Co-parent not listening

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Hi

Very weird set up - my Ex lives with my parents. The relationship between my parents and I has completely broken down.

My ex and I have a court order where when he sees the children the maternal grandparents can join in his time and my parents have their own overnight once a fortnight if my ex is around or not. One condition is we do not talk in a derrogatory way about the other parties in front of the children.

About a fortnight ago my children told me two separate incidents where the grandparents have been derrogative about me to the kids. One of the incidents implied that my ex has been showing his personal messages from me to them (he and I have parental responsibility). I asked solicitor to write to him and my parents to not do this or better still not discuss me at all and asked my ex not to show his personal messages to anyone.

last night I had a text from DD to say she tried to explain she didn’t like something and was upset because rather than the grandparents listen to her feelings she’s had the response “you only think like that because your mum doesn’t like that”. I told ex and he’s dismissed my concerns and his daughters feelings saying “I think too much”. Hang on, this is derrogative because i have different values my opinion must be wrong and I’m being scapegoated and you are not listening to your child. Writing to the solicitors hasn’t sorted this out - what would you do?

In the past my family have said said things to imply I don’t love my children, that my cctv is to spy on them (literally cctv is there to keep them safe) etc.

How old are the kids?

It sounds like you've tried you best to get them to stop talking about you infront of the kids. There's not a whole lot else you can do but if your child is not listened to she will start to resent them and they'll just push her away. Once she's at an age where she can decide for herself if she wants to spend time with them she may choose not to of they continue to make her feel uncomfortable.

I'm assuming there's other reasons you don't see eye to eye with your parents but I do agree with them that having CCTV to watch your kids is kinda weird and very over the top. Where are the cameras? Surely not in their bedrooms.

I would switch to a co-parenting app.

Have you read "how to talk so kids will listen?" Read and reread and learn how to support your DC using the techniques in there.

It will take a lot for the courts to get involved over it however inappropriate and damaging the comments are.

Thank you - I also think that them talking about me will backfire. Then it will be my fault too that the kids don’t like them. Can’t win! It’s pretty annoying - don’t talk about me in front of the kids. Nothing hard about that!

My kids are 13,11 and 9. They didn’t have a say in the court case last year so I doubt they will ever be able to decide for herself. Dad is well-off and will involve courts if she doesn’t go.

You’ve misunderstood me - I don’t have cameras to spy. We have a doorbell camera and cctv on the garden just like most people. Rarely check the footage unless something happens usually it’s the police who ask us to check if people of interest walked past a certain time. My dad said, “how does it feel like to be spied at your house?” to my son. My dad was trying to make my son feel unsafe in his own home by insinuating that I spy on people when I use cctv for no other purposes than crime deterrent and as a doorbell to tell the delivery men where to leave my parcels when I’m out. When it was installed it did stop my parents coming and shouting and swearing at me in front of the kids and that’s probably the maternal grandparents’ main beef with it. I’ve dealt with the spying issue by watching Hunted and showing my son how commonplace cctv is!

Maybe change your thinking.. You can't co parent with a cunt....

There really isn’t anything you can enforce until or unless it goes into the territory of emotional abuse. Which would be when the children are being emotionally torn between both parents. Even then it would need to be much much worse than this.

I think you need to be aware that any message you send to him is not confidential. It might be personal but that doesn’t mean he cannot share them with anyone he wants. The only thing you can do is not message him anything personal, I don’t know why you would. A parenting app would be a remedy for this.

In relation to the rules in the respective homes, unless these are dangerous or abusive, they are the rules. Ideally you would have the same approach as this is less confusing for children. But you don’t. In your shoes I would tell my children they have to respect those rules when they are there just like they should respect your rules when with you. They may grow up to decide differently from one or both of you.

I would probably try to disengage from conversations with the kids on what happens or how they live with their father. It’s not healthy for them to reporting back to you unless there is a serious problem. It’s a thing that they could exploit, to get out of obeying rules in either household. Something that teens especially can use to get their own way. I am not suggesting that you ask them to tell you. But if you engage with their “feedback” and then react, which you did by challenging the father, this is a problem.

Kids need boundaries and like I said ideally these would be consistent between households, school and wider society. But people do things differently and have different values. It doesn’t mean they are wrong. Just explain that to your daughter. But remind her that when in the care of their father, grandparents, teachers and you they should respect their values and rules. With the obvious caveats that they can question things and they are always allowed to report anything that makes them scared or unsafe.

If he's well off, why is he living with your parents? My own experience is that they can say what they like to your children, they can make false and damaging accusations and nobody seems to do a thing about it. I would disengage completely and use an app such as MyFamilyWizard so you don't directly have any contact with them. I'm sorry your parents are treating you this way, they sound utterly vile!

Trust me, I don’t want to be involved and I’m trying to move forward with my own life.

My daughter had messaged me. My reaction: sorry your upset, have you told your dad? She said she hadn’t so I asked him to check on her because of what she’s said as he was unaware of of that and that she was upset. So I encouraged them to talk to each other. I pointed out that it was derrogatory and against the conditions of the court order and asked again not to be discussed in the household at all again. He was totally dismissive. Anyway, my hope it that kids will learn to tell him instead and he will listen and take action. He shows all his messages to them and relating to the children, I know he can show what he wants to whoever he wants but he makes himself, me and the children vulnerable with his overshare of information to people. I’ve asked him not to do that for the sake of the children and me.

I don’t really wish to be involved with anything in his house and don’t mind what goes on as long as the kids are safe and come back to me on time. The children have mentioned these incidents to me - they don’t like me being mentioned. It does upset them. That’s why I want to follow the court order to the letter and I insist on the “don’t discuss me at all” then I cannot be involved.

Thanks for all the replies, I guess I’ve done all I can. I’ve stood up for myself, asked for boundaries…. the situation isn’t bad enough yet to do anything else.

Yeah I completely misunderstood. I assumed if they had kicked up such a fuss it was because it was in their bedrooms or something. God, half the population have ring doorbells. Hardly spying on them. They sound mental!

We have a ring door bell mostly because my DHs ex is volatile and has previously caused a scene at the front door. We've had no issues with that since the ring doorbell was installed.

He’s so well-off, my parents get paid for living in his house - keeping the house when he’s not there and helping him.

Ex worked abroad for years so I feel at the start when they didn’t want to see him because they didn’t know him if he used the natural emotional connection to see his own kids. He cannot really look after himself here and only recently got a driving licence so needs some help. Though he’s rich so get someone with childcare qualifications, no history of substance abuse and a clear DBS - he wants to ease of grandparents who he believes care about him only because they keep him sweet. My parents and my ex weren’t very close when I was married: they became closer after the divorce.

He wasn’t a good husband in our marriage and I filed divorce on grounds of unreasonable behaviour.I asked my mum and dad not to help and him to give him space in his house to make a connection with his kids, let the kids circle of contacts increase and to consider my feelings. I asked them, Why are you being so nice to him still when he was awful to me and let his kids down? They said “he’s going to pay someone to help him, so he might as well pay us”. Then scared of losing their position started being really horrible - lying about me to my ex, shouting at me at home, being horrible to my new partner, they’ve turned my brother and his family against me and tried to isolate me. Though they say what they do is for the good of the kids. How? The family is totally broken now and my kids have to sit amongst this toxic fake relationship.

all I want is my boundaries and to enjoy my new life.