How bad does a father have to be before you would stop contact?

[lemonstartree]

This might be long...

I separted from my ex-husband in August 2010 after several years of emotional and verbal abus eto me, and emotional, verbal and physical abuse to the children. We have 3 ds who were 11, 8 and 5 at the time.

I no longer have any contact with him except via email or in the mediators office. His past behaviour to me is no longer relevant.

Before we seperated he had been a heavy cannabis (and possibly cocaine) user, and latterly a binge drinker. He was unpredicatble, very aggressive and had no patience whatsoever with the children. He shouted at them constantly for trivial matters, lost his temper frequently, had very inconsistant boundaries and (I have subsequently discovered) hit them fairly often(when I was out of the house).

He now lives with his parents who are lovely people, although, in my opinion they allow him to get away with awful behaviour and support him no matter what he does.

when we seperated he gave up all substances, and has, as far as I know , been dry and clean since then. On that basis he has had contact with the children on a Saturday during the day, and after school two days a week - no overnight stays as there are not the facilities. He has taken them away for 2-3 days twice.

I have had concerns about his behaviour with the children, I have heard him shouting at them, a neighbour reported him pulling my youngest son roughly in the street, my motheroverheard him being horrible to them in a shop; the kids have said some things. About 3 weeks ago there was an episode in which he lost his temper with the younger two in a sweet shop. They were extremely distressed. he phoned his mother to collect them. Accounts of this episode vary, but I believe my children.

I have now stopped the after school contact and insisted on supervised contact on Saturdays ( by his parents). My eldest son does not want to see him. My middle son is very confused and angry with me, the youngest doesnt seem to care. My ex-husband and his parents are very angry with me.

I have always supported contact with their father. Its the last thing I want to stop it. I have believed that a less than ideal father is better than none at all? we are awaiting an assessment with a psychologist who specialises in 'parenting skills' for us and the children.

Im just in pieces, I feel so torn, and I dont know what to do

dont do anything - stop the contact and await for thepsychologist to help you with this.

if chidlren are distressed then stop the contact. it is a reasonable excuse. you are seeking help so wait for that help to happen.

stick to allowing supervised contact. if him/his parents dont agree well tough.

i have a not dissimialr situaiton (tho no drugs - but severe MH anixety issues ) - oldest is 15 but has mental age of five year old and wants to see dad - sees him supervised

dd 11 refuses to see him.
dd9 confused - wants to but doesnt.

Ds has regular supervised contact

dds have seen couple time recently at eg school fair so public place - dd1 tolerates but is non communicative.

dd2 warms to him but gets upset after espec if he starts going on (as he does) wehn we ahve to go and starts asking to come round etc - so i have to say clearly no you cannot...he then gets stressed/upset in front of dc) dd2 has also expressed fear of being alone with him as he can flip and did so with her last year.

SS have been supportive of my decision to cut/limit contact.

exP ahs not taken it back to court - but i beleive i have "reasonable excuse".

the fact you seeking help from psychologist puts you in good light - you are trying to reolve the issues (i have also had contact with child psychologsti and intend in enw year seekingfurther referral via gp, mostly in relation to dd2 as she is the most confused by it all)

i think that some contact with their father so they know who he is etc is fine - but if he not up to parenting them then contact has to be limited /supervised -til they old enough to have the skills to deal with him.

one thing is contact with their father - another is allowing him to parent them if he not capable - that can be subjective but there appears to be evidence that he isnt hadnling it and you seeing the impact on the DC

I would just go with the supervised contact. The main thing is that if you don't trust him around your children then he can't see them unsupervised. As your oldest does not want to see him, I would respect his wishes. Will your children talk to you about what he is like and what actually happens when they go over there? They might be too afraid to tell you in case you tell their Dad what they have said, so you may have to promise that you will hear them but you won't tell anyone.
In the past I have had to do that with my daughter for her to open up to me, because she is scared that I will react and make things worse. You can then just react with the information you have but without saying who told you what. It's not easy to do, especially if your ex denies that he is treating them badly. if your children then decide it's ok for you to talk about it, then you can.
If it's really that he loses his temper sometimes and actually since he has been clean he has got a lot better with them and wants to be a better parent, then you have something to work towards. If he is willing to go to the parenting classes and learn new ways to communicate then thats a good step in the right direction. Whatever you decide now is not a permanent situation and you have to feel confident that you can leave your children with him and he will treat them well.
He sounds like my ex actually, almost identical! Hope it works out for you.

Thank you. The children do talk to me, I'm sure they don't say it all. My eldest will make a phone call to myself or my partner if dad is 'going off on one' and then leave the phone on, because he wants us to 'hear what is happening'. So far we have not been able to, an now he wont/doesn't want to go anyway.

I hate this. Even at this distance I feel afraid of him

IMO you have sufficient anecdotal and witness evidence to 'suspend' (please note use of this word because you are not 'stopping' contact in the sense that he will never see the dc again) contact until such time as your dc have been assessed by a paediatric psychologist.

Given what the dc have told you, subject to their psychological evaluation, it would not be unreasonable to require your ex to attend an anger management course before contact can be resumed.

Have the current/previous contact arrangements been ordered by a Court? If not, tell your ex where to go to seek legal advice if he objects to the suspension of contact.

I would try to collect something in writing from people who have witnessed him "going off on one". Also keep a diary of what has happened. Keep evidence in case you need it in the future.

I would be very very wary of ever saying "you can tell me and I promise not to tell anyone" because what if they then told you something really awful? You have to tell them you won't tell anyone unless you have to for their safety.

A less than ideal father may be better than none (after all there are no ideal parents) but there comes a point where contact with a parent can do more harm than good; just look at the Stately Homes threads.