Coping with contact arrangements with a difficult/abusive co parent

[brillopants]

Hi,
Just wanted some tips on how to cope with the smear campaign, the reversal of who is the victim, and the potential return to stalking/ abusive behaviour of my ex now we have a court order in place.

I've done a lot of work on myself to become strong, a lot of counselling for ptsd etc. But it's the worry that he'll alienate our child against me ( all our mutual friends have been told by him terrible lies about why his contact was stopped, saying I called police on him just to harass him and I am after his money) and I'm no contact with him and our old friends as at one point we had to go into hiding.

How can I be resilient to the nonsense? My main worry is my dc will hear the lies from ex friends and believe them😞

Rise above it. It's hard. Don't waste your energy worrying about what people think or trying to tell everyone the truth. Those who care about you and know you will believe you.

And many people will surprise you by making up their own minds about your ex without your help. Choose happy and let him stew in his own bile and hatred. But, on a practical level, you do need to keep note of things and be ready to evidence what he's doing and, as far as possible, disprove his lies.

I'm sure someone will be along soon with some practical help here. In the meantime, Refuge, women's Aid, Rights if Women all have helplines that you can phone if you want to speak to someone about possible steps that you could take to put a stop to this.

Thankyou for your replys.
I do feel so much stronger now and don't react to his baiting.
I've done women's aid and got away, had the counselling, had a restraining order.
But family court are very big on giving the dads contact even with proven dv, you just have to manage it somehow.

Is that true @brillopads I'm in similar position and worried about increased contact through family court. 😞

In my experience, it may be different for you if you have a fact finding hearing and have lots of evidence to support you. You need everything documented, leave a paper trail with whoever you can ( gp, first response, school) keep it child centred- how it's affected them .
But usually
it still starts with contact centre visits, then gradually builds up to alternate long weekends and half the hols.
Contact is still strongly encouraged. And you are the bad guy if you protest, you must be seen to be supporting the relationship between kids &dad or you'll be accused of parental alienation.