Hi all ,
I’m new to this and I’m desperate , I left my wife and started a new relationship very quickly , I have now been with my partner for 9months.
We live together and my two children 8 and 4 both adore her .
The only problem is my ex at every opportunity uses the children against me . She will say things like they can’t be left alone with my partner or you’ll never see the children again or things along those lines . Basically she know that I will do anything for the children and she can demand what she wants when she wants and we have to play by her rules or I can’t see my children .
I need this to stop. For instance she let my new partner look after my children for 2 days at Xmas alone , but last week I left my son with her for 1 hour whilst I took my daughter to gymnastics and I got threatened with not being able to see them ever again if I did it again .
What can I do to stop this . I’m not stupid , I know it hurts her and I will have to deal with the same thing one day but surely it’s about the children , the children are so happy when they are with me , I have them a lot .
Also I don’t have a lot of money so if it goes to court I will have to repsresent my self , I have no problem speaking for myself , I have a respectable job , never been in trouble with the law or violent so see no reason why I can’t have some sort of order put in place . My only problem is I can’t have them 50/50 because at any point my work could send me to say London the following day and I wouldn’t be able to take the kids to school .
Advice would be amazing
Hi there
Tricky. Sounds like mum's head is all over the place with her lack of consistency.
It's not an easy situation to be in and I'm sure a lot of us on here have been in that situation at one time or another.
Can you ask to sit down together for a coffee away from the children and in a public place and try to talk things through? Sometimes just having a bit of empathy and telling each other you understand can move mountains.
If she is finding it hard, maybe you could suggest mediation?
I would go down the gentler route as a first step as things can escalate very quickly once court applications start taking place.
Hi , thanks for the response ,
Tried the whole sitting down in a coffee shop , we can’t ever just talk without arguing .
We were about to go to mediation a few weeks ago because she wrote out a calendar of when I have the children and when I don’t , but we ended up agreeing on it sort of , but now she’s going back on things we have agreed on .
We just can’t go on with her throwing her toys out whenever she feels like it and using the children , she does it all the time .
I’ve been no angel in all of this but it is time we move on for the children but she really doesn’t get it . She had boyfriend for a brief period and things were a lot different then because she was occupied , now she’s not she won’t leave me alone , every time I drop the kids off I’m guaranteed a txt about 30mins later kicking off about something , she must interrogate the kids when they get in
Perhaps just suggest mediation then & if she won't do that or does it and won't stick to things, court is the only other option.
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better I'm afraid.