Need advice/rant

[wheresthel1ght]

We have always had issues with DP's exw not communicating and not involving him in decisions but lately they seem to be getting worse and we are not sure the best way to move forward so hoping for some advice/tips.

Some brief examples include;
Agreeing to a £1600 skiing trip for DSS and then expecting us to pay up without ever discussing if we could afford it - we couldn't and she went mental and threatened to remove contact.

Agreeing to DSD's school trip without discussing it but expecting us to pay for it (£140 but the principal is the issue)

Never passes info on re parents evening etc

Applying for DSS and then DSD's high school places without ever discussing it with DP

She has signed DSS up for DofE through school and agreed for him to go on the camping expedition on DP's contact weekend without checking we didn't have plans- luckily we don't, but potentially he would have had to miss out on something

She has announced this afternoon that as part of the DofE thing he is on a practice camp next weekend and hasn't bothered to do any of the equipment prep so has demanded we buy him everything - text says something along the lines of 'forgot and now no time for me to sort, you will have to'

She has massive form for trying to cut DP out of the kids lives by refusing contact if he doesn't ask how high the second she demands. DP goes along as best he can because he hates confrontation and he doesn't want to risk losing his kids, but he has got the point enough is enough.

Is there anyway to deal with this that doesn't turn nasty?

The kids are brill and none of this is their fault. But they are suffering because their mum refuses to co-parent.

FWIW before anyone bashes DP - she left him for someone else. He pays double the CSA recommended amount, has the kids virtually 50/50, is involved in as much as he can be - school only allows one phone number and won't post/email letters. so we can't get info from them direct

Quite simply he tells the school "I have PR for these children. Their mother does not send communication to me. I am legally entitled to receive that communication direct from you therefore please facilitate that starting Monday or I will take you to court" Complain to the LEA as well.

Same with contact. Of course a Child Arrangements order can be enforced. That's seriously poor advice if he was told that.

Swing - we do communicate with the kids and just get drugs and "dunno" or you absolute favourite - silence. I have lost it with dss today and told him I am not wasting anymore time on it, he either starts taking responsibility and do ING us if he needs stuff / has an event on or it does not get facilitated

The kids are near 14 and 11.5 I wish it was as simple as just arranging directly with them. We have tried and then she starts ranting that everything needs to go through her, they are kids, cannot be expected to make decisions etc etc. I long for the days they have left home and we can stop this ridiculous dance.

We will revisit the solicitor legal advice so thank you for the info.

Shrugs not drugs sorry

Does your DP actually have a contact order in place at present? sorry if I'm not understanding clearly

User - there is a written agreement from their mediation that was ratified by the court along with the financial of their divorce. I am not sure if it is worded as a contact order or agreement to be honest. I would have to check the paperwork.

In the nicest possible way, HE needs to be checking, not you.

OP I believe you. My DHs ex wife is an absolute petty twisted cunt and has made his life difficult for years. And now because one DSC has chosen to live with us she has completely cut off all contact and refuses to have a relationship with her child. Well not quite all contact - pops up every now and again sending messages via other people's social media which range from nasty and slagging us off, to saying how much she misses and loves her 'baby' and that it kills her every day but she isn't a weekend mum. She's a fucking horror bag

@mrsc that is awful. How could any mum disown their own child!

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I think she is scared that the kids will choose to live here rather than with her. They have a very different life with us to hers and I am far stricter so I don't think she needs to be too worried.

Funnily enough OP me and my DH are much stricter than the ex wife. However she'd absolutely lose her shit with the kids over petty things and then say it was because me and DH had pissed her off (by not bowing to her ridiculous demands)
She even once told the children that we didn't love them because I had a problem in early pregnancy and we had to delay picking them up due to me being checked over. Apparently if we already had another kid (my first pregnancy) we wouldn't have just been able to fuck that one off 🙄

OP don't rush to court, don't involve the kids by making them arrange their own contact. Ride it out. Give the kids as much love and support as you can and (if you can) don't rock the boat. Time will pass.
Honestly my DPs ex is terrifying and, I'm glad I didn't follow the advice i was handed out by people who had no idea of the complexities of the situation.

@mrsc31 wow that is mean. I don't get why some parents feel that hurting their kids is OK!

Dp's ex used to be OK for the most part. I thought me getting pregnant (huge surprise, contraception failure and minor medical miracle) would have been the trigger but she was great all through my pregnancy. I had hg and other complications and she was brilliant. Lent me books, chatted to me about her experiences. Then I had dd and it all changed. She booked a holiday for my due date & took the kids which we thought was her way of helping so we didn't not have to worry about what we would do with them if I went into labour at a ridiculous hour. However she has used it as a stick to beat Dp a with ever since. I have no idea what happened that fortnight but it was like a switch was flipped and she went from being lovely to as difficult and horrid as she could be. Dd was 3 weeks old before she met them m, I think she hoped that having her about would cause the kids to reduce contact so she could blame him. It backfired because they adored her from the second they saw her. Dss is really squeamish and yet he changed her nappies, mopped up sick, fed her. Dsd loved feeding her and helping to do nappies (she couldn't quite get the hang of it when dd was tiny).

