QLD Advice on how to proceed when other parent stops all contact.

[Shadz]

Hi all,

I have an 18 month old daughter with an ex. My visitations (both joint and sole care) to date has been controlled by her and progressing/increasing slowly. Things have remained civil between us until the last 2 weeks.
***The only abusive behaviour has been from her in regards to
demeaning comments and insults and constant reminders that I only get to see our daughter because she allows it.

I have other children whom live with me (100% custody and sole parental responsibility) and now that my daughter is 18 months old I tried to open a discussion re. starting evenings/nights and one full day each weekend. This was laid out in a 6 month proposed parenting plan following advice from legal professionals to go from the current visits to 3 overnights/24hr periods. (if any legal professionals on here would like to view it and give their opinion/input that would be great).

In response to this she has cut the lines of communications, blocking social media, not responding to texts for us to Facetime our Daughter/their Sister and has made a slew of nonsensical 'reasons' as to why my daughter isn't ready to have sleep overs/evenings - things like no evenings until after winter because it will be too cold/she'll have wet hair or that a random woman/client she spoke to said she didn't get her granddaughter sleeping over until she was old enough to string whole sentences together, ie. around 3yrs old.

I've now received an email stating that our daughter is supposedly not coping with the 8hr days and that following advice from a health care professional the 8hr days will be reduced to 6hr days with a review in a month to consider raising them to 8 again. I was not consulted over this and I highly doubt this actually happened. If so I'm sure she didn't mention that she's trying to get our daughter to spend more time and bond with her boyfriend over the last couple of months (which is why shes refusing a full day each weekend so that she can have her spend 8hrs with him at a time).

It is my intention to request a signed statement from the 'health care professional' re. our daughter not coping with 8hr visits with myself and her siblings. I would like to state that until that is received that I will continue to have our daughter for 8hrs days. Obviously this may result in her refusal for us to see her at all which is not something I want to happen but she will no doubt continue to find BS reasons (which given this will likely go to court will hurt her in the long run) to restrict it even further until I take a stance.

I am supposed to have our daughter for 8hrs tomorrow, no doubt when I pick her up I'll be forced to acknowledge that I agree to returning her earlier or I won't be allowed to take her. Given the email was sent this evening I have no chance to consult any of the legal services before I pick our daughter up.

I would just like advice on what the best/smarter long term course of action as what's in my daughters best interest is for her to be allowed to continue seeing us for 8hr days (she's already not wanted to get in the car to return to her mother several times).

 

[sammy01]

This is going to be a tough post....
Just agree to everything.
Lets think this thru - you keep the kid for 8 hours, you won't see the kid next time... you ask for the 'health care professional's name - she will rant about how dare you question here and a accuse her of lying - you wont see your kid.

I've been there - so as to your last comment - sometimes my 12 month old didn't want to get in her car... but sometimes the kid didn't want to get in my car... Bloody kids...

So I have a very very smart friend... He went from not seeing the kids, to having 50/50... It took time. This is what he did... NOTHING... Ziltch... So for 12 months he just took it. For the first few months the crazy tirades got worse... More crazy than ever - stuff like baby had a wet nappy when she was returned.... now if it were me, I would have written a lengthy response to explain that I had changed the nappy, and clearly the kid urinated at some point in-between me dropping off child and the child getting back to mother's house and blah blah blah... But not my mate - he would have said, sorry - no worries I'll get to work on that one...So he had 3-4 standard responses... All grovelling. NEVER EVER argue.

After a while the ex started asking him to take the kid... Sounds like this has all been a bit of a life mistake in many ways for you... She already has a new fella? How long were you with this person??? Sorry, you probably don't need me to tell you this is a mess.... BUT... Lets get back to my mates story. progressively the ex wanted him to have the kids, she wanted to party, hard to party with an 18month old in the night club...

So within a few months - he was getting calls - come get the kid.... NO WORRIES - and everything went in his diary... So by shortly after the time the child turned 2 - he was having very sporadic visits - all at her request - but he had started having the occasional week where he had the kid 3 nights a week - all very disjointed, all chaotic... Again - sure no worries. But at that point he had the records and the history to make a bloody good case for lots of time with the child.... Now given you're talking about an 18 month old, you're much better off having some patience here.... So hopefully by the time the kid is 2 2-1/2 you'll have all you need to make a case that is so strong that it would be stupidity for her to bother....

