Littlemess25

I still have not let my guard down. My heart is still heavy with frustration. He has managed to agree to the plan of action and some what apologize. However, still his disrespect towards me goes from 0-60 and I do not deserve this. I told him that if he doesn't stop this emotional abuse and intimidation than I will stop allowing him to video chat with our daughter during the week and keep him blocked from all forms of contact until I reach out to him for a time he will be over Saturday to see her.

He tells me that is me using her as a pawn?
That because I am not allowing her to go with him again for the night, I am the only one making things difficult?

Am I obligated to allow him to video chat with her during the week?
I feel like I am the crazy one and he's making me feel like a horrible mother for withdrawing his presence in her life to a few hours a week. Am I actually putting my needs and emotions before my daughters? Or would this be considered what a normal mom would do?

biminiblue

I strongly suggest that you need a legally binding parenting plan. Regardless of whether or not he's been paying and seeing the child, he is going to continue to pull this type of stuff, and apparently you are going to continue to try to control him.

A plan that is legally binding will be the thing that will bring some peace for both of you. I mean, I can see his point, too. You do keep yanking "visits" away at your whim.

Do you have mediators in your area? Have you talked to a domestic violence advocate to get information about this? Even if he isn't violent, they will have lists of people to call.

Littlemess25

No I honestly don't even know where to start to set up a legally binding plan.

biminiblue

Google "parenting plans" (for your state) or call a women's shelter.

Hechosedrugs

Littlemess,

Unless you have a court order that allows you to do so, you better not be keeping him from contacting your daughter. That could easily be used as ammunition against you.

I'm sure it all seems exhausting and overwhelming, but...umm... aren't you exhausted and overwhelmed by how things are now?

Littlemess25

That is a good point. I just feel like allowing him to video chat with her is me being nice and its not a requirement especially when he just recently relapsed and now is not attending meetings. But if it is some form of ammunition that I will relinquish my point.
I am not sure what the time frame entails with bringing in a court order and visitations. How often I would need to take time from work...I work full time.
And of course have my daughter. So I am trying to juggle the world on my own, and also ensure I do what is best for my daughter.
I just wish I had a remote to fast forward and know if I am making the right decisions.

atalose

Check with your local county clerks office on legal aid and what might be available to help you with the process of putting things on paper and getting a legal document on a parenting agreement.

Littlemess25

I will look into it soon. I really hope this can be resolved without court though. I never imagined I would be in this position. ughh!

Sunshine1234

I was advised to allow my ex to see the kids on a consistent supervised schedule until he could submit to a clean drug test. I would suggest meeting with a lawyer to discuss your options. A parenting plan is not going to do much but specify who gets your daughter and when. If he's actively using then your daughter shouldn't be alone with him. Any judge would mandate drug testing if you are concerned about him using.

atalose

Yeah I don’t think any of us ever imagined the positions we were in or currently in. But I do know this, it’s extremely important for you and your child that you DO NOT act on emotions but brave the path of legality.

I sit in the rooms of al-anon hearing over and over and over again how so many get blindsided with emotions which leads them to allowing the A’s to set all of the standards. You know, because we don’t want to rock the boat or make things worse………….but with an active A they always do get worse.

Littlemess25

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure I am ready to go to court. I can't honestly say that I feel that is best. Or that I am willing to take that route just yet. Right now my intuition as a mother is telling me that is not the path to take right now. So, though, it may sound frustrating, and may be clear as day to everyone else. My position just doesn't fit that mold. At least not right now. I can't honestly say either I don't see it going to that point, however right now that just not what my intuition is telling me. He agreed that our daughter is no longer go to his apartment, and that he would come here for a few hours to see her on Saturdays. He agree to pay me weekly and he has. Though I have managed to muster up the strength to admit that if he relapses again, it leaves me with no choice. But at this point he is basically doing everything that the judge would court order on his behalf so it would just be added stress to my own life, and not his. I have dwindled it down to a few hours a week, supervised visit and paying child support weekly. And he agreed that he will change his choice of friends and he is not taking our daughter alone to his apartment where he is until he moves. The frustrating part at this point is communication between me and him. He is not taking his accountability for how ungrateful he is to me, or willing to see that his explosive outburst are uncalled for. He says its because I rant on. And I do. I can't help it. He has picked up a second job on Saturdays since he is not taking our daughter for the night. But I feel like I need him to take accountability for how he treats me. But maybe I need to just stop ranting on in messages to him...

