Children gone on Hols with ex and he wont answer the phone or let me speak to them!!! What can i do???

[Babywhiting]

my 2 children have gone on their hols with my ex we have been seperated for 5 years and he asked if they could go with him he has only ever had them stay 2 nights with him in a row! had the odd night once or twice!

they went friday its now thursday and i have not been able to contact them! my dd has a mobile which i ring and it keeps ringing and the ex just cuts his phone off when i ring, ive sent messages saying id like to talk to the kids which he ignored till yesterday when he sent a message saying
"not got good signal will see if they want to talk to you later"

not a word back no call nothing!

i miss my kids and wish they had never gone! what do i do??

no, but the people suggesting it are overreacting.

What you need to ask yourself is, are you worried? or are you annoyed?

If worried (and only you know whether there is genuine reason to be worried), I would drive down to the campsight where they are supposed to be and make sure they are ok. Put the other kids in the car, catch a train, get there by whatever means are necessary, but if you are genuinely worried then you will find a way to get there.

But if you are annoyed, then i would just wait it out until the children come back next week, and hope that they contact you in the meantime. And I would then have it out with him when they get back.

If he has genuinely not allowed the children to contact you, then they will almost certainly tell you when they get back and will probably be reluctant to go away for such a long time in future.

But do bear in mind that it is possible that they may just be having a fab time and not be bothered about contacting home, as hard as that is to contemplate, as we all want to imagine our children pining for us, and don't want to think that that's sometimes just not the case.

apologies if I was harsh. tbh my irritation is more for the hysterics expressed by other posters..

OK, lay off the uppercase and exclamation marks because it is hard to understand you when you are yelling.

Do you think it is likely that he would hurt them? If yes, then you really do need to call the police. If no, then you need to back off.

If you are sure he wouldn't hurt them and is just being a twat, well then there isn't anything you can do about it, regardless of how angry it makes you.

It sounds like they are somewhere that doesn't have great mobile reception and to be honest if they are off camping the kids are probably having a blast and are just not worried about calling you.

have you called the campsite? Do you know for sure they are there? If they are, then call them and check they're ok, pass message to ex.

If/when you finally get through say you insist on 1 call every evening. If he doesn't stick to it, I'd seriously reconsider letting them go again.

When they stay at his do they call then?

Is this all one sided or have their been some tough times over contact? Do you let him call them whenever he wants to?
Is he "treasuring" finally being able to take his children on holiday and not wanting you to "spoil" it by upsetting them with phone calls?
The police can only be a final resort-and they will only intervene if you really believe he may harm the children.
But you have an agreement (legal or personal) that your ex could take his children on holiday. You have an agreed timescale and as much as you may not like him he is their father they will always have that bond.
IMHO YABU and the more you call him the more unreasonable you will seem to him. If you back off a bit he may call you himself, if not well all of the above still applies.

I have always haddaily contact with myDD when she used to stay with ex. Just a quick phone call or text.. they are young and of course you want to speak to them He is being a prick in my opinion and loving the control he is having on you. Send him a simple text telling him that you are worried about the lack of contact and will contact the police tomorrow morning if he does not get in touch today. He will hate you for it but who cares!

with regards to him managing to text but the DD not answering her phone and bad signals.

Are they the same network - if they're different others have posted to say signal is terrible there - perhaps her phone isn't actually ring at her end?

If the signal is cr*p what is the point of texting to say "ring me within x time or I call the police" - what if the text doesn't get through straight away?

I think you're over reacting and just need to calm down a little.

I love how some people pile in with their own agenda without having actually read the thread

I agree with part of wannaBe's last post - are you worried or annoyed. If you're annoyed, text him and tell him you want him to call you back/answer the phone today to arrange to speak to them. It is not unreasonable for you to want to speak to them. Sounds like he is being a cock

I wouldn't bother with the texts/mobile phone - he can easily claim he didn't get it due to crap signal. I would contact the camp site direct.

And tbh I don't think calling the local police is totally ott. Years ago (before mobiles) while at uni I went to a city a long way away to visit a friend who was supposed to meet me at the station. A short while later a police car drew up and asked if I was me, and passed on the message that my friend would be half an hour late. I was totally shocked and also queried it with my friend as it would never have occured to me to contact the police, but she was adamant that their job was public saftey, and I was a lone female in a strange city.... The point it, if while out and about on patrol, they can easily stop by and check all is in order without it being a big heavy dramatic scene with kids being dragged away. They can check the kids are ok, reassure the mother, tell the father to staop being an arse, and OP will also have an official record that there has been a problem, so if she later wishes to refuse permission for him to take them away, she has evidence of his unreasonable behaviour.

