Contact stopped

Top_Girl

A bit of background, my son's dad has been a nightmare since I broke off our relationship over four years ago. He has been charged with harassment, been in front of the Court more than once (and that's only the stuff I reported) and seems completely unable to move on from our former relationship, despite having a child with his new girlfriend of three years.

He was due for contact when the snow came down recently and I telephoned the bus company to find out they had stopped the buses. I tried to phone a taxi to discover that they weren't sending them to where we live as it wasn't safe.

I telephoned him and told him what was happening and asked if he wanted to either take the chance and come and collect him, to get him the day after once the roads had been gritted, or to miss contact.

He raised holy hell, told me that he would tell our son I wouldn't bring him as I couldn't be bothered and I don't love him, that he was in control of contact from now on and I would do as I was told and refused anything to do with him if I didn't bring him.

Now whilst the latter two threats were unpleasant, the first was particularly pertinent as he has done this on numerous occasions before; tried to use our son against me. When they first arrested him for harassment, he told our son he spent a week in jail and that I told the Police lies to get him put there (the Police in fact locked him up for 6 hours due to the sheer volume of abusive and threatening voicemails, text messages and emails he had sent me in a 48 hour period).

Following the initial lies, our son regressed to how he was when we initially split. He wet the bed, he cried through the night, he got a referral to a school counsellor as he was clearly unhappy. We went through six months of hell getting him back on track. I have just about got him on an even keel again now.

His father has threatened to take me back to Court and I have replied and said fine, contact suspended, take me back. I have the voicemails, the texts, the emails again.

I can't have him hurting our son again and I won't have him threatening to emotionally abuse him as he did in the past. I can only see mediation/CAFCASS involvement in the future and hopefully they will teach this man that hurting his son is not good parenting and that contact should be about spending time with his son, not using him as a weapon.

Is there anything else I can do to make this easier on our son?

teaandcakeordeath

All I'd say is to future proof your relationship with your son. Keep the evidence- send the texts to your email account, record the voicemails. Print everything off and keep copies etc. In the future if he has questions or his dad tries to turn him against you again you can show him how abusive and unacceptable his father's behaviour was.

I hope your situation gets better.