Sorry this is long.
In brief, should I apply for a new child arrangements order, do I have to seek mediation, how can I make this stop?
History:
Our child arrangements order now obliges us to undertake mediation before any further applications to court (after a couple of ridiculous applications by ex for urgent orders/ changes without even discussing things with me first).
Prior to that, ex had spent months/ years messing us about until I applied for an order in the hope that he would commit to seeing our child. After a few further ups and downs, contact is, at least, consistent now and has been for a few years now (He has her overnight 2x a month).
Otherwise, his contact/ involvement is minimal - this is ex’s choice.
Except that he seems to enjoy some malicious/ self-ish interference every few months eg prohibiting potential secondary schools from considering my daughter - I’m under a duty to let him know which secondary schools we’re considering and every single one of them has subsequently been phoned by him, prohibiting them from offering my daughter a place - I find out when the school phones me to tell me about it. He doesn’t seem to know anything or have any plans for her secondary transition and I don’t know how things can progress when he behaves like this.
My daughter is so upset and worried but he seems not to care. What can I do?
There are other changes that it would be good to have in place eg more and more things happening at weekend that my girl wants to attend (friends’ birthday parties, school events, sports lessons) but he refuses to accommodate any of them.
I’ve sent emails each time to ask what he wants to do to accommodate/ address these things but he doesn’t reply. More than that, he seems to take pleasure in doing things that he thinks will upset/ annoy me - I don’t want my daughter to be his pawn anymore.
Mediation seems a pointless waste of money. I can’t even afford to take him to court really either - I’ll have to do it all myself and , frankly, after experiencing the incompetence of CAFCASS and judges who seem not to have read anything/ don’t care that he lies, the whole thing terrifies me.
There’s a history of coercive controlling abuse and some physical abuse, both before and after I left him (when our girl was 2 yrs old).
I can’t believe that he still gets to mess us about like this. And, whilst I always tell myself that things have calmed down and aren’t so bad, he never ceases to surprise with yet another malicious step. And whilst I feel stupid for being paranoid, he often proves me right and I do fear what he’ll do next.
Any guidance would be helpful. I’m just exhausted now but still want to improve things for daughter if I can - it does seems wrong that we have to put up with this.