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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

He’s cancelled our Christmas - what can I do?

238 replies

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 02:00

There is a child arrangement order with my abusive ex who is ‘resident’ parent. I have initiated court but for a without notice so he won’t know as he’d stop contact. It’s a whopper of a backstory but not relevant now. The order was that he’d make my son available for ‘reasonable time’ with me. Of course that’s literally as little as possible. My son is really suffering as he wants to be with me. Come home or at least spend more than 5 hours a week with me. I’ve tried everything, mediation galore, you name it. He won’t engage. Behind the scenes I’m organising medical evidence proving he made me physically unwell via the DV. That will take a bit more time. So I fed back to my sons safeguarding lead some concerns I had and they raised it as a safeguarding flag (I don’t know what this means?) and he has hit the roof via the parent app. He has told me that from now on I won’t see my son. I have to find and pay for a mediator but he has to approve and have final say. He’s cancelled our planned Christmas together whereby I was going to have my very first overnight in two years, something my son is desperate for. He’s only five. Last year I wasn’t allowed to wish him merry Christmas. Or happy birthday. I can’t go to the school for events. I had to do a SARS for his medical records. I am with family abroad this Christmas Day and a zoom was organised for my parents and my son and me obviously, our Xmas was being celebrated when I returned. He’s told my son I have a ‘bug’ and I’m banned from joining in the zoom call on Christmas Day. My second Christmas without any contact. I haven’t a clue how long the court will take, it’s been about five weeks since I applied marking if urgent. The little time we have together we always have an amazing time, we are like peas in a pod, he never wants to leave me and he’s told every professional going what he wants - me. But ex won’t move at all. Up until recently he had me supervised for one hour a week for well over a year. The social worked just said they can’t make him do anything and my only option is court. They can say I’m no risk and it’s best for my son but if he won’t listen they can’t get involved. This is going to devastate my son. He’s finally gotten into our new routine of our 5 hours a week being at his home with me and now it’s been completely stopped meaning tomorrow and Xmas ever I now won’t see him. Our 2nd January ‘mini Xmas’ and ‘sleepover’ is cancelled. I don’t know when I’ll see him again. I just want to scoop him up and keep him for the knowledge of the impending catastrophic emotional damage that he’s going to be experiencing in the coming day, on top of an already deeply traumatised 18 months. He is looking for any reason to block contact. If I don’t feed my son at the exact time ex insists I do. So many micro rules. If I don’t reply to a non urgent message fast enough he will bombard the app with 24 messages I had over only 2 days last week! I was in a total state of trauma looping and anxiety I couldn’t even open them and had a friend do it. He said no contact until I had read and responded and if he felt it was an acceptable response contact could go ahead but he demands that I check the app twice a day every day or contact will stop. My experience in court was unlike anything I could even comprehend and in that way I feel conditioned to believe that he is right and anything he says is believed without me even being asked. I’m scare that this will happen again, his criminal record ignored, his positive drug test ignored, his everything ignored and things that he says with no evidence that aren’t true that I have evidence to prove it’s untrue aren’t even seeing the light of day. I clam up under pressure, he is perfectly calm and very very authoritative whereas I cry and then look crazy. I’m asking for some outside non conditioned brains and opines on what I should do, would I be unreasonable to make a further urgent emergency app to court on Monday to stop this awful man severing my son and I for god knows how long?

OP posts:
Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 02:01

Oh god it’s a wall of text! I am so sorry, I meant to go back and chop it up into near paragraphs but press post by accident and now I cant seem to edit?

im so so sorry

OP posts:
NeverDropYourMooncup · 22/12/2024 02:08

Take the app with the barrage of messages and threats on it to the solicitor.

It's all evidence.

Ivyiris · 22/12/2024 02:22

As pp said evidence evidence evidence

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 02:32

Oh I have mountains of evidence that’s not the issue - it’s what do I do in the immediacy, because my son is not now going to see or speak to me for an indeterminate amount of time and he is going to be severely distressed over it, he’s only five!

We have been planning our sleepover, his routines are very important to him. He’s been told I’m ill when I’m not! I thought banning me for wishing him a merry Christmas last year was cruel enough, then denting me his birthday, that was awful and when I was allowed to have my son overnight (!!!) and to celebrate Christmas in January I was so so so so shocked he’d agreed, but I felt this would happen.

The safeguarding issue I don’t regret raising as it worried me, but as a result of what I have done he now thinks the solution is this??!! I have been controlled for so long and he’s like a pig on shite drunk on power using my son as a punishment for trying to squeak out a boundary.

i am convinced that the judge won’t listen fo me and I’ll end up alienated. I’m worried that my son won’t feel safe to get close to me when we see each other again given what’s already happened to us. It’s going to be Christmas so I don’t know if there are any agencies who can help me.