ladyscribbler

I hoped the same thing. I was terrified of going to court, didn't want to deal with all it would entail. So I avoided it until my hand was forced. That ended up costing me money, stress and time. Being proactive is the way to go.

I had an unofficial arrangement that seemed to be working, until it wasn't. My ex married a new enabler and all heck broke loose. He showed up at his parent's house and tried to take our son away. Thankfully the police called me and I asked them to give him a breathalyzer before they let our son go with him. Otherwise he could have taken our son and kept him since there was no court order. We were never married and as a father he had as much right to our son as I did without a court order spelling out custody and visitation.

We live in different states, 750 miles apart, but the next thing he did was go to court in his state and file for 50/50 shared custody. I wiped out my entire savings to hire a lawyer just to get the case dismissed for improper jurisdiction. It didn't cost him anything but some time and a filing fee. Since he was representing himself I wasn't eligible for any free legal help.

After that I got proactive. I got help through legal aid and started a case in my son's and my home state. You can find those resources by googling (State/County) legal aid, since there's not one central website for info.

It took a year, most of that was waiting for paperwork and court/mediation dates. We had to do a mandatory mediation session, which took about an hour and half. I spent one full day in court, about 5 hours, and made probably half a dozen visits to my lawyer's office, usually half an hour or less and there was a mandatory 4 hour class I had to take one Saturday- Helping Children Cope with Divorce or something like that. Everything else was via phone or email.

One thing that really helped my case was the fact that I could show I had made every effort to allow him to have contact and visits with our son- weekly phone calls, summer and holiday visits with grandparents supervising. My only real demand was some kind of alcohol treatment program or sobriety monitoring be completed before unsupervised visits.

Using contact with your daughter as a tool to try to control his behavior is going to backfire, but you do have the power to limit his opportunities to treat you in an unacceptable way. I did this by communicating only via text or email and only about things directly relating to our son that were actually necessary to discuss. Just doing that, and then later telling him to have his lawyer contact my lawyer if he had something pertinent to discuss basically eliminated all the alcoholic/codependent back and forth bs. If the phone rang and he didn't leave a VM, that meant it was him or his wife calling to rant and rave and I didn't have to respond at all.

He's not suddenly going to turn into a respectful and caring partner because you dumped him or because you demand it. Mine didn't. But I changed the way I interacted with him and that made all the difference.

Hechosedrugs

I am disgusted when I look back at how I let my ex dictate all the rules of the house. His rules were nonsensical- it was like he was hellbent on being the worst parent possible. And I thought my little lectures put me above him. I am amazed that my children are still alive.

atalose

Keep in mind that……… accountability and responsibility are the mortal enemies of addiction.

PuzzledHeart

Your current arrangement may work for you at the moment, but you also need to be prepared when he no longer cooperates. Get a custody plan with teeth.

My ASister and her ex-husband have a custody plan with no teeth. My sister drops them off at her ex pretty much whenever she feels like it. She finds it extremely difficult to keep to an actual schedule unless it's work. So her daughters are subjected to an unstable situation pretty much every week. There are no defined consequences for her if she doesn't stick to the terms of the agreement, so she can pretty much run roughshod over everything.

What will happen when your ex decides to push your boundaries? What will happen when he wants to bring your child over to a party with his friends and you don't know who they are? What happens when he drops off your daughter an hour, two hours later, and it becomes a pattern? It is much, much easier to point at a rock solid custody agreement and end the argument right then and there rather than go into the endless back and forth and back and forth, where he will have the opportunity to wear you down to the point of yes. Don't give him that chance.

