DS's dad lives in the UK and we live abroad. DS is 7.
I kicked him out because of DV, and have refused unsupervised contact due to threats to take DS and worse (which led to me leaving the house with DS within hours).
Anyway, we have been apart for over a year, apart from occasional visits (usually accompanied by incidents that led me to call the police... and in front of DS, and which have led me to restrict physical contact even more). Meanwhile, they have kept in contact by webcam.
Custody is still legally unregulated and ex missed the first hearing.
Anyway, skype contact has had its ups and downs (leading me to openly record the calls), but recently it was fairly ok.
They are supposed to talk between 7-8pm (just before dinner here, also because that's usually when I get home from work), twice a week.
He usually only logs in at 7:30, and has missed occasional days, some without warning, others with odd excuses (saying the day before that he was too ill with the flu, for example).
So, the last couple of weeks, we had one missed day, without warning, then two days, late as usual. Unfortunately the connection was not very good and DS didn't understand some things that were said, and the system froze a couple of times.
Once, DS immediately came to me, the second time I noticed that nothing much was happening and it turned out the connection had been lost. At another time the laptop lid fell down and it disconnected.
Ex got annoyed and basically started putting DS on the spot about the lost connections and accusing me of not wanting them to speak to each other! DS kept saying no. It was stressing and they barely actually spoke about DS.
So, the last time it coincided to when our national team was played in the afternoon, but it was over by the time they were due to talk. I had even forgotten about it!
We waited for a whole hour and then he sends a text message asking if he could speak with DS then. When asked DS said he didn't want to, even though I told him I would let him speak for 30min before dinner. So, ex texted back saying it was my fault.
Previously he had sent a message accusing me of this and that he would go to court. I told him to do it if he wanted to, because he was the one doing very little effort to be in contact with DS.
Not wanting to spend money on stupid messages, I e-mailed him back explaining that he was the one damaging his relationship with DS.
Now comes the rant part:
He e-mailed me back saying that he doesn't respond to personal attacks, that every time I send an e-mail it's attacking him, that all he wants is to speak to and see his son, that I should speak to his solicitor about "the rest" (?), and that if I don't have my own life, he has.
So, I e-mailed him back saying that I'd much rather speak to his solicitor and could he please send me his details. (I doubt he has one, btw)
And that obviously his "own life" is more important than DS.
(also, obviously, I'm not going to send him love letters, 
but I didn't write that)
Not sure why I bother answering actually.
I really just want him to be nice to DS and to be there for him, but I know we can't force it.