please please help really scared

[scarlettandrhett]

DH and I have our own DS and DH has a DD my DSD.

Getting contact was horrendous as ex stopped all contact when she found out about me. I was not the OW. I met DH long after they split up, they were not married.
During the court hearing and out of the blue, she phones me and wants a agreement over contact that we can put before the judge. The suggestion she gave was what DH had wanted. The judge stamped the order.
My gut was telling me that as long as DH played by her rules, all would be ok but if he stepped out of line, all hell would break loose.

Contact was great for the next 3 years. We got DSD more than the court order stated. I became ex "new best friend" and DH and I played her game.

Last month, DH made a geniune mistake over drop off and she went nuts, calling DH every name under the son. DH had had enough and told her so. Yes, contact was stopped, all attempts at communication were stopped.

About 3 hours ago, she came to our door and said she wanted to sort it out. Like a fool, I let her in.
I cannot believe what happened next and even as I write this I feel that I will wake up from a dream.

She proceded to tell us if we take her back to court, she will say DH was abusing DSD. She said that even though it is not true the fallout will affect our own DS. She said she will go to SS with these claims and will say she has real fears for my DS as well. She will go to the police and ensure our DS is removed from our home until an investigation is completed. She said she will tell SS that was why she stopped contact. She is a teacher and knows what do. I thought DH was going to go for her. She was calm, not shouting, screaming, just very calm and smiled through it all.

I cannot believe this is happening, I cannot even find the words to describe it. After she said this, it is all a haze, she walked out our home them. What do we do? What happens. I am really scared now.

I have changed my name

awful situation and your poor DSD. I think she needs a lot of support now as her emotions will be all over the place, not just anger at her mum, but painful feelings of betrayal, loss of trust, insecurity...obviously she loves her mum and her mum loves her. A lot for her to cope with.

I'm just wondering...all the times she wasn't with you for Christmas & her birthday - did she never ask why? Did it never come out that you were at home and wishing she was there?

I don't think you should act on what she is saying right now. She's upset, angry and probably a bit confused. She has to return in her head to some of the conversations she has had with her mum and see them and her relationship with her mum in a different light. That's going to take her some processing time.

I have been in a very similar situation although the child who wanted to live with us was 8. It's gut-wrenching and you just want to catch them up and wrap them in cotton wool, I know.

I am assuming that she's with you until the end of the weekend. Give her time and space for the next 24 hours to sort things out in her head and ask any other questions she wants to. At the end of the weekend, ask her to go back to her mums because that's what the court order says she has to do. Explain that you want her to be able to live with her if that's what she definitely wants but you have to go about it it the right way and, in the meantime, unless she feels at risk of serious harm, she needs to live with her mum while you talk to the court and ask that the order be changed.

I don't think trying to change her place of residence at this point would be in her best interests. If you refuse to send her home, you risk an almighty row with the police taking her home against her will and the ex preventing contact again, after which she might decide she wants to stay with her mum anyway.

She is old enough to understand that sending her home isn't rejecting her but playing the long game and that you will be calling your solicitor on Monday morning and working to get the court to listen to her wishes all the time she's not with you. She needs to understand that this is the best way to get the long term outcome she wants.

Ask her to go home and think carefully about the future and what she wants so that she can tell you and anyone else who asks clearly where she would like to live and why. Also tell her that she can speak to her teachers about this if she wants and she can call you or the police at any time if she feels like she needs help and someone will come and get her.

I know it will feel like shit sending her home but I think if you try to keep her with you now, you're in danger of being seen to have created this whole situation in order to gain residence which won't help anyone.

can't add anything constructive, but think that good things happened today, things that will serve that young girl well. I think it'd be great if she could live with you.

I also agree that this is all of the ExW doing, she's really gone too far.

Well as said in my earlier post, I also think it would be best for her if she came and lived with you.

However, how to go about handling the situation you have now - I don't know. Very tricky.

I think I would NOT have the ex over and have some sort of family meeting - rightly or wrongly that's putting DSD in the middle. Definitely solicitor first - and if DSD refuses to go home, yes maybe police/SS to ask advice on how best to handle it all and stay within the law?

I've no doubt that there must have been a significant amount of bad mouthing and general crapness that she's had to deal with, for years - this may seem like a quick and knee-jerk decision, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a watershed moment for her too after a lot of being made to feel bad about contact and her dad's family in general.

One thing puzzles me, though - you DO see her very regularly, how on earth has it never come up that no, you were at home for Christmas and so were her grandparents?! If her mum has been telling her you were away, wouldn't she have asked 'So where are you going/have been for Christmas then?' - when you had your Christmas celebration/present giving etc. with her? That seems very odd! She's close to her gps too but never knew that you were all together at Christmas - don't you at least get to call her on Christmas Day?

Its been taken out our hands.

DSD has phoned her mother and DH has just received a call from the ex ranting and raving. We have called the police as ex says she will be round soon.

How the hell did we forgot DSD had her phone with her.

This is getting worse and worse.

Urgh. Still at least the showdown will be over sooner rather than later...

Oh.

Have you called the GPs to come back?!

Are the police coming?

No, it's not getting worse & worse... it just feels like it. Hang on tight, it's a bit of a tornado but you will get through it and remember nothing truly awful has happened, it's just uncomfortable right now x

If she turns up before the police, discreetly film her from a window or something.
I don't think I'd let her in.
Where is your ds?