Alternate plan - book mediation now - piss her off, possibly spend less time with the kid and not have a particularly strong case if it winds up in court in 6 months.

Her best argument is to say there is high conflict between you two and that you cant agree about anything. That suxs - she argues with you, you argue back, you see less time with the kids... Who wins the argument? she does - doesn't matter if she right or wrong - she still wins - so my advice, learn to play smarter

 

[Shadz]

Just agree to everything.

Yeah, this has been the standard plan for the last year and a half already and yeah, I've requested more time on several occasions and then accepted what she has 'offered'. Went through the court process twice for my 3 children with the ex-wife, was 100% custody and sole parenting for myself both times.

Every single communication has been saved/kept/recorded in a diary. this includes repeated references by her reminding me that she is in control, that I only see our daughter because she allows it and multiple times where she has said that I can't spend longer days/more time with our daughter because.... I haven't enough time with her to build a proper bond (a repeating loop). It's been a year and a half of hope for the best, plan for the worst as I learnt my lesson the first time around with the ex-wife.

Fun fact - there is now a way to save your whole Facebook messages history as a long PDF file that includes images, date/time stamps etc. So much better than screen shots.

Unfortunately I can assure you that I won't have the luck of your friend. She has her mother to use for that purpose of watching her daughter whenever she wants and given I've always volunteered to help/watch our daughter she won't do that.

We've already had previous 'agreed' parenting plans in place and have sent each other proposed parenting plans.

Alternate plan - book mediation now - piss her off, possibly spend less time with the kid and not have a particularly strong case if it winds up in court in 6 months.

I have also already attended the first appointment with Family Relationships Centre (the first one being the group session where it provides advice on how to co-parent etc.) and I advised her of such when she stated she would be starting the mediation process in response to my latest proposal.

Are you saying that beginning the mediation process now somehow makes her case stronger or did you just mean in terms of if she further restricts contact time with my daughter and then tries to establish I don't have the necessary bond with our daughter. I would think that demonstrating I am doing everything I can to keep things civil and have initiated the mediation process in the hopes of resolving any conflict would look favourable for me.

 

[sammy01]

No look as far as mediation goes - it doesn't really matter... In my case telling her that she was gonna have to do mediation was enough to piss her off... How dare I tell her anything right.... So doing gently gently for as long as possible and building up a good history to show magistrate.... IF she gets the whiff that after mediation will come court she will get very grumpy - see as you know - in court the magistrate decides and that 'isn't fair' the only person who should be allowed to decide anything is her... NOT the magistrate, not you...

But the main thing is building up a history of time with the child.
Now I also understand the bonding thing... Mate I am an idiot - I decided that I should ignore the youngest kid. He was only 6 months old when she kicked me out... I had one hour a week with him for 6 months - and often she would not show up - OR was late, of course HER being 20 minutes late was not reason for me to keep him 20 minutes longer... MADNESS - and I honestly thought he would not bond with me... NOT even close... Sure they were tough days for me... But he can't remember any of it and he is now 6... So don't worry too much about it...

 

[Shadz]

in court the magistrate decides and that 'isn't fair' the only person who should be allowed to decide anything is her... NOT the magistrate, not you...

This, exactly this, is the crux of it. Me letting her know I'd already started the mediation process reduced her delusion of control.

The ex-wife was a controlling abusive person (I believe narcissist is the correct term), I was the victim for a good 10 years, threats of reporting me to the local police officers for domestic violence, never see the kids again. Was too scared the first time around of the courts/police. I unfortunately didn't deal/come to terms with that and as seems to be often the case for people like me I landed in a relationship with the same type of women again (albeit a much milder version). Unfortunately I didn't realise it until pregnancy hormones kicked in.....

I am all the more wiser now and have done a lot more research etc. to understand/accept the past and on how to deal with the pair of exes. I am currently trying to stick to the Gray rock method of communicating with them as I have the bad habit of typing long logical responses to their communications which just means their winning as you said.

Going Gray Rock With a Narcissist

I've 'de-cranked' from when I type the thread last night, I was halfway through the post when the email arrived re. time reductions (which is why the title doesn't really fit), Don't worry I wasn't silly enough to respond at the time. As I've done in the past, I'll play the longer smarter game. I just had the benefit of my other 3 children living with me for the first 2 ordeals but I shall persevere for my daughter .

ty for the responses.