**Trigger Warning** I think my ex may have committed suicide

[NCfail1]

Hello everyone,

NC for this.

I am quite concerned about my ex, who is the father of my DC. To give a bit of a backstory. He was abusive in every way possible towards me and due to this he only has supervised visits/telephone with the DC.
I do have an injunction against him-just to netigate anymore involvement but we are allowed to communicate with each other concerning the DC.

Recently, for the past few months, ex mental health has been spiralling down. He was sending me frequent texts about wanting us to get back together and if not he will kill himself. Of course, I first, I was worried and tried to talk him out of it but after a while, I soon began to ignore him.

Two months ago, one of his relatives contacted me that he was admitted into hospital because he tried to commit suicide. I contacted one of his friends (who sent me a rude message) to check on his well-being.

On social media, he kept putting up posts that he wants to 'kill himself' and that because he is "30, has no family, no job, there's no point in life". He even commented that no one should let me come to his funeral as I am "evil" . A week ago, he sent me a message to say 'Happy Birthday' to once of the DC's, who birthday is coming up soon, incase his not around. Then he called me, and I got a bit annoyed with him- a bit snappy and ended the call.

This week, he missed his contact session with the DC's. He has never done this before. He also missed the telephone session. Which he has never done before. When the DC attempted to contact him, he was unable to get through and just told me that 'Daddy's phone has been off since Sunday, I can't get through to him". I then attempted to contact him but DC was right, his phone is off.

I don't know what to do. Although, he has made my life shit in so many ways. He is still the father of my DC's and I'm worried about his mental health being. I don't know what to do- without getting myself too involved.

I think the OP was right to call for a welfare check because she said the ex had never missed an appointment. But now he's set the precedent of missing appointments and still being alive, she no longer has to worry. Regardless of what a bastard he is the OP is thinking of her children.

Calling 999 is an emergency response. That’s always an extreme situation.

Literally no one else even considered getting back together with the abusive man you’ve had to get court orders to mitigate his abuse except you. That would definitely be an extreme.

You clearly are unable to grasp that this behaviour is likely just more abuse. Telling someone that they cannot ignore the suicide threats or implications of someone who has a history of using it to abuse them is colluding with their abuser. Frankly.

That said, I would advise calling 999 every time he makes a suicide threat in future. Because that will make it a problem for him. The emergency services will not be happy to be responding to a man threatening suicide to abuse someone. And they’ll take action against him.

He deserves that.

The OP knows he’s doing this to abuse her - and abusing their children with it too. She’s under no obligation to worry about him.

@NCfail1 awful as it is, this is in fact a good outcome.
He's ok, which is nice for your kids.
It's another strike against him in the contact stakes.

You already knew he was a manipulative abusive runt of a man. You need feel no guilt or shame about what happened- you did the right thing.

What an absolutely awful thing to do to you. And your kids. You did the right thing this time but I wouldn’t be doing it again for him.

OP you did the right thing by requesting a welfare check.

I get he's manipulative but also people with very poor mental health can just go off grid for a few days as the alternative (speaking to people- even family) is harder.

I do agree tho that you don't need this is your life as you're not going to be able to "fix him" and this is all on him to get better.

I’m glad you’re no longer worrying OP. People can be arseholes and suffering from ill mental health and that makes it very difficult for those around them to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions.

At this point I think you need to concentrate on putting some steps between contact with him and you and your dc so you’re not the first line to be alert to his issues. The relative who contacted you previously might be the first one to try.

I don’t think it’s good for your dc to have free access to messages with him right now. If he’s unreliable then there’s dealing with rejection and/or concern. If all contact is filtered through another medium then there are easy explanations for delays.

You're not stupid at all. You are a better person than he is. Now you know what a c**t he is you can move on and ignore any future stunts like this one.

Well that was dickish - on his part.
Not only for continuing to manipulate you, but for now bringing the DC into it missing their visits and ignoring their calls making THEM worry.

You did the absolute right thing contacting the police because you’re a decent human being, but I would not be taking him seriously ever again.

