Pointless emails

[LA1988]

In may this year after a 18mth long court process it was ruled my child's dad was not allowed any contact with me or our child. I have to write emails to keep him up to date with our child school, health etc. I have to do this every 2 weeks. I have kept to it. The thing that bothers me is whenever I mention something to do with school like our child has been naughty or the school have phoned in relation to bad behaviour or there's been a health incident my ex never replies. For example our child was taken to a&e yesterday because they broke their foot whilst skipping a lesson. I emailed my ex to tell him what had happened & he hasn't replied. In court he was crying saying he loved our child, he was a good, loving & supportive dad etc but in my opinion if he was all these things he would email me back asking if our child is ok etc but ive had nothing. He never responds to any of my emails even if I have raised any concerns. Its getting to the point where I dont want to do the emails every 2 weeks because its pointless if i get no response. Just wondering what anyone else would do in this position.

Is he allowed to reply to them? If he is not allowed to contact you, could he get in trouble with the court.

You could go to court and say you don't want to.

But I'd just keep sending them, but keep them brief:

Johnny has had a good two weeks, attending swimming and football and not missing any school this week.

Last week Johnny hurt his foot and we have had to take him to A&E but he's okay now and enjoying showing his friend his cast.

Johnny's behaviour at school has been challenging. Other than that, nothing has changed since the last email.

If he's not allowed to contact you then surely he's not allowed to reply?

I agree, brief, factual email once a fortnight then forget about it. Is there an order that specifies that you have to email every 2 weeks? If not, reduce it to once a month. I'd say he's doing you a favour by not responding. Don't give him any grounds to take you back to court and ask for more contact.

Even if he is allowed to respond, he can't do anything about any of it because he's not allowed any contact, right?

Do you even know that he's reading them? He might be dealing with all this by just blocking it out.

I actually wouldn't expect any replies from him after everything that you mention in your OP. So, I'd keep the emails up every 2 weeks but not expect any response.

As others have said, if the court order says he cannot contact you, he cannot reply to your emails. However, if the order requires you to send an email every 2 weeks and you stop sending them, he can take you back to court for enforcement.

Yes hes allowed to reply to the emails. He's not allowed to call me, come to the house, know my address or our child's school information.
This is all in the court order.
The order states i have to send a email every 2 weeks. He's allowed to send birthday/Christmas gifts to my parents for our child but hes not done that once since I left him 4yrs ago.
I emailed him a month ago because he hadnt paid CM that month (private arrangement) he didnt respond so I sent a follow up email, again he didnt reply. It wasn't until I sent a 3rd email explaining maybe it was best to go through the CMS to stop any further issues like this that he finally responded.
I save all the emails I send him just in case he decides to take it back to court for any reason but cant see why he would when im following the court order.

I think that an email every two weeks is a small price to pay for your peace. In many many ways, him not reading or replying to emails is the best outcome here.

What I would probably do is try and come up with a word template which you can just copy and paste and change a couple of bits, and send that every two weeks.

Try and reduce workload down to 3 minutes a time if you can - quicker and cheaper than court!

I'd be relieved he wasn't responding to them. I mean he's not meant to have contact and how is responding not contact?

Just write four bullet points each time and forget it. Don't think about him. He may not even be reading them. Presumably he doesn't care that much else he'd be allowed to see the kid.

I get where your all coming from. Its just frustrating that he was trying to tell the court he was a supportive dad etc but when I tell him something like our child has broken their foot he doesn't reply. If it was me I would respond because it shows I care about my child & i just think what's the point in wasting my time every 2 weeks to keep him informed of our child's life when he doesn't even have the courtesy, care or concern to reply.

He may have told the court those things but you obviously took him to court because you know he isn't really a caring person? So not sure why you would be surprised at his lack of reply?

1 you know he was and is a shit dad - that was clear when the court ruled he's not allowed contact. That's pretty unusual and a sign of a serious bad egg.

2 It's obvious the court didn't believe him then when he claimed he was a supportive dad. And were he to go to court again, they wouldn't believe him now.

Expecting a shit dad to magically become a caring dad is just setting yoursel fup to fail. I get your pain - it's completely and totally incomprehensible to a normal, emotionally healthy person how someone can have so little care for their child. But it is what it is. I doubt he even reads the emails.

So keep sending super short, factual emails to meet the court ordered requirements and leave it at that. He's a waste of space.

No he took me to court stating I was an unfit, drug abusing (never touched drugs in my life), transphobic (hes not transgender, neither is anyone he knows), controlling, narcissistic, selfish mother. That was his statement to the court but mine had times, dates, witnesses, hospital reports, police reports of his physical, mental & emotional abuse towards myself & our child.

What I meant was that you know him so you know that is he is not a caring man, right? Despite what he told court.

So no surprise that a man who didn't care, doesn't care.

As pp have said - send a generic 4 sentence email.

Set up a template. Add a few generic bland sentences and recycle them. Save to a folder.

My apologies.
Its true I know he doesn't care. He proved that when i left him because 3 months later he met someone, moved her & her 2 small children into the house & announced they were having a baby together.
Just dont see why I should keep sending emails when he has proven time & again he doesn't care

Yeah it can take a while to get over family court gaslighting. Even now I think back to some of the injustices I experienced and it threatens my peace.

You can automate these generic emails.

Set a template, tweak them a bit, and set them up in your email and schedule sending for every 2 weeks. You could do a few a week and set them up or you could automate these for the next 10 years if you really wanted to.

I love technology.

because if you stop, it gives him a weapon against you.

Because that's what the court ordered. Annoying, but it is what it is. learn to keep it super short and top level and feel comfortable you've done what you need to. You're not doing it for him. YOu're doing it to meet your legal obligations and to protect yourself should be come back to fight you in due course.

Keep it very short.

I'd be tempted though to be adding 'he's doing very well without you' or something like 'he is nothing like you'.