Mother Losing Temper and Kids Resentment

[boyce57]

I have two kids equal shared care with ex wife.

After some feedback based on experience for the following:-

Two years ago eldest son didn't want to go his mothers anymore. Wanted to stay at mine...cried every bedtime night before he was due to go back to mothers. This went on for about 4 months.

Now youngest is doing the same...last month he ran out his mums hysterical crying he didnt want to stay with her and wanted to come with me...she pulled him away from me and shut door. Then recently he was at mine and after being on phone to her he was hysterical again saying he wanted to not go to his mums and wanted to just stay here or only spend 2 nights at his mums. All because she always gets angry and shouts. But also claims she is poor and has no money but goes out buying things for herself constantly.

Anyone else experienced this?

[Charlie7000]

Yep. The only thing that stopped it was when she stopped contact and I had to go to court. From then on she started being extra nice to son. Sounds better but she also got hostile with me and tried to alienate him so he was in the middle of conflict - caused by her.

Have your kids said why they don’t want to go back - because of the shouting? This is where so much goes under the radar- shouting can be pretty bad and abusive - but no witnesses and no mark on the kid. Is it amicable with your ex or not? I guess not. Ask then what she shouts about.

It sounds like she is terrorising them for enjoying coming to you. Which is part of alienating attempts- so they don’t want to come or mum will be angry with them. Manipulation. As with my son it just made him not want to go back. In his case it was fear. She would be angry with him for having had a nice time.

There isn’t much you can do unless the kids tell someone at school that things are bad at Mums and they’re scared. School should then get social services involved. But they often don’t do anything- visit and see everything is fine and say Mum just needs