LEAVING sulking H

[jamaisjedors]

I can't believe this is my third thread.

I first posted in December about my H's sulking and silent treatment - I was ready to leave then but then got persuaded to give it another go.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3448545-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking?msgid=84022238

My second thread is where everyone helped me work through what was going on, helped IRL by individual and joint counselling.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3498886-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking-part2?msgid=85957683

We have now made a joint decision to separate, and I have found somewhere to live.

I don't regret not leaving in January because I have had time to process a lot of things, confide in friends, and come to understand a lot of things about myself and H.

However, sometimes I think it would have been a lot easier to power my way out of the door whilst still fuelled with a lot of anger.

Right now I am mostly very very sad.

Today seemed like a reasonably good day, H and I managed to discuss childcare arrangements up til the school holidays quite calmly and sensibly.

We each spent time doing fun things with the DC and H is actually encouraging them to get a little excited about the new house and buying new furniture etc.

But I have just been hit by a massive wave of sadness again after overhearing part of a conversation between DC1 and a friend. DC1 was saying that he had no idea at all this was coming and had never seen us argue or fight.

I was sure they were at least aware of the horrible atmosphere, particularly over the last few months so it's a bit of slap in the face to realise they had no idea at all and this must seem totally incomprehensible to them.

Actually he's been asking friends why I haven't been to see him...
Oh come ON, he said he didn't want to see you, doctors are saying he doesn't want to see you...
Does this sound like manipulation ?

Sorry Mix56, What did you want to say I didn't quite catch it .

Does this sound like manipulation ? absolutely - four times over

And absolutely to everyone else who says detach - this is what the doctors also said.

No phone calls from friends for the last few days which has been good but as I think I said, the custody thing is weighing heavily on my mind and coming out in battles in my nightmares.

I have a long way to go before I can detach and also before I get out of the habit of jumping through hoops for him but I am getting there little by little.

For the next few days I have yoga lined up for tomorrow (my kids are determined I get there! ) and then a really fun night out on Friday with the DC and some other friends - it has been planned for months and will be a real break.

Seeing my psychotherapist early Saturday morning - unfortunate timing with the night out but I have warned her I will be tired!

Still no idea if H is seeing the DC on Saturday or sunday (father's day) but am trying to go with the flow and not worry about it, it is good for me to take one day at a time and not try and plan too much - I am a planner and this will be a "learning experience" for me.

Glad I managed to post there !!! lumpy internet !

Maybe you can look at detaching & not jumping through hoops as a kindness to him? You’re moving on, both of you will will eventually get into another relationship & it isn’t healthy to be at your ex’s beck & call. It’s also very unfair to your future partners to operate this way. It will lead to problems sooner or later. Best to start as you mean to continue or things will get messy the minute one of you starts seeing someone else.

Yes, I’d suggest you speak to your lawyer. They can tell you what you need to do/find out in order to protect yourself from criticism re H’s parental rights and perhaps liaise with the hospital as to the appropriateness of that right now. Otherwise, step away. He is not your responsibility any more.

Sometimes coming out of an all consuming relationship can leave us with a huge amount of space, a vulnerability - as all the time that we devoted to the other person meant we could ignore our own needs.

Sometimes this can be frightening. If we have become enmeshed with another we have no idea what our needs are or even who we are. It takes time. We may just accept that we are in limbo - in a waiting period - we give ourselves the gift of time and patience as we wait for our true self to be revealed.

When we are ready this can be the most interesting adventure of all. You are important jamais. One day at a time, one moment at a time is good enough.

Sometimes coming out of an all consuming relationship can leave us with a huge amount of space, a vulnerability - as all the time that we devoted to the other person meant we could ignore our own needs.

this is very true. You realsie you have been trained to centre him in every thought you had, and once that is gone it can set you adrift for a while, because there is a feeling of a big empty space where all those anxious thoughts used to be

Still no idea if H is seeing the DC on Saturday or sunday (father's day) but am trying to go with the flow

Bollocks to that. In his state the children need plenty of warning they are going to be seeing him. It is unreasonable for your plans to be dependent on last minute decisions by him. How will supervision be planned, do friends have to put their plans on hold too? Just no.

Schedule of supervised visits. If he's too ill to attend so be it. He misses out. Surely your lawyer can get this agreed? All done with a "best interests of the children" mantra.