I wish it was different. Dp hates the idea of having to threaten court, he knows she will see it that he is bullying her rather than her behaviour driving it. The fall out will be horrific and he doesn't want that for the kids. He has a stupidly romantic ideal of us all getting along and having a wonderful co-parenting relationship with her. I am not sure he is ready to admit that won't happen & she isn't going to play nice. .

Does anyone know if a court would even grant a contact order when the kids are this age?

Swing - we do communicate with the kids and just get drugs and "dunno" or you absolute favourite - silence.
Sounds like normal teenage behaviour that your OH needs to work through just like resident parents have to.

I am constantly pestering my kids for info because it doesn't come freely, and I don't know how it is with your SC's school, but my experience is that you do get very little information directly from them. When we do, it's via email, and any parent can ask to be added to the distribution list.

When DD was in year 10, we were not informed that they were going to do their English Literature GCSE that year! My kids are used to be pestering them for info and telling them off when they don't share it. It's part of being a parent.

Maybe your OH needs to take this on himself rather than relying on his ex. Maybe that's the reason why he gets little from her, because she thinks the same.

I would speak to the children and tell them in an age appropriate way that there mother is threatening to withhold contact if you do not do certain things. Explain why you cannot do these things, tell the DC you want them to come but that if mother doesn't allow it then it's out of your hands.

If she wants to go to war - let her - with herself. Stupid unintelligent woman.

Tell the kids the other option is court and you don't want to put them through it.

Kids realise eventually who the bitter parent is.

I do think that it's bizarre that you can't get info from the school. I would pursue this with th school governors or the local council. Legal advice not necessary.

Absolutely outrageous that a young girl was left without a bra for months.

It's so easy for people to blame the non resident parent when they have no idea how bad these spiteful exes can get. Seriously my DH wasn't even allowed to see school reports and was threatened with never seeing his kids again if he contacted the school. She's told anyone who'll listen he was violent, a druggie, even violent towards his own kids (yet they came every weekend) and none of her idiotic fucking moron friends and family ever argued with her about it except one of them!

It's so easy for people to blame the non resident parent when they have no idea how bad these spiteful exes can get. Seriously my DH wasn't even allowed to see school reports and was threatened with never seeing his kids again if he contacted the school. She's told anyone who'll listen he was violent, a druggie, even violent towards his own kids (yet they came every weekend) and none of her idiotic fucking moron friends and family ever argued with her about it except one of them

Yep!

My oh ex tells people oh is violent, cheated on her with me etc none if which is true and actually she assaulted him in the street so if anyone's violent it's her.

Ss now lives with her because he can't handle her shouting and buggering off out on the piss all the time. She has him two nights a week when she Can be arsed.

But on fb and to all her friends she is super perfect number one mummy who's had her baby taken off her, and she loves him and spoils him.

The reality is he came here with ruined school uniform (which we bought in the first place) barely any non school clothes or underwear, and she hasn't paid a penny in maintenance in three months.

But her friends, family even oh mum and dad believe every word she says

Op I would be firmer with school they have a responsibility to keep you in the loop. Go to the lea if you have to.

I would point blank tell ex that maintenance covers everything, no extras. Obviously buy things directly for the kids that they need, like clothes for your house, shoes, bras whatever. But no school trips, holidays, tat.

I would also try communicate with the kids and ignore the ex as much as you can. Answer questions but bluntly do not encourage conversation or arguments etc.

I haven't read the whole thread but out of the 4 schools that DSD has attended we only had one that was crap about sending out two sets of info and the head was staunch feminist who frankly, hated men. We had to get a solicitor's letter sent to her to remind her of her legal obligations to include anyone with PR in any correspondence (this was a few years ago but I would imagine the law hasn't changed).
She begrudgingly did after this.

Our current schools sends out 3 of every email - to Mum, DH and me.

She can't block him from Open Evenings - go to court over that one. Would a talking to from a judge help with the constant threats? Can you call her bluff?

And as for the ski trip, I really don't consider that educational either! DSD is going on something similar this summer, we're paying and told her it was her bday present.

It really comes down to the right balance. If DSS is doing DoE, he is at least 14 or 15. It is ludicrous that it should still be expected of his mum to communicate everything about him. Surely he mentioned he was doing DoE and surely, this should have prompted the question of when he was going away on week-ends and telling him he needed to inform you.

I expect the school is not being more cooperative for that same reason, at 15, a teenager should be reliable enough to share this level of information and if they aren't, then it's between the parent and the child.

As for threats to stop contact, surely his is to be laughed at as the kids -at least the eldest- is at an age that I doubt he would listen to his mum saying he can't go to see his dad if he really wanted to.

In regards to the ski trip, again, I would have expected your dss to tell you about it and for you to discuss with him why you couldn't afford it in addition to the maintenance being paid, in which case, it became up to his mum whether to use some of the maintenance towards it.

