Mediation after coercion

[Stepuporstepaway]

So DP, who I don’t live with, has an exw who I think may be considered somewhat coercive.

Surprisingly after 5 years of uncooperative and controlling behaviour she has agreed mediation.

Can he expect to achieve anything from this?

If so what?

I would dearly like him to gain some power in his child and money arrangements as the control and counterparenting does affect me. It makes it very hard for me to be around his kids as blamelessly they are very challenging, makes it hard for us to plan joint lives together because I am scared of the exw targeting my assets, and impacts his mental health. But I also suspect this goes nowhere and perhaps makes everything worse.

What’s happened so far:

Exw has made a lot of unilateral decisions concerning the children. Where they attend school, whether or not they have therapy, what trips they go on and which dates. Has told them which secondaries they will be attending without agreement from DP.

Exw has used kids as pawns to manipulate DP into paying too much money.
They do 50/50 but exw still gets maintenance from when she had the kids more. Says if DP stops paying she’ll take the kids back. Says will give up work if necessary to keep him paying (I have seen this on email, phrased a bit less directly). They don’t have much of an income differential and exw via inheritance has no mortgage.

Counter parenting: DP does meals at table, bedtimes, behavior rewards, screen limits. Exw does unlimited screens and sweets and no bedtime. I know this because when kids - 9 and 11 - are told no by DP they ring mum and ask to go back to hers to get x thing and she says of course that’s fine. She then says get DP to drive you over. He usually refuses and then they tantrum at him. Everything seems to be set up to undermine and control him.

My question though is does any of this change via mediation?

DP ever the optimist reckons mediation will solve it all. He’ll get a clear parenting agreement, the kids will become easier, this will all be much easier for me to deal with, we can spend more time together, we can marry and buy a nice big house together and host his kids there with own rooms and give them a family life, without exw somehow destroying it.

Honestly I fear the mediation will be used by exw to maintain power money and control. I think people show you who they are and never change.

Anyone have any experience of any more positive outcome?

It’s probably not going to work to be honest as it relies on cooperation. No real harm in trying though.
It sounds really shit, OP. If the kids were younger he’d have more ability to change things I think. But at 11 and 9 and with the means of calling their mum whenever they are told no, it will be really hard.
He should stop paying the maintenance and threaten to take her to court if she reduces contact.
With the differences in parenting though, it’s hard. The thing is no matter how strict he is, she lets them have screen time and sweets so they will never be children who don’t have screen time and sweets IYSWIM. So he needs to pick his battles a bit, at least until he can build up trust.

If I were him OP, I’d try mediation and then court to get the 50/50 recorded in a formal court order. If there’s an agreement in mediation this can be drawn up into a consent order and lodged at court for a small fee. Once you have that, the 50/50 is formalised and only then stop paying the maintenance. Then she can’t reduce the contact time without being in breach of a court order.

why can’t you buy a house and get married now? What does the ex have to do with that?

Also look at stuff on parallel parenting as opposed to co-parenting and material on co-parenting with a narcissist (she might not be one but the material is helpful nonetheless).

I have some experience of this stuff professionally but also my DP’s ex is a nightmare in many ways and the only thing that works is zero engagement, grey-rocking, communication only in writing and replies purely factual and never rising to the bait, full set of everything at both houses so no need to take stuff back and forth and involving the school to ensure you’re kept in the loop with everything. Never bad mouth her to kids, stay calm and reasonable and try to space contact with as few physical handovers as possible (week on, week off Friday to Friday so only direct contact between parents is on school holidays). She fucking hates it and tries to push the boundaries by inventing reasons to contact/pick things up from his but gets “ok noted” or “ok, will put it on the doorstep” in response and he doesn’t answer the door to her. It does work though.

His exw can't target your assets? Where have you got that from?

It sounds like he hasn't had legal advice, he could have gone down the mediation/family court route long ago.

Mediation will result in an agreement that both parties stick to, based on goodwill that they'll do what they said they'll do.

Took about 3 weeks for my ex to renege on what he said he'd do.

If XW has been like this for a while, meditation is unlikely to make her a reasonable human being. Sorry.

