Frequency of phone calls to non resident parent

[NeedSleepNow]

Ex and I have been separated over a year, the kids live with me (ages 13, 10, 6) and see him once midweek and every ofter weekend. He wants to ring them every night at whatever time he decides and gets angry if I don't answer the phone, he keeps ringing and ringing until I do answer or I get abusive texts. It was discussed at mediation and agreed that midweek there will be 2 videocalls, then he will see the children one night, so two nights without either seeing them or having a video call. He then has them to stay every other weekend and gets a videocall on the weekend they are with me.

The other weekend he rang 8 times within 25 minutes on my phone, and 5 times on our son's phone. We were busy at the time so couldn't answer and when I checked my phone I saw all these missed calls as well as abusive texts. I explained why we had not heard the phone to answer but I just got the reply of 'I assumed you were just ignoring me so thought I'd keep ringing and ringing' . This was before 9am on a Saturday morning and the time of the call that day had not been agreed. He is now angry about it again and saying he does not want his telephone contact with them regulated by me so will be buying them a mobile so that he can ring them whenever he wants to. Surely this isn't reasonable, am I really to be expected to let them speak to him whenever he calls, regardless of what they are doing? It's just not practical or convenient if they are having dinner, rushing off to an after school club, doing homework, getting ready for bedtime etc. I have always said that they can ring him anytime they want to talk to him but for him to demand to speak to them whenever he wants to seems like a real invasion of my time with them and their routine, and just another way that he is trying to regain control over our lives.

Am I being unreasonable by not letting him call anytime he wants, or is 2 videocalls a week reasonable plus a midweek visit & every other weekend with them? I just feel like he will always be in control (his control was one of the many reasons I ended our relationship) and there is no end in sight to all this animosity.

The phone calls are probably more to do with keeping tabs on you and controlling your life than being interested in the child anyway.

Sometimes it seems like this.

I do think he misses them desperately (despite never showing an interest when he lived with us) and is lonely and bored so rings constantly. It's worse during the school holidays with him often ringing before he starts work, on his lunch break and then again in the evening. The kids just have nothing to say when he rings that often then he gets cross that they aren't wanting to chat.

My mum tried to control how often my dad could ring me. It was horrible (& no mobiles then. 40+ years ago!).

I can understand why he wants to speak to his children every day.
Surely you can come up with a solution that suits both?

How old is your son? As he gets older increasingly he may well not be in at teatime and you may need to adjust your expectations, be more flexible

IMO normal rules do not apply when one parent is overly difficult / abusive.

in my situation contact follows a loose plan (we organise a couple of months at a time) but is fluid to meet kids needs. Phone calls aren’t massively common as he see kids most days as we share mum and dad taxi duties!

in your situation, I would set clear boundaries and expectations of when he can call and why. And then ignore everything outside of this. I wouldn’t want to put it on the kids in case he makes them feel bad for not answering immediately etc. he can take you back to mediation if he wants more

I've had similar issues with my ex.

Like previous posters had said I would give your ex a time slot to call which works around your lives. He can not expect you to drop things to accommodate him. If they don't want to speak to him then don't make them.

As they get older they can be more in control over the calls. My ex now only contacts the children via my eldest's phone. Sometime he ignores the call, sometimes not. It also means that they can call their dad anytime they like.

I did however make sure that if he started to be rude /disrespectful then the call was cut.

It's another way for him to be in control and in my ex's case 'check up' on us. Putting boundaries in place has helped establish a much more respectful line of communication with the children.
Messages to me are still out of line but it's almost like playing bingo now as he's so predictable I know what messages are coming my way. I chose to ignore them or reply with a simple 'thanks for sharing' and don't engage.

He will definitely try to make them feel bad. Our eldest already has a mobile and rarely answers it and his Dad tries to make him feel guilty about it and puts a lot of pressure on him (he also rarely answers when I ring him if he is out with friends etc. as his phone is either on silent, not charged or he can't remember where it is) . He found things so hard when his dad lived with us, our home is finally starting to feel like a safe space for the children but the constant phonecalls make it feel like he is once again taking over the space.

OP, I feel your pain. My ex has never made the slightest effort with ds, they have nothing in common at all. Ex bores ds to tears, ds then refuses to take his dad's calls because he doesn't want to talk about cricket or football, I get the blame.

I got so fed up at one point I was actually writing a call plan, with things ds could tell his dad about, just so I didn't get the blame. It was ridiculous.

Then came to my senses and left them to it. Now they speak once a week. It's ex's fault, he refuses to take an interest in things ds likes, won't take him anywhere interesting and this is the result.

YANBU. Personally I wouldn't agree to the set times that are already in place, either. The kids don't even enjoy it, it's for his benefit.

My DP does not have organised phone calls with DSS, DSS just randomly calls him sometimes. I don't see it as necessary to force something more than that.

His behaviour is awful. There is some good advice on here about how to grey rock him, I'd take that.

As the eldest is 13 surely contact can't be forced on him. So I'd tell your ex that he needs to call him directly and you won't get involved (and then your son can choose to either pick up, or not).

And then I'd tell him to stick to the agreed times for phonecalls for the younger two, and ignore any call or message outside of these times.

In fact I'd do what someone else recommanded - get a new sim card for friends and family, put the old sim in a shitty phone, and only switch that phone on during the agreed contact times. Keep it switched off at all other times and do not respond to ANY of the abusive messages.

Him being angry about it is NOT your problem. If he is unhappy about the level of contact or frequency of calls, he can go to court (probably won't bother). Right now you need to get this stress out of your and your kids' lives.

Thanks for that I Live for summer !! Um, I am incredibly flexible, my son comes first, and as an experienced 54yr old mother I reckon I know what all that encompasses! Of course if my son is busy/eating/on an activity whatever, I don't expect him to talk at that time, I also check with him regularly if he wants/likes me calling at similarish time each day, and he does, not to appease me, but he likes it. He also likes knowing the call will be regular at that time. I was one of the first ever posters on mumsnet ,gawd,about 25yrs ago, but haven't posted for about 15 yrs, and now I've remembered why. 🙂