Am I being wrong denying my ex-husband access to his son?

SuziQ

I think you have had loads of good advice on here. You cannot dictate about contact with his girlfriend though. I went through all this with my second husband when I was the 'girlfriend' and his ex was told by the psychologist he approached,the cafcas officer and the court that she had no right or reason to 'vet' the childrens fathers partner-as the father of the child he has as much right to decide who has contact as you do. If you have genuine concerns then you need to take matters through the formal route to stop contact.In those situations the courts often advise contact in a contact centre for a while,observed by social workers.

These situations are lose:lose all round, I still shudder when I think of the hoops we were made to jump through so that my ex could see his kids,and believe me the children are ALWAYS better off if they know they are loved by both parents. That throws the responsibility onto your ex to prove he is fit and commited-if he fails to show that,then you need to take legal advice as already stated.

dolly25_2

Thank you all for your comments. Some of them were a little hard to read as I do understand certain comments about my ex having the right to decide who should be around our son- as I do. Sometimes I do think that I am being unreasonable but I just love my ds so much and only want to do the right thing for him.

It is also hard for me because in the past my ex has threatened to "drop me" and "smash my skull" unless I introduce any new bf's to him before our ds. Suddenly the goalposts have moved and this is the 2nd gf that he has introduced to our son before me.

He says that due to work (he is at sea) he can't have him for 3 weeks now. Maybe I will have to let him see him and just accept that even though he may pick him up alone, then this woman may just meet them later. Afterall, they are both going away for 8 months in November (she's a wren on the same ship as him). I just feel sorry for the poor girl, she doesn't know what she's let herself in for lol!!

pink_princess

dolly what you say is true its very hard to take ,another woman around our children and when they come home raving about them it puts a knife through your heart ,but its what we do as mums for our children.
I went through similar years ago and im so glad i just cried at nights and put a brave face on to my girls during the day .What ever you do don t critise your ex no matter how hard ,my girls are 14 and 12 now and have unfortunatley lost their dad .Im so glad i never said any of the things i was feeling .They now tell me that they knew he was a drinker and unsuitable parent .They still don t think that i thought this of him (i do think they know really) .Just come on here and vent when you need to ,its hard when your alone and you think some other woman is in your child s life ,but believe me she wont mean a patch on you to him.
This is also from the other side i have custody of my step son and he idolises him mum.(so he should, she let him live here cause he s a daddy s boy and it kills her .see we have it lucky) .Good luck and keep posting when you need to,there s lots of people to help HTH

I,M_SAD

I do sympathise,my ds aged 3 yrs is with his dad at moment,he has not seen him since he was a baby.I am picking him up tomorrow:jphew!!Ex also insisted we drive halfway,it,s a 6 hr round trip for us both.I have gone through all the fears of new girlfriends in my head,but in the end I stopped fighting my fears.I can,t dictate to my ex and I hope he is sensible enough to be with someone nice,in all fairness I think he does have a nice girlfriend.Ex has needed some help with ds,so it will be nicer for my ds if his dad not too stressed. In fact more I laid back, easier it got for him too,we have also squabbled about csa.

I am not sure whether contact will be a regular thing,I am just so glad I have done it though.I think ex has had a shock how energetic ds is and how long he goes for:rolleyes:

I no ex was mortified when ds had a massive tantrum today and I could hear ex was very upset and I reassured him ds has them with me all the time,it,s not personal,he,s 3 yrs old!!Ex was suprised at that and we have talked alot today,honestly and openly,I had told him I would be a phone call away day or night just think he was too proud to contact me about real issues and fears.
I have done a lot of thinking lately and it was my middle ds 16 yrs old who captured the points I had been so missing with contact.He said "Mum,don,t count the number of traffic lights you have to go through on your journey and see if ex is going through same amount,it,s petty and it,s not the issue here".
He wasn,t far wrong there,I had become bogged down with petty issues,this,that,but,well,then,and .....come on I was missing the bigger picture.You have to give a bit to get anything back and I wasn,t giving an inch,I was on my high horse stuck in past playing out same old grievances,it got boring and it was,nt helping my ds.

I won,t pretend contact will go swimmingly with ex,I think we still have some mountains to climb,but when we met despite my fears and his,I sent an email,saying whatever had happened in past ,we would meet,have tea,and be lovely to each other for ds,s sake,prior to journey and I meant it,I also think it reassured ex there would be no trauma,no angst,no anxiety other than normal worries when meeting a little boy.His journey was far harder than mine in a way,I know my ds,he did,nt.

