Bastard bingo - full house!!

[helplesshopeless]

Hi everyone, just creating a new thread for those interested as my second is nearly full now! I'll link back to the old one once mumsnet's browser is back up and running

I'm sure a judge would be really impressed to read the email where your ex is blackmailing you into giving him what he wants by withholding the passport.

If you think that 50/50 is inevitable then have a think about what's best for your dd. Imo one week on, one week off is the best proposal as it gives your dd stability. If this works for you then you could offer him that. If it goes to court can you speak to a child psychologist for their expert opinion on how 50/50 patterns work best for the children. Offer this up in court, if he can't do it due to work then he will either have to make it work, or stick with the original plan.

If he does have a solicitor I would be copying him into responses. TBF you could just call him out on the blackmail over the passport and say his decision to withhold the passport to blackmail you into discussions and decisions you are not ready for is controlling and that type of behaviour from him is why the marriage failed. He agreed to the holiday so he needs to hand it over.

He won't hand it over until the day before the holiday. its a power play.
Once you've got it, remember to keep hold of it as long as you want !
You could send a message saying, "he has agreed for you take DD on holiday, you will need the passport before X date.
If he fails to hand it over he can explain to his DD why her holiday has been cancelled & it will be mentioned in court when you get there."

Did you get to go on holiday ?

It might not be much help to you right now but did you know it is possible to have 2 passports held concurrently? Google will explain all ...

I'm sorry for such a late reply!!! Life took over, had a huge drama over my new house purchase but we did manage to have our holiday a few days after finally completing on the house we had a lovely time.

My daughter is now on holiday with exh and I'm on holiday with LM (lovely man, promoted from OM!). Having a good time but the longer it goes on the more desperate I am to see my daughter and wishing I was on holiday with her

Exh has been continuing to push for 50/50, I got advice from a different solicitor who agreed with me that switching up the schedule when she's just starting school was no good, and she suggested I go back to him through mediation to negotiate changing to 50/50 once she's settled into school in a year's time. No doubt he won't agree but maybe I can hold him off until Easter 2023 or something...

Urgh I still hate it all. Miss my daughter everything feels horrendous when I miss her.

Dear OP thank you for coming back to post. I think about you all the time and wonder how you are doing. I know that to it may feel to you as if things are not going so well, but to me it seems that they are going great. Good for you! You deserve all the amazing things life can give as you are an amazing human being.

I have been officially separated from my ex for a year now and we started talking about divorce. Were we live you can apply after one year of separation. Not much changed in my life except that I no longer have a husband. I work and cook and clean and take my dog out every day. Last few months I was struggling with anxiety a little; things were happening, as they do in life, that I had no control over and that only added to my stress. I am trying my best to rise above it and keep my head calm; I meditate, do yoga, pray and do my best to be grateful for what I have. While I still go through the motions of pain and guilt and anxiety I never once regretted leaving my ex. It seems that there really is no love left in me for him. He killed it with his controlling, selfish, stubborn, rude, careless behavior.

Congratulations on your new house! I wish you and your daughter all the best and do post from time to time to let us know how you are doing.💕

Oh, I found this quote the other day and thought I should share with you:

“Love doesn't die a natural death. Love has to be killed, either by neglect or narcissism. Those guilty of these two crimes of the heart always hide behind excuses convenient; too ashamed, lacking in integrity and courage to face the truth. To them, it is always something other than their own actions, desires and self-importance that dictate circumstances. For these people, so blind to truth, true love can never be fully experienced for they have never really given of themselves all that they are.”

― Frank Salvato

Thank you @movingon2022 , you're so sweet. I often think of you too. It's interesting that you also feel guilt about leaving your ex despite remaining with him for many many years. I suppose I'll always feel guilt for how things turned out and I don't know if that's because of how things ended and what I did, or because that's just human nature. I love the quote, very apt!

I've been struggling on holiday about my feelings of guilt and that I should have tried harder, and remembering happier times of being on holiday with him and my daughter. He lives for holidays so was always at his best! However he's just been sending me absolutely awful messages this morning which has brought me back to earth with a bump. He calls me 'mc' which stands for 'massive c*nt' but of course he denies that and says it stands for 'miss c...(my surname).' Just little things like that feel like some sort of water torture dripping away on me bit by bit. He's on a bully mission until he gets his own way re an extra night. He's clocked about her first school day being with him and is loving holding that over me and laughing about excluding me. Everything just feels very dark and difficult at the moment.

I'll probably do a separate thread about this in the relevant board, but does anyone here know how I should approach mediation? Should I be honest about his behaviour and what changes I need to see from him for me to agree to an extra night, or is that just going to result in the mediator deciding this process isn't for us sending us straight to court? I have no idea how to play it and just feel like whatever I do, even if I'm just being honest and straight forward, it'll backfire on me.

Of course he's being a abusive bully whilst you're on holiday. He wants to ruin everything for you, just block him till you're due to be in contact.
Do you need to inform him if your private timetable. Just don't unless it involves planning around dd, consent/passport.

Do you feel an extra night with him is in her interest, if not dont go to mediation, you know he ties you in knots.

Of course you will remember the good times, if it had only been atrocious abuse, you would have left after a week, & never have had a child with him.
But he became abusive, unkind, on the limit of dangerous. It would have been so wrong to bring up Dd in that environment.

Just take it to court. He is abusive, he will crucify you in mediation.

