VIC Partner's Ex Refusing Mediation - What to Do?

[stepmum]

Hi,

I am new to this and was hoping for some help.

I have been with my partner for 18 months now and he has a 9 & 7-year-old with his Ex-Girlfriend. They have not been together for 4 years. I have a great relationship with both children as does my family.

Since separating the dictation by her was that he had to have them whenever she had to work and it was not negotiable. This meant that he has to start work late and finish early to drop off and pick up from school.

This involved him having them 50/50, however, until I came on the scene it was more 80/20 his way as she would call text saying she could not handle the kids. He would pick them up and would not hear from her until he dropped them off.

He did always give in to her demands as he was scared she would stop him seeing the kids. He did not have the money to go to a solicitor. I know there are other options but he had no idea.

Since I have come on the scene we both are constantly abused, harassed and threatened. He is constantly degraded in front of the children when dropping off to her. Access is to suit her needs and hers only. We have tried mediation with no response except abuse to us and denied access for fathers day etc. We have drawn up proposed consent orders and sent to her with a reply of the game on and more harassment and abuse/threats. We sent a second letter to see if she was willing to negotiate and the same thing abuse/threats.

We are now going to start court proceedings.

She denies us talking to the children unless she feels like it even on significant days like their Birthday.

I could go on and on as it is a daily occurrence.

I do worry about the children as she questions them about everything from what they eat with us etc. She makes them the messenger between her and my partner telling him to pay for piano lessons or telling him to take one child so she can have time with the other. We do pay 50% of all schooling and swimming lessons when we know about it.

I guess my question is given that she is neurotic, a bully and mentally abusive person who thinks the best interest of her children is a game and will not mediate with us is will the judge look at this?

I am worried that even though my partner has had them 50/50 for a number of years now that he will lose time with them because she can not communicate in a civilized matter.

Any help would be appreciated. What to put in an affidavit etc.

Thanks

 

[sammy01]

I reckon you're going about this all wrong. Forget court.

Forget mediation.

Make arrangements and implement them. So pick the kids up on Monday from school and keep them until the following Monday.

In short, don't be bullied.

 

[stepmum]

How would that stop the harassing messages and stop her from taking them to another state etc? She would just retaliate with the same which is not good for the children.

 

[nat 2015]

Don't respond or react unfortunately some people thrive on that.

I have learnt to ignore, ignore and ignore and trust me i still have my weak moments.

I would do what Sammy said and if she does then take off with children to another state then she definitely will not look great in front of a judge.

 

[sammy01]

So applying to court is gonna make her play nice? nope. Probably make her mad... And she will might get legal aid, meanwhile you'll fork out $$$ and not much will change.

No court order is gonna make a twit stop being a twit.

With respect, you don't need court and don't want the stress of it... You don't need a law forum. You need to get some advice on how to manage a bully. You're not gonna stop the harassing messages. So learn to deal with it better.

 

[Scruff]

I have a totally different view. The way I see it, you have a mum who doesn't seem to care about how much time dad has with the kids, as long as it suits her. In contrast to that, you have a dad that has gone out of his way to both accomodate the mum and to spend as much time as he can with the kids.

There is a clear discrepency in that one parent clearly wants the kids and the other is indifferent.

Considering that dad had up to 80/20 at one point, I would continue with the court action and even take it a step further by pursuing primary care - I think he has a good chance of succeeding.

Given the mum's behaviour, there needs to be some kind of formal arrangement - things simply can not continue the way they are. Since mediation didn't work and resulted in even more problems, the next logical step is court - and if I were the dad in this case, based on everything in your original post, I would be pursuing primary care.

 

[sammy01]

I reckon Scruff has some good point. My concern is that courts are stressful and costly. Different story if dad wasn't seeing the kids at all.

The reality of court is sometimes enough to get an unruly punter to pull their head in.

I'd be doing everything I can to avoid court. Start by getting strategic in how you guys deal with mum. You're gonna have to do that anyways because no court orders will stop her attitude. But if that dont work then court has many benefits given your situation

 

[stepmum]

It is stressful and I am grateful for all advice.We have our families behind us with cost etc as they want it to stop especially the kids seeing the way she treats him in front of them (drop off takes kids straight inside and slams door kids screaming behind door as they didn't say goodbye to dad). It has gotten worse since I came on the scene. Anything we do makes her mad. It is her way or the highway. We had to give her two extra days so we can get them an hr earlier on Christmas afternoon. As I said I could keep going with all the nasty things she does and says. This week alone there has not been a day where she has not abused not just him or me but now brought my daughter into it. We do ignore her but that makes it even worse and frustrating that you can say exactly what you want to say. She sees mediation as us bullying her and trying to intimidate her. She is a control freak. Se uses the children as pawns to get what she wants from him which concerns me about her mental health and what it is doing to the children.

Scruff I will look into primary care thanks for that.

If we do go to court with all the evidence we have in her using the children as pawns, messengers and interrogating them when they get home from our place,will the court take not only that into consideration but also that we have tried to keep it out of the courts?

I just don't want my partner to loose anytime with his kids as it would destroy him. He is a great dad and very hands on.

Thank you again for your advice it is really helpful.