I'm going to pose some food for thought. A custody plan, in an odd way, gives you the opportunity to minimize your interactions with him - is that what you want? Are you actually ready to minimize contact with him if you don't get the apology that you deserve?

Littlemess25

No im just not ready to take legal action against him. Between working full time myself and having my daughter full time, I just don't have the energy to go and file the paperwork, talk to lawyers..etc. Getting her to her doctors appointments is even sometimes a challenge. I don't have the capability to just take off from work. If I do, it uses my PTO and I have none left for the rest of the year. I work mon-fri from 10-630pm. So with it being right in the middle of the day I can't even make appointments at 7 or 8am hardly. Going to court and taking legal action at this point is just too much on me. He's not interested in having her for himself, or retaliation to get back at me. He is pretty much all set with the life he lives now. He wants to see our daughter on weekends and holidays, and phone call during the week. Which all of that is great, and prob what court would order regardless. However, the issue is that his last relapse was 10days ago and his outrageous explosive attitude towards be is unacceptable. But I do believe I need to stop ranting and raving to him about how he hurt me and this family and expect an actual form of sincerity. He has briefly apologized and said he's changing things and I just can't see it and I am making assumptions. Well right now, I am at if he relapses again, I have no choice but to put his position of a father in the eyes of the law. Right now, its just not ideal.

ladyscribbler

I get it. I avoided doing anything "official" for a long time. My ex said he would never forgive me if I did. And deep down (way deep, like top secret deep) I held out some insane hope that our relationship could be salvaged. That he was going to one day see the light, sober up and suddenly be extremely remorseful about how he had treated us (especially me) and we would all be a family again, but with him sober. If I filed a court case against him, that crazy, secret hope would really and truly die for all time.

So I got a certified letter the day before Thanksgiving 2014. He was filing for 50/50 shared custody. He was _married_. To his aunt- uncle's widow, he's known her since he was 9 years old. He was calling his cousins his stepdaughters now (they all have the same last name, so why not?). It was like being hit in the gut by a bulldozer. Repeatedly. Plus I had to spend my life's savings dealing with this garbage just to get it thrown out of court.

Figure out the parenting plan you want, google it, PM other members, however you need to, there are many here who have the unfortunate experience of trying to coparent with an addict - supervised visits, phone/video contact x times per week, days, times, whatever. Start using it asap. Let your ex know. It doesn't have to be taken to court this second, but if/when (and my experience tells me this will be a "when" eventually) the court will look at whatever arrangement is already in place and be influenced by that if you can say it is working and in your daughter's best interests.

I had to let go of everything I thought my ex and I had and were going to be. I had to become the advocate for our son, to protect him from the fallout of his father's addiction. That meant that all the personal stuff, all the apologies I thought he owed me, all the amends I wanted, all the angry raging thoughts I wished I could scream at him, had to get put aside. I might never get those amends, and I've spent these past few years working my own recovery so that I can let go of that stuff and be the best mother I can to our son.

Take care mama. It's a tough road, and not one any of us would have chosen to travel. We are here for you.

FeelingGreat

hi Lm, more will be revealed no doubt but if you're determined not to seek legal help at least start doing your research. Google parent plans, how to deal with disrespect, what sort of diary you need to keep.

He is not taking his accountability for how ungrateful he is to me, or willing to see that his explosive outburst are uncalled for. He says its because I rant on. And I do. I can't help it. He has picked up a second job on Saturdays since he is not taking our daughter for the night. But I feel like I need him to take accountability for how he treats me. But maybe I need to just stop ranting on in messages to him...

Of course you're hurt and you deserve respect, but the more you keep messaging and berating him the more he's going to push back at you. From what you say about him, he does have a conscience, and cares for his daughter. Try to take a few steps back. Keep your dignity, stay distant, business-like and polite. Let him talk to his daughter; what harm can it do? and it's keeping him from demanding more.

If he becomes disrespectful to you, try not to get sucked in but withdraw from the situation right away. He'll soon learn.