My son tells me he doesn’t want to see his dad anymore and idk what to do

diamondmike

New member
I (29F) have a son who is 10 with my ex (29M). Me and his dad split up 2 years ago from him cheating and he has been with the girl he had cheated on me with ever since. They live together and my son is constantly telling me how he doesn’t want to go over there. He tells me how his girlfriend cusses at her own son and is mean to him who is around the same age (8) .They leave them unattended and they drink and smoke marijuana. He also tells me they constantly fight and yell all the time. One time they got into a huge argument and she was breaking stuff and yelling. He is scared to tell his dad he doesn’t want to go. His dad can be a good dad but the relationship with the girlfriend is so toxic and my son doesn’t want to be involved in it. Last year I cut off him seeing his dad for a few months because of all of the same things that are still currently going on and his dad accused me of being bitter and jealous of him. I want to protect my son from this I feel so bad sending him into that environment. I try to keep the peace and me and his father have 0 communication due to how toxic it has been and the girlfriend. He always tries to blame me. We have no court order or anything so idk what to do. Any advice would be appreciated!
 
@diamondmike Let him know one last time you want to have a serious adult to adult parent to parent talk about your son's concerns and what you know that goes on in that household. Explain it's not about jealousy or being bitter, you're just doing whats best for your son because that's the main priority. He doesn't feel safe, he's uncomfortable, he's exposed to smoking and verbal abuse, destructive behavior and it's scary and worrying. You want to be able to communicate about stuff like this rather than taking it to court, and if you two can't then we have no other option let him know that. Say you understand that's their relationship what goes on, but what the point is is that your son is witnessing everything, you want him to love his dad not grow up wanting to be away from him. That it's not a healthy environment and so on. Document everything by the way. And let your son know you love him, reassure him, listen to him and let him know you're going to do your best to protect him (because you can't control what dad may choose to do)
 
@diamondmike You don’t know what to do? You don’t make him see his dad anymore. Do you have an official custody agreement? If so, this all needs to be documented and given to your lawyer ASAP with a court date scheduled to make it so your son doesn’t have to go over there. Bare minimum they might do supervised visits. If not, don’t make him go over. Let your ex pursue custody and bring this all up in court. It’s your job to protect your son and he needs you to advocate for him right now.
 
@dyydxx Agreed fully with FJ, ball is in your court so a) protect child b) get your Orders in Court

You should also document everything obviously and also protect yourself via writing an email to him.

The email will be used with counsel and also be read by the Judge so write email for that reason, it is to the Judge in reality but write to the child's dad.

Respectful and about the interest of the child ie son does not waht to come over due to the excessive drinking and weed smoking by you and your partner.

Also include other reasons if serious in letter.
 
@diamondmike You don't have a CO so right now you have some primary control. While he can do the same thing technically -
You don't need to send him there. His reasons are valid. If BD has a problem with it, he can file with the court to get a CO in motion and you guys can discuss the toxic environment/drinking/smoking/etc in court and have those discussions dictate the rules that need to be followed if BS is going to keep going there.
I think these are valid reasons. Sometimes kids don't want to go to the other parents house because they just don't feel like dealing with the interruption of bouncing back and forth. But this is not the case. Your son is uncomfortable there, he doesn't need to go if he has a perfectly peaceful home under your roof.
 
@diamondmike First off, you absolutely need to file for custody. Literally just to protect yourself. Not that your ex would ever do this, but without a court order he could literally just take your son and run. Take this to the courts. Record everything. Get a court appointed child advocate for your son who will listen to his concerns. If you and your ex can’t communicate, do it through the courts. This very well could be a huge wake up call for him. I have been in a very similar situation. We already had a custody agreement in place where we share 50/50 legal custody, but I have placement and he gets weekend visitation. Four-five years ago he got into a relationship. They moved in together immediately, bought a house and everything. It was all in her name with her mom as the co-signer. They started arguing badly. She called the cops many times. She kicked him out many times. She kicked my kids out many times. They broke up many times. It happened too many times. My ex and I do have good communication and I told him that it had to stop. I told him if it continued and he wasn’t going to protect them, then I would have to. I told him I’d take all the evidence to the courts and let them decide. Last October she called the cops again. He walked out with our sons and the clothes on their back and never went back. All their stuff is still there, she won’t let him come get it. He got a small apartment and he’s been there ever since. I think what I said to him was a wake up call and he stuck true to that if it kept happening he’d be done with her. Because it came down to her or the kids at that point. But if he hadn’t finally made the right choice, I absolutely would have handled it myself in court
 