TBH, after a whole week, I think I'd be contacting the local police to get them to do that. No way would I wait another week.

babywhiting - you only allow him to call the children twice a week, yet you're getting all upset that he's now also restricting your calls . Sounds like a control issue to me, you're laying down the law with him, and he's now taking the limited opportunity he has to exert some control back. Granted he's being very immature, but to call yourself the "main parent with all the rights" and restrict his calls yourself is not a good way to encourage 2-way good relations

I think everyone is missing the point! Their contact agreement or issues between them are nothing to do with this thread.

The fact is that he is being a complete twat, who would restrict children from calling their main carer ffs, its not like she wants to have an hour long convo every night, just a 'hi, are you having fun, c u soon' I imagine is all babywhiting would like.

I would txt him again today, saying you are concerned that he hasnt allowed you to talk to the children, give him 24 hours to make contact with you allowing you to speak with the children or you will contact the police. Then you are giving him a warning of your intentions, he knows youre seriously worried and hopefully will stop being a twat!

Just a small technical point. Sometimes if I am in an area with dodgy signal I can still manage to send or receive a text but if I receive a call it will cut off as I answer.

I wanted to add that as it might explain why you keep being cut off.

Site office would probably be the best approach to ensure that you can get a message passed on.

mosschops - how do you know that he's stopping his children from contacting the OP? It's not without the bounds of possibility that they're having such a good time they haven't actually wanted to.

because its common courtesy that if you have kids for 6 days then you say 'lets phone mum/gran/dad etc and say hi'.
My kids would never ask to phone grandma, that doesnt mean they dont speak to her.
What a ridiculous attitude

If my dcs went away with dh for a week (and we are very much together) I would expect him to ring me no matter what. Similarly am taking dcs away for weekend next weekend, do you think I wont ring home, of course i will, its just nice to say hi, we're all ok etc

They're not lone females though, they're with their Dad and probably their step-mum. She let them go with him willingly, there has been contact via a text message, she just hasn't been able to speak to the children directly and the signal in the area is really bad.

I don't get the impression that Babywhiting is concerned for their safety, more that she's missing them and bloody annoyed that her ex appears to be avoiding contact, which isn't that easy anyway because of the phone signal. She's clearly not feeling the need to phone the police and I think if she did they probably wouldn't want to get involved.

And I agree, if he had to get a court order for phone contact twice a week (which IME isn't necessary if the other party allows free contact) then he's playing tit-for-tat and letting Babywhiting know how it felt. I bet he knows she's going to be having a go about this too, so is putting off the inevitable argument until after the holiday.

but a responsible and reasonable parent would ensure the kids contacted their main carer, with whom they normally live and are with every day, he should be making an effort to ensure they speak to her, whether they specifuîcally ask to or not - even if they were having such a fab time they claimed they couldn't be bothered, though in a whole week I find that extremely hard to believe.

By not ensuring even minimal cpntact he is being totally unreasonable and irresponsible.

allnew, I understood it that the judge had said he should only call twice a week, rather than the op only allowing him to call twice a week.

But regardless, I cannot imagine my kids going away without me for a week and not hearing one word. especially when with an ex who apparently hates OP. She must be desperately worried, so I think it's out of order to have a go at her like that tbh

Hope he has rung you now.

op - do you encourage the children to call your ex when you're on holiday? (as a reasonable and responsible parent)

Ok lets not have a go at the op, she is upset, she wants to speaks to her kids, anyone in her situation would feel the same, regardless of the anamosity between her and her ex, it is still upsetting to not be able to speak to your dc.

OP send him a text saying you are very worried and if you dont hear back from your dc in the next hour you will be talking to the police, tell him you want to actually 'speak' to them in person, if he doesnt allow this, you will ring the police

He didn't have to get a court order to be allowed to contact them, that was what the judge told him to do because he wasn't in contact at all. Read the OP's posts. I'm not surprised teh OP is getting crossed, I'm feeling rather irked myself now

Just because the judge ordered contact twice a week, that doesn't mean that that is all that can happen. Babywhiting can choose to "allow" as much contact as her ex wants. A court order is considered to be the starting point and the bare minimum.

allnew what does it matter? he is being an arse, for all we know the children may be miserable adn telling him they want to go home and that could be the reason why he wont let them call, what the op does when she is on holiday has nothing to do with this situation, it doesnt excuse what he is doing

ffs the court order and the phone call twice a week, doesnt excuse what he is doing, im getting irked myslef now

Vinegartits - I think it's relevant because at the end of the day, if the ex feels he's given the rough end of the deal, he (rightly or wrongly) will start with the tit for tat behaviour. Agree with surfermum, the court will set out the bare minimum, but the op is free to allow and lot more besides (although frequently pwc's don't). If the op regularly encourages the children to call their dad, he may be more likely to encourage the same when he has them (which is why I thought it was relevant to ask)

So you reckon the ex is denying his kids contact with their mother to get back at her and you think that's excusable. Sheesh.