Me and my child's father has been separated for almost a year. I put a permanent restraining order on him in the beginning of the year and we have had little contact verbally. I have began to move on with my life as he (now engaged) has moved on with his. One day he came to me, holding me, telling me how much he misses talking with me, being around me and etc. and said that we are better than this and that we can parent our child with out the courts being involved. This maybe true, however, I am still not ready to verbally commit with communication with him due to his nature of manipulating me on certain things. The restraining order gives him provisions of seeing our child on Thursdays (couple of hours) and every other weekend (Friday-Sunday). We also use a notebook for communication of our child. To me, this is fine... the less contact the less manipulation by him. Can two parents raise a child without communicating verbally to each other? If so, how? I greatly appreciated all you all's comments and suggestions.
Well I had a talk with him and he was very respectful of it. He said he has been wanting to tell me for quite some time yet he did not have the guts to do so because he thought I hated him. I told him I did not hate him I hated his ways. We decided that the restraining order will stay until I am comfortable about taking it off. If he comes over acting a fool I can just call the police and have him arrested. Since the provisions of the visits has expired, we came up with an idea that if and when our daughter wants to go to his home she can at anytime and if she does not she can call him herself and tell him (he says this helps him know that I am not keeping her from him and he and I don't want me to force her against her will). We also decided that we are adults and two younger versions of our own parents and want what is best for our child. He has apologized again (like for the eighth month) and says he respects my views due to the past abusive relationship. We decided to bury the hatchet and move on as good parents for our child and that is long term like 60-70 yrs + until we die. He says that since our break up, separation and non-contact, it has opened his eyes more to how me and our daughter feels about him and how he has treated us. He says he knows that our child is putting up a front to please the both of us and want us to be able to help her through it together. However, he says his manipulating days are over with me and he wants to start off fresh. We made a vow that we would take all the court cases, trouble past history, and the bad experiences put them in a bag, lock it into the trunk of our old car and let it veer off a cliff in the ocean so God can carry the baggage down stream away from us. He said he has thought about his marriage situation with his new fiancee for along time now and may not be getting married (sounds good but we will see). He said there is more problems this year with her than we ever had in our entire lives together. In addition, he said the domestic classes and parenting classes (I paid for for him) has helped him understand how we feel and glad that I took steps into going to counseling with our daughter. I could tell he was sincere due to his reactions of things that I explained to him what we were not willing to accept. He just texted message me today to tell me, "Thank you and he prays for us to be better parents and a better relationship." He also said that he knows it wont take one night to try to fix what was broken yet he moved to out here for his family and he is holding himself up to that.
Thank you all for your advice!!! It was very much appreciate.
He won't manipulate you, if you don't let him. You know what he does to manipulate, so just don't let him do it.
I'm not understanding the restraining order, I thought the whole reason behind a restraining order is to keep someone away from you all the time, not 4 of the 7 days of the week.
I don't speak to my daughter's father. We have been divorced since June 2005 and stopped having any verbal communication during our divorce, sometime around October 2004. Initially we used lawyers to communicate (gets VERY expensive, but we didn't really have a choice - our verbal communication was SO unproductive, even the Judge at one point said he was not allowed in the courtroom during sessions, just his lawyer was present).
At this point we sort of alternate between text and email - depends on the issue. I ended up with sole custody and moved out of the state we were divorced in (a separate bag 'o worms) but since he is out of state we don't have much to deal with... she flies to see him twice a year so we have to communicate about that (which we do via text). I email him her school info (report card, progress reports - sometimes I scan assignments and send to him).
It was noted in our custody agreement how many days before he had to request in writing that he would exercise his visitation. If I didn't hear from him I text him so that all the times he doesn't take her it's on record that HE refused visitation. If he refused visitation I simply texted back "OK, let me know about spring break/christmas etc" and NOTHING ELSE. it's important to not engage. I wanted to say all sorts of things, but the fact that it was all written down made me hold my tongue - after all, if he cared what I thought we would still be together, right??? lol !
Note: When I lived in the same state we had some issues at drop off/pick up so we ended up with a mediator that was present at drop off/pick up so we didn't even see each other during the exchange. You can use someone official (which costs more) but then we switched so my SIL (his brother's wife) was the drop off/ pick up and he and I just communicated via text. Depending on your state you can set this up - she was actually named in our initial separation custody agreement as the drop off/pick up moderator.
One additional note - I'm not sure how old your daughter is, mine is now 9. However, right around 6 (when they go through a super-manipulative phase anyway) she sort of took this "well, you'll never know what I do at my dad's cuz ya'll don't talk" attitude. She even told her TEACHER (I was mortified). So, I enlisted the help of my SIL and during a couple visits I got a 'report' and then when she was home I slipped some of that info into the conversation and she flipped out and started asking "how do you know that?". I said "mommy ALWAYS knows what you do". She got over that phase pretty quickly. Anyway, if yours is young you might have that to contend with as well.
I would say it is definitely possible, as long as you don't bend to his manipulative ways. The more that you have in writing the less there is to communicate about anyway. Just stick to what is in your agreement.
It is a tricky situation - I felt alot like I was in a no-win, but once you just stop responding verbally and he sends a slew of bulls***t over email one letter from your lawyer will make him MUCH more cooperative. It's ugly, but it's probably better for your kid if you DON'T talk in cases where the talking is actually verbally insulting and screaming threats.
Hang in there!
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Hi R.-
Look and see if your county as a mediation group that helps with custody issues. It may be best to work with a 3rd party on a "contract" instead of dealing with him face to face.
R.
one last point to not lift the order or increase contact - could he be manipulating you because he will go to court to get residential custody once he is married? sorry to suggest such a negative thing, but I agree with all the other advice you have been given - use a mediator to develop your parenting agreement and communicate through your lawyer until things are more settled. good luck.
My husband has no verbal contact with the mother of his son, and all contact about their child is done via email. He set up a separate email account that is only used for her (so she doesn't have his regular email address), and I believe he did give her our phone number to call in case of an emergency, but she's never called. When my stepson was younger we followed the custody arrangement so there was no need to communicate about pickups or dropoffs, unless something needed to change from the schedule. And now that my stepson is a teenager, my husband communicates directly with him.
I thought this arrangement seemed odd at first, but apparently they never got along, didn't have joint custody until their son was 6, and my husband did not want to have any direct contact with his son's mother. So, communicating via email only has worked fine for them for the last 10 years. And, I like that by using email to communicate there is a paper trail because my stepson's mom can be manipulative too.
You always hate to see grown parents unable to communicate with one another on a normal level. Children really are perceptive and learn from their parents. There are however circumstances that require some extreme measures, in your case a notebook for communication. Manipulation not only messes with you but your child will learn the tactic too. You did not clarify what he is manipulating you about, but if it is in making good judgments for you or your child then I say stick with the notebook.
One day maybe you can move to a different mode of operation with him but for now, just stick with the program.
Good luck!
My immediate reaction is to tell you not to lift the restraining order. You are still afraid of being manipulated, so you need to keep what you have in place. And why is your child's father - now engaged - coming around and holding YOU and telling you how much he misses YOU? What's wrong with this picture?
