What has happened to my exh?

[LittleMissFour]

Have NC’d for this as don’t want to be outed.

I feel like I am in a bit of a dilemma. Have 2 DC with exh. Been divorced 2 years now after a bitter and messy divorce (he left me for OW). After months and months of not agreeing on custody and access we finally had a court ordered arrangement put in place in May this year for him to have our dc from school pick up every Friday and returned to me 6pm on a Saturday each week.

All seemed to be going well for the first couple of months. Gradually over the summer though he would get his mother to return the dc on Saturday instead of him. I know that he takes the dc to see his mother on a Saturday for tea as she is on her own since ex FIL died a few years ago so I know she is quite lonely and loves spending time with the gc.

After about the third week in a row I text exh to ask if all was ok as he had not been dropping dc off. I had no reply. I sent an email the following week when his dm dropped them off, again no reply. I have tried to ask exmil if all is ok and why she is now dropping the dc back and not exh and she just replies that ‘he is busy’ or ‘it makes sense for me to drop them’ (admittedly she does live closer to me than exdh – but only 10 mins less across town.

Exh had the dc for a week in the summer holidays and again, exmil dropped them back. That was the last time exh has seen our dc!

The week after I had a call from exmil to say that exh was unwell and that she would pick the dc up from school and that they would stay overnight at her house as he was too unwell to have them. This happened again the following week. I questioned exmil the second week as to what was up with exh but she just apologised and said that she didn’t want to get stick in the middle and that exh would not want her knowing about his business!

In advance of the following weekend, when I hadn’t heard from exmil I text exh on the Thursday and asked him if he was feeling better and would be having dc that weekend. No reply.

He didn’t show up at the school to collect the dc on the Friday. I tried to call him but he didn’t pick up. I emailed him. no reply. I rang his mother but turned out she was away that weekend and didn’t know anything about exh not showing up at the school.

That was 6 weeks ago now! Exh’s phone has now been disconnected and my emails to him bounce back. The dc have now not had any contact from their father since early August. And have not done any overnights at exmil’s since beginning of September.

I paid for a solicitor to write a letter to exh last month, but that has not been responded to. Exmil has been in touch every other Saturday and has asked to see the dc, I have taken the dc round there a few times for the afternoon but I am now starting to resent that as I can’t seem to get any answers off of exmil as to what the fuck is going on with my twat of an exh! She just keeps spouting off the same crap that she doesn’t want to get involved, that he won’t want her to tell me all his business etc.

I am now livid. My dc have been hurt enough through our divorce and they are missing their dad terribly! They are 7 and 9 and getting very withdrawn and angry.

Selfishly I am suffering too. I started a new relationship 18 months ago and took it really slow to start with, this summer we have got closer and had our first family holiday together, me and my dc with him and his ds. It was all going to well and we had started to talk about him moving in with us at some point in the future. Since all this with exh has been going on my dp has really distanced himself from me. He has been vocal about missing our ‘us time’ on a Friday night / Saturday. We now have very little time together just us. I also think he has been struggling with my dc’s behaviour since all this has been going on.

Help, what can I do? Can I force exh back to court and make him keep his arrangements? Should I keep letting exmil see the dc adhoc? How can I save my relationship with dp? Sorry for the long post, I’m just so angry and frustrated.

[mandi73]

Wow, that's all I can say, just wow!!!!!!
You have great restraint OP cos I'd have been on his doorstep LONG ago.
How is her behaviour awful???????
Her husband has an affair, sods off with OW, goes to court for access and then just disappears from his kids lives......and it's the OP whose behaviour is awful.
One text to say he's unwell/not well enough to see HIS children and OP could have made alternative arrangements, let the kids know gently that dad wouldn't be around for a while.....anything!
Instead she has to play detective to find anything out, then next bombshell her income is to drop €450 and that's that, that's €110 a week, for me it would be a toss up weather we eat or have heat/electricity.
And on the topic of her DP being a dick........why should he take on the OP and her kids when it's been said quite plainly that's it's not up to the EX's new wife to do anything about the situation but the OP's DP should just suck it up?
And I think that I also would be going down the route of "Nanny says that daddy is sick but I haven't heard from or seen daddy in a long time so I don't know what's happening" to the children

I wonder how the EX sees this in the future.........he takes however long it takes him to get well and he walzes back in to be daddy...........