 

[sammy01]

Help us out... So for the last 2-3 weeks what has dad's access been? is it routine? sporadic? Write it down as best as you can remember.
I think you need to avoid court. The fact is the courts are not gonna stop her banging doors - swearing, or anything else.

Learning how to deal with it and being strategic... Story time. I used to cop all sorts of crap from the ex. Throwing soiled underwear at me... Swearing - you name it. I was a mess. So I started doing a few things. Meditation and all that, BUT I also practiced what I'd say to her. Rehearsed it in the mirror. Crap like "no worries, thanks for the information'. The other thing I did was I pretended there was a really pretty woman 15-20 metres behind her and I was distracted by this really pretty woman. So I wasn't just ignoring her. It was more than that, I was just distracted... So she'd be yelling at me, telling me off, all sorts of crazy... and instead of looking intimidated, or arguing or anything else I'd just repeat, "no worries, thanks for the information".... I got really good at it and in -fact I got to a point where I almost enjoyed the game. I was empowered. I had a strategy and it was working...

Now I have to tell you about nutters. They are impossible to understand and no court order is gonna fix crazy lady.
Have a read of the stuff here
Shrink4Men - Helping men break free from abusive relationships since 2009
check youtube for shrink4men.
There is a book called Stop walking on Eggshells.
But you need to learn how to cope with crazy.

So these days the ex will still leave me sitting at McDonalds for an hour or two as she is late... No point arguing, no point in even letting her know i'm pissed off... When I have to pick up the kids, I bring a book, a lap-top... Something to pass the time. Nutters can't read time, they are self absorbed and live in ME ME ME land. You can't change that. What you can do is learn strategies to negate the impact of crazy lady.... And no court orders are gonna help with that.

So nope you didn't 'have to give her two extra days' just to get the kids an hour early. You enabled it. You guys have to stop enabling crazy... WHY? So lets pretend you get nice court orders. They say this and this and this... What happens if she doesn't follow them? NOTHING. Ziltch... There is no such thing as the court order police... So you'll have to go back to court. More time and energy wasted.

So work out some strategies. Communicate in writing. Be smart about it because no court orders are gonna make her any different

 

[stepmum]

Help us out... So for the last 2-3 weeks what has dad's access been? is it routine? sporadic? Write it down as best as you can remember.
I think you need to avoid court. The fact is the courts are not gonna stop her banging doors - swearing, or anything else.

Learning how to deal with it and being strategic... Story time. I used to cop all sorts of crap from the ex. Throwing soiled underwear at me... Swearing - you name it. I was a mess. So I started doing a few things. Meditation and all that, BUT I also practiced what I'd say to her. Rehearsed it in the mirror. Crap like "no worries, thanks for the information'. The other thing I did was I pretended there was a really pretty woman 15-20 metres behind her and I was distracted by this really pretty woman. So I wasn't just ignoring her. It was more than that, I was just distracted... So she'd be yelling at me, telling me off, all sorts of crazy... and instead of looking intimidated, or arguing or anything else I'd just repeat, "no worries, thanks for the information".... I got really good at it and in -fact I got to a point where I almost enjoyed the game. I was empowered. I had a strategy and it was working...

Now I have to tell you about nutters. They are impossible to understand and no court order is gonna fix crazy lady.
Have a read of the stuff here
Shrink4Men - Helping men break free from abusive relationships since 2009
check youtube for shrink4men.
There is a book called Stop walking on Eggshells.
But you need to learn how to cope with crazy.

So these days the ex will still leave me sitting at McDonalds for an hour or two as she is late... No point arguing, no point in even letting her know i'm pissed off... When I have to pick up the kids, I bring a book, a lap-top... Something to pass the time. Nutters can't read time, they are self absorbed and live in ME ME ME land. You can't change that. What you can do is learn strategies to negate the impact of crazy lady.... And no court orders are gonna help with that.

So nope you didn't 'have to give her two extra days' just to get the kids an hour early. You enabled it. You guys have to stop enabling crazy... WHY? So lets pretend you get nice court orders. They say this and this and this... What happens if she doesn't follow them? NOTHING. Ziltch... There is no such thing as the court order police... So you'll have to go back to court. More time and energy wasted.

So work out some strategies. Communicate in writing. Be smart about it because no court orders are gonna make her any different

Hi Sammy,

My gosh I don't know how you do it. I take my hat off to you.

The last 2-3 weeks have been sporadic no structure. For example we pick them every 2nd Friday at 4.30pm however this has not been happening as she has decided to take kids to movies etc on pick up time. We told her that we ad a birthday dinner for the young one and no matter what we said she did not even care that we had a family dinner planned. As she has stated in messages her words after she was sent letters from our lawyer "Game On". She said we could pick them up the next morning at 9am. Went there and she was not there she decided to take the kids for breakfast. We asked her to drop them off to us 5 mins from her place after they finished. We got them at 5.30pm that night.

You are right we are struggling with what to say so hence we ignore her unless it does concern the children. If we provoke her by speaking our minds she does not stop as in her eyes she is so hard done by. So what would you have done in regards to Christmas? Any advice is a blessing As we know that if we don't agree to her we don't get to see kids unless convenient for her.

Thank you for your advice it is appreciated.