Ex Husband claiming I stop him from seeing the children

[2025HereWeGo]

I’ve posted many times about my abusive ex husband and him using false claims of me ‘stopping him from seeing the kids / poisoning them against him’ as his means for harassing me,”. It is utter b0llocks but obviously some people on his side of the fence do believe him.

I am tempted to get a non-molestation order to prevent him from contacting me but I do fear that it will add fuel to the fire and will support his claims of me cutting contact.

My question is, is there an organisation that I can approach to assist his relationship with the kids? I know he could go down the family court route and I have even suggested mediation to him, but it seems that everything has to be initiated from his end. I’d like to kick start something to prove that I’m not preventing contact.

Please help, I genuinely feel like I’m going insane x

See a lawyer and send a letter with contact proposals. Arrange handovers at a contact centre so you don’t have to see him. Then you will have legal evidence that you have tried to facilitate contact. That’s about all you can do. Mediation isn’t advised when there is abuse involved.

This post just shows how much power this man still has over you.
He's your ex. You're not supposed to still care what he thinks. You know who you are. You know you're being true to yourself. And the people who mean you well, they know too. That's all that matters.
Let him live in his own delusions. Get the non mol order. He can be angry about that all he wants, far away from you.

A few weeks after I left my abusive ex, he told me that he had finally told his mother we had broken up, and he had told her that the reason for our break-up was that he'd caught me cheating.
I really liked his mum and cared about her opinion of me. If my ex and I had still been together, I would have hated how he portrayed me to his mum and I would have wanted to disprove his lies. But I knew that if I reacted, he would have felt some power over me. So I just shrugged and said: whatever, it's you mum, not mine. I'll never see her again anyway. Doesn't matter what she thinks of me.

You need to show him that you're not going to bother anymore. He doesn't have to believe that you're a good person. You know it, and that's all that matters.

Might be worth looking into this; it facilitates contact, you can set a calendar with yes/no responses for swaps, there's a record of all communication, and it's admissible in court.

www.ourfamilywizard.co.uk/

OP your 17 year old is close to the age of majority at 18, a young adult,
could be away at University, join the forces, work abroad, be at college,
thinking for themselves.
Your younger child will soon be 16, when your exH will no longer be financially
liable but as we know, should contribute, also thinking for themselves.
If they don’t want to see their Dad then no one can make them, least
of all him.

Stalkers cannot bear to be ignored, ie let the Police provide him with the
attention he craves.
There is no excuse good enough for his constant vigilance.

Molestation orders are often seen as a challenge to dedicated harassers
and will likely enhance his deranged feelings of victimhood, giving him an
excuse to escalate his nonsense.

Stalkers are obsessives, there is no logic or reason to their actions thoughts
or motivation but sadly, you will be aware of this.

Your children may resent your arranging contact for them, communication
between you three and a plan of action should keep you all safe.

If your children wanted to see their Dad they would, either with your blessing
or covertly.

You are divorced, you don’t need to have any contact at all with your EX
husband, he has no power in your life/home, is struggling to regain what
he sees as his place, banging on your mental door, demanding entry.

If it provides comfort, consider, he cannot be happy, new family or not.
Happy contended men do not constantly try to claw back what they have
lost or discarded, jeopardising their new relationships.

@Girlmom35 this is brilliant, this reads as though you are actually speaking
to the OP and ‘putting her right’
and had resonance for me personally.

This is sound advice OP, heed it.

You have the power! he is attempting to wrest back from you, his links now
being the children, with exams, friends, music, sports, social life, weekend jobs, camping, first holiday with mates, all these things absorbing the attention of teenagers, all this he is missing out on, you have it, you have the power!

Making you feel like you're going insane is his intent.

Some people feed off other people's distress. They are parasites, predators, vampires.

And they therefore stir situations that trigger your distress - and deliver their drug.

This is now the only way he has to get at you, now you've escaped him. Using the children. So he's focussing all attention in that.

So you need to ensure you keep all the evidence.

Everything in writing - no phone calls. If the children aren't with him, leave his calls to voice mail. Keep and file all voice mails, texts, emails, letters, messages. Log all interaction with him. Consider your 'relationship' with him as a case, and keep case notes.

Have you done your best to facilitate time with the children? If you can prove it, great, if not, start making and creating evidence. Be careful what you say about him. Keep it factual but appropriate. Log what you tell them.

Set up a schedule for him to visit, meet somewhere neutral, whatever suits best.

If he doesn't turn up, tries to change it, complains - keep the evidence.

Log everything that happens.

Keep your solicitor aware.

At their ages, it's only a very short time before they decide entirely what they do.

He's collecting flying monkeys - people he's winding up to do his dirty work. It's none of their business. Politely shut down any attempt from them to interfere.

