XAH emailed me last week trying to resume regular supervised visits at his parents' house. I emailed him back with two requests, needing to know his current address (he said he wasn't living there and I suspected he was either lying and secretly living with his parents or homeless - he is homeless, they say they have kicked him out for good, but I think there's a limit - we've done this before and they will let him back in after a few weeks usually) and needing to speak with him and his parents to ensure we are on the same page about some minor concerns with the visits. For a normal person, these answers would have taken fifteen seconds, but instead he ghosted me. Went totally silent.
After a couple of days, I called his sister (who has always been good to me and is his only immediate family member who understands the seriousness of XAH's addiction) and asked her, is he homeless? She confirmed. This is a new low. We chatted for a bit just about how crazy this situation is, and she suggested I invite him for a coffee to see if I could help get him out of his car and into step-down treatment. The rationalization was, he came back to this town, which has no treatment infrastructure, to be close to our daughter, thinking I would resume visits without asking any questions. Crazy talk. I was going to tell him in person to go wherever the recovery infrastructure is and I would facilitate continued communication with DD8, whatever that looks like going forward.
As I'm typing this out, I'm seeing how stupid this is.
I am worried because he is making gestures toward wanting to exercise his visitation, and the lawyers I spoke to told me to facilitate visits whenever possible within reason. But what this means in practice, I have no idea. There's no handbook for how to maintain healthy supervised visitation when your ex is a homeless alcoholic. I was envisioning that we meet in a park or other public place for short visits for the time being, but who knows. Our custody agreement as written doesn't really apply right now since his living situation changed, but since he doesn't have a new, stable situation to write one around, we are in this crazy limbo period - but I'm supposed to be this stand-up citizen that plays fair with crazy people. Sometimes I can't even tell which direction is up with them, they gaslight me so much.
Long story short, I contacted him for coffee, offered to buy, told him I knew he was living out of his car, so "don't let your secret be a barrier to meeting me because I already know" basically. Little did I know he would see this message as a VENGEFUL ATTACK. He messaged his sister and accused her of speaking with me. She then messaged me, angry because I unintentionally outed her - she's not "allowed" to speak to me, per XAH and his parents. And now she's "devastated" because... because it's crazy and she's still locked in their sick system. I fell on my sword. I think this is all stupid, but I apologized to her for putting her in the situation by... telling the truth... and she's ghosting me now as well. So okay.
They basically have a pact to lie to protect XAH, and she's in trouble and bad because she broke it. That's what all this is. I'm bad and in trouble now because I am being lied to wrong.
I should have sat on my hands and just let him ghost me - I
can't facilitate visitations with someone who doesn't return calls, emails, or texts - but I let my anxiety and codependency get the best of me and made a mess by initiating and forcing a conversation nobody else was interested in having.
But I'm still back to square one. I have been given this vague advice by these lawyers and I'm trying to interpret what that means. It turns out there are few addiction resources out there for parents in this situation. Part of my concern was logistics and timing - I am a busy person, I volunteer, work full time, and have commitments and engagements, so if he wanted to slide in a visit with DD8, I needed to have that conversation yesterday or it would be next week before I could make more time to meet with him/them. I don't want to be accused of being flippant with their requests - they have rights, we have a legal agreement I need to respect - AND DD8 wants to see them and is looking around like, where are they? XAH and his parents have been MIA for about six weeks. XAH's parents are super wealthy and could bury me if they were motivated.
Anyway. Just here for ESH - if you've been in a situation like this or have suggestions for me, I am open.