Ask parents to supervise visits?

[BetterDays2223]

My DC have not seen their dad in about 7 months.

They had witnessed him emotionally abusing me and when he physically went for me, I called the police and he was arrested. Released with caution.

The months after that, I took a non-mol against him. We went back and forth in court. He continued to harass me. I reported this, nothing came of it.
He believed I was stopping him seeing the children, his reason for the harassment. I wasn’t, neither child wanted to see him at that time or the months afterwards.

The children have been super happy, don’t ask or speak about him. The rare occasion my youngest stated he missed his dad, I asked if he wanted to talk to/see him, the answer was always ‘no’.
I did not have a plan for if the kids did want to see or speak with him BUT it has still always been important for me to be guided by the children’s wishes.
I refuse to have anything to do with him and everyone in his circle is useless/can’t or won’t help.

We have moved to a new place, fresh start, all good.
Could no longer afford legal fees for non mol (only partially eligible for legal aid, I used my entire life savings to pay for the rest) and as he doesn’t know where we are, all legal proceedings have been dropped by me.

Fast forward to today..youngest child in tears, misses his dad. We talk together, I ask him what he wants and he says he wants to speak to daddy.
I’ve told child I will find a way to make that happen.

My question - would it be reasonable to ask my parents to contact ex and suggest if he does want to see kids, it’s at their house?

Ex has never applied for Child Contact, I’m almost certain he does not have his own living space.

I just want to do right by DC.

Any thoughts?

Given the physical abuse is a contact centre an option? I wouldn't want to put my parents in that position personally

@cavia I tried contact centre early on. Contact centre can only work if ex applies for it as he is the non resident parent.
He hasn’t applied and after knowing him for so long, I know he won’t.

Would it not be a better first step to try to arrange a video call or phone call? Perhaps with your parents to support your child with the call and cut it off if necessary rather than you supervising the call, but I wouldn't jump straight into physical meetings.

This definitely. Take it slowly, your kids have been through a lot and although they miss him jumping straight into a physical meeting might be too much for them.

Contact centre can only work if ex applies for it as he is the non resident parent.
He hasn’t applied and after knowing him for so long, I know he won’t.

Then he doesn't get to see the DC.

Or even an exchange of emails/recorded messages to start with.

If it's the first time your child has shown desire for contact, it may be all they actually need.

And because your ex hasn't tried to get access, I'd be concerned that he may reject contact or mess them about - I'd start very small.

@eyeteevee
I am only exploring this option because the kids have now decided they want contact.
I wouldn’t bother if it was purely to accommodate ex’s wishes

With his previous behaviour I wouldn’t want to chance that with my parents so I would say that is slightly unfair.

If your ex isn’t making an effort to even see the children I’d be less likely to try and arrange a visit and would try a video call for a few times before moving on,

I'd start with facetime/zoom. No reason they can't speak to their dad whenever they like. Can even get child specific video calling apps so the kids can do it all themselves, with you control/monitoring it etc.

That's the first thing the courts would suggest, and if your ex won't do that, then unfortunately the kids will need to learn that he's not interested in communicating with them.

Ok I’m hearing you all..start small and see what happens.
I’ll ask parents to arrange a video call and go from there

How old are the kids?
A younger child saying they miss Daddy does not necessarily equate to them wanting to physically see him.

(Especially if Daddy will end up abandoning them, which sounds possible)

My parents supervised contact with ds & his dad when we first separated, he saw him when he had his swimming lesson & for 2 hours at soft play on a Sunday, they sat & had a coffee while he saw his dad.

@Nat6999 I love this idea

With his track record what is the point he will abuse them too eventually why not put your efforts into getting therapy and emotional support for the children then decide

IF he takes you to court he will get unsupervised access to your children. The court will ask you why you ever denied it and you could be blamed. I’d be keeping a record of everything.

The family courts are a joke. I went through so much with my exH and he still got access.

I wouldn't be encouraging this.

Contact should only happen when it's in the child's best interests. How is contact with an abuser in their best interests?

If contact becomes ongoing he surely will use it to restart his abuse of you. Do you want a long term situation where he is bad mouthing you to DC's?

If they have contact with him they will learn that his behaviour is ok. They may model this behaviour.

Once a relationship is established then stopping it even when there's abuse will be extremely hard.

He's had his chance to be a Dad. He doesn't deserve this.

Let your DC's have a life free of abuse.

I might be reluctant to do anything more than letters/emails outside of court systems/contact centre/children's services etc... purely as you have no idea what his situation for the last 7 months has been - he may been avoiding going through official systems for contact as he knows he has multiple offences on record in that period, or is known to services for abusing others (sorry to sounds all worst case scenario!).