Abusive ex and contact with son

[fortyg]

Hello,

There's a huge back story here which I won't go into but looking for advice -

Exh has only seen ds (5) twice since October. I called the police because he told me he was going to go kill himself and I would be to blame. I have not seen him since this incident .

Since then, ex has threatened to take me to court over some money he thinks I owe him (I don't), called me nasty names, told me people hate me amongst other things. He was also verbally abusive to me during a FaceTime. I have 2 emails from him stating that he 'won't bother with ds anymore' claiming that I'm making things difficult.

Social services have been good and we are getting 'early help' soon. In the meantime, they've advised we use a 3rd party in terms of handovers for ds. It's only happened twice and both times we have used my mum.

The first handover seemed to go ok. He hadn't seen ds for 6 weeks at the point. No major issues.

The second time was awful. I dropped ds off at my mums in plenty of time for ex to come and collect him. I then left and got a email from him saying he had left his car at the pub and he had no transport to collect ds. He asked if I would drop him off. I said no. He then asked if my mum would do it and she did. My mum dropped ds off and said he was very hungover. During this visit, he also introduced ds to his new girlfriend of 4 weeks. He then dropped ds off with my mum early as ds has some sensory issues - he basically needed a pop and ds refused to go for exh so exh needed to bring him home early - that part is fine and understandable.

Safe to say I was absolutely livid about the hangover and the introduction to the new girlfriend though.

I emailed him to say I was made aware of the introduction to his new girlfriend - very simple, not aggressive - just one sentence saying I knew and have not spoken to ex since expect for 'yes' or 'no' answers. I was going grey rock with him anyway but even more so now.

He FaceTime ds twice on Xmas eve and Xmas day however both times I left the room and have ds my phone to speak to him. My sister was in the room on the Xmas day FaceTime and she said it did not go well, ds wasn't that interested in speaking to him.

So now this Saturday coming is the next time he should see ds for the day. I am not pushing for contact in the slightest. He's put us through hell and life would be better without him.

My gut feeling tells me that ex isn't going to bother and I won't hear anything from him.

My question is do I email ex and remind him that it is his Saturday or do I just wait and see if he contacts me?

I doubt this would ever go to court (he has another son that he doesn't see anymore) but if it did then I don't want it to look like I'm stopping contact as I know that wouldn't work in my favour.

Thoughts please?

Hes also paid no maintenance since the start of December - cms are chasing him about this too.

How have you ended up with this Saturday being "his" day?

As explained - he wanted every other weekend Saturday staying over to Sunday.

Because of ds and his sensory issues, an over night stay hasn't been possible so it's ended up being every Saturday.

There was a point where ex was being nice and acted interested and he did say he wanted ds on the Sunday too. I said possibly - would have to think about it (bit too much to rely on my mum with that so not ideal for me) but ex never mentioned it again. This was November time.

I would drop DS at your mums. If he doesn't show up, text him after to say, "you didn't show up and DS was ready and waiting. Next visit will be on X date and fortnightly thereafter. Provided you text by noon on the day before to confirm, DS will be at my mums for pick up. As you didn't show today, let's keep to that arrangement, i.e. you will text to confirm each time."

Then you have a record that he didn't show and the onus is on him to contact you every time to set it up. He will let it drop most likely. If you get no shows, text him each time to say how disappointing that was for DS. Then it's all on record.

If you start sending reminders about contact then he will use the reminders as a stick to beat you with. “you should send me daily reminders” “you sent a reminder when I was at work “you sent a reminder when I was asleep” “you should send me more than one reminder…” He’s an adult man and not your child but knows that it’s one of the few ways that he can control you. Don’t let him.
I would do what a pp said and say “You didn’t pick up day for contact from my mum’s house today. Next contact is Saturday 13th Jan” so you have proof.
Deadbeats will always say that the ex is preventing contact. This is code for contact isn’t on his terms so he’s sulking. It doesn’t matter what other people think - when Ds is older, you will be able to explain things to him yourself. You know the truth and if (when?) he ends contact then it will be because of him, not you.

Yes, but then you say he's only seen DS twice since October?

Did you have this established pattern and he was seeing him regularly every other Saturday until October when things fell apart a bit?
Or has this only ever been what ex has requested but reality is every other Saturday has never really been established?

@RookieBamboo

The story is as follows:

Ex moved out on 11th September - his choice.

He then didn't see much of ds until 3 weeks after this. Ex then wanted to come back and was using ds as a way to get to me. Nothing as far as contact then was ever set up. It was then that I did ask if he wanted to see ds but his answer was no.

By the end of September it was clear that me and him were over. However I was still very scared/confused and massively trauma bonded to him.

Between the end of September and end of October, exh came round twice to put ds to bed, once to the school disco and once to football training.

The time he took ds to football training was the last time I saw him. This was the end of October. I called the police as soon as he dropped ds off as he was very abusive towards me. He saw ds for only one hour at this point.