My ex has been doing this for years. He tells the whole world his mental health is in the toilet as I've stolen his child from him, that I have poisoned her and he has had to take multiple (paradise island retreat) breaks from his life or go mad. All the while paying as little as possible maintenance, refusing to have her overnight for years, never having any food in his home when she is there and generally treating her like an inconvenience.

I fell into the trap of trying to prove how lovely and accommodating i was, facilitating their relationship, smoothing over the cracks and encouraging. It was not only fucking useless, but it was no good for her, either. I ended up lying to her about how shit he really was, encouraging her to love someone who picks her up and chucks her back down again, and depriving our own family of family time. So I stopped. And he's back telling the same old stories, while neglecting and ignoring her. I have pages of messages begging him to see her which go back over a decade. The difference now is I dgaf who listens to his lies because the effects on my child were even worse. Please don't enable this man's abuse of you or your children by doing anything other than ignoring him.

@2JFDIYOLO another excellent shrewd post

we should have a means of collating these wonderful words of wisdom
here so they can be referred to in context and where necessary.
Daily

My ex of over 2 years hasnt seen our DD for nearly 2 years, he tells everyone i kept her from him and poisoned her against him. The usual rubbish.

DD got a phone for Christmas last year, she gave him her number via messenger, he never added her number or ever used it to contact her, they communicate via snap chat.

He can claim all he likes that i keep them apart, but he knows the truth, that he cant be bothered, the truth will eat him up more than it bothers me being lied about. And i guess most people will see through him talking shite especially as he is playing super step dad.

He can say what he likes about me but i know the truth and he knows the truth and he cant fool himself.

Wow, thank you all so much for the validation, support and words of wisdom - this is just what I needed to hear on a day that I feel so dragged down by this.
I think I now have the strength to complete the form for a non-mol. I cannot and will not suffer a further year of this abuse. I need to move on.
Thank you all so much x

Evidence every communication

I have now been invited to attend an initial session of ‘child focussed mediation’ - any advice?

Invited by whom? It sounds like it is just a way of getting in your head. Unless it is 1:1 with you and a counsellor, no sign of your ex, inclusive of your kids and paid for by someone else, I wouldn't bother.

I would crack on with the non-molestation order. If your kids are late teens and not vulnerable he can make arrangements directly with them and make an actual effort so that they want to see him at times and locations suitable to their ages and school commitments. If you have concerns about abusive and controlling behaviour towards them, then I'd seek a non-molestation order that covers you all but according to Wikipedia, it will anyway.

The mediation session was a last ditch suggestion by me, when he was verbally abusive. I suggested he needed to take the children’s feelings on board and an intermediary (not me) would potentially help with that and some discussions between him and the kids on if there was a way to move forward.

A mediator has now been in touch with my via email on his behalf to suggest an initial meeting - just me and the mediator. I’m guessing as soon as I mention verbal abuse / harassment / stalking that a mediator would be mindful not to proceed? The mediation session is a MIAM, which is generally done at the beginning of divorce - as ever, things are getting done back to front and inside out…

Who invited you?

Honestly, I was in a similar position. With a huge amount of support from my therapist and friends, I blocked my ex on everything other than one email address. I told the dcs that I would support any decision they made regarding when they saw their father.

The relationship is between him and the dcs now, amd is totally on their terms. He can't touch me, and I've gradually stopped being scared.

Honestly your nearly at the end now it probably won't stop though I know my ex and his wife keep up the bullshit even now dd is turning 25 and hasn't lived with me for YEARS it's still my fault I'm still stopping her (she is a three hour drive away) from seeing them and living with her precious "real" family

I agreed to this for my 13 year old daughter and I shouldn’t have it was a trap.
More info would need to be by pm.

Amazing advice here, following with interest.

@RinklyRomaine i am laughing at the fact your Ex has to go to paradise retreats to feel better about it all. They must all work from the same textbook - mine had to purchase a property abroad (no fixed abode in UK to have his kids!) as he just couldn’t bare to be in the same country and not be allowed to be a dad!

@HeChokedOnAChorizo mine is a brill step dad too - visiting all of the places that we used to go as a family. He also communicates via Snapchat too (what 45 year old man communicates via Snapchat?!)

i sometimes think I am living in a parallel bloody universe!

thanks all for your lovely replies, advice and some laughs x

@2025HereWeGo You laugh but yes, they actually do. When a friend was going through similar we googled one of his username's and found him in this awful site where they all were trading tips on avoiding paying, causing harm, getting residency but avoiding any of the actual work, etc etc. it was eye opening. All these actual parents trying to cause as much upset as possible. Someone said to me you have to stop judging him by your standards and expecting him to have any decency about this. It's hard to come to that realisation but it helps.