My mother not respecting my rules with my child

[NoisyLilacExpert]

My mum is the middle man (third person) between me & my co parent

Me and co parent don't have the best relationship hence why we need a third person.

So my mums job is to just reply to any messages my co parent sends her regarding our baby. That is it!

Today co parent was sending my mum paragraph after paragraph asking her to please "have a word with me" about unblocking him and being civil.

I've tried this numerous times it doesn't work. I'm over the relationship but co parent isn't. Co parent still "wants his family back" that is long gone for me.

Then after the paragraphs he asked my mum to send him a picture of the baby as she must of told him in a reply that she was babysitting out baby. She messaged me to tell me what he's been messaging her and I told her to stop engaging in conversation & do not send him a picture of the baby as today is not one of his days that he is having the baby. Tomorrow is his day.

Anyways when she dropped baby home she slipped up that she had sent a picture of the baby to him. I didn't say anything at the time but since she's left I'm really not happy about this. I told her not to and she said okay, she clearly have ignored me about my own child

I don't care if he is the baby's father, it isn't his day to communicate with my mum/me

We've been advised to not communicate on days that are not his days by police and womans aid. My mums knows all of this and isn't helping the situation

Am I being sensitive or is my mum wrong for this

So don't have a 'weak' person as your go-between. Honestly there are so many better options out there to help you co-parent without making your mum piggy-in-the-middle.

Some examples?

Your mum isn’t a suitable person to be the in between party. She can’t/won’t follow the safety rules suggested by social services and the police and tbh shouldn’t be put in the position of having to follow rules that she clearly doesn’t agree with. Protect your relationship with her by finding a new solution.

You've had loads on this thread - co-parenting apps or a contact centre.

Here are the apps: https://www.mediateuk.co.uk/5-top-parenting-and-co-parenting-apps-for-separating-couples/

And plenty of other information on the website from which this is taken.

It's not fair on your mum being stuck in the middle. Use a contact centre.

So, you’re basically both taking advantage of your “weak” mum?

Your poor mum. Sounds like you and your ex need to be a bit more mature

Stop using your mum as a middle-man. She's obviously struggling to keep to the parameters of what you want her to do and your ex is playing on her kind nature. Either use a contact centre or parenting app to facilitate communication. You are going to be co-parenting for a long time so you need to find a way forward that doesn't involve imposing on family members.

“So my mums job is to just reply to any messages my co parent sends her regarding our baby. That is it!”

Why is it her job? You’re putting your DM in an invidious position. Surely it would be better to stop any contact between your co-parent and your DM, get her to block his number, and find another way of communicating. That way, he can’t send her endless messages nor approach her on days when he isn’t supposed to.

You sound really ungrateful op. Your mum is doing you a massive favour and you are complaining about her and insulting her.

Kindly, you got yourself in this situation. Your mum sounds like she is putting herself out to help you. So if you don't like it then I would suggest involving a third party.

I would never have put my mum in this position with my controlling ex. He went to a contact centre on his allocated day and time, that was it, no contact except between solicitors outwith that time. He tried to manipulate my parents and it ended up they were told very little, anytime they mentioned him I shut the conversation down. I never allowed photos to be taken of my children by my parents and I told them why after I found out they’d been sending him updates and allowing him to visit if they had the children alone. We ended up estranged due to it all. They never grasped how bad our marriage had been with his coercive control and didn’t think they were doing any harm. For your mums sake OP get another third party and please stop putting her in this position, it will not end well.

Edited to add, he now thinks he can converse with your mother and tug at her heart strings as she’s sent him a photo and is answering his messages. He’s found a way in to continue to control the situation and now he’s in you’re going to find that difficult to pull back. Personally, I’d be very careful what information I shared with her if only to protect her, you and your child from him.

And yet you still chose her to be the mediator between you and your ex? I agree you’ve put her in an awful position - think back to when you were with your ex, and the tactics he employed. He’s using the same ones on your DM. You didn't immediately leave him, I assume, and yet you're expecting your DM to ignore his tactics plus you’re annoyed with her for doing so. A manipulator will manipulate anyone to get their own way; stop being angry at your DM, she isnt the one in the wrong here.

I agree.

He is pushing her as he knows she'll cave.

