ExH swearing on phone in earshot of DS. Need some perspective please

[MyMushroomsInATimeSlip]

ExH and I have an agreement made through mediation that he can phone to speak to DS age 4 and talk to me about DS on two evenings a week. (We have this arrangement as he was abusive and after we separated was phoning up to 40 times day and was often unpleasant. Police were involved and had a 'talk' to him). There is a lot of background as ExH has lots of issues and has caused many problems for me and upset DS a lot. He sees DS for half a day each weekend but hasn't done for the last two weeks at his own choice.

ExH can be very pleasant to DS on the phone and DS enjoys talking to him. However ExH is frequently short tempered and moody with me. He can be very abrupt and swear at me for the slightest issue but mainly when there's no issue at all and he's misheard something I've said or I haven't answered quickly enough or he perceives I've used the 'wrong tone of voice' with him etc etc.

This evening ExH managed to swear in earshot of DS about a relative (one who DS loves). I ended the call (I always do this when there's any swearing) and told DS there was a bad signal.

Just wanted some perspective on this please. DS likes telling his Dad all his news however I find most phone calls very unpleasant. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice please.

I think when you find the calls abusive/unpleasant/uncomfortable then I think zero phone/verbal communication would be best for you, with any contact/info to be passed on via a diary of sorts that goes between your home & your ex's with relevant info/updates. Or set up an email address solely for communicating with your ex that you can look at once a week. If they get abusive/unpleasant then you can shut down the a/c if needed, and stick to the diary. If he continues to be abusive via the diary then you'll have solid evidence to use to seek maybe some kind of court (in not legal so can't say what would be best) order blocking him from harassing/abusing you.

Your DS can still have his calls but you don't have to listen to his bile.

Thank you for your suggestions. It's good to have someone take it seriously. So much has gone on and I'm still hugely anxious about anything to do with ExH and DS that I'm never sure that my responses are quite right or whether I'm over or under reacting.

Email would be great but ExH refuses to use it (doesn't even own a computer).

DS often needs some help talking on the phone as he often can't explain things well enough for exH to understand or understand everything ExH says to him. The incident today happened when I was clarifying something ExH was telling DS.

I get so far with finding a workable solution to these sorts of problem and then hit a brick wall.

Can you update via text... 4 year old boys do not communicate well on the phone. My DS 7 is still very hit and miss on the phone. He usually talks complete drivel.

I would make it clear that unless he can be respectful to you the conversations with DS stop and he can be updated in diary at contact.

You're obviously doing your best to facilitate contact between your DS and his Dad, but you do not have to tolerate swearing and abuse for any reason.

Why don't you use tht time to support your DS to "write" to his Dad with his news, instead? He could draw pictures of what he's been doing, send photos of things he's seen, even send his dad the special autumn leaf he picked up on the way to school. As he gets older, he can add text/explainations himself - it's a good way of establishing a routine between them that can become independent from you much sooner than face-to-face contact, and will help with his overall development at school as well!

Just to also say that you don't have to speak with him on the phone.

It sounds although he's using it to get a reaction from you - even hanging up, he knows that you're then angry on the other end. Though it does sound like he didn't want to have to explain himself to you when you were questioning him - and I appreciate that sometimes you need to know facts when your child is telling you things that they should not have been told.

Text is good as you have what ever he has said in writing and you can print them at any time for evidence purposes.

You can also not mishear a time or a location that's been written down.

Hope it goes well :)

If it bothers you just hang up on him each time & don't answer until his next scheduled call.

I'm not that bothered about other people swearing in front of kids, they know that there are words they don't use that grownups can if they choose to. So for me it would depend if he was shouting/angry more than the words he used.

Thank you for all the suggestions. Sorry - only just managed to sit down to read them through properly.

Seza - I think you're right about ExH wanting a reaction. I hadn't thought of it like that but he does have form for this. He also like to get attention and turn everything round to him and how horrible and unfair everyone is to him so I need to stop feeding this.

wakey - the book/photos etc idea sounds like a great thing to do with DS however I think ExH would see this as positive attention. He is still having issues accepting that I've divorced him (still wearing wedding ring) and seems to misunderstand anything like this. He was very over friendly (calling me pet names) after Ds chose to give something he'd made to ExH and saw it somehow as something I'd put effort into for him rather than being all about DS

Starlight - I think I need to seriously think about changing communication just to just text. It worked when ExH missed a couple of phone calls for a while. I asked Ds what he wanted to tell him and DS seemed satisfied with that.

Chipping - It's not just the swearing (though I would prefer Ds not to hear any at this age - I might have slipped up there occasionally!) it was more how he used bad language to describe someone who Ds is very close to. It was horrible to hear.

Thank you for helping me think this through. It's so hard to separate emotions and practicalities and still help Ds to have as good a relationship as he can with his Dad.