Parenting difficult situation

[Immy1]

Hi, I’m hoping to find someone that has been through what I’m dealing with, and can tell me it will be ok.

I have 2 children, by 2 different fathers.
My eldest does not know his biological father, never met him, he moved to a different country shortly after I found out I was pregnant.
He was born at 25 weeks, and spent 4 months in neonatal. Shortly after my Eldest sons birth I got into a ‘new’ relationship with a long term friend/ ex (from when I was much much younger)
My son’s first words were Dad, at 2 years old, and this is how my (now) ex was and is still referred to.
during our 7 year relationship, I had another child she is 3 years younger than my son.
My son was diagnosed with autism, along with some other things affecting development due to him being so premature, he was diagnosed around the time of my daughters birth.

After we seperated, my ex was adamant that he wanted to continue a relationship with both children - this was spoken about in mediation. I agreed, because I believed that was in my son’s best interest, after all, he doesn’t know any other father.

18 months later, I had to stop contact due to contact being so irregular, it was causing meltdowns with my son, and triggering my daughter who has now also been diagnosed asd and adhd. My ex would just text on a Friday asking for them the following day then I would not hear from him for weeks, which grew in timings after every contact.

It took him 6 months to arrange mediation, and then he refused to acknowledge that the children needed weekly consistency in contact, instead wanting fortnightly and being unwilling to negotiate or compromise.

court took another 6 months to happen.

at which point, my ex has now decided he no longer wants contact with my son. This was the first time he had mentioned this to me, even in the prior mediation, he had put both children’s names down for discussion.

Legally, there’s nothing I can do about this.
I know that.

My ex agreed to a closure meeting with my son, but instead told my son (in front of his teacher who was supervising) that it was my fault he couldn’t see him, and he can possibly see him in the future if I agree.

my son came home from this meeting and told his sister that he could see daddy with her if I told dad he could.

both children were very excited by this.

I directly asked my ex what he meant by this, and he told me both my son and his teacher were making it up, and that’s not what was said. And refused to tell me what he thought he had said.

I asked him if he planned on having my son in the future (now a court order is in place) and he said I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see, and just said the same thing over and over until I gave up.

My issue is, my son is now excluded from contact every week, has to witness his sister being collected and dropped home. As well as being excluded from the entire paternal family.

I can’t protect him from the emotional harm this is causing him every week, due to his autism, there is no childcare available.
collection and drop off is from my home, school wouldn’t change things as both children exit the building through a provisions exit at the same time.

then on top of that, my daughter has hyperverbalism. She cannot stop talking, every thought that enters her head gets said out loud.
so she will non stop talk about dad for hours when she comes home, and she doesn’t recognise that she’s upsetting her brother, nor do I want to tell her she can’t talk about her dad.
she also says things like ‘dad doesn’t love you anymore’ which is obviously very painful to hear, and I’m certain this dynamic is emotionally affecting her too.

This is an awful thIng to happen to any child, but this seems harder because both children are neurodivergent and don’t understand emotions and concepts of parentage.

How do I get through this?

I should add, my son is physically aggressive when he has meltdowns, which have increased since court ordered contact started. I have to physically hold him to stop him hitting me or his sister. But his sister just keeps talking so his meltdowns just are lasting longer and longer.

They are 9 (nearly 10) and 7.

But you were the one that stopped contact between them initially?

It sounds very difficult OP so I empathise but I can understand why he doesn't want to take the chance again of prolonging a relationship with a child that he can't force the contact through the courts if you stop it at a moments notice.

It was a little more complicated than just stopping contact. I didn’t do it on a whim.

we had agreed to weekly contact directly after our seperation which went mostly well for over a year.
then he just stopped ‘being available’ said he wanted fortnightly contact. I didn’t agree to this, as the children need weekly, neither of them understand the concept of fortnightly.

I did however agree to go ‘week by week’ whilst waiting on mediation.

contact became more sporadic over the following 5 months, at the end there was over a month between contact leaving both children completely distressed every weekend.

I had said I was stopping contact because of how it was effecting the children, and that I would discuss my reasons in more detail at mediation.

my ex had said he would arrange mediation,- over the 5 months I kept asking him about it, but he never gave a response on it.
6 months after contact stopped I finally heard from the mediators.

I also gave him permission to add my son to the court order, but he refused.

