Five years after leaving violent husband, five years in court, five years uninterrupted co-operation with court orders and contact orders, five years of spurious actions by ex-husband. Today's lovely & well-meaning CAFCASS officer has asked me to consider basing contact around my ex's work rotas, which he will email me a month in advance, so that I can organise mid-week contact around his day off (regular weekends continuing)
WTF? I was not asked what my work commitments were, what child care arrangements are already in place or what after school activities our daughter (who is five) takes part in. ( I don't, btw, object to midweek contact, only that it has to be on a regular day so that I can arrange childcare with childminder/ afterschool club and so that lovely little girl knows whether she is coming or going)
Can I say here at least: we are divorced and while I don't want to prevent contact, I don't want any involvement in his life and I certainly don't want him emailing me so that I can plan our lives round his on a monthly basis!
What the hell is wrong with a regular commitment when there is no reason why not and nothing in his work circumstances has changed. When, god love them, are CAFCASS going to train any of their staff to be the slightest bit cynical of violent men who don't want to ever stop going to court?
Or, if there's no money to train them in how domestic abuse works, could someone please give them an extra half hour to read even one previous document that relates to the case other than a four year old report?
And if the CAFCASS officer I saw today reads this, I'm really sorry because I know how stretched the service is but you really weren't very good and part of the reason why you are all so stretched is because the courts keep giving people like my ex-husband the time of day instead of - briefly - telling them to go away and get on with being a parent and get over the fact their marriage ended.
soz again.