Could you give your therapist permission to inform DH's doctors of his previous extremely manipulative behaviour? Doctor to doctor conversation might actually get information shared. I doubt they'd share anything with you (if you were ill you wouldn't want them giving DH details of your mental state), however, the extra information might change what they recommend is appropriate for contact with children etc, especially in any reports for the courts.

How are you?

Hi, thanks for asking, doing ok tonight.

Had a meltdown on Friday because H informed the DC over the phone that they were spending the day with him on Sunday and then staying overnight.

NO.

In fact our friends disagreed too, so we came up with a plan which was for me to call the clinic to ask to speak to the doctor to find out if H is capable of having the children on their own and overnight.

We knew they would refuse to give me any info, which is what happened.

So then I emailed H (first email to him) to explain what I had done and that under these circumstances (no medical info about him whatsoever for over a week), the children would NOT be staying with him.

In the end he sent back quite an affable email and didn't contest this at all.

It didn't stop me getting into a bit of a panic on Friday about him starting to demand to take them overnight etc. but it's over now and it seems if I stand up to him, as everyone (including you lot!) has encouraged me to do, he backs down again.

One good thing is we have started emailing (well 4 in total) so that our friends don't have to keep passing on messages.

It's a lot easier to be firm and clear in an email than face to face - it took me 2 hours to compose today's one but I included a lot of information in it on my psychologist's advice.

For example H had started his email with "thank you for contacting me directly for the first time since I was admitted to hospital" (usual passive-agressive sh*t.)

I was just going to ignore but my psychologist said not to let him place himself as a victim persecuted by me in all of this and also not to let him tell his psychiatrist/lawyer that I have heartlessly abandoned him through it all.

So I explained exactly what had happened (banned from visiting or contacting him at the hospital) and also explained various things that he has been muttering to friends about - why I moved out earlier than expected, what the sum of money I spent just before I moved out was etc. I also laid down plans for a couple of upcoming events saying he could go to one and I would go to the other.

No reply for the moment so I suspect he has a lot to digest.

He has been seeing himself as the victim all along, persecuted by me.

Even our friends are sick of it, they asked H yesterday if he thought it was easy for me to manage the kids 24/7, my job, all the admin plus all the emotional strain.

Anyway, I feel calmer having talked to my psychologist, she has suggested we set up a "medical and social enquiry/assessment" which one of her other patients has had done recently and get them to assess what (if any) access H should have to the DC, seeing as the doctors aren't (and won't in her opinion) saying anything at all.

Good luck with that 💐

Well done!!! I imagine he will be resistant as he will be unable to be the victim....

Well manoeuvred.
If he is only out of centre/hospital/clinic in the daytime, he wouldn't be able to have the DC overnight. So its either a wind up or he is delusional.
If it was me, with or without speaking to hospital I would have refused. No rational person would accept him having them overnight after how many weeks in a psychiatric ward. without any proof he was actively autonomous, & reinserted into real life. He will still be on medication, no-one is going to know if he takes these meds or not & nearly all psychiatric patients take themselves off their medication after a while because they start to feel well & decide they don't need it, (& they don't like the side effects, wooly head/weight gain etc) they then have another "episode"
Well done for emailing. Keep it as short ,cold & factual as possible.
I hope you clearly underlined that from the first day he said to them he doesn't want you there etc. & they have not been interested in any liaison whatsoever.
I still am amazed appalled at the stonewalling they have with you.
It is good that the Friend involved is now seeing him clearly. I should think he will start backing off soon, he spends a lot of his free time on H. It must be starting to get tiresome

The hospital is not stonewalling the OP, HE is. The hospital has a duty of care to their patient, who is an adult, and they must abide by his wishes. They legally cannot disclose anything to Jamais without his express permission - including whether or not he is safe with the kids. I suspect this can be achieved via a legal process, but at the moment, he holds all the cards. I would definitely seek legal advice from my own lawyer regarding withholding access until you have medical evidence to support the kid’s safety when with their father. That should be considered a reasonable request.

You're coping with all this amazingly. Stay strong jamais

He has said he doesn't want any interaction with Jamais, but he was/is in the middle of a psychotic breakdown.
The clinic is even refusing to divulge if the patient is deemed capable of caring for his young Dc without supervision. Jamais is not asking to read his clinical notes, & understand his demons. She wants to protect her children from a potentially dangerous mentally unstable man.

I know, but it’s still HIS medical info...

Please don’t get me wrong... I’m not saying I agree with them at all, but legally that’s what’s going on. This is what I have had to face with my family members. It sucks, but he is the one with the legal protection at the moment.