One note/letter/email/text/phone call from ANYONE to the OP could have saved everyone from stress and upset

[PaterPower]

mandi you're assuming we're getting anything like the full story here, which I suspect we're not.

It would not be normal for anyone to restrict comm's as much as he has, (no address, no phone #, blocked on SM, doing hand overs via his Mum) and for his wife to shut the door immediately and threaten the police straight away? Yeah, I think there's much more to this than we're being told.

What if the scenario here was that she was abusive to him before he left and continued after. The "affair" may have been his reaction to that. Seeing his abuser would bring back and worsen his anxiety and depression so he's gone to extreme lengths to shut her out.

I don't know this, I'm just speculating, but it would fit some of what she's told us. Equally, he could just be a complete tool who's abandoned his kids. Given that contact details were restricted a good while before his illness etc, I'm leaning more toward prior abusive relationship but I totally accept that's just an opinion based on not much evidence.

[FatherPissmas]

Erghh this thread.

OP - It's so frustrating when you are there doing all of the grunt work without any help from your ex husband. Believe me, I've been there and it was beyond fucking awful. Your anger is natural despite all the hand wringing from previous posters however you are going to have to find a way to deal with all of this without it completely swallowing you whole.

The money situation is an utter cunt. I'm so sorry that you are struggling, it's totally unfair but now is the time to re-focus and try and work out some strategies to prevent you getting into further debt and hardship. There are oodles of suggestions around MN on how to tighten your belt in lots of ways. I know it's not fair. It is not fair but it is what it is at this moment in time and railing against the unfairness is not going to get the bills paid.

Stop consulting your solicitor, it's too expensive and makes no difference. Your problem is not one that the legal profession can deal with; your problem is that you are struggling to accept the truth of your shitty reality which is that your XH will not help you at the moment full stop. Whether that's down to illness or unwillingness is irrelevant for you, the result is the same.

As to the contact. You cannot force contact and you are playing right into their hands by going round to their house as it won't be too long before a police person will be knocking at yours. Again, not fair, but who ever told you life IS fair?

[BottleBeach]

Excellent post FatherPissmas.

Hope you're still reading OP.

[esk1mo]

sorry but i am completely on your side OP. he quite clearly is well enough to interact with human beings because he is living in a house with his wife and her children, and you know of two occasions where there has been a family gathering. unless he is holed up in their bedroom in the dark 24/7, it sounds like he is milking it. i feel so bad for your poor DCs. he didnt even send a christmas card. unless he is in some psychiatric unit, he has absolutely no excuse for his behaviour. he hasnt even text "not well. send love to DC. sorry" !!! one text! he could have asked his wife to send a christmas card.

and you absolutely have the right to be pissed off that he is living mortgage free with the woman he cheated with. it wouldnt surprise me if he was depressed, signed off, and can still comfortably live with his wifes wage considering they dont page mortgage, yet claim to CAB that he cant afford maintenance.

i think you ought to hire someone to look at this further because i guarantee he will be caught leaving the house and doing things that seriously mentally ill people cant do, no way would you have a family gathering if your exDH was so ill. and if anyone accuses OP of jumping the gun or overreacting, she is reacting to the only information she has been given. even exDHs wife could have sent a brief email stating that exDH is very ill, and she is very sorry for the DCs/the situation. instead she threatened to call the police because you want your DC to have a relationship with their father. if i were you i would sell the house, take your 100k and find somewhere else with your DP.