Narc ex threatening me with court

[Wisemama007]

Narc ex is threatening me with solicitor letters and the possibility of court.

He is going abroad to live with his new girlfriend for approximately 6 months. She already lives abroad. He has not told me about the new girlfriend, our 7 year old son did. All he has said to me is that he has been offered an opportunity to work abroad.

He has stated that all of his parental time with our son will be passed to our sons grandparents. Even though he is going 'temporarily' he wants to change all of our sons current school holiday arrangements.

I have said his parental time will automatically go back to me, as I am the mother. But that I will ensure he has regular contact, overnight stays and dinners after school with dad's parents. I have said no to changing the holiday arrangements as his work arrangements are only temporary, so I see no reason too. Every time he gets into a new relationship he consistently changes our sons routine to fit in with his new one and it is becoming increasingly unhealthy.

At present the school half-term holidays are split. We get 5 days each. The Easter holidays are split, a week each. Summer holidays are tricky as he has fought and fought for 14 days. But our son had 10 days with him last year and came back unconsolable. He was so upset that he hadn't seen me in a long time. I had expressed my concerns but was made out to be a liar. This year we are trying for 12 days, even though I disagreed. But he fought me for 3 months over this and I gave in. We currently share Christmas. One parent has our son from Christmas Eve from 10am until 3pm Christmas Day. Then the other parent has 3pm Christmas day until end of boxing day. Both of us have time either side.

He has said he wants all of Christmas week next year (again to fit in with him and his new gf routine). I know our son would be devastated to not see me for any of the Christmas week. As he has done for 7 nearly 8 years now.

I have currently been representing myself as I cannot afford a solicitor. I'm anxious and feeling sick over all of this as they genuinely believe I am in the wrong and are willing to take this to court.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation or can anyone offer any solid advice to help me get through all of this.

Thank you.

Generally, one parent needs written authorisation from the other to take a child out of England, unless they have a lives with order in their favour. You'd really hope someone would ask for that if that parent was flying out on a one-way ticket but it's not guaranteed.

If there is any risk at all that your ex could try and take your child out of the country, you need urgent legal advice and to obtain a prohibited steps order.
If he threatens to take the child with him at very short notice then contact the police and ask for an all ports alert, or just keep him in your sights at all times. If they go to a non-Hague convention country you could have a nightmare on your hands.

You can also contact the passport office and ask for another passport not to be issued without your permission.

Don’t worry about solicitor’s letters. You can pay a solicitor to say what you want in a letter and it doesn’t have legal basis. For example someone on here got a solicitor’s letter demanding that she revert to her maiden name because his soon to be wife wanted to be the only one with his surname. Bonkers right ?

You are correct that the Child Arragement Order is between you and him and he can’t pass off his time to be grandparents. His parents don’t have rights if you’re in the UK. Grandparents rights are for special circumstances like if they had your child for a few years because you and ex were in prison.

You don’t need a solicitor. Wait and see if he takes you to court then self represent. You have the proof that he’s flaky and unable to be present at contact so if the Child Arrangement Order is to be amended then it should say you have ds 100% of the time. Get Christmas nailed down. He can’t demand time based around his schedule all the time.

His solicitor writing to you is no more binding than him writing to you.

The letters aren't 'warnings', they're just letters, and you can ignore them if you really want to.

But my suggestion would be to write one final response and set out, in brief, what is going to happen. '

"Thank you for your letters regarding plans for Alfie whilst superdad is away for six months, but I feel we are going around in circles, so I am going to disengage from further back and forth communication.

My final position is that as superdad will not be present in the country, our current child arrangements order is suspended, and will resume on his return. In the interim, I am more than content to arrange contact between Gran and Gramps and Alfie, with the grandparents directly. I envisage this being at least twice a month, with an overnight stay once a month. I am of the firm belief that it is in Alfie's best interests to be parented by me whilst superdad is abroad. I presume, if superdad doesn't agree with this position, that he or you will be sending me a copy of his C100 and a court date in due course, and we will discuss the issue further with the court.'"

You could also offer the father a few extra days (or maybe an extra week in the summer holidays) to compensate for the time he has chosen to leave the country for, but you don't have to.

Unless you live in an area of the country where the court has virtually no list for children proceedings, making an application today wouldn't get a hearing listed before September.

