Hello its long I am sorry,
I am a mum of a 5 y.o. boy. His dad and I were together for a number of years when I became pregnant. I was unprepared but I accepted the situation as being my responsibility. I told him that if he wasn't ready he was free to go but he said he wanted to do this with me. For some reason after this time he became very negligent. He seemed to think he had power over me and that no matter what he did I would still stay with him because I was having his baby.
After a year of my son being born he resorted to domestic violence because I threatened to leave him because he wasn't helping out enough. He even left his job simply because he didn't like it, and somehow expected to rely on me when I returned to work after maternity leave. I was so scared a shocked I didn't know what to do. I went to work the next day with marks all over my neck where he strangled me. My son was left screaming in the next room probably from hearing my cries and his abusive shouting.
At first I didn't have the courage to go to the police, but on a second occasion where his own brother had to intervene I called them and explained everything (my young son also witnessed this). After this I moved back in with my family. I stopped him from visiting initially but started contact between him and ds. I tried to be as agreeable as possible but after some time when he realised that I had no intention of getting back with him his behaviour became erratic and I started limiting contact as I was worried about what he would do. He suddenly stopped getting in touch and stopped visiting. My family suspected that he was using drugs.
After two years of not bothering with my son, he contacted a solicitor stating that I was preventing him from seeing his child. I was alarmed and upset by this. He denied the violence even though I have a copy of the referral letter from social services showing concern for my son being around him. He now sees ds at a contact centre, where he regularly criticizes me to ds and restrains him from coming to me when he is upset. Because of this, my son is scared and it has started to affect his social life at school. I have no idea how all of this goes unnoticed in a contact centre!!
He is taking me to court over contact arrangements. At the first hearing it was confirmed that he has lied about not taking drugs and has a very recent drugs conviction. I just dont understand why someone who says they love their child would do all these things. He has never bought ds a decent present for birthday or christmas, has missed so much of watching him grow and develop and now he seeks to make him and myself miserable. Some people say women use their power to prevent men from seeing their kids... I don't what power this is!! If you love your children you will give them the best always. I feel like I work so hard to give my son everything in life and he does nothing. He is belittling my son often. He even leaves my sons laces untied and refuses to do them up until my son learns it himself. I hate him for what he is doing. Please, if anyone can tell me, what can I do to help my son?