Ex's husband throws constant F bomb at son and threatens him over coat in front of grandson

[BusynMember]

This is the step dad who grandson has repeatedly said he was afraid of who always screams at him and slapped grandson across the face.

Today son had to do an exchange and this stepdad who I will call Mac was there in car alone, waiting to pick up little J. My son saw him and hugged J then sent J out of his car to go to Mac. Son was backing his car out of gas station parking lot. Mac screeched his car to chase him and son thought maybe J had forgotten something in his car so he stopped. Mac yanked J out of car and marched them over to son's car motionong aggressively for son to roll down his window.Son did.

It is 10 degrees there but J was only going from one warm car to another and ex has coats at her house. J was wearing a thin but very warm thermocoat. Mac, who is not bright, started yelling nonstop using the contant F bomb about how stupid son was to put a thin coat on J, how stupid he is, and said "I should come in there and kick your f***"g ass!" All this was in front of J who is sobbing hysterically and begging him to stop to which Mac snarled "You shut up!"

My son does not fight and tried to intercede and calm him down, but Mac never gave him room to say a word until Son finally winked at son, said"I love you" and drove away with son still begging Mac to be quiet please. Son felt sick leaving J. He wasn't sure he had any right to keep him. It is ex's time with him and he was afraid not to let him go. They are in litigation so he is afraid he is damned if he does or doesn't. At least in court.

Son called me shaking, furious, and reading me the letter he composed to his lawyer and the parental coordinator both who won't be in until Tues. Now son is so shocked, he is going to also call Parental Coordinator and lawyer too and normally he is afraid to call. He can't call ex. Ex won't answer the phone or let him talk to J and so far this calling issue has been punted by the Judges so Son has no contact with Son when he is with ex and ex won't allowbJ to call him. I am puzzled that the Judges never rule on this, but they have not. So he can only worry about J.

A little backdate info update: Son's Lawyer called easy child recently. They are personal friends. I think that helps. So easy child called son and said,"I understand the problem more now" and was very nice to son and told him ex's quest to put J. In a school near her and take him out of his current school wont happen. She also ruled in favor of son on forcing activities...activities have to only be on the particilur parent's time and can't infringe on the other one's time. That mattered a lot to son so both were major wins for him. Especially school. He only went to court because ex had enrolled him in the school close to her and J desperately wants to stay at his school, where he is familiar and doing well.

In Wizard emails, ex tried to brush off Mac's atrocious behavior and go after the coat, but son wrote back that this was not about the coat but about Mac's appalling threatening behavior in front of their son. Of course he tested me with all he wrote before sending anything. I think he did a great job. He can be a wuss, but he is in protective father mode now.

So that is the latest.

Son will be asking what can be done about Mac if anything. J has been very afraid of him and J's relationship for a long time and his mother won't protect J against Mac. As a helpless Grandma I just want to bawl but I am angry too.

.

 

[svengandhi]

I am so sorry for your grandson. Is it possible for your son to record all further exchanges in a way that doesn't alert Mac to what he is doing? I would also have him not tell his son as the child should be protected as much as possible. If it's legal to tape this way, it could provide proof if Mac is abusive.

 

[BusynMember]

My son almost never sees this step father and he said there was no time to take out his phone to tape it. He was caught off guard. His son saw it and I am sure they tape the parking lot interactions at the gas station. That is why son does exchanges there when they are not exchanges before and after school.

It is not illegal to record in a public place. J has told us he is scared of Mac for a long time but this is the first time my son actually saw his temper.

 

[SomewhereOverTheRainbow]

So sorry to hear this. It's really hard when helpless kids are caught in these situations. My kids had to go to my ex when they were younger and they were awful too. It is heartbreaking because you can only control your own behaviour and not the other persons. So even if you are fair and reasonable and doing what is best for the child, you can't make the other side cooperate. They can be losers their whole life and there's nothing you can do to make them be nice and put the interest of the kids first. This did a lot of emotional damage to my kids and it's so hard when you can't protect them. All you can do is damage control after the fact. I think this is a big part of why I became so codependent with my kids which didn't help my daughter. I was always feeling so bad for what she went through and trying to make it better. But not letting her face life herself didn't help her. The hardest thing is not being able to do anything to fix the situation. We can only pray.

 

[susiestar]

I think that your son should have his phone set to record every time he drops J off. He won't know what will be said until it is said, and this way he will have whatever is said on tape. He can always delete ones that don't show anything.

I think he needs to keep in mind that he is the only protection that J has. The protective father has to stay at the front. Until now, he has not seen the evidence of Mac's behavior. Now he sees it, and I know it must be ugly. Encourage him to document, document, document. It is EXCELLENT for him to run the emails past you before he sends them, at least for as long as you can manage it. He needs that second voice to help him be professional and calmly concerned, to hit the right note of concerned but reasonable. The more he is reasonable, the more she will NOT be.

I think maybe she has called the tune for a long time. Maybe with more of this developing, and with your son recording the handoffs on his phone, it would be possible for your son to get proof that she is not so great a mom and that this Mac is an abusive stepdad. It would be helpful if J could speak up, but that is a lot of pressure on a little boy. The punishment for speaking up is probably horrific. Emotionally if not physically horrific.

I also think your son needs to stop stressing over losing custody. I know in our area, my brother could only have lost custody if he was proven unfit. Short of actively proving abuse, the judges here won't budge from 50/50 custody. I do mean NOTHING short of outright abuse that is seen by someone (not bruises or welts left, someone seeing the abuse happening). We had cops and strangers finding my niece a mile or more from her home and calling my parents because her mother would not wake up (passed out/OD/went out for a bite to eat while her child was out on a walk at age 5-6-7!!). The judge wouldn't even caution ex sis in law about her parenting or her addiction putting her custody of her child at risk.

