Contact with Ex - Requesting Advice

[Anonymous105]

I'll try and keep this as short and sweet as possible.
Long story short, my ex and myself have been separated for many many years. She never kept a tidy house and shows many narcissistic traits. My child lived with her full time and i had my child every weekend when they lived locally, until 2022 when my ex moved 60 miles away very short notice, this then changed to every other weekend due to fuel costs, transport times etc... fast forward to 2025.
Due to ongoing concerns with my child's living conditions and welfare a CPS case was raised, they identified there was many areas of neglect from my ex and CPS tried to support on improving the situation. Aside from the initial conference my ex did not attend any of the follow up meetings and social workers had great difficulty getting her to cooperate and communicate.
I decided that enough was enough and I took my child into my full time custody at the end of June 2025. I informed my ex of the actions i was taking on that day and that I would not be returning my child to them and requested that for the foreseeable future any contact between us would be done by email.
Aside from the initial couple of emails of backlash i have not received further responses.
I have sent short updates on how my child is getting on every few weeks and i am trying to establish a visitation plan. I have not received any responses to these emails. Since the end of June my ex has made no effort to reach out to my child, i am not preventing them from doing so either.
I want reassurance that by standing my ground and choosing to stick to my decision of emails only is the right thing to do.

For additional context, Icheck in with my child (13 yo) every few days to see how they are feeling about it all. Last thing they told me is that they do not care that their mother hasnt contacted them as it is her choice.
Which is pretty sad.

Thanks.

Were there any existing court orders regarding who your child lives with etc? What are you going to do about school?

Imo your ex must be in a pretty bad place to not have fought to see her dc. I hope your dc knows it isn't their fault dm can't be their dm right now.

None, it was informal agreements.
I had support of the senco at their (now previous) school and social worker to back my decision for not returning my child, as it was seen as a safeguarding action. I made school applications the following week and secured them a new school place for next academic year.

Thank you @Campingisnexttogodliness i have made sure they know it isnt their fault. We have a better support network here and gets plenty of attention from grandparents etc..

Your ex could take you to court to stop you unilaterally moving your child's school. It's one of the things you are obliged to discuss with everyone who has PR. Do you think that's the kind of thing your ex would do?

I hear what you say but my ex partner is unfit to parent and this has been demonstrated many times within the CPS/CPP reports. Not only that but has refused mediation requests (understand they are not mandatory) when trying to discuss what was best for our child.