After I called the police, social services were then called, women's aid are also involved and I had very little contact with exh at all.

He then saw ds for the first time 6 weeks later - the Saturday when all went well.

He then saw ds 2 weeks after this (23rd dec) when he was hungover with no vehicle to collect ds. This was the last time of contact.

So technically the next time should be this Saturday coming.

Ex has obviously not asked or contacted me. The last FaceTime they had was Xmas day but I left the room so we did not speak.

The issue is ex is angry at me. For whatever reason. He has stopped paying maintenance as punishment. I have filed for divorce. It's all happening at once.

I don't feel I can win here. No matter what I do it will be wrong.

I've had emails from ex in November and December saying he's not going to bother with ds...then he changes his mind. It's very very hard to get anything set up with him...plus the fact that I'm still trying to get over the abuse he put me through.

Maybe we should have set something more formal up but how can you when one minute he wants to see him and the next he doesn't? He makes a drama out of everything and I've just been trying to protect myself from it

@RookieBamboo based on personal
experience of family court. My DSS mother is totally useless when it comes to contact, and we were told that we should still offer contact regularly as it makes it obvious that she is the one failing to attend rather than us being difficult about contact (as she was claiming). So we did, and we agreed to her coming to visit monthly and having twice weekly video calls even though we knew she would never stick to it (despite asking for that and a lot more). We were advised to effectively give her enough rope to hang herself with.

I certainly wouldn’t keep chasing him, but would lay out an initial agreement and then if (when) he doesn’t stick to it, he can’t possibly argue OP was equally culpable with regard to the contact not moving forward.

It’s frustrating having to go through the motions with a parent who clearly isn’t bothered enough to try, but in our case his mother was bothered enough to try and make it look like she cared, even though it’s obvious she doesn’t, or she’d bloody well see her child without him being delivered to her door…and the sooner you know how it’s going to go the sooner you can make your peace with it. One day she will be able to say she did what she could when her child asks.

@Haveyouanyjam thanks, and that makes sense. I think then what you mean is it's an opportunity for OP to create a record of poor contact vs it being a negative for OP if she doesn't remind him, which is how I (mis)read the meaning of your post.

Given you've got SS and police involvement OP, which I'd indicative of the kind of man you're dealing with, I certainly wouldn't remind him. Make him "available" ie at your mum's and then when he inevitably doesn't show record the missed contact.

Some very mixed ideas on here but all helpful thank you.

I have a couple of days to think about what's best. I'm going to contact social services in the morning and see what they say - I need to call them after the new year anyway.

It's just a horrible feeling. Like I've said, no matter what I do it will be wrong and it won't feel right to me.

If I contact him and say ds I'd available on Saturday, I feel that I'm handing ds over to someone who really doesn't care about him. Ds has sensory issue, selective mutism and bad anxiety. Exh isn't going to help him with any of that.

If I don't contact him then I could be subject to more abuse from him which I don't want and I do want to do everything 'by the book'

Equally I don't think exh will want to hear from me in terms of contact. He is 10000% only interested in playing the victim to his new girlfriend. So if I don't contact then to him he can say 'she's not bothered to contact me, she's keeping ds from me, I won't bother'.

I know this because this is what he did with other son he no longer sees. He is 9 and has made the decision to no longer see his dad. Exh has made no effort to make amends

Another option is I could get my solicitor to send a letter on my behalf. They did say they would do this before Christmas but I asked them to leave it as I didn't want any more drama in the Christmas holidays. He would absolutely hate getting a letter from them.

Could make things worse or equally better. Thoughts?

I wouldn't remind him. Tell him something once and expect him to do it unless he says he cannot.

For what purpose OP?

I've decided I'm not going to say anything to ex. I'm going to drop ds off on Saturday morning along with his bag and car seat.

I'm going to text my mum to say I'm going to drop him off etc and she's going to reply so we have evidence that it did happen. I'll also take a photo of the car seat etc inside my mums porch.

If he hasn't of collected ds by 10am then my mum will text and I'll come back and collect him.

I think that's all I can do. I don't want to push contact at all. I doubt he will turn up but equally he might. If he does, I can guarantee he won't expect ds to be there.

Ds will be oblivious - he will just think he's going and gets to play on grandmas PlayStation all to himself.

That sounds like a good plan OP.

It goes without saying you are clearly a fantastic mum. I hope the divorce happens as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Thank you. I spoke to social services this morning and they've put my mind at rest that I'm not doing. Anything wrong at all.

It's just the effects of being controlled by him for so long. I always tried to please him to avoid conflict. I need to keep pushing myself to not do that anymore.

I feel better now. Social services are speaking to school on Monday and are coming round to see us next week. Ideally they would like to speak to ex too if he wants to be apart of his life but the ball lies in his court.

Ex will hate speaking to them so I doubt he will do that