Long post
So I'm looking for advice on what to do.
I have concerns regarding my 4 year old son and his father (my ex partner).
He seems to go very quiet and reserved when his dad picks him up, he will often not want to go with him/sleep over at his house, and there have been issues in the recent past regarding my ex and his new partner "encouraging" our son to eat new foods; he has told me that they've made him (not physically, they would say he cannot leave the table or have snacks) eat all of his food, even if he doesn't like it, even telling him to just have a drink if he is retching. He's even come home on 2 or 3 occasions with vomit on his clothes.
I was told that he was put in a highchair to eat, but only because his partner's 1 year old nephew was trying to get to his food. Why wouldn't they just put the 1 y/o in the highchair if this was the real reason?
Things seemed to have gotten better regarding the eating situation though, but the issue now is that he is spiting our son trying to get to me.
He lied to his family and friends, saying that I stated our son wasn't allowed to attend his partner's birthday party, or stay over at his grandmother's with the other children afterwards.
This is completely untrue, and I had to deal with our son breaking his heart over this as he was so excited.
The real reason was because I could only drop him off with his father within the agreed time because I had plans, however he wasn't available and hadn't organised a way for our son to get to him, so we had an argument and then he said "don't bother" when I had said I'd found a way to get our son to him.
I even had to tell white lies to him about why he wasn't going, so that he didn't think badly about his father.
He refused to let his mother speak to me by using his phone (her phone went out of battery) to organise him staying over that night, and even made sure she got home late so that our son would already be in bed and would not be able to go.
I have tried to speak to him, but he refuses and tells me to go f*ck myself.
He puts all of the blame on me and says it's my fault that our son missed out.
He has also been saying to him that he will put our kitten on the BBQ and saying things like he doesn't care about me and sharks are going to eat me. This may sound funny to some, but I guarantee he has said other things about me and nasty things about our pet too.
I'm worried about my son's mental welfare when he is with his father, and I'm not sure what to do.
Have new child arrangements and make them legally binding?
Or file for a no contact order?