My DS wants to see his dad, but he's a nightmare.

[Mumfortoddler]

Hey folks,

Advice please, DS has not seen his dad since last August, except when we bumped into his dad in a park, where he proceeded to shout abuse at me and totally fail to give any kind of decent hello to his son. Prior to that over 3 years DS' dad has been very badly behaved at handovers, breaking my phone, threatening me, and general D.A. threats, combined with anger/ then begging to come back. DS came back last summer 3 times saying is dad had hit him and came back more and more unhappy after visits.

Its been a living nightmare at handovers when his dad saw him before, he often refused to take him and told him I had to take him back saying he couldn't cope, usually when he knew I had something else planned. I left him after 1.5 years of domestic abuse turned into domestic violence, and he started putting his hands around my neck and pushing me to the ground and things like that.

Since we stopped seeing him, DS is tremendously happier, and I am happier, but now his dad has requested access through his parents as a intermediary. One additional problem is his parents apparently used to abuse him (DS paternal grandparents).

I would love contact, but there has still been no apology forthcoming for his behaviour and the last few handovers when we did have contact, he was using the time to just abuse me in front of our son, even at the major distress of our little boy.

Social services recommend I ceased his contact and seek a order for his care, but at the moment I cant afford legal fees so I have just seized his contact and told him to go to court, or instruct a solicitor which he has never done.

When he saw DS he showed little interest, e.g. no Christmas or birthday presents, and refusing to see him on fathers day unless I was present. He's been a huge trauma in our lives.

Any thoughts please?

Is it DS who wants to see him or your ex who wants to see DS?

If it's your ex then I would stick to your guns and tell him to pursue it through the courts - if social services etc have recommended no contact before then they ought to support you. I strongly suspect he's requesting contact in order to control/abuse you again rather than missing his son particularly if he was so aggressive and uninterested in him before.

If it's your DS who wants to see him, how old is he?

My DS is going to be 4 next month, and although when his Dad asked to see him at Christmas he said no he didn't want to see him, over the last 6 weeks he has begun incessantly making up stories and talking about his dad all the time, and has now said he wants to see him. Social Services said that I didn't have enough reason to stop him through them because my son had only ever told me, my dad (not when I was there) and his godmother (my friend) that his dad had hit him but as he never told school apparently my witnesses could be too biased (even though I wasn't there when my son chose to disclose). The irony is I work in this kind of arena and my ex is just a textbook DA Man, he would use our son for the rest of our live against me because that is the way he is.

I don't know what to do, it would hurt my son so much and just don't want him to get messed up by his dad, we are really stable, safe and secure here and it seems a shame to ruin that.

I'm so sorry to say this but I'm afraid you do have to allow contact if ds is asking for it

Make sure it runs through a contact centre not his equally abusive parents.

Tell ds before drop off that if anything happens that upsets him he is to tell the staff and make sure he gets an opportunity to do so.

I know it is heart breaking setting him up to be hurt but kids are super resilient.

At the end of the day your ds has a right to figure out what his dad is all about and even though that will hurt him sometimes, in the long run he will be a stronger person for it.

I think I'd probably disagree at 3/4 TBH - if your ex isn't interested and is abusive he's far too young to handle that and when he says he wants to meet him - I don't think he's old enough to form his own opinion if that makes sense? If he was 7 or 8 or older then maybe.

It's just my opinion but I think I'd probably fob him off for now, show him pictures and let him know it's ok to talk about him but maybe say his dad is busy/far away at the moment and maybe he'll be able to see him when he's a bit older.

I'm just concerned that it's extremely unlikely an average 3 or 4 year old would be confident enough to tell contact centre staff if their father was upsetting them. No way. So if there is no legal situation forcing you to enable contact, I would leave it for now. But as I said, this is just my opinion.

Have still held off and written to his parents insisting he make contact through a solicitor so that I can insist upon a contact centre. The whole thing just fills me with dread. My DS father has not made contact himself for quite some time and and since he won't disclose where he is living, I believe I am within my right to withold contact (thoughts anyone?). I have written to his parents, had it translated (they don't speak English well).

I guess there are two things, we need a decent intermediary that will actually work in my DS' best interest, and just to pick up that my DS is going to be safe. At nearly four, he is becoming very able to talk so can tell me what he has done, but I am going to fight because the last few times it has been so traumatic for DS and his dad has not even batted an eyelid that he is causing distress to his son. How someone who calls himself a dad can totally ignore when his DS is shaking with fear and sobbing is beyond me.