I am in a refuge, should I cut all contact with him, even my child?

[Awayfromhome]

I am in a refuge now with my toddler. However, my husband keeps texting me. I am not answering calls at all. I asked him if he wanted to send a video to our son he could do so, at the end of the day he is his father. He asked for videos back of our LO.

Now I don’t know if I am allowed to do this? And why I don’t mind to keep texting? I mean i don’t see it as a big deal, but is it a big deal?

I don’t hate my husband. I actually thing after things are sorted we can co-parent. Can this be done? And what happens if it doesn’t work? Is this trauma bond? The only way for divorce is through court?

I am feeling all the feelings. I am grieving. I miss my house so much! Not much him (or maybe him too, the food bits), but my home. My things.

Ugh, it is one of those days of guilt and regret.

I keep thinking that maybe I was too extreme. That maybe we could have sort out things differently. Which is not useful as things are done now and there is no way back.

[Marmalade]

Hi, Refuges may have rules to protect their locations so maybe any videos could not identify where you are staying. Perhaps you should check the rules with the staff. There may also be Refuge rules on child contact whilst you live there, so ask them.
As far as contact in general is concerned, lots of ladies on this forum co parent. You could perhaps get some legal advice on how to set this up safely once matters have settled as your child is young. You can also discuss a divorce and your financial rights. Solicitors sometimes offer a free first 30 minutes. Rights of Women also have useful legal information on their website. Their family law helplines tend to be busy but are very useful if you can get through. You also have a caseworker so can discuss matters with her.
If you cannot agree a contact arrangement then he could apply to the court for a contact order. Contact could be unsupervised or supervised, one option might be a Contact Centre. You will have to take advice on what is best for your son.
There are some cases where there is no contact with children, but these seem to be if older children express a strong view not to see their father or there has been serious abuse meaning a significant risk of serious harm to the child. Your solicitor can give you advice on the most appropriate way forward in your particular circumstances.
Going forward, minimising your direct contact with him is a good idea. If contact is ordered/agreed then one option is you might want to consider buying a cheap phone just for contact messages which you can switch off.
Good luck. Get advice on your particular situation.

[Awayfromhome]

Thank you marmalade.
I will try to get through next week on rights of women to get some advice.
The association referred me to social services as well, because I said that my son used to say “daddy scared me” when he had and outburst. The rest of the time they played and we’re happy.

I am a bit worried about that part. I don’t know how far this would go now that they are involved.

[Twisted Sister]

its like the expression ‘in the cold light of day’ isn’t it, the reality starts to settle in, after what must’ve been quite a surreal feeling, finally grabbing your stuff and going, and its good that the adrenalin that carried you through that will have started to subside and you are now looking around at the current issues.

these are still super early days for you both to be adjusting to this, and being very much now apart from him is more than a physical thing, you need to put those emotional and psychological boundaries in place to fully separate from his calls on you. Part of that is dropping daily communications, and setting boundaries to only discuss child arrangements and let him know that you will then get back to him in a timeframe that you set.

He may be fishing for your location in asking for videos and its a risk to the refuge and the other women for you to send videos of any part of it to someone else, especially an abusive man you had fled from.

Your child is a toddler so controlling the environment sufficiently to ensure safety would be impossible, an older child can sit against a blank wall and chatter, but toddlers, no.

As Marmalade has said, refer to the refuge guidance around child contact to ensure safety for yourself, your child, and all the other women/children there, as its so very easy to follow someone who’s picking up a child after contact, straight back to refuge.

I’d encourage you to start putting those psychological boundaries in place though, so you have days free of him or you could end up having him in your life even though you are apart. Make the break fully.

Its also incredibly easy to track a phone, so switch off your phone locaton settings, as pictures you send might also give him this information, as the location is contained in the properties detail of the picture for anyone to have a look at, and if he has any tech savvy at all he will know this, which could be why he is asking for this also.

Same if you use any SM that can pick up your location, like facebook and others.

Keep safe

warmest wishes

ts

[Awayfromhome]

Thank you @twistedsister

I have had a day when I felt terribly bad, as if I had made him look as the worst father. Even though I was just saying the truth. I do not believe he is evil. I do not hate him. I do not want to be back with him. I know he could be a good father to our LO. So now that even CSS are involved I am worried.

So far, he doesn’t know how far things are and that they are involved, but when he does I am sure he will hate me (and his family which I love) for life. Why do I care? I don’t know. It might be my people pleasing tendencies and wanted to be likeable to all. Shrug.

From the day I left my phone location has been off. I never activated them on on social media and if he sees a video of my son he is usually in a park, with just grass or trees as background. No phone calls and no video calls.

Hopefully I can get through rights of woman Monday

[Twisted Sister]

A father who scares is children, well, its not good is it? It doesn’t make him a good father.

Even your LO, so little says his father scares him! This is someone he’s scared of. He won’t only be scared of it during outbursts/escalations, that fear remains, inside, always there checking his behaviour to make sure he doesn’t put a foot out of line, adapt his behaviour to ‘plesae’, and not challenge, when it absolutely is a childs development tool, to challenge.

This man has scared you to the point you’ve had to leave quietly, and are scared of this coming out, that you will be hated.

We’re all here for you, to get strong against this, and if he hates it, then thats a predictable response and its one that we’ll all be so famiiar with. One to prepare for, to build your resiliance.

warmest wishes

ts

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