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Hello Everyone, best wishes to everyone on the forum. 🙂
My violent ex and I have two kids and a contact order. He has a new job which means he is cutting the contact in half. I have to accept this and have cut my work hours so I can look after them when he used to. When I was more timid I agreed in the court order to do two of the journeys per month for contact out of a total of 8. Now the amount and times of visitation has changed I want to stop doing this collection of the children. He now earns four times as much as me and I can’t afford the petrol (25 miles each way), especially as his unemployment until now meant he has not paid any maintenance for (detail removed by moderator) (he starts again soon thanks to CMS).
He sends me long emails going on about my obligations, how I am harming in the children by not agreeing, asking me to explain in detail my reasoning, trying to get me to go to mediation about it. He is very clever, very reasonable sounding, but what nobody understands except you ladies is that this is what he always did. Asks very reasonably for me to explain why I didn’t agree with him, and then spend hours taking down everything I said, demolishing it until I was so tired I just agreed. He says that now he is earning, his time is more valuable so I should do half the driving. That if I take it back to court I am harming the children. He’s been trying to get me into mediation, or shared therapy, for months and I won’t go. I know what he is like, I was with him for half my life. And again, what no-one but you would understand, part of me believes him and thinks I should just do what he says, even though it’s wrong. Because it makes me feel so tired. Even a year and a half on, with a wonderful new relationship and an independent life, the habits of half my life remain. I can’t sleep, I dread opening my email and I am close to tears all the time. The fear is all back again.
If I refuse to go collect the children the next time, as I have given him two weeks notice I won’t do, I don’t know how he will handle it. Keep them there? Refuse to come get them? I don’t want the children to be affected by this. They are in no physical danger with him, but what worries me most is the effect of this on them.
I don’t know what to do about it. 🙁
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Tough decisions. If you can’t afford the petrol because you have to cut your hours at work and he won’t listen, you may have to go back to court. Draft a budget of your income and outgoings which show that you can’t afford the petrol anymore.
As for mediation, this is from a court guide:
The court will require you to either have been to a mediation information and
assessment meeting (a MIAM), or to show why you do not have to go to a meeting,
before applying for a court order.The mediation here is about the child contact arrangements not about the relationship with your ex.
You may wish to contact CAFCASS to help you come up with something suitable.
I think that you can vary the court contact order but by going back to court if you can’t agree informally. If you are on benefits they waive the court fees and there may be some eligibility for legal aid.
Here is some useful links to the court forms and guides about seperation
http://formfinder.hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/c100-eng.pdf
https://formfinder.hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/cb007-eng.pdfThis is also a great website run by Coram Children’s legal Centre
Although you are in a new relationship, it does take some time to recover from DV/DA and most organisation recommend waiting two years before starting a new relationship as it can take one year to sort out pratical survival and another to start the long healing and recovery journey. If you have been to a women’s support group, maybe go back and ask for their suggestions and support dealing with the difficult contact.
I have a family member that moved three hours drive away from his family and job and where he grew up because his son takes priority. That’s what good fathers do, they take jobs and live somewhere close to their children to make things easier for their child. As they get older, your children can’t exactly see their father quickly if they want to. Then again abusers only think of themselves not their children.
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Hi Living on Coffee,
I do understand, because my ex was- and is- like this.
My ex has moved 20 miles away, and despite me having an ongoing court order for him not to contact me, he tried to get me to drop off the kids to him!
They are( or think they are ) very clever, and they think they can manipulate you into doing exactly what they want using weapons of guilt, fear and false obligation.
Remember: to them, life is a playground in which they enjoy seeing how far they can push people around and get away with it.
They know we are people with a conscience and compassion snd who they have made questioned ourselves, and post-separation they try to keep this going.
At the end of the day, this isn’t about you being a bad mum, upsetting the kids by saying no, or whatever rubbish he is throwing at you: it is about him not wanting to put himself out for anyone ( even his own children), not wanting to spend time and money in traffic, and wanting the feeling of power of making you do things for him,even though he was violent to you, and of having people come to him, like he is some kind of emporer.
You say you were more timid in court. That suggests that you are finding your feet and finding inner strength?
I’m going to make a suggestion: say no, take it back to court ( no, you don’t need to involve the kids, because you don’t need to share any information with them- it’s adult business) and ask to change the contact order. Explain that you aren’t in a financial position to do these journeys and explain how you are not yet receiving any money from him. Tell you hem you feelvulnereble due to the abuse, and need this formalised in court as you feel he will be abusivevif you try to feel with it directly with him.
And/ or phone the Child Maintenance Service today on 0844 850 8140 and inform them of his job, etc.
He’s taking advantage and still on a power trip.X
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PS your words ‘ the habits of half my life remain.’ That is so observant and a brilliant way of describing it- and shows you are very aware of your situation.
Break those habits. He is a bully. You don’t need to say yes. You can say no to him. It’s better to break out of this continued bullying than to live a life of continued imprisonment.
“Your change can happen. There’s patterns that need to break, doubts that need to be removed, and perspectives that need to beteshaped. Growth is possible when you fall in love with progression. Now go get your life back.”
“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”
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Thank you very much SaharaD and Serenity for your help, I really appreciate it.
He seems to be convinced that I am legally obliged to do half the driving for his visitation (lengthy email asking me not to use the word ‘visitation btw – it is apparently a negative term and I should use ‘time with the children’ instead of that word as it is offensive to him…) – I don’t know how I can convince him otherwise but then, I know if I try I’ll be sucked back into what he wants, which is lots of email contact and maybe mediation. He still scares me, he doesn’t think he is an abuser. Even after he was convicted of assault, he emailed me for an apology from me for driving him to violence. As we have kids I have to have contact with him, but each email takes more out of me than I can afford to lose. He is only going to have them twice a month (so little time is his own decision, it used to be more) and every other non-custodial parent I know of picks up and collects their children, unless they have been moved a very long way away.
A good lesson for me and anyone else – do *not* try and be kind to these people. I was trying to be kind when I agreed to do some of these journeys as he had so many to do, and so it was written into the court order. But now even though he has halved his visitation and is not having his contact as the court order states, he insists I keep to that one bit of the order. They take kindness as weakness, and I have regretted each and every step I have taken to be the bigger person, as each one has come back to bite me on the bum.
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