As long as Bart is showing up in court, and is doing what his lawyer says, I doubt he is going to lose custody. In fact, with all of her attempts at sole custody with no visitation, his ex may lose custody for being unreasonable. Judges get sick and tired of the parent that won't even attempt to be human about the whole situation and do what is best for the child. If your son can keep his cool and be reasonable according to what his lawyer thinks should be happening, your son may come out the winner.

 

[Littleboylost]

I have nothing to add to the advice already given. Just sending a hug. What a terrible situation. It is sad when children suffer that the hands of adults behaviours. I hope the courts get a good view of this issue and your son gets a good custody ruling.

 

[BusynMember]

Just like everything else in his life, my son, who truly loves his son to the moon and back, has a million reasons why he can't wire himself for drop offs. He was advised to do so at t he very start of the divorce and it is n ow six years later or so and he still can't do it, so he says. I know that people do record drop offs and anything to do with their ex's because false domestic abuse claims are common in divorce. But he just won't do it.

My son is not in danger of losing his 50% custody, but she did file (for the second time) for legal custody. I doubt she will get it this time either.

My son has issues, but his ex is truly a vacant person, dark and spiritually dead. My grandson often starts crying about how much he hates her and he is a very inward kid, not one to act out or have fits or tantrums. He is very guarded. But she does things like force him to ride his bike and back and forth in the hot Missouri summer heat to "try to make friends." He doesn't know anyone in her neighborhood because he doesn't go to school there. She chose to move there and now she wants to claim he has friends there so that the Judge will rule he can go to the school near her house. It won't happen, but she thinks it could and she literally will not let him back into the house until he was ridden his bike back and forth to try to find friends for long periods of time. She is smart enough to allow him water and pottying, but then he has to go out again until he makes friends. He is very shy, like my son was, and does not really make new friends well and isn't sure how to approach kids he doesn't know. This is just an example we heard about. He hates his bike so much that he told my son not to buy him one to use at his house. We know Mac hits him. As long as there is no mark there is nothing my son can do. J spends a lot of time at her house in his room being punished. He says sometimes he does it on purpose so he can be in his room and not with them. And he doesn't have to do much to get punished.

But the courts are 50/50 and don't really dig too deeply into the life of divorced children. They don't have the time, resources and maybe not the will. I don't know.

The situation with J is very frustrating. He is a very sweet boy who jumps if you talk too loud as if you are angry at him. He is quiet and needs to be prodded to loosen up. Hopefully his high intelligence will save him. He is known for being the smartest kid in his grade level. He gets some self esteem for that, but of course very smart kids get teased for being nerds too. So there is the downside.

 

[susiestar]

God will get her for that. For all that she does to her son. Sometimes that is all that I can think when I hear things like that and I know I can do nothing to help the child.

Maybe if J is able to tell the court that they are hitting him, or to tell a teacher, something will change. He has to have the courage to do that. I have a feeling that Mac's anger issues will get worse as J gets older and is smarter than Mac (it sounds like J is already smarter than Mac). Mac will resent that and will take his anger out on J, probably physically. J will need to work up the courage to tell someone outside his family about that in order to get it stopped.

As for your son, don't you wish there was a way to drive some sense into him? Some way to wake him up to the fact that he is the only thing stopping himself from getting the ammunition needed to protect his son? That would drive me up the wall.

You have so much more patience with your son that I would. Sooooo much more.

 

[BusynMember]

Susie, my patience is very thin. But sometimes...sometimes I can influence him in ways that help my grandson. I have no choice but to do my best for this reason. The taping thing is something I have talked about over and over again. In many ways, my son is like his son...easily scared. The court system has him traumatized. He is afraid that a tape recorder of some sort will be held against him and nothing/nobody can change his mind.

But this weekend he was so furious at Mac's behavior in front of J that he sent out two excellent identical emails about the incident...one to his lawyer and one to his parental coordinator.

He is terrified of the parental coordinator. She was a Judge and Judge's terrify him so that he stutters quite badly. He has always stuttered under stress and used to ditch School classes when he had to do speeches. He hates to speak to others in authority and this started in preschool for him with teachers and he never outgrew it. But he is calling the parental coordinator tomorrow first thing. He wrote down what to say and we practiced and he was stuttering just talking to me. But he is going to do it for his son, although he is incredibly nervous.

Sometimes I wonder if he is an Aspie. He did not get this fear from me in I can talk to a group of thousands and not even feel a little nervous. Oh well.

At any rate, I do what I can for the little guy and hope to see him much more once hubby retires in April. We do have a cozy RV for traveling now.

Tonight my mom heart aches fo both of them.

 

[SomewhereOverTheRainbow]

It takes a long time but the truth eventually shows itself. How old is your grandson? It took my kids until around 12 or 13 when they realized they didn’t want to go to my ex’s anymore. The relationship came apart quickly at that point because my ex and his wife never ever had the kids best interest in mind and sadly they didn’t really care to lose them. Years later my husband adopted my 2 adult kids since he had been their only constant and loving father since they were 2 and 3 years old.

 

[BusynMember]

Thank you, Somewhere. He is 9. There is no way J can ever refuse to go there. Missouri is 50/50 custody and if she has to she will drag him and son to court to make him go. She is a huge control freak and will refuse to let him stop seeing her. If he could he already would choose not to go.

In court the things she is doing are not enough to rescind custody. Most never make it in front of the Judge and my son has a great lawyer. Even so this circus has been going on for five years.

I hope the Parental Coordinator, who loves her own grandkids to pieces does something about Mac. She has some legal power to enforce orders, although he is not their actual Judge. She has been appointed by the Judge.