Been separated 15 months, following domestic violence. ExH saw the children (aged 7&3) at a contact centre a few times. I have now stopped all contact, as I felt he was using the contact centre to get at me, and was not concerned about the children.
I felt unsafe using the contact centre, as they were convinced by him that he is a good dad, and were pushing me into attending mediation with him. They wanted to move us on to unsupervised contact.
I have given the contact centre details of the nearest domestic violence perpetrator programme, and said that either exH books himself on to that course, or takes me to court. Apparently, he doesn't want to do either of those things. Instead, he has been bleating about parental alienation.
I need to divorce him, and get total financial separation, but I'm worried (to the point of not sleeping) about him being awarded unsupervised contact with the children. He comes across well in court, I should think, but there's no way the children would be safe with him, physically or emotionally.
I would rather let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to contact. I figure that if he can't make the effort to jump through the hoops then the children will be better off without him in the long term.
Is he likely to get any sort of contact with the children, if the divorce provokes him into doing something about it?
I did read that the old "statement of arrangements" isn't being used any more. .. is it possible that we could get through the divorce and financial stuff without the children having to face this issue?