Yes also true. Has he got a financial settlement for his divorce? If not and nothing is recorded in a court order about the finances, he needs to do that asap. Loads of people don’t do this and it leaves them vulnerable to future claims from the ex. She can’t directly target your assets but if you bought a house with your DP, then his share of that would be part of the pool of assets for division. Once the financial claims are dealt with, she has zero claim against his assets ever again. And she can never target your assets full stop.

Thanks @Startinganew32 for your kind and detailed responses.

Seemingly similar situations. We’ve had all the same boundary smashing and visitation interference. Since DP invited exw to mediation it has got worse. He goes grey rock well tho.

Does your DP have 50-50 and also live with you?

How does he secure this parenting plan so it isn’t breached or undermined?

Realistically I think DP can get the 50-50 consent order and end the maintenance at that point. He should expect parallel parenting instead of trying to use mediation for same rules at both houses.

I don’t feel safe moving in with DP because I think it would enrage exw. I expect that if we combined our assets and incomes and child weekends the kids would have a lovely life in a big home when with us.

I would not expect the exw to accept the disparity. I think it would lead to more extreme counter parenting. The contact order would be breached via the children being coerced and manipulated into ‘not wanting’ to come to the ‘strict’ house. Maintenance would be applied for again. More years of pain.

Perhaps there’s a way to pre-empt that?

They did family court. He got 50-50 then exw won relocation order so went to 70/30 and he had to pay maintenance. He then was told he could have 50/50 if he relocated. So he’s now trying to formalise that to vary/end the maintenance. He did nothing for 2 years which was the mistake. Exw has got used to enjoying the extra money. He can’t afford it as to do 50-50 he needs a nanny.

My DP has them 50/50 one week on, one week off. Similar ages to yours. I live with him but I do still have my own flat which is not rented out so I can go there if I need to and sometimes I do so he gets one on one time with DC. I don’t have my own DC. We haven’t blended our finances or bought together and personally I wouldn’t want to do this as we don’t need to and I want him to be able to leave everything to his DC.

It is so hard when you have someone trying to undermine everything you do. You are 100% right that you will not get an agreement on parenting practices and there is zero point in even trying. My DP has very different rules to his ex just like yours does. He also has screen limits and bedtimes, she does not. She does so many things where we think yikes but it’s just not worth it - she won’t change and it’s not at the level where social services would care. So we accept that we can’t control that. We do say to the kids that the rules are different at this house than her house and they seem to accept it. We have never let them phone their mum (other than a scheduled FaceTime call) but I fear that in a year or so the eldest will be wanting a mobile phone so it might start happening then.

One thing is that ours do increasingly see the issues in their mums parenting - for instance she lies to them all the time and they know that they can’t trust what she says to them. So I don’t think they would want to live with her full time but I am fully aware that this might change once they realise that they can get away with more there. At the same time, she also treats them like babies (doesn’t think they can think for themselves or make decisions) so I don’t think they will like that as they get older.

We do find that threatening her with court is the most effective thing so if you can get a court order it would be good. These sorts of people only respond to legal threats I’m afraid. They can’t be reasoned with.

I thought in the UK after a year you can stop paying court ordered and go to CMS and up to the receiver to take it back to court to reinstate it.

At which point the financial situation etc are reviewed, it's a new maintenance agreement not an enforcement of the prior one.

Also once he has the 50/50 order she can’t just change it except by going back to court and arguing that the circumstances have changed. Courts aren’t keen on changing a good working arrangement so she will struggle to do so unless the kids are much older and can vote with their feet.

So if you do want to move in or buy somewhere I would and not let her stop you but equally you could wait six years or so when it’s really none of her fucking business.

And while some kids will definitely always pick the house with fewer rules, my DSC are quite academic and their mum actively discourages them doing well at school (because she didn’t and she doesn’t want her kids doing better than her- seriously). So I think they actually secretly like the structure and rules and getting help with their homework and praise when they have done well on their homework or on a test. Even if they moan about having to go to bed.

This isn’t court ordered maintenance- it’s the fact that the ex has threatened to reduce contact if he stops paying what he agreed to pay when it wasn’t 50/50. That’s what i understood anyway.

