Quick background - I?m a man and my 14yo DS and 11yo DD have lived with me for six years. Their mother has long-term drink problems and she typically spends a few months drunk then a few months sober. The DCs have hardly spoken to their mother since Christmas when she hit the bottle again but she?s now popped back up and is asking to resume contact. Here's what I'm thinking of sending:
Dear ex,
DD has agreed to speak to you on the phone once a week on at . DS has agreed to speak to you twice a week on at . Neither of them is currently interested in seeing you as they do not feel sufficiently able to trust you to be sober. I hope that, in time, they will change their minds but that remains to be seen. Frankly it took some effort on my part to even get them to agree to telephone contact. Your conduct seems to have significantly damaged your relationships with them.
As for court action then you do, of course, have the right to ask a court to force DS and DD into a contact schedule of your choosing. The court might even agree but given your conduct over the last seven years that would remain to be seen. All I would ask is that you consider whose interests such a course of action would really be serving - yours or the children?s. You have repeatedly shown that all resuming contact achieves is to start the clock ticking to the time when you badly let them down all over again. The DCs aren?t stupid; they have noticed this.
Let me know if this proposal is acceptable.
What do you think? Too wordy?