I strongly urge you to file for custody before you make any decisions. If he catches wind you’re going to try to limit his time with his child he very well may just keep him next time he has him and he’d be well within his rights bc nothing is in place
 
@diamondmike If you don’t have a court order I would listen to my son, if his dad wants to see him I would explain the situation and keep it strictly for outings instead of sleepovers. His dad should be aware of the environment and if he’s not and isn’t understanding about it then he’s not ready for the full responsibility of fatherhood.
 
@diamondmike I’m going through a similar situation with my 3yo. He wants to see his father, but not at his parents’ place because they fight a lot. I tried asking my ex if he would be willing to take LO even to the golf dome or the museum or something instead of spending 3 hours with his parents, and he refused. He said you can’t bond with a kid properly in public so it’s either his parents’ place for 3 hours or I give him more time to take him to his own place (he lives an hour away so 3 hours isn’t enough time to drive out there, do something, and then drive back, but I’m hesitant to give him more time if he can’t keep LO happy during the time he has).

Then one day LO had a bit of a bathroom accident (missed the toilet) and needed a new pair of pants, which my ex said came from the bag I packed him…but there were no pants in the bag that day (our washing machine broke and it took a week and a half to get a new one, so I had to scrounge around for not just clean clothes but also the wet bag for swimming because I wasn’t able to wash the one I keep in his swimming bag in time). These were also NOT pants I bought. I would never have bought them because they had fleece on the outside and I hate the feeling of fleece, and also LO gets too hot in fleece. I thought the origin of the pants was a really dumb thing to lie about because at the end of the day even if there were clean pants in the bag, the only thing that matters is he had a clean pair of pants to change into. So that tipped me off and I asked LO if his father ever leaves him with Grandma and Grandpa and goes out - shocker, his answer was yes. He may be 3 but he’s not a liar.

Then my mom ran into my ex’s mom at the store and was unable to back down the aisle without being noticed, so my mom got a diatribe about how unreasonable I’m being only giving him 2 hours on Sundays and thwarting all of his efforts. She said they only see LO for MAYBE an hour a week…they live 15-20 minutes away depending on traffic? So I asked LO if they ever go anywhere besides G+G’s and he said yes, they go to the store. Normally I wouldn’t care what he does with the rest of that time, but he’s sitting here telling me he can’t bond with LO in public. If that’s the case, why is he pissing away 2 of his 4 hours a week going to stores? And then LO says he fucks off and leaves him with the grandparents? What the fuck.

After I told my ex that LO says the grands fight, LO came home saying they yelled at him, told him he was lying, and said he can’t tell us anything that happens over there anymore. This was Christmas Eve, and it came out because he said he wasn’t allowed to tell us what he got from them for Christmas.

Anyway, I ended up contacting his doctor. The doctor endorsed him being removed from that environment, and made a referral to someone who’s going to make an effort to question him and see if she gets the same answers I do. He said not to take him to just any child therapist because they aren’t all willing to make statements for court if it comes to it.

All that to say…start by taking him to the doctor. Since your son is 10, try to have him tell the doctor what’s going on himself. See if he’d be willing to go in and talk to the doctor alone at first, then have the doctor bring you in and discuss what he says and how to move forward together. Mine is only 3 so I did a virtual appointment with his doctor because I didn’t want to be talking about him like that with him there, but yours is old enough that he would likely actually benefit from being included in basically a tri-conference with the doctor.

Withholding visits is going to look a lot better for you if you can get medical professionals on your side than if you just unilaterally make the decision. It still may not look great, but it’ll be better.
 
@diamondmike I don’t have any advice but I’m currently going through this and my children are 3 & 4 and are telling me they don’t want to go to their dads. I keep making them go because I want them to have a relationship with him but it also breaks my heart into a million pieces as well! Their dad doesn’t have a new partner or not that I know of but they just don’t like him because he was never around off cheating and working constantly. Hang in there
 
@diamondmike At this point, you should honor your son's wishes. It bothers me that you are aware that your ex smokes weed and you still want your son around him. I have a 10yr old son of my own, and my ex had a drinking problem, I made sure I pulled my kid off that environment before it gets worse.
 
Back
Top