Aibu to think this is emotional abuse of teens?

[IhateRileyFinn]

I divorced exH years ago when youngest child was a baby. He was physically and emotionally abusive, had previous ss involvement due to this.

Since the divorce he has continued to be manipulative and coercive with threats to kill himself regularly.
He is currently awaiting a court date for emotional abuse and coercive control stemming from an incident this year where he refused to leave my property, was caught on cctv admitting to stalking me, his phone was taken by police and they have found text message evidence of abuse. He is on bail and not meant to contact me however is allowed unsupervised contact with kids (14,13,9 and 6). There is no ss involvement, as I left him a long time ago. Several MARRAC referrals have been made since I divorced him due to incidents where I have had to phone the police, but I was told he is not a danger to the kids.

I found out this morning that he told my two teens (14 and 13) that if he goes to prison he will hang himself, and told them not to tell me he said this. He has on previous occasions told the younger two that it's my fault he doesn't live with them anymore and that I'm stopping us from being a family. He has also banned the children from mentioning my partner, who they all love, which puts them in an uncomfortable situation.

I know I'm not being unreasonable, but I'm unsure who to go to for help with this.

The teens are old enough to refuse to have contact with him if that is what they want. They can block him on their electronic devices and not see him in person, not talk to him on the phone, etc.

You can also file a motion with the court to stop unsupervised contact with the 9&6yr olds.

First of all write down exactly what was said (or as close as you can get) with dates and times (again as close as you can get).

If you have a solicitor, forward this information to them.

It may be worth discussing with the safeguarding lead at school? Just so professionals in your DC's lives are aware of what is going on.

Not sure if it is worth reporting directly to social services or police? Is there a court order regarding contact?

if DC want to, they can tell a counsellor or teacher at school about their dad's threats. that will get things officially on the record. don't tell DC they must do this, but make them aware it is an option (that could be useful).

I think the teens would still like to see him, but they feel uncomfortable about the things he says. They are torn because he's their dad and they love him, but they also remember witnessing the physical abuse when we were married, and the problems he has caused since then. He often tells them that 'mum doesn't care about me' which makes them feel guilty and a little bit sorry for him. They are open about how they feel and I do understand that they love him.

There is no court order in place, years ago he was prevented from seeing the kids by SS until he undertook a domestic abuser programme and then he passed their assessments so they said they had no concerns about him seeing the kids as long as it wasn't around me, as the risk was them witnessing domestic violence, not violence towards them.

More recently, the police referred back to SS and they said they were not concerned as he doesn't live with us and that he can continue to have contact.