Don't bend yourself out of shape over this - the court will only see you as unreasonable IF you're being unreasonable, and you're not.

Wow, lots of advice here. Thank you all so much.

As of recent years I no longer have the best relationship with my exes parents as I slowly learnt that they too are very toxic and controlling. My son has a fairly nice relationship with them but they don't do too much with him. They don't do the things he wants to do. And they also don't take him to meet his friends or go to birthday parties etc, so sometimes he dislikes going there.

Grandparents and ex live in the same street. So yes, it's likely he puts our son in their care alot of the time when he's supposed to be watching him. I don't mind this as of course when DS is in our care it's entirely up to us as his parents who he spends time with etc. However I don't believe this is a justifiable reason as to why they should take over his PR when he is not in the country. I have already said I will ensure DS has regular contact with them.

Changing my DS holiday schedule to fit in with his temporary job also shouldn't be allowed. Simply because it is temporary. It is not within the best interests of our DS so it shouldn't be changed. If it becomes permanent then I'm happy to re-look at things, however as a narcissist he can never really commit to anything so I don't believe it would be for a long time.

It was the same with his last gf. I had to change DS routine to fit in with his new one with his gf.

Christ. I wouldn't want you representing me.

Am I your relative? My ex-husband and OW demanded my medical records and prognosis when I was diagnosed with cancer. They didn't get very far with that. As you say, solicitors will write anything. I had some absolute corkers from their solicitor. It's really tiresome.

@Wisemama007 I was dragged through court repeatedly by my ex despite him having the contact he asked for. It's all about power and control. Like you, I couldn't afford legal rep so I self represented and it was fine. He's being completely unreasonable and the irony of him demanding all of this while he leaves the country for six months is hilarious. Let him crack on. He'll be back for at least another 6 months before there's a hearing in any event. The court backlog is horrendous.

Next time you receive a solicitor's letter, reply with a one liner saying "I look forward to receiving a copy of your client's application to the family court" and then carry on with your life. It's so tiresome. The court also has little patience with people who repeatedly litigate for no good reason. This is no good reason. He's leaving the country 🤷🏻‍♀️

This.

Call his bluff. Let him take you to court. It will take a year by which time he will be back. He is the one abandoning his son, he is the one causing the disruption. He is the problem.

I'd remind him of the existing court agreed access. Point out that GPs do not get his 50%. Then just ignore him. And take no notice of his solicitor, some lawyers talk through their bottoms to bully you.

I know people have said in the past that if the grandparent has a lot of contact with the child, it can be used as a case to give them access. But I can't imagine that even in your case where your ex has let the grandparents have him a lot that this is a strong enough case for the grandparents to have 50/50. Far more likely that the court would simply mandate the contact you've already proposed.

You haven't said but is there a financial implication here do you think? Because i suspect the court would also take a dim view of that.

A different way of looking at this is through the eyes of your DS. He has experienced his parents separating, has had to get used to not seeing his father every day, and spending time away from his mother. He currently spends some time with his father and sees his paternal grandparents during this time. His father plans to move away again. The only consistency will be his mother and his grandparents. I would argue that he should see them (GPs) as much as he currently does, in order to strengthen the relationship he already has with them.
This should not become a battle between the parents, no one will win if that happens.
I suggest you both try mediation first. If an agreement cannot be reached then courts will have to decide. However, September isn’t long off so I doubt very much he will get a court date before that.

You aren’t. He wanted to use her PTSD to show she was an unfit mum. The PTSD he caused by breaking into her house in the middle of the night, and beating her so badly her own dad didn’t recognise her.

I’d been allowed to sit in the room that day. Oh how I loved the judge for his reaction.

I’m so sorry he did that to you. I’m always shocked how thoroughly vile people can be during family court proceedings but that takes some topping x

This is truly awful, but good to hear the court wasn't interested in letting this continue. I truly believe that a lot of abusive men genuinely do have disordered thinking. It's not an excuse, but it's why their behaviour is so completely incomprehensible to the rest of us. DH and I still find it mind blowing how on one occassion when BIL pushed SIL and locked her into a room, he was so completely blasé to Dh about it claiming that SIL deserved it and needed to be taught a lesson. He didn't even do the mitigating "I know it's not great but...." thing.

Insane.

