Tryingtoletgo3

Many of you have offered support and help over the past few months as I have been dealing with leaving my STBXAH, maintaining no contact, etc. With court looming over me tomorrow and knowing part of what is coming from the judge (protective order being dismissed and parenting time being given) I am wondering how others have dealt with being forced into contact when you have worked hard to maintain no contact? I can not avoid STBXAH all together because I have asked for, and hopefully will obtain, supervised parenting time for him due to his drinking, anger, mental health issues and lack of ability to make good decisions. With my son being blind and extra sensitive to strangers and strange surroundings, I can not consciously drop him with a strange supervisor and avoid my STBXAH entirely. I am trying to avoid as much trauma for my son as possible. My worry though, is that I have done so well with no contact and I am still struggling immensly with my heart still pulling for my STBXAH, that being forced into contact is going to be trauma to me. I would rather have the trauma for myself and not my son, but I am still worried about the emotional toll this will have. I know that being pregnant I am emotionally unstable in a way that I normally am not and that it is causing me to struggle more than I would otherwise with the loss of the man I love, but I have worked hard to pull through this in a healthy manner. How do I keep moving forward when I am going to be forced to come face to face with him and converse about our son? One of the things I have asked for in the parenting time and divorce agreement is family counseling for my STBXAH and myself so that we can learn to communicate about our son in a healthy manner. I think this will really help the situation if I can have the court and him agree to it (doubtful.) Having a neutral therapist there to help both of us with setting boundaries and communicate only about our son and in a non-threatening, non-bullying way on his part will make the transition safer and easier on everyone I feel......I'm sorry this is so long. I am extremely anxious about tomorrow and I feel so angry that all of the work that I have put into maintaining no contact is about to be ruined by the court and my son is about to be put in the position to be harmed.

MamaKit

Trying,
Is it possible to have contact be by email or text only, except when drop-off and pick-ups occur? That way you can filter things out that are not directly related to your son and his welfare and you also would have a record of your interaction with him. Maybe you could work it out so that you don't communicate in person with him at all unless there is someone else present - like the supervisor.
I think you are right to be concerned about how this will impact you after going no contact seems to have worked so well. Your priority is your son, but you also need to shield yourself from STBXAH's anger and manipulation. I think something very, very structured in terms of communication would be reasonable - without appearing vindictive in the eyes of the judge.
Sending lots of hugs and support,
MamaKit

Florence

With my really problematic ex, we communicate via email only. Also no face to face pick up/drop offs, through some schedule wrangling -- like pick ups after school from school, not from my house, etc. It's not necessary to do it this way anymore because he's shifted his crazy at other targets, but it works.

theuncertainty

Contact by text did not work out well with AXH. He still had (relatively) instanteous access to continue his verbal abuse.

Contact only by e-mail worked out better between AXH (who I had tried to get a protective order against) and I, and it was mandated by the court. During our divorce hearing I (naively) agreed to drop my request for a protective order in exchange for a no contact order. Because we had to co-parent, it was modified to require contact only via e-mail and only as related to DS and allowed contact by phone for emergencies only.

Another thing that helped a great deal was advice I got here at SR: make the correspondence a business transaction: like you're scheduling an appointment for a car tune-up. Don't respond to any of the button-pushing, abuse-hurling, denigrating remarks. In order to do that well, I had to frequently read the e-mails, take a break, and respond later. At one point, I asked my sister if she could step in and help filter the cr-p.

ETA: My sister, her husband and the rest of my family, when they're in the area, also helped with the pick-ups and drop-offs. They have been so supportive that it was incredibly rare that I had to see AXH alone. There was always some one with me when it came time to take DS to or pick up from his Dad's. My last request to modify the visitation order was changed to require pick-up and drop-off to be someplace public. And I requested a local police station or the really busy coffee shop just across the street from a station.

Rosiepetal

I applied to the court to have counselling to enable smoother communication between myself & kids Dad.
He refused to do it with me but did attend on his own for 1 session.
The only good that came out of it was that I (1) I knew I tried & (2) new sentence written into our parenting agreement was that we were to changeover kids in a public place, this made it safer for me.
Anything is worth a try to keep the peace for our kids & safer for us.
Big hugs.