Blocking Communications from Child's Father

[NeedSomeAdvicePleaseUK]

Communications have completely broken down with me and my son's father and now he's taken to sending me regular abusive emails that are very offensive and upsetting. I would like to block these emails but I realise I have to keep communication open for the benefit of my son. I'd like to find out if there's any kind of buffering service that I could request help from, so the communications can be filtered.

At the moment I have a lawyer helping me to sort out all the other issues, but I can't get legal aid and the service is very expensive - they are giving me a fixed rate due to my situation as I'm not able to afford anything more.

Any ideas on any way I can stop him sending me these messages? I'm keeping things to the point in my replies, but his replies are always aggressive and threatening and the stress is overwhelming me.

Set up a separate email for contact and keep your responses blunt and to the point.

My now OH used to get a barrage of written abuse from his EW via email and text. He had it written into his contact order that she is only able to contact him via email in a polite manner and any requests must be responded to within 4 days.

Easier said than done but ignore ignore ignore. They want a response as it plays into their control and fuels their fire.

Good luck.

If these are abisive this is a police matter. Log them with the police

I've just been through 6 months of this with my son's father. We just went to court and now it has pretty much stopped. I know how stressful this is and I'm so sorry you're going through this. I had some strict rules about when I looked at emails and how often I replied, and how I replied to protect myself. So I would only look at the emails during a safe time and not every day, so example not before bed as then I would have trouble sleeping. In the end I read them once a week on a Monday morning. And replied once a week also. I would run the emails past my lawyer also, and she would let me know which I should reply to and which I could just ignore. So if they were direct questions about our child, their health and access then I would reply. But if the email just contained threats and insults then I would ignore. On occasion my lawyer would help me to reply. My replies would not contain anything that was not strictly necessary, and I would keep them as brief as possible. In my case my ex was demanding to have unsupervised visits with our DS and I was refusing given issues around alcohol abuse. He emailed me every day for six months, and I replied over and over and over again offering to let him see our DS supervised. It was incredibly draining and created a lot of stress. I saw a therapist during this time who helped me enormously to cope with the stress. I also kept and forwarded all of his emails to my lawyer and used them as evidence against him at court. The judge took my part and I secured safe supervised visits for my son. I never responded with insults or threats, and never sunk down to his level. Hang in there. And try and get a legal agreement in place as soon as possible.

I agree with this, in the end an abuser wants to control you and get a response. The best advise I got was from my therapist who told me not to take on board the things he would write to me, that they were not true and he would say anything he could to hurt me and get a rise out of me. So calling me a bad mother, a terrible person, saying everyone else thought so too etc etc, that karma would come and get me, that he would make me regret etc etc, easier said than done, but let it wash over you and focus on yourself and your son.

Get a sensible, maybe professional (of any kind), friend, to help you decide what needs replying to and what doesn't and how to reply, at least initially. Someone else can be much more objective, and the thing to do is to treat them like unnecessary emails from a business associate. Altho in this situation you're not obliged to reply to everything.