cginsberg76
New Member
Hello:
I, the mother, have primary physical custody of our 9 year old son. I share 50/50 joint decision making custody for our son with the father. The father has resided in Montana for almost 3 years now and the last time he saw our son was over 2 years ago. An attempt (verbally-not legally) between his father and I to keep a weekly phone call schedule to speak to our son was made at the time his father moved; however, his father has never been able to keep to it. So, there are times when our son will go for weeks, even months at a time (the longest being 3 months), when no contact is made. As our son gotten older, his anger has progressed as to why his father doesn't keep in contact with him more. When he asks his father why he doesn't call the excuse is ALWAYS the same, "I had to work" or "My boss won't let me call." His father is a (or was at the time) a server, but has a way of charming our son into thinking that this is an acceptable answer. What our son fails to understand is that no employer in the world makes someone work 24/7 with no breaks in which he could make time for a phone call that could take no more than 5 minutes.
Having said all this, about 7 months ago, our son was so visibly upset that his dad hadn't called (this was the longest span of time - 3 months since last contact) that he didn't want anything to do with his dad. This prompted me to call his father and discuss this with him. His dad was informed that it isn't fair to me to have to help our son understand why he chooses not to keep in contact with him and that he needed to make more of an effort to consistently speak to his son because it tears me up that I cannot explain to him a reason why he cannot call. There is no excuse for him not keeping contact with him. The conversation quickly escalated into other issues and it was apparent to me that my ex felt in order to feel in control of the conversation that he had to drag up old history. After the conversation, it was agreed upon that neither of us needed to speak to each other since we can't be civil with one another, but contact will remain with our son only.
Our son received phone calls every once in awhile, but still nothing consistent. This last week, our son came home from school clearly upset. I thought it was over the fact that he didn't want to do his homework, but as we spoke more, the conversation quickly turned to things like, "I want to kill myself. I don't belong here. I want to go to Heaven." Our son has been clinically seen by both a psychiatrist and psychologist over the past 5 years for ADHD. We last spoke to his psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago and informed her that our son has been speaking like this when he gets upset, but when asked why he talks like this, our son has never given us a straight answer. On this particular occasion, however, our son said that he was mad and sad that his dad was noth calling him and he felt he didn't have a place in this world.
I felt I was at a crossroad. Do I continue to let our son think that his father's excuse of not being able to keep in contact with him was because of work and hope that one day he sees through this excuse or do I tell him the truth? I chose to tell him the truth. Why? Because when our son is 9 and doesn't want to be alive because his father fails to be a father figure in his life, I feel obligated to tell him the truth. After telling him that his father is basically lying to him as to why he can't keep in contact with him, I followed up by saying that it's up to him what kind of relationship he wants to have with his father. If he's okay with his dad calling every once in awhile without being upset, then so be it. But, if he can't accept the relationship with his dad that he has, then he needed to tell him.
Our son decided to call his father up to discuss this with him and the response he got from his father was that he wasn't lying to him, but couldn't give him any other reason for not calling more often. His father then decided to bring up adult issues with our son (i.e. child support he has to pay, change of schools, etc.) to prove to our son that I've been lying to him! When my son got off the phone, he was upset at me because his dad had told him that I take all of his money (his father is behind in more than $23K in child support) and that when he has changed schools I never told him (I have court documents in which are signed by his father and the courts showing proof that I have abided by the laws in keeping his father informed about this decisions).
As it stands now, I need some advice. First, was telling our son the truth about why his father doesn't keep in contact with him a mistake on my part? Second, I feel incredibly strong about seeing if I can enforce a temporary restraining order to restrict all phone calls with our son until we can get a court hearing to enforce that his father cannot discuss adult issues with our son? Have I opened a can of worms and have no where to turn or do I have options? If so, what are they?
I, the mother, have primary physical custody of our 9 year old son. I share 50/50 joint decision making custody for our son with the father. The father has resided in Montana for almost 3 years now and the last time he saw our son was over 2 years ago. An attempt (verbally-not legally) between his father and I to keep a weekly phone call schedule to speak to our son was made at the time his father moved; however, his father has never been able to keep to it. So, there are times when our son will go for weeks, even months at a time (the longest being 3 months), when no contact is made. As our son gotten older, his anger has progressed as to why his father doesn't keep in contact with him more. When he asks his father why he doesn't call the excuse is ALWAYS the same, "I had to work" or "My boss won't let me call." His father is a (or was at the time) a server, but has a way of charming our son into thinking that this is an acceptable answer. What our son fails to understand is that no employer in the world makes someone work 24/7 with no breaks in which he could make time for a phone call that could take no more than 5 minutes.
Having said all this, about 7 months ago, our son was so visibly upset that his dad hadn't called (this was the longest span of time - 3 months since last contact) that he didn't want anything to do with his dad. This prompted me to call his father and discuss this with him. His dad was informed that it isn't fair to me to have to help our son understand why he chooses not to keep in contact with him and that he needed to make more of an effort to consistently speak to his son because it tears me up that I cannot explain to him a reason why he cannot call. There is no excuse for him not keeping contact with him. The conversation quickly escalated into other issues and it was apparent to me that my ex felt in order to feel in control of the conversation that he had to drag up old history. After the conversation, it was agreed upon that neither of us needed to speak to each other since we can't be civil with one another, but contact will remain with our son only.
Our son received phone calls every once in awhile, but still nothing consistent. This last week, our son came home from school clearly upset. I thought it was over the fact that he didn't want to do his homework, but as we spoke more, the conversation quickly turned to things like, "I want to kill myself. I don't belong here. I want to go to Heaven." Our son has been clinically seen by both a psychiatrist and psychologist over the past 5 years for ADHD. We last spoke to his psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago and informed her that our son has been speaking like this when he gets upset, but when asked why he talks like this, our son has never given us a straight answer. On this particular occasion, however, our son said that he was mad and sad that his dad was noth calling him and he felt he didn't have a place in this world.
I felt I was at a crossroad. Do I continue to let our son think that his father's excuse of not being able to keep in contact with him was because of work and hope that one day he sees through this excuse or do I tell him the truth? I chose to tell him the truth. Why? Because when our son is 9 and doesn't want to be alive because his father fails to be a father figure in his life, I feel obligated to tell him the truth. After telling him that his father is basically lying to him as to why he can't keep in contact with him, I followed up by saying that it's up to him what kind of relationship he wants to have with his father. If he's okay with his dad calling every once in awhile without being upset, then so be it. But, if he can't accept the relationship with his dad that he has, then he needed to tell him.
Our son decided to call his father up to discuss this with him and the response he got from his father was that he wasn't lying to him, but couldn't give him any other reason for not calling more often. His father then decided to bring up adult issues with our son (i.e. child support he has to pay, change of schools, etc.) to prove to our son that I've been lying to him! When my son got off the phone, he was upset at me because his dad had told him that I take all of his money (his father is behind in more than $23K in child support) and that when he has changed schools I never told him (I have court documents in which are signed by his father and the courts showing proof that I have abided by the laws in keeping his father informed about this decisions).
As it stands now, I need some advice. First, was telling our son the truth about why his father doesn't keep in contact with him a mistake on my part? Second, I feel incredibly strong about seeing if I can enforce a temporary restraining order to restrict all phone calls with our son until we can get a court hearing to enforce that his father cannot discuss adult issues with our son? Have I opened a can of worms and have no where to turn or do I have options? If so, what are they?