What did your court order say about weekly / fortnightly contact?

personally I wouldn’t have rocked the boat, especially in the situation where he had no legal obligation to see your son.

sorry I know that’s probably not what you want to hear but this is on you.

the court have ordered weekly contact.

I didn’t really have much choice, my ex was refusing to speak with me about consistency.

My children were distressed, physically and emotionally. It was affecting their behaviour at school, the school ELSA and play therapist wrote a report for court explaining how the children’s behaviours had deteriorated becoming unsafe for themselves and others. And how this behaviour had improved over the last year where no contact at all took place.
I don’t believe I was in the wrong to stop contact for the reasons I did. But yes, it has obviously had a consequence.

I just want to know how to get my son through this, because there’s nothing I can physically do to mitigate the impact on him with his sister being collected every week without him.

You should have gone with the fortnightly contact. This boy isn’t his child and he didn’t need to continue caring for him but he did and when you said no to fortnightly and stopped contact you showed him that you’d be willing to take this boy away from him and he’d be powerless.

Right ok. I know I messed up.

I tried to do the right thing for my children. It backfired.

fortnightly contact does not work for my family. They don’t understand it.

every weekend of no contact would be full meltdowns, children triggering each other. Leading to me cancelling any plans I had made for/with them.
this was not over a short period, this was months of this happening over and over again.

I get it, I really do. I’m the problem here.

but I came here, because I cannot be the only person that has had this situation with their own child. And I want to know if how when we can get through this.

because at those moment, social services are going to end up being involved which I’m terrified of (I grew up in the system).

You needed to work with the kids to explain the fortnightly contact. That’s actually pretty normal.

I know some folk do 50/50 but that would be even harder for your son because he would see his sister going every other week.

you’ve inadvertently ended up cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Social services involvement for a disability is totally different than social services for child protection reasons. Obviously there is overlap in a lot of cases but it doesn't sound like there would be in yours.

Like others have said. I think you may have made an error with stopping access earlier but there is nothing you can do about that now. You just have to deal with what you have going on now.

With the two of them i would keep reinforcing it is a steady, 2 week routine. One saturday daughter stays with her dad and son does something nice at home and the next both stay with you and do x.

With your son, it does sound incredibly hard for him. I would see if counselling can be accessed and for them and you to support him through understanding that it's not because of who he is why your ex doesn't see him, but because he isn't related and that's very normal. It might open up pain around his actual dad rejecting him but it'll have to be worked through with at some time by him and it seems a natural point.

You’re not going to get what you want.

remember that all “contact” is in the sense of you have to make the child available, you can’t make him have them.

in the case of your son, I fear the ship has sailed. To be honest, I don’t blame your ex on that one - because you (for reasons you felt were “right”) pulled rank so he’s gone well better rip the plaster off now than get years more invested in a child that I can be cut off from.

The court agreed with you- weekly contact.
Your ex chose to then punish you and your son by stopping contact with a child who called him dad. That's awful I really feel for you and both your kids. That is hard especially when adding in ND.
I understand why weekly makes sense. It's about routine, keeping to yhat routine, the predictability supports your kids emotional stability. You were doing your best. I understand why you fought for this.
Now, to the current situation. Your son needs support. I think you need to set up a routine for when your daughter returns home. Before daughter comes home 1 on 1 tome with your son. Then, Is there an activity your son will focus on in one room and then you go into another room with your daughter to play while she offloads about dad? Not in ear shot of son.
With your daughter, could you have a code word? Just to remind her to pause until you have one on one time. Could you roleplay through dolls the feelings son is having and she is having- make statements and see how she responds? Learning through play might help you understand her more too.
With your son, I think you need a script, a phrase that you repeat- Your dad seeing you is an adult decision that he made, and i know that gives you big feelings, it's okay to have those feelings. You've done nothing wrong and Mummy is never going to leave you, I always come back. Something along those lines. Just repeat.
I am so sorry, it's so tough.

I thought the court order was only for the younger daughter? Not the older boy?

apologies if I’m wrong !!

Fortnightly is just as much a routine as every weekend is. As long as it’s happening repeatedly it doesn’t matter if it’s every weekend or every other.

I would personally go back to him and say you’d be willing to try fortnightly with both of them and would he please give it another try for the children’s sake.

For some kids fortnightly is a routine they can get used it, and for some kids it isn't. I've worked with many kids who know what happens on a Monday and can't deviate, and others who will appear to go with the flow and then erupt later on as they have tried to bottle it all up. It does depend on the child and their needs.