Can anyone offer their thoughts on this?
I left my husband last summer after two years of trying unsuccessfully to save our marriage. He was very angry and verbally abusive towards me and made lots of unfounded accusations - one was that I wanted to take our son away from him (he is now six years old). I rather naively hoped that we would quickly come to arrangements about our son - and that our son would go to stay with him regularly each week.
Sadly, it quickly turned out that contact was not going to be straight forward. My ex-husband was very angry and was unable to conceal his emotions in front of our son - suggesting that the stress from our separation would kill him, and telling him that he wanted to get back together with me, with the result that our son blamed me for the break up.
After some weeks we agreed on contact visits and soon our son went for an overnight stay. The first time it went fine, but the second time, he freaked out, and my husband brought him back. They have had a history of problems together - and there was often a scene at bed time if my husband put him to bed. After that second visit our son steadfastly refused to sleep over with my husband. Obviously this caused him a lot of pain - and sadly this spilled over into relations with his son. One day he brought him back, and left him crying on the doorstep, rang the door bell and walked off down the street. My son told me that his dad had said that he did not know who his father was, and when he said that he did know who his dad was and that he loved him, his dad denied this, and said that it was not true that our son loved him - to his face. Three times. I sent him as neutral an email as possible afterwards - just stating what our son had told me and saying that it was not fair to do this to a child trying to come to terms with their parents' separation. My husband phoned and said I was 'abusing' him, and since then has accused me of trying to poison our son against him, and said that I was stopping them from seeing each other. One of the reasons he gave for saying these things to our son, was that he did not wish to the stay the night.
After then, I decided that communications were best carried out via my solicitor, because discussions about contact inevitably turned into an opportunity for my ex-husband to harangue me, call me names, and make vague threats. A letter was sent offering weekly visits, and suggesting that we slowly build up to an overnight stay in time. My ex-husband refused to communicate with the solicitor, and said that I was stopping him from seeing his son, by insisting that we use the solicitor as a third party, when he did not wish to. And so, given that he would not answer the letter offering contact, my son has not seen his dad since mid-January.
Just recently his dad phoned and my son answered the phone. It was clear that my son really wanted to see his dad, and his dad agreed to the regular Sunday afternoon visit. All seemed fine. But then he said he wanted our son to stay over night. My son said he didn't want to - he said he was scared and was used to being with me. My ex-husband hit the roof when I said that we should just take things one step at a time, and said that the only circumstances in which he would consider our son not going for a sleep over, was if I stopped him from going for (once a month) sleep overs with my parents - which he enjoys. I refused - on the basis that this was a separate issue and irrelevant. So, that visit didn't happen. Then my son phoned his dad and when his dad said he could only visit him, if he slept over then he agreed to. But nearer the time, he told me that he did not want to, and was scared. I phoned my husband, to try and talk him round, but he wasn't having it - and reverted to the same language - that if our son would not stay the night with him - then he did not recognise him as a father. He hung up the phone on me, and when I tried to talk him round on email, he said it hurt too much, and asked me to leave him alone.
My son still really wants to see his dad, but doesn't want to stay over. My lawyer said I should talk him into it, but I am unwilling to. I think it is likely to lead to a repetition of the previous scene - our son is likely to back out at bedtime and want to come back to me - and then I don't think my ex-husband will be able to cope, and will take out his anger on our son again. So - once more - stalemate, and our son doesn't see his dad. In all these negotiations my ex has taken every opportunity to harangue me, and make accusations, and sometimes I wonder if he is more interested in doing this, than he is seeing our son. I really don't know what to do - if anything can be done. He has refused mediation, he won't get a solicitor of his own, and any negotiations I have with him go round in circles as he insists on a condition that does not seem reasonable to implement at this stage.
Has anyone out there had similar experiences? Does anyone have any idea on how to resolve this?
Thank you in advance.