something we considered. We have him for most of the half term breaks and half of the other holidays too.

What I would say with all of that, is that it takes a very very motivated parent to do it, sorry - I answered very quickly while I was at swimming lessons and didn't see some of your updates!

DH is the exception rather than the rule: if I were you I'd push to get local supervised contact near you so he's travelling to see him in a contact centre and then has to turn around and go back again. I'd imagine it might fizzle out quite quickly on that basis...