Or even if courts are open, or do I call womens aid and tell them? Its coercive control I think?

OP posts:
AConcernedCitizen · 22/12/2024 02:38

It sounds like he has serious concerns about your ability to parent your child, and given your arrangements, at some point the authorities have agreed with this.

I expect the backstory is actually quite relevant.

MartinCrieffsLemon · 22/12/2024 02:59

I'd quite like to know the backstory which allowed an abusive man to have main custody

I thought the mother was usually more favoured for that

Which would make me think substance abuse may be a part of the backstory?

You're also in another country but want contact, a man would be slaughtered on here for daring to leave his child like that

PyongyangKipperbang · 22/12/2024 03:01

AConcernedCitizen · 22/12/2024 02:38

It sounds like he has serious concerns about your ability to parent your child, and given your arrangements, at some point the authorities have agreed with this.

I expect the backstory is actually quite relevant.

Or he is an abusive twat with a big gob and a commanding "I KNOW BEST!!!" attitude that no one has ever argued with.

@Birdofpain Is it actually written down anywhere, in a court order for example, that he has official residency of your son? Because if he hasnt, you would not be breaking the law to simply not return him at the end of your allotted contact time. You are have PR, social services have said that you are not threat to him and your son wants to be with you.

He doesnt love your son, he hates you. He is weaponizing your child against you. This is what men like him do. If it wasnt a child it could be a pet or your home or a photo of your granny.

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:05

I’m not in another county. There is no substance abuse. Whether Its right or wrong via historical court, the issue isn’t if that decision was right or not but whether it’s acceptable to do what he is doing now simply because I raised concerns. I could have been the worst parent on the planet but almost all parents should still see their children when it’s safe (which is is) to do so.

OP posts:
Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:06

Because he gushed about how important I am to my son and how I can see him as much as I want fo, the judge determined it was up to him to make my son available to me for ‘reasonable time’ and he has done the opposite.

OP posts:
PyongyangKipperbang · 22/12/2024 03:06

MartinCrieffsLemon · 22/12/2024 02:59

I'd quite like to know the backstory which allowed an abusive man to have main custody

I thought the mother was usually more favoured for that

Which would make me think substance abuse may be a part of the backstory?

You're also in another country but want contact, a man would be slaughtered on here for daring to leave his child like that

I am also a fan of Cabin Pressure.

You assume that it was court ordered, not that the OP was simply brow beaten by the man who abused her and she was too scared to fight back. Neither of us know, so why assume that she is the issue. She said that she is spending Xmas with her family abroad, not that she lives there, that they have "mini Xmas" in January and it is that that he has refused access for.

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:08

Practice direction 12J was ignored. Police records, hospital records, you name it, ignored. I was labelled the perpetrator on his word. I’m heading for a judicial review because of the catastrophic failures from the LA at just about ever stage you can comprehend. But my question now, is what can I do in the immediacy to protect my son from the emotional tsunami about to hit,

OP posts:
MartinCrieffsLemon · 22/12/2024 03:08

PyongyangKipperbang · 22/12/2024 03:06

I am also a fan of Cabin Pressure.

You assume that it was court ordered, not that the OP was simply brow beaten by the man who abused her and she was too scared to fight back. Neither of us know, so why assume that she is the issue. She said that she is spending Xmas with her family abroad, not that she lives there, that they have "mini Xmas" in January and it is that that he has refused access for.

Glad you got the reference

OP has said it was via court order

And a man ever leaving the country his kids are in would be criticised

I already know if this was written by a man the responses would be very different. "

Allthehorsesintheworld · 22/12/2024 03:10

We have been planning our sleepover, his routines are very important to him. He’s been told I’m ill when I’m not! I thought banning me for wishing him a merry Christmas last year was cruel enough, then denting me his birthday, that was awful and when I was allowed to have my son overnight (!!!) and to celebrate Christmas in January I was so so so so shocked he’d agreed, but I felt this would happen.

You need to send this to the safeguarding team.
You also need everything to go through a lawyer. Your ex husband can bully you, intimidate you but he won’t be able to do that to a lawyer. You need one who specialises in family law.
Speak to Women’s Aid asap.
Also contact Gingerbread.

BraverSoul · 22/12/2024 03:10

The level of control this man is asserting over you and your son is totally abhorrent and abusive to both you and you son ( but you already know this). I suspect he was cohesive and controlling during your relationship with him. Was this flagged at the time? If he has a proven history of it, this should go in your favour. He clearly does not have your son's best interests at heart, this also goes in your favour. He is denying you reasonable contact - a no no. Get him to court and apply for joint custody!! Gather ALL the evidence you can, once a judge hears how totally unreasonable he is, he won't have a leg to stand on.
Good luck xx

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:10

Thank you. That is what happened more or less. A substantial amount of groundwork has been laid behind my back by my ex which was only disclosed in court. So compelling was he that the guardian ad litum didn’t see the point in hearing my side nor observing nor assessing me so I was never going to be heard.