You can ask for cafcas involvement and all your concerns with evidence as to your concerns.

Ultimately you know he is very likely to get 50:50 but it's worth a try.

@helplesshopeless I did not find the mediator very useful. Literally everything we decided we did on our own, she accomplished nothing and ditched us before we were done. Really bad experience. I also am not sure if you should use mediator with your ex, as he is abusive and manipulative.

Mediation is never recommended for people with an abusive partner. Go straight to court

The problem is I don't have the funds to go to court and make accusations of abuse which will then need to be investigated and go through fact finding etc (he does!). And I'd need to have at least one mediation session to get the certificate for court. So I'm wondering whether to give it a go, or just be upfront with the mediator at the initial assessment point on how he's been behaving...just know it's going to backfire either way!

His latest move is now that he's clearly annoyed that the June bank holiday falls on my weekend, and has decided that the bank holiday Friday is his day regardless of the fact that they alternate ( and despite it clearly being mine that week, he had the last bank hol Friday) and he says he'll be picking her up at 8am for that day and he can do what he wants. So now I'm panicking about being out of the house by then so he doesn't turn up! And if I don't agree to that he says he won't let me pick her up on Thursday morning as normal. The ridiculous thing is if he just came to me nicely and said 'can I do something with dd that bank hol Friday' I'd definitely facilitate it!!! Argh

Anyway, I'm back from holiday now (and she has been on hol with him) and I'm picking her up in an hour and cannot wait.

You really need to have these things down up 100%. And then stick to them. Any variations with my ex were a fucking nightmare. Just because he could. He never ever did what was in the kids interests. It was always a way to just make my life harder.

"We need to make decisions about bank holidays
You had dd last bank holiday, so it's reasonable for me to have this one.
I have already made plans, if you simply make a request for a specific change of contact day, I have always been more than happy to try & accommodate it
But this blackmail, of withholding dd as a means of forcing me into bowing to your demands is more abusive bullying& will look just peachy in court."

How are things @helplesshopeless ?

Ah thanks so much @Justanotherlittlename for checking in (and @Alcemeg for the deleted message which I did catch 😇)

Things are ok. Have had loads more horrible moments from exh and they do shake me up a bit but things are reasonably settled for now.

I did end up going into mediation with exh, I chose to be upfront with the mediator and disclosed his abusive behaviour, also requested shuttle mediation so I wouldn't have to discuss directly with him. Exh basically said if I didn't agree to joint mediation he wouldn't do it at all and we'd have to go to court, so of course I then had to agree to joint sessions 🙄. After I disclosed the abuse to the mediator she said she didn't think we were suitable candidates and she only agreed to take us on if I had the support of a therapist during the process. Exh was his usual horrible self during mediation but it was over zoom and the mediator did a really great job of keeping the conversations on track and clamped down on emotive language and personal insults etc.

So anyway, as a result of mediation I have agreed to switch the pattern up a bit, but refused to give an extra night. I said this was a hard no from me and I was not willing to consider it for another year at least. So pleased I pushed back on it as he seems to have backed down (for now). I know he doesn't want to have to pay for court for the sake of one extra night per fortnight! He's being horrendous over Christmas arrangements (Christmas falls on his weekend annoyingly) but I'm sure something will be sorted.

In other news, little DD has started school and is settling in beautifully! ❤️ happily exh was on holiday with his gf over the last week and so she stayed with me throughout the first 1.5 weeks of school, and I have loved having her here full time. And I am relieved that he didn't insist that his parents had her on 'his' days while he was away!

Things with LM (lovely man!) are still as perfect as ever. He is honestly the best man I've ever known. My daughter has now met him (can't remember if I've already said that in a previous post) and absolutely adores him! So that's lovely too.

I still have a lot of guilt and worry about DD, but definitely do not miss exh or wish I was still with him. Feel rather sorry for his gf but expect she's shielded from a lot of his worst behaviour as he still has me to use as his emotional punchbag 😇

Anyway that was a whistle stop tour of where things are at the moment! Hope all of you lovely ladies are doing well ❤️

So glad that his poisoned threats of you not being there to take DD for her first day at school didn't happen.just more bullying.
I'm very happy for you that LM is lovely & altogether your life is so much better than before !

Ahh thank you @Mix56 you've been such a support. We did have a 'family' breakfast at his on the first day of school, got her ready and walked her in together. I think it was lovely for her to have us both there. Of course he only agreed to it in mediation after I'd conceded to one of his demands but I suppose it's got to be give and take!

Glad it's ok.

Remember there are many more Christmases to go.

If he is an arse of this one and it's all with him then in time he will get the reverse. You can have another Christmas and have proper fun.

Ahhhhh OP we were having a little celebration here and I shouldn't have peeked on MN but your post flashed up and before I knew it, I had scrolled hastily through, picked up on completely misleading info, overlooked the obvious, and scrambled together my own ideas about what was going on for you, which I hastily replied to when I shouldn't have been let anywhere near a keyboard! Of course in the morning, on review, I was aghast 😳😬

So sorry things have been so difficult, but you knew it was never going to be an easy ride separating from such a malicious control freak!

How wonderful that OM/LM has turned up trumps. So happy for you. A fitting reward for all your courage and hard work... May life continue to flourish!

Thanks for sharing this, @movingon2022 ... So pleased to know that you're coming into bloom gradually! I rememember your dark times of anguish and it is wonderful to know you managed to start a whole new life for yourself.