I really appreciate all of your thoughts. While it would ease my mind to refuse access, I basically came to the same conclusion as kml that I must play the long game here and think strategically when dealing with this type of personality.
I haven’t spoken further to X since Monday morning. His Tuesday daycare pickup and visitation occurred without issue. In fact, S2 was returned 10 minutes early. I believe X has realised how thin the ice beneath his feet is now, so he’ll toe the line until he feels more secure again. Once he realised that my family, his family, and the police got involved, it must have clicked that what he did was a step too far. So that calms my fears somewhat.
In the interim, I’m moving swiftly to get consent on a new parenting plan. I’ve offered two Saturday overnights a month commencing immediately and increased weekday time. I’ve also outlined how the time will increase further over the next two years, eventually giving him weekly overnights and every other full weekend. Holidays, birthdays, changeovers, communication— it’s all in there and all very fair. I want it locked down as soon as possible.
I also plan to move ahead with the Father’s Day visit this weekend as planned as long as he provides the physical address of the overnight visit and emergency contact information if he can’t be reached. I will make it very clear that if S2 is not back in my care at the scheduled time, I will not agree to any further visitation until a court order is in place. I’ll also mention the nappy rash and let him know what I usually do to prevent it.
I just want to reiterate that I offered for X to start taking S2 overnight back in February. He threw a fit because it wasn’t the amount of time he wanted and then stopped negotiating completely. S2 has comes miles in his development since then and I don’t believe he will be greatly affected by the differences in my parenting vs X’s ‘parenting’. Hopefully X will improve with time. Kml is right— S2 was not affected by the overnight visit and he understands what is going on.
Once again, I’m required to be the only reasonable adult in this situation and spoonfeed X since he seems completely unable to resolve this in a productive way for S2’s sake. If he feels like he has won, my life is easier. As long my peace doesn’t come at S2’s expense, I can handle pretty much anything this personality disordered man throws at me. At first I thought the only way to win was to not play. Now, I’m learning how to play the game.
