How to deal with EA XH...

[Lillyludge]

So...I've been separated from XH almost 2 years. We want to mediation to sort out finances etc. and divorce came through just over a year ago.

Ever since he left he's been sending me random texts every month or so, complaining about how poor he is and how rich I am (he earns more than me but is pretty crap with money and resents having to pay child maintenance to me).

I find the messages upsetting. They're not offensive but they do contain lies about me. He was EA in relationship so I believe he is trying to bully me/get a response from me.

I ignore these messages....but he won't stop sending them.

I need to maintain contact because of DS...he spends 3 nights a week with XH so we have to communicate about passing toys/cloths/school stuff between houses.

Any ideas on how best to deal with this? I really thought he would have given up by now

Keep ignoring them. He's pretty persistent if you've genuinely been ignoring them for two years though!

Report him to police for harassment

Make it clear to him that any communication which needs to take place about your child will be via email only and text messages will not be read but deleted.

Don't read his texts and most certainly do not respond to them. That's what he wants so give it to him. He'll get bored eventually, I hope.

Meh. So DON'T give it to him.

My STBXH continually sent me text messages criticising me and generally just trying to provoke me into a arguement. It caused me great distress, I would get anxiety when I saw I'd received a message from him, it was horrible.

My brother saw the distress I was in and rang him to warn him to back off. Not ideal I know but it's worked. If I receive another nasty text the police will be my next port of call.

Get yourself a new sim and just use the number he has for stuff about your ds.

Check it in the leadup to a change over and only reply to proper messages not the bollocks ones.

Thanks everyone. It was 'explained' to him before that these messages were inappropriate and upsetting, and it did stop for a couple of months, but then started again.

He has a history of sending such messages to family members if he perceived that they had 'upset him'. After it started happening to me I realised that his family had probably done nothing wrong on those occasions either...possibly made an innocent remark, but that was it. Anyway I believe he feels fully justified in writing these things...

He does it by email as well so there doesn't seem to be any point point in switching phone or SIM card.

There's no point in reasoning with someone like this is there? I'm not sure whether someone else would be able to 'warn him off' without them receiving the same.

It's just sometimes (usually when I'm premenstrual!) that it really gets me down...

Just text back 'Not interested' to every single one then.

Oh and obviously ignore every subsequent message he sends after that. Sounds like he could start an argument in a phone box.

'Not interested' followed by silence.