I have been pretty catatonic since Tuesday when I dropped ds off,don,t get me wrong,I cried constantly and I mean constantly for 2 days,I was distraught,not just with anxiety I was so worried my ds would think his mama had disappeared ,But we have done twice daily phone calls and ex has always allowed me to speak to ds,in fact he has txd me a lot telling me what they are doing.I do think they had a problem today,but one thing I no for sure now I never had the monopoly on caring for ds.It was obvious ex cared a great deal.I think I am in for a few rough days when ds back home,but the harder you make it the harder it will be.I am not telling you what to do,it,s been a long,painful journey for me to get this far,I have sought advice many times and in the end I just had to make a decision and stick to it and be nice.:rolleyes:When I read the child support thread,it does make me see there are people on there who regularly criticise the parents with care,want to avoid paying csa,avoid responsibility of having children.Your ex may be no saint but be nice,be supportive,be ok with your little man,encourage him to love his dad,he wants to see him,let him for all your sakes.Us parents at home take a lot of flack, but not being with my ds for last few days has made me see I could,nt do role of absent parent,it must be so lonely,so scary,so awfulI have learnt a valuable lesson,hence me still awake at this time because I am waiting to see my ds,I literally can,t wait,but I will never be so flippant again with ex,he thinks I am out having a ball when in reality I hav,nt left house in case I miss a call,a tx.I won,t correct him as he will think I am a nutter,don,t want him knowing the extent of my upset because it will upset him,when parents separate neither one can have child/children all the time,it,s life,it,s hard and it,s not nice but we have to do it because as much as my I have missed ds,not slept,almost freaked out many times with longing for my ds,his dad has offered him things I simply can,t,a dad.Take care.

pink_princess

I m sad what a great post you really summed up the heart rench of being a rp .
I m so glad your child has come first ,it is hard but we do it for our children .
Be confident in the thought your doing the right thing .Mine are nearly teenagers now and tell me how pleased they are that me and their dad got on .Even though we didn t really .
OP please see what people are saying it is so hard to step back in the short term but long term it ensures your strong bond with your child.X

rampies_wife

I have just read your post I'm Sad and i would like to say what a fantastic mother you must be.It takes a special kind of woman to put your feelings aside and do what is right for DS.I had much the same situation only i had to send DS round the world to Auz once a year at 4.He is now 18 and his father and i are the best of friends bound together by the love of our son.We are both remarried now,both with daughters with our new spouses but have managed to come through those early years of pain hurt and point scoring to produce an extended family that we are both extremley proud of.
I assure you things will get easier for you time is a great healer,and there will be times as your ds waves you goodbye,as he leaves with his dad that you will be glad you stuck it out.

dolly25_2

As hard as it may be to admit maybe I have been a little rash on one or two occasions. I can identify with one poster who said that they were "stuck on their high horse" as it is possible that that's what I'm doing right now. I'm really stubborn though and my ex is so cruel and mean to me all the time that sometimes I feel that I've backed myself into a corner by saying that he can't see his son without his gf being present and now I can't get out of that corner. After all how am I to know if she's even there until after the visit? If you all had the bad luck to know this man though you'd know how sneaky this man was. For example, when he was seeing his "1st" gf, he took ds on a picnic and insisted she wasn't there.DS came back insisting she was but told me tearfully that daddy had told him not to tell me as he'd be very angry if he did. I only found out for certain 6 months later when I got on this girls facebook site and found her discussing it with her friend.

Back to the point, does it make me such a bad person/parent if I justwant the best for my son? I also have my mum breathing down my neck saying that I should not let im have contact.Perhaps that is colouring my judgement. For a good part of these last 3 months my ex has made no contact with ds. Not one single phone call to him for the first 2 months. It's only recently that he's become more forceful in wanting to see him. When he asks to see him in 3 weeks, Im starting to think now after considering all your posts that I may just have to bite the bullet and let the visit go ahead- even though it will probably kill me.

Incisor

dolly25 wrote: »

As hard as it may be to admit maybe I have been a little rash on one or two occasions. I can identify with one poster who said that they were "stuck on their high horse" as it is possible that that's what I'm doing right now. I'm really stubborn though and my ex is so cruel and mean to me all the time that sometimes I feel that I've backed myself into a corner by saying that he can't see his son without his gf being present and now I can't get out of that corner. After all how am I to know if she's even there until after the visit? If you all had the bad luck to know this man though you'd know how sneaky this man was. For example, when he was seeing his "1st" gf, he took ds on a picnic and insisted she wasn't there.DS came back insisting she was but told me tearfully that daddy had told him not to tell me as he'd be very angry if he did. I only found out for certain 6 months later when I got on this girls facebook site and found her discussing it with her friend.