The best thing you can do is to concentrate on keeping everyone calm and making sure your DSD has a voice if she wants one.

The police shouldn't help your ex take her home in the middle of a contact weekend so she's not going to achieve anything by storming round.

I wouldn't allow her into the house. If the police ask for somewhere you can talk could it be at your DH's parents house?

Just unlurking to say good luck, op, have been following this thread with this face >>>>

stay calm.

nothing bad will happen. you don't have to let her in, you can ask the police to tell her to go, and she will have to leave.

dsd doesn't have to (nor should she) go home.

this is a game changer, but somehow it's ok for the game to be changed. remember, the exw did this.

You are doing a great job in a really difficult situation.

Thoughts, OP I've been in similar a position before.

I think you need to be realistic about the outcome - if your DSD mum forces her to choose between her parents, she will reject the parent she knows will forgive her. That's likely to be your DH.

the ex arrived just as the police arrived.

the upshot is that the police advised us that they do not get involved in contact issues as it is a civil matter. They also said if DSD refused to go home, given her age and the fact that she is at her fathers, they would not force her.

DH told her he did not want it to come to this but she (the ex) has forced his hand. He told her that if dsd felt the same tomorrow, he would not bring her home until this whole mess had been sorted out via the courts.

He then asked her to leave. She refused, police advised her it would be in her own best interest to leave now and allow the courts to decide what was best. She left.

Now we need to sit down with Ds and let him know what is going on as we did not get a chance to earlier.

DH is still going to the court on monday and DSD wants to go with him. Not much more we can do until Monday.

We could call SS but I think that would be a step too far

Your DSD sounds like quite a strong young woman!

It sounds like that was handled well and it's nice to know that they won't force her to return to her mum's house against her will.

I hope things go well next week and the courts listen to your DSD's wishes.

I do think it would be wise to call SS actually- mainly because it sounds like DSDs Mother is likely to, so it will give them a more balanced view of what has been going on. Good practice to keep them informed of where she is, why she is staying and what your plans are.

Well, that all went fairly well then. No blood shed. Police telling her to go home etc

Good on your DH for standing up to her and not buckling under pressure.

I think you should let DSD go with DH to court on Monday, it will help if she's there to put her views across if they get the chance to.

What are you doing about the stuff DSD needs from her Mum's? (uniform, personal bits & bobs).

See how it goes on Monday, then you can decide about SS.

I hope you have a more peaceful day tomorrow.

I actually think that explaining all this to your dsd has put her in a very difficult position and that all the drama of recent events has clouded your judgement. I also think calling police and taking dsd request to stay in this knee jerk way has fed all this drama and angst and has put you all in a very tense and unfortunate position. There is every chance that your dsd will change her mind and then will change it back again and again. If you wanted to change the residency it should have been done in a calm measured way not on the back of this terrible situation. Good decisions don't come from this kind of situation.

Couldn't disagree more cansu the OP and her DH have handled it really well as far as many of us are concerned.

They didn't have much choice in that though, did they cansu?

They had to tell the dsd the truth. She then rang her mum herself. The ex then phoned ranting, so they called the police - which was reasonable considering what had gone before.

I do think dsd would do better for a few days away from all of it with her grandparents if it could be managed.

cansu, this is a thread on which the OP really needs support. Telling her that she's got it all wrong really isn't helpful or appropriate.

I'm kind of with Cansu, divorced parents need to work together....fact is though....is this ex wife able to do that?....clearly not at the moment. It's all very crappy, and I'm sure dsd feels very torn. It's not nice to find out that one parent isn't who or what you thought. I'm completely depressed that so many kids go though this....including mine. :(

Yes the situation isn't ideal, but despite the helpful suggestions up thread, a series of events have occurred today that have meant something else altogether has played out. And it was pretty much out of ops control. I think they have coped admirably with a total shitstorm.

At some point dsd will need to face her mum, and she absolutely shouldn't yo yo between houses, but for now, the dust needs to settle. I wish you lots of luck, op.

I fear for what the ex will tell DSD when they are next alone. Given her previous form, it could be absolutely anything, anything to get DSD to take her side against you. Somehow the child has to be protected against that as the trauma of going from hating her mum to hating her dad and the police being involved every few days is appalling.

I think if she could see her mum and have this out on neutral territory with a third party present (not DH's parents, is there anyone who could be seen as not biased in one way or another?) that might help, but fundamentally I think DSD has been backed into a corner - not by you, OP, I think your DH had to tell the truth, however unfortunate it is that there's no proof of what her mum said. But DSD can see the court order at least and know it hasn't been followed, and her grandpa has corroborated that some of the things her mother has told her were lies.

What a horribly distressing day for everyone. Much sympathy, OP.

pisses me off when the police say they can't get involved as contact is a civil matter.

the issue here is not that of contaxt, it's of intimidation and harassment! that's on bloody record. regardless of her reason for being there, the police were called to prevent a breach of the peace!

anyway, at least they told her to go back home.

if the DD wants to stay put, then that's where she should stay. to force her would risk her running away and leaving anyway. where she is tonight is safe, welcoming and home.

this situation has been years of 'divorced parent trying' but by the sounds of it, he's been the only one.

for whatever reason the ex has gone over the line and has done all she can to destroy her dd's relationship with her father. it's blown up in her face.