I'll preface this by saying my ex is horribly abusive and made my life a living hell when I was with him. DD and I had to flee domestic abuse. he was physically and emotionally abusive and cruel to us both.
Ex only has supervised contact at the moment, a very limited amount. We're currently going through the court process which will determine what contact he will get.
DD5 has recently started reception and of course I am the day to day named parent on their system. The school have told me they only have one space to add a named parent on their system, everything else for the other parent is sent out individually by email etc (think school reports etc) I spoke to the head personally about the court situation and she advised me Dad would have to look on the school website for any details of events etc, she advised he would have to send a stamped addressed envelope to the school if he wanted a school a report also.
Well - of course DD speaks to her father about school during her sessions and she told him that she had school photos taken and that mummy attended a parents evening the other week.
WELL - EX has royally kicked off and I received an incredibly scathing letter via his solicitor detailing how I am purposely alienating him from school involvement by not informing him of these things.
A few things:
A) We have zero co-parenting relationship and all communication is currently done via Solicitors.
B) I was unaware I had to be his social and personal secretary and had to inform him of any events etc relating to school.
C) Everything is put on the school website which has been reiterated to him by the headteacher who took the time to call him after I gave her his telephone number and told her I had informed him where DD goes to school via solicitors.
Am I being unreasonable here? I do absolutely refuse to co-parent and communicate with him in any way possible, but I don't feel I should be telling him these things each and every time as it sets a precedence does it not?
Yes, there is the argument that I should perhaps tell him for DD's sake etc, but he's a grown man and knows where to find the information - ALL of the information is on the school website.
Another issue I have at the moment is DD is getting a lot of party invites and invites to play dates, some of them fall on when her contact sessions are with her father. Is it unreasonable fo rme to ask her which she would prefer to go to and then change as necessary? For example, she has a party coming up on a contact Sunday, it's a whole class party - I have asked her and she wants to go. So I have asked for contact to be brought forward to the day before to enable her to go. This is another thing he has kicked off about and expects for his contact to be prioritised over anything. I don't miss contact as a result, I just asked for it to be brought forward so that we can do both. This has happened a number of occasions now.
Dad cannot take DD to these parties either because of his supervised contact and quite frankly - it is 99% mums. Most of which know the situation and wouldn't entertain him. I don't want DD to be ostracised as a result.
We fled nearly 4 years ago and have been in the court process ever since, DD has had 4 years to set up a life, establish a circle of friends, make new friendships and is a popular girl at school. I am so proud of how far she has come.
Dad is not involved in any of this. Notwithstanding the fact that these are my friendships also with the mums and I also look forward to the parties and play dates.
AIBU in any part of this? I am being made to feel like I am being but I can't see where.
I've proposed if contact is to progress then I would have communication with a third party (one of his family members) but not him - I will never see or speak to him ever again because of what happened and how he makes me feel. However, I would use a go between, but even then I wouldn't go out of my way to inform them of all school information and events, surely as a parent to DD also he should take responsibility himself?