Please don't go there. There is no need. You can't control your ex

Back to the point, does it make me such a bad person/parent if I justwant the best for my son? I also have my mum breathing down my neck saying that I should not let im have contact.Perhaps that is colouring my judgement. For a good part of these last 3 months my ex has made no contact with ds. Not one single phone call to him for the first 2 months. It's only recently that he's become more forceful in wanting to see him. When he asks to see him in 3 weeks, Im starting to think now after considering all your posts that I may just have to bite the bullet and let the visit go ahead- even though it will probably kill me.

Looking through the threads, it looks like the best outcomes are when pwc manges to chill about the whole thing. Talk of 'smashing skulls' from your ex does not help, but it feels to me like you are trying to retain some control over him as an unintended consequence. Let it go.

I,M_SAD

Well,off to pick my ds up,I just hope I don,t get lost and take 9hrs to get back home again!!:oI was singing that song "I drove all night"over and over,slept in lorry park in me KA,for an hour,police approached me saw the state of me,2am as in cried so much my face was swollen,had a bottle of wine on passenger seat I was going to drink when I got home and I had to reassure them I was,nt suicidal!!!:o:rotfl:.

Policeman sat with me for an hour:o, while I cried and snotted and laughed, he wrote out all directions for me and took me to the right main road,:rotfl:I got home at 6am in mane:rotfl:Bought a sat nav now!!

I would still do it again though because I am finally doing the right thing,and the relief was pretty enormous.I stopped fighting the fight because the battle was only in my head and I was going to hurt my ds in the process.Take care all you parents out there.xx

stef240377

When i posted previously i were speaking from experience, my childrens father has been in and out of prison all the time i have known him. In the 15yrs i have known him he has spent more time in side than with his kids. I swung through every hoop for him to see his kids before i got with my present partner. To the extent i 'gave' him my house for the weekend so he had somewhere to see his kids and they had the familiararity of their own things. The only rules i gave him was not to trash my house and not to have any gf's around the kids until he had rebuilt his bond with them as the kids already knew he spent more time with another of his sons (six months age difference between my youngest and his other son as he was seeing her behind my back!) than he did these and they all felt let down by that. This went on for six months during this time i found he had left them in the house during the night to go to garage for fags and got into a fight and ended up in hospital, he didnt tell me as he thought he could get back home before kids woke up to find out. The kids told me he often brought his gf round to feed her as she were living in a womens hostel and had no money, later found out she was a 19yo alcoholic and he were 30!! Another time i had been out drinking with his sister to get a fone call to say i had to take DS2 to hospital as he had a fall cut his knee open and he could not be bothered to take him as he were tired.

I knew he were a banned driver so later on after i stopped him having kids over night and restricted him to day time only access after i had a solicitor write up a contact agreement, i asked him to provide my solicitor with any necessary paperwork from his new gf to prove the car he intended to transport them around in was fully insured and roadworthy. They both refused so me and OH went out of our way to drop them off and pick them up. This agreement didnt last too long either as he would ring the day before having them to say sorry im busy this weekend ill see them next, his excuses were lack of money to feed them (id send food) mates birthday parties,stag do's etc etc. I went back to see my solicitor to say that although i went out of my way every time for him he insisted on flounting the guidelines due to him not liking being told what to do. Solicitor agreed the contact was detrimental to the kids and agreed it should be stopped. He has never paid me a penny for them in CSA or as cash in hand. When he has worked as soon as CSA find him he packs in work and goes on dole, then back to work repeating the pattern.So he can avoid paying.

My dd is almost 14, ds1 12, and dd2 11 and they have said they want no contact with him as they are constantly second best and always feel let down by him. He rang last christmas to see what they wanted from him after not seeing them since july, all three replied nothing other than a decent dad but you cant do that for us so we see moms boyfriend now as dad and we want no contact with you.He has not contacted them since not even birthday cards.

Of course i have been accussed of brain washing, spoiling them with holidays and day trips to rub his nose in it cos i know he couldnt afford to do it, he forgets every thurs, fri and sat he is out on the town drunk and off his face on whatever drugs are doing the rounds this is all money that could have been contributed towards an occassional treat. As far as im concerned i did more than most in making it possible for him to keep his contact and bond with the kids and he abused it.