I really do think you are expecting too much from her in terms of communication. If my ex was constantly asking me for every single detail when he could ask the kids directly, I would have long told him to get lost, as my life doesn't revolve around his need for information when he is as capable as I am to find that information out for himself.

I really do think you are expecting too much from her in terms of communication. If my ex was constantly asking me for every single detail when he could ask the kids directly, I would have long told him to get lost, as my life doesn't revolve around his need for information when he is as capable as I am to find that information out for himself.

Mmm I disagree with this entirely. As much as I do not like the frequency of texts my oh gets from his ex, I understand some of them not the ones asking for more cash or slagging me off.

The thing is with teenagers is that sometimes they don't talk a lot, and they don't tell you things they don't want you to know, and they don't tell you things they're not interested in etc etc. I do think as a parent of a teenager - one who is still at school anyway - you have responsibility to communicate with the other parent. This should include school calendar, progress at school, (though this preferably should come directly from school but it can be a problem like in this situation) behaviour etc.

I think communication is key and when you don't have it, or its bad, it can really make things worse. It helps with consistency.

I really don't understand why people have such a massive issue with communicating with their ex just because 'he is as capable as I am to find it out himself' just answer the frigging question and have done.

I think lack of communication can be the cause of so many issues and be,ive me I have probably experienced most of them.

The thing is with teenagers is that sometimes they don't talk a lot, and they don't tell you things they don't want you to know, and they don't tell you things they're not interested in etc etc.

And that's why as parents, we 'nag'! Why should it be only the job of the pwc to do so, which clearly is not a pleasant job, whilst the nrp just expect the pwc to share everything they managed to extract from non communicative teenagers?

OP says that the kids are with them almost half of the time, so why is it more the pwc responsibility to find out about what is happening?
OP's OH is in a position to demand from the school to receive the same communication than the pwc. That's his responsibility, and he then is in the same position to try to extract anything else from the kids just like the pwc is. Or maybe the issue is that they don't have the same level of relationship with the kids than they have with their mum, so not as opened to communication. If that's the case, again, it's his role to change this.

I hate communicating with my ex because somehow -just like when we were still together-, everything I said/did/didn't say/didn't do was critisized and everything was my fault, so I made sure to stop doing so as soon as I deemed that he could ask the kids directly. That has worked so much better for all of us.

I never said it was just one parents responsibility but logic dictates If you know something just say it whether your ex is a twat or not. It's not about your ex and how much you dislike them it's in the interest of your child surely?

I think oh ex is a total arse hole and honestly I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire but I still have to communicate with her and so does dp.

Sorry what does pwc mean?

Swing - I wish to God it was a shame straight forward as you seem to think it should be. The more you push my dscs the more they shut down. I have no idea why but it has always been like this. The school point blank refuse to send info to more than 1 parent. They have stated on a number of occasions that their system will only cope with 1 number/email and their policy is the primary contact for the child only. He will be contacting them today to try as has been suggested here although I am. Not sure threatening legal action will get us any further. But he is going to explain that communication has broken down with ex and dss seems to know nothing about these events so we have to be informed directly.

Dp is not shit, he does not criticise her, slag her off and he kisses her arse to keep the peace. Often prioritising her ridiculous demands over everything and everyone. If he is guilty of anything it is being too nice.

The latest development seems to be that she is worried her maintenance will be cut. As I say we pay double the guidelines as well as 50% off education trips and 100% of uniform and shoe costs. I was made redundant recently with no notice and after I said to Dp last night to email her and tell her that her maintenance work to change there has been a sudden influx of texts /emails with relevant info regarding dsd sats, dates for dss etc.

I give up!

The more you push my dscs the more they shut down. I have no idea why but it has always been like this.
But how is that the problem, let alone the fault of their mum (pwc: parent with care)? My DD is quite good at informing her dad, DS not so good. When he fails to inform him of things he feels he should be told, he tells him off and rightly so.

I really think that your husband's priority should be to build better communication with his kids rather than relying on his ex and try to understand why they shut down. Could it be that they feel that he will be negative with the information shared, school reports for instance?

The more demanding and unreasonable she is, the better to try to avoid contact as much as possible.

Swing it isn't just us they shut down with. Same with school, mum, step dad, grandparents etc.

Anyways we may have had a mini break through.

Whilst she refused to let them a
Stay over tonight as per agreement, she did allow me to take dsd out to a youth group thing she has been desperate to join. And when my car got a blow out and I couldn't reach Dp she and her Dp came to my rescue. I text her as Dp did as you all said and called her bluff and went to the school meeting for thing tonight. When I couldn't raise him I wondered if it was still on so text her to Skype as dsd doesn't know their home phone number. Turn s out it had finished and she was home so she dragged her Dp out to change my wheel for me.

Luckily we were only 1/4 mile from our House so I sent dsd up to see if her dad was home as the signal Al can be crap. She found him and dragged him out. But it was lovely of her to offer to help me. So may it has been her worrying about money? And now she knows we are the planning to alter anything on that she is ready to play nice again