Well done Jamais, this must all be so exhausting. I would be tempted to email H and maybe copy in his doctors and say that until you have been told by the doctors that he is safe/well enough to have the children longer, he will be restricted to short daytime visits only. Puts the onus on him to prove that he is ok.

How are you doing Jamais?

hi jamais, did H have the DC on Sunday ? What do the boys say about him ?
Have you found out what the procedure is to set up a "medical and social enquiry/assessment" ?

Today the rage has kicked in. I actually did kick our garage door (it was playing up and deserved it .

I also got cross with DC2 which is NOT good and I have been up to apologise to him. I got mad at him for being on his phone when in fact it is H that I am mad at - we had always agreed that DC2 has an addictive personality and shouldn't have a smartphone for another 2 years, (same policy as for his brother who is very sensible with his).

H bought him a new one and presented him with it on Sunday and since then of course I have to be the baddie and try to get him off it.

So the DC saw him on Sunday, it was supposed to be with one of our friends but in the end he left them alone and I only found out afterwards.

They didn't do much, both DC went to sleep for a couple of hours and then apparantly they both had a bath.

I dropped them off (got there before H so didn't see him) and picked them up and saw H briefly at the door - all he was worried about was asking me for the codes for the internet and phone again - he still hasn't signed the letter to transfer it to his name so he can wait.

It went ok I think, although DC2 came home with thick black masking tape over the cameras of his new phone - daddy says people are spying on us...

I'm mad that the friends left them alone after saying they would be there and I'm also mad with them for not wanting to make a statement to the effect that they saw H in the psychiatric hospital and that his behaviour was totally crazy.

But it's hard to stay mad with them because they have been so amazing to us all over the last month, particularly in the absence of H's family stepping in (a few phone calls, no visits).

I'm mad with the system which means I'm legally obliged to hand my DC over to someone who is clearly still not in his right mind.

I'm mad with him for his 2 line response to my calm and measured email (took me 2 hours to write) laying out a reasonable plan for him to acclimatise gradually to being out of hospital and to gradually up contact with the DC as his condition improves.

His response was that I could submit my questions to him by email for him to vet and then to see if his psychiatrist would agree to answer them.

Even our friend said to me on the phone last night that there was no way I should acceept that and he also said it to H.

I replied that he should show my email to his psychiatrist and lawyer (and that I have forwarded it to mine).

Today he said he saw his psychiatrist very briefly, he was in a hurry so didn't have time to read my (apparantly too long) email but said that he guarantees there is no problem with H seeing the kids.

I don't see why I should take the word of someone who is still in a psychiatric unit so I am ignoring this.

The social worker at the DC's school is luckily being helpful and going to send off a report about the DC being in danger with H insisting on seeing them overnight even though he is still in hospital.

She needs to see DC1 to finalise it and he has been off school with a virus since Monday...

I am going to try to get DC1 to school tomorrow (apparantly his dad has been telling him on the phone to stay at home, but also complaining that I left DC1 alone for the day on Tuesday - he is nearly 15) so that he can see her and get this report sent off because I am terrified about the DC seeing their dad unsupervised and even our friends don't think he should have them overnight.

so so so angry and frustrated with the system which protects the father's rights more than the children's.

In light of all that, I would not facilitate him having the dcs again. Let him go through the courts to get access, where you can formally register your concerns about the safety and wellbeing of your children.

Maybe the courts will insist on a psychiatric report or something but let him make the effort to prove that he is recovered enough to not be a risk. Put the onus on him and stop communicating except for the barest essentials. You need to completely detach from him now.

The problem is that legally I can't stop him seeing them.

On the other hand, while he is still in hospital, I don't see that anyone would object to me limiting access severely.

He has been talking (to friends) about staying at the clinic until the end of next week.

I think the social worker is going to ask for a psychiatric report too.

I was doing well detaching but then the logistics were going through friends. So they are relieved that we are emailing each other (H is copying them in on everything) and are encouraging it.

I'm going to have to ask our friend to stop calling me after every visit to H because last night it went on for nearly 2 hours and then I hardly slept. He had backed off a bit but then made up for it last night!

The problem with the DCs is that they say H is behaving almost normally so don't see why they shouldn't see him. I have explained about the no overnight stuff and they understand.

I don't want to be accused of trying to cut them off from their dad but I am pissed off that everyone around me seems so concerned about how important it is for H to see the DC... but not worried about what's best for the DC.

It's not even in H's interest for them to see him while he's still not mentally all there - what kind of image of them will they have?