@Soontobe60 I do appreciate this perspective. However I was fortunate to leave when my son was just a baby as the family dynamic was so toxic. Ex also didn't have much involvement with DS and hardly seen him. My DS is very much used to not seeing him often and in all of these years has never asked for him in the time he doesn't see him.
I wouldn't never agree to co-parenting/parallel parenting with grandparents as I have no reason too. They will be treat like all other members of the family and I will ensure DS spends quality time with them whenever I can. There is no reason for me to share the PR with them when I am DS parent.

Keeping logs is key. Log every change made by him over the next few months. You can't evidence your behaviour as well as his.

My friends ex also took her to court, his family have lots of money, she doesn't. She decided to represent herself and her ex had a high flying barrister. The judge was lovely, spent time explaining what she needed to do and in the end I'm sure it went against him, as he was clearly trying to bully her. The ruling came in her favour, so don't think just because he has lots of money to throw at this he will win. It doesn't work like that.

This really does smack of him trying to get his way using legal threats.

it won’t fly in court. Which he will never actually invoke because he knows he won’t be successful.

if the grandparents want to apply for court ordered contact themselves, they need the permission of the court first. And the factors the court considers are not the same as for regular CAO type applications.

He is all heat and no light by the sounds of it. And if his parents are going along with this nonsense … we’ll, it’s clear where he got his poor relationship and interpersonal models from, isn’t it?

Thank you @the2andahalfmillion . Yes, I've heard the GP's would need to do that. And it wouldn't surprise me if they decided too. Even though I have said they will still have regular contact. I wouldn't not allow my DS to see them.

I will do, thank you. I am so pleased to hear that after everything your friend self-represented herself and it went her favour. I have heard that sometimes it really depends what Judge you get on the day, which is so frightening as this is the care of our children and what is best for them. I will continue to document everything and hope that my exes money doesn't go in his favour.

Aren't you glad you got away? Even if you have to deal with his utter rubbish occasionally....

Even if the courts made an order, it would be for contact and I sincerely doubt they would give 50% care to grandparents in this situation. Surely it would be more likely to be eg regular but time-limited contact?

Plus, I can't help feeling it's going to look really bad that your child's father is sodding off for six months to go live with his new partner overseas, and thinks he can contract out parenting to his folks - as if it's some sort of job where it doesn't really matter who does it as long as his hours are covered.

I really can't imagine most sensible family court judges would go "oh yes, fair enough, let's just substitute the grandparents in for the father here, that's reasonable".

But am not a lawyer.

@IdLikeToBeAFraser I completely agree. If it were the other way around (I would never leave my DS) and I were to leave, he has a routine with me every week too. He see friends, family and does lots of after-school activities. Would I then need to put him in the care of all of those that he sees whilst with me? As that's more or less what his dad is saying. Because he can't be bothered to look after him, he gives him to his parents and therefore that's his routine. The schedule in place is for our DS to spend time with me and then his dad. Whom he sees whilst in the care of us, is just an addition to this.
I have also said I would ensure he still sees his GP. There are just sadly some people in this world who believe that everyone must play along to their own rules and no one else is able to have any control.

Thank you @JustAnotherLawyer2 . I can't lie, this made me giggle! I needed that. What you have written is spot on. I'm not going to worry myself too much over potentially going to court. Like you say, it's not going to happen quickly and he will likely be back by the time it does. Although he'll probably try and take me there for something! It's just the way he works unfortunately.

@the2andahalfmillion Absolutely. It was hell on earth living with him. I didn't want my son to grow up and think that's what a relationship should looks like. I am 100% glad I got away when I did.
I'm not too sure, I've heard lots of things. But I've also been told that a Court would only entertain it if I was restricting or stopping visitation with my son for them. Which I would never do. I just don't want to have a set schedule in place as I don't think it is necessary. It's sad really, because as long as they continue to bully and control me, their Grandsons mother, it will soon not go unnoticed to my Son and he will soon see them for who they truly are.

Sad.... but not sad. It's better the scales fall from his eyes, really. You don't need to badmouth them and I'm sure you wouldn't, but you also don't have to make reassuring conciliatory noises when he starts to vocalise about the grandparents being odd and controlling. It'll happen naturally, all you need to do is be loving, reliable, rational, and confident in your own set up, and teach him to trust his own feelings and interpretation of things.

Good luck, I hope they don't give you the court runaround.