OP posts:
PyongyangKipperbang · 22/12/2024 03:13

If you can afford legal advice, then finding a lawyer with specific experience of this type of abuse (and it is abuse of both you and your son) is worth the effort as it can make a big difference to your outcome. When you have escaped they want to find any way they can to keep abusing you, and this is his method of choice. As I said, he really doesnt care about your son as anything other than a weapon to hurt you with. Hurting you is the only thing that matters to him.

If not then there are many women who self represented against similarly abusive men and won. @theformidableMrsC did it many times over her divorce from her utter arse of an ex and his appalling OW to the point where they were no longer allowed to take her to court. She is very supportive of other women who need to do the same, and she isnt the only one. It can be done.

BraverSoul · 22/12/2024 03:14

Also, make sure you back all the evidence up by taking sceern shots and sending to a friend to store just incase he gets rid of the app. Print everything out, file it all in date order. This man will lie through his teeth in court, show just how controlling and obnoxious this excuse for a human being really is. Xx

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:16

See if what had happened and was happening had been put to the court then you’d expect that. This is my first time initiating. I ‘won’ the others times he’s tried. But by this point I was unfit to even say what colour the sky was. Hence the police involvement with gathering up evidence. I just don’t have any faith in the authorities after what they allowed to have happen and to even engineer it to happen. It’s only the LA. Every other professional is horrified at this but had no power to intervene. That being said I am disheartened that other sw and professionals agreed with me and were aghast at what they were watching unfold yet they would whistleblow and I cannot fathom that. I tell you now, I am the first on to take the blame. I forever think I’m the problem, I’m at fault, I caused this. I don’t for a second think I’m great and it’s all a conspiracy. What I cannot understand is why the dv was ignored. Why things like ‘this mum has a penis’ and I’m saying no I don’t? I can provide doctors letters saying I don’t have a penis. I can SHOW you that I don’t have a penis. But then it will be ‘she cannot accept that she has a penis. She has no insight’ that is the gist of all I had to contend with. You have done X. I prove I have not using a 3rd party piece of evidence. Well you still did X’ shut down. It should chill the bones of you all what goes on as I’m sure I won’t be the last

OP posts:
Eyresandgraces · 22/12/2024 03:17

AConcernedCitizen · 22/12/2024 02:38

It sounds like he has serious concerns about your ability to parent your child, and given your arrangements, at some point the authorities have agreed with this.

I expect the backstory is actually quite relevant.

Sara Sharif’s father was given custody of his dc. The authorities don’t always get it right.

steff13 · 22/12/2024 03:18

Do you all not have the equivalent of what we have in the US called a guardian ad litem? You need to get an attorney and get a guardian ad litem appointed.

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:19

I’m just waiting on legal aid being processed. I applied myself about 5 weeks ago for a without headin car I feared if he knew he’d drop contact. Now he has done so anyway, I am wondering if I can go to court in person and apply for an emergency hearing to protect my son from the emotional pain he’s going to experience from now onwards wondering where mummy is, he’s obsessed I’m going to die so being told I’m so ill I cannot do a zoom on Xmas day and essentially disappearing from his life (again( abruptly is going to really really damage him and possibly our relationship

OP posts:
valentinka31 · 22/12/2024 03:19

contact womens aid asap

Birdofpain · 22/12/2024 03:20

We had one in last hearing. He hoodwinked him so much sl the guardian didn’t even meet me yet wrote a report against me

OP posts:
PyongyangKipperbang · 22/12/2024 03:20

MartinCrieffsLemon · 22/12/2024 03:08

Glad you got the reference

OP has said it was via court order

And a man ever leaving the country his kids are in would be criticised

I already know if this was written by a man the responses would be very different. "

I disagree. If a man couldnt see his kids over Xmas and decided to go away with his parents abroad rather than sit home alone and then be back for what the OP calls their "mini Xmas", then the mother cancelled for spurious reasons, then she would be taken to pieces on here. "AIBU to cancel ex's time with DS over Xmas because he didnt answer my texts immediately?" Can you imagine?!

No one going on holiday during a period when they were not due to have their kids would be told that they were wrong. I go away one week every year during the week my DD is with her dad. Is that wrong? No.

Notsandwiches · 22/12/2024 03:21

Theres probably nothing you can do about Christmas BUT he has provided you with a raft of evidence that he is controlling and not acting in your son's best interests. Contact womens aide who will be able to recommend an experienced lawyer. All lawyers are not equal.