If she refused to engage with him about anything except the child and only on the designated days then he's leave her alone.

I get that she's in a difficult position but he is manipulating her weakness and he'll carry on unless she puts her foot down and stops.

If things have been bad enough that you have involvement/advice from Police and Women's Aid, I'm surprised she's willing to pander to him at all, frankly.

Your poor Mum. What a horrible position to put her in. You can't manage to communicate with your ex but you expect her to be able to! I suggest you take the pressure off her as she obviously finding the situation difficult. Then find a third person who is not emotionally involved.

She shouldn't be communicating with him. This is what everyone on this thread isn't understanding

The only time he should be contacting my mother is if for instance he couldn't have the baby on one of his days.. then he would let my mum know and she would let me know. Or if he was running an hour late for example

There shouldn't be any conversations going on!

Firstly, in no way shape or form are you “co parenting” if you have to use your mother as a middle man! It’s not fair on her and you need to remove her from this equation and both grow up and act like adults and come to a suitable arrangement to organise parenting.

I think it's going to have to pay for a contact centre if he can't abide by the rules. Can you get your solicitor to send him a letter outlining the rules for contact and explaining his approach is overbearing and stressful for your mum. Explain the consequences if it continues and just move on to that as you said you would. Tell your mum you can't hear any messages from him as it's not fair to anyone. I wouldn't micromanage her, just end the arrangement if you need to.

@NoisyLilacExpert but he's obviously manipulating her like he did you, and you've put her in that position by asking her to be the go between. The alternative is you find another way. You can't control what she does and you certainly can't control him.

Why are you so upset about her speaking to him?

You are completely taking your mum for granted. This is not “her job”. You sound very entitled and should find a different solution rather than slagging her off online.

Yes.

Unfortunately he's manipulating her and he'll probably gain more ground over time.

I'd try to change it to a contact centre.

OP your post is a bit conflicting there then on what your mum is required to do as you say in original message she replies to any messages about baby so sounds like it's opened up to full communication
Your mum must find it difficult to know when she can reply and when not to and as many have said it's not a good position to put her in
There are various conparenting apps there that would work better than your mum doing this.

OP
Some people don’t like ignoring messages or they have strange ideas about abuse like only physical abuse being a problem. She might think that she’s doing nothing wrong and disagree that he’s got bad intentions even though you know what this man is like. Does she feel sorry for him ? Is she one of those people who think that the abuse you suffered was partly your fault too and that limited contact is cruel because the abuse wasn’t directed at the baby?

I understand why you want your mum to follow recommendations from professionals and that you know your ex best but she can’t or won’t follow the recommendations so you have no choice but to not use her “help” any more. Stopping with her help is much easier than trying to persuade her to change and having to check that she’s not going behind your back.

It feels to me like you are point the finger in the wrong direction here.

Your ex is the problem, not your mum.

What you have chosen to do is to expose your mum to his toxic behaviour and presumably do a better job of managing it than you did and criticising her when she can't.

This is your issue to resolve, not your mothers and I think you are minimising what you are asking of her - have you considered what support or experience she has of managing manipulative and abusive behaviours (probably zero).

As many pp's have suggested your best options are to use a co-parenting app or to look for a local contact centre.

Some contact centres don't only offer "meet ups" but provide "buffer" communication services where texts/emails are sent to them and they will pass the appropriate information on - filtering out any manipulation and also warning the abuser that their messages as provided was not acceptable.

The good thing about using either of these options is that (unlike with your mum) because it's a professional service with no bias that data/experience can be very useful if you need to go to court.

It's not so much the fact she's speaking to him, she's innocent in all of this

It's the fact that he's messaging her irrelevant stuff on near enough a daily basis when he shouldn't be. He's over stepping the mark. And he's not doing it to have a nice little catch up with my mum he's doing it to wind me up and get a reaction out of me. He's a narcissist. He has absolutley no right to be messaging my mother the things he's messaging her

Trust me this isn't little harmless conversations every few days. It's basically every day and stuff that he should be messaging her

@NoisyLilacExpert by putting her in this situation you can't really control how she responds. I can see why it's annoying for you and id want my mum to follow my wishes and not fall into the trap of conversing with him either. But ultimately it's up to her isn't it.