I’ve been in the same situation as you and it doesn’t get any better. We’re 8 years in and I’ve spent these years taking my step daughter to a school that is 7 miles away despite all of my children going to a local school.
we all live in the same area btw, no need for a school so far.
exw has told stepdaughter she can go to whatever high school she wants so they have applied for one further away than her primary and put her grandparents address as their own so she gets accepted.
stepson moved out last year at 17 due to not being able to do whatever he wanted like he could at his mums.
I would seriously consider whether you want this to be your life as its hard and does sometimes makes you resentful towards partner and his children xx

Can you explain exactly what you think she is trying to coerce? Is it the money?

In terms of parenting it sounds like they have different ways of this and it is something both will have to accept as no control over how each other parents in their time.

In terms of the money, does he have 50/50 at the moment or is it still 70/30?

If it's 50/50 and he's still paying, does he pay for half of all their costs? Like school uniform, meals, clubs etc etc. because even with 50/50 some maintenance can still be due unless the child's costs are all split exactly. It does very often end up with 50/50 that one parent is still the default and ends up paying for those things.

He should have really just got a child arrangement order years ago, maybe went to CMS and let them decide if any maintenance is due. FWIW I have 50/50 with ex husband and CMS still awarded me some maintenance.

I'm not sure if mediation really works if the relationship between parents is not great (sounds like it's not). Any agreement drawn up in mediation isn't legally binding, so it needs commitment from both sides to stick to it. He might be better with a CAO.

Why was his ex allowed to move away with the children? This sounds unusual x

@lily266

It was a global order predicated on ex not working at the time. Once the money was being paid she offered 50-50 and returned to full time work. DP didn’t formalise anything and exw says if he stops paying she takes the kids back so he has to keep paying anyway. That’s the coercion.

Maintenance paid is not being spent on the kids. When the kids need new uniforms or football kit etc exw just doesn’t buy it. It gets to crunch time and DP gives in and buys it.

Ifeel like I’ve spent far too much time trying to work this one out. I have a nice child and a nice home and a boyfriend and that’s more than most. DP is having a hard time but it’s his circus. I think I’m best off staying detached from it all really as if I try and live with DP and build the home he wants for us and his kids I’d expect just years of pain. I mean logically he could move in with me and would have enough money for private schools if he dropped the maintenance also. That would be child focused. Exw won’t even discuss secondary schools on the basis she has already chosen them. Seems you’re in this life already @Em94 so I appreciate the warning.

With DP’s exw the interference has got much worse now the oldest has a phone. He texts her the moment DP applies a screen time limit and is invited back. DP does say he’s not doing extra driving tho and usually mum won’t take care of transport (she’s a day drinker) so DP then has a tantrum to deal with. It’s all so unnecessary.

I agree this is probably what’s going to happen

If it's global maintenance, that's both spousal and child maintenance?

If it was ordered on the basis of the exw not working, and she now does, why did he not take it back to court?

If she threatened to take the kids back if he changed it- well why did he not go to court to get a CAO for his time with the children?

That would have solved a lot of the problems ages ago.

I agree it's his circus and his monkeys, but difficult when you are in a relationship with him and you feel it's affecting you.

I'm not following why he would want 50/50 if to achieve that he'd need a nanny? Is that in the children's interests rather than a parent?

He’ll be taking it back to court if it can’t be resolved in mediation.

Exw knows he can’t stop paying until order is varied so is doing best to delay and string out mediation sessions. Now claims he’s chosen the wrong mediator and she wants a different one. She knows it’s ending and is just trying to get more months’ worth in the bank.

But completely agree he should have started this years ago. The money aspect doesn’t concern me but the lack of CAO does. It enables exw to monkey around with our time.

I think he just needs to take it to court OP? Mediation can't vary a court order?

Apparently you need to show a court you tried mediation first?

That's for a child arrangements order.

Mediation can't vary an already existing court order re the finances.

She may agree in mediation to accept a lesser amount but it wouldn't be legally binding.

If she is messing about with mediation and changing appointments etc they should just be able to stamp the document without it and he can go to court.

Mediators are good at getting people to understand why some behaviors aren't child centric. However they do not like it to be mud slinging they like it to be 'tell us what you want... now you tell us do you agree to that' if there is a disagreement they will bring it back to the child

But they will also emphasize my house my rules unless welfare risk