He clearly has no issue crying wolf, and you just can’t trust him.

You are not stupid OP, you are still in the grip of his emotional abuse.

This is the moment to read back the posts on this thread about EA.

He has shown his manipulative abusive colours here.

So he hid his number when calling you?

It would be better if he didn’t know that you had called the police. But move forwards now.

Establish one means of contact, to arrange child contact ONLY. I suggest an E mail address that you only use for this purpose. And that the 3rd party who supervises contact can also see.

Contact on a strict and limited basis. Phone and face to face.

A man that you have an injunction against should not be calling and texting you at will. Nor should you be in contact except on a strict and limited basis.

Look after yourself and your kids, OP. You can’t afford to think this can be nicey nicey.

Engage steely core and build your fort.

Good luck.

P.S e mail him from new e contact mail address and then BLOCK HIM on text, phone etc. lock down your SM.

You’re not stupid, he’s very manipulative.
Can you get a cheap phone and use that just for him, & block him on your main phone.? Cheap phone accept texts only from him.
His selfish behaviour could have an effect on your dc so get support for them, and you, if needed.
Are SS involved ? I would inform them of his behaviour — he is NOT your responsibility.

You are absolutely not stupid. I have been through this, the best thing to do is to block his number, do not engage at all. Take the children to the contact centre and that is where your responsibility ends with him.

How old are your children? Do they need access to him by phone? Could it be kept separate from their usual phone so they don't need to hang about wondering if he's been in touch? Just open the phone at the appointed time.

Really good advice here again.
Does he need to be able to phone DC or is this extra that you're allowing? If phone calls are mandated by the court get a cheap PAYG sim and phone that is used purely to facilitate this contact and won't be on at other times. No following him on SM or allowing him to follow you. As I said previously all contact about DC should be via a separate email account or a third party.

I had a suspicion that this was an attempt to abuse you from the start when you said that he was asking you to get back together recently. If he was genuinely suicidal and determined to go through with it he wouldn't be speaking to you about it openly in case you tried to stop him.

Once the dust settles, what do you want to do? Will you bring this to the court's attention or speak to SS or just leave it and limit all contact with him?

It's horrible that he has done this to your DC and caused them to worry.

But now he's set the precedent of missing appointments and still being alive, she no longer has to worry.

I agree with this - he has demonstrated clearly that he is just dicking around, so in future you can ignore him with a perfectly clear conscience.

I'm so sorry OP, he's still carrying on his abuse towards you.

Time for a 3rd party to mediate contact between him and the DC. You can step back now, he's pushed his luck too far this time.

I'm glad you don't have to worry anymore!
He did exactly what I said he was doing. He's trying to keep the control and as it wasn't working, he's gone to the extreme and pretended to commit suicide to keep you feeling lost and confused.
My ex did the exact same to me and I refused to let him keep that control on me.

You are not stupid!

Please use this thread as strength to get this absolute parasite out of your life. He deserves nothing from you. No consideration at all. xxx

To be quite honest by now if he threatened suicide, you called the police and then he called you, I'd ask "you threatened to commit suicide. Why didn't you carry through with it?"

But I am deeply allergic to extreme emotional manipulation and very, very worried about protecting children from it. It can cause such devastation.

I would call for a welfare check every single time he did threatened suicide. He will stop eventually. But it also will log his attempts at manipulating you

You aren’t stupid OP. You are normal and compassionate and kind. Don’t lose that. He is soulless manipulative and abusive. Use your strength to protect your children. Big hugs

I always think this is exactly the sort of thing that the Police should not be doing. There should be some other system in the country for something like this, you could give it a name to match it's role say 'Social Services' and they could then look after people allowing the Police Service to do say "Policing' work instead.

Social services aren't designed or funded to be an emergency service and don't have powers of entry, the police are/ do and when it's suspected that a person may have taken or is at risk of taking their own life then that is an emergency.

Also when someone has taken their own life it may not always be apparant whether this was their own doing or someone else's so ideally you'd want the police to be first on the scene to preserve evidence, they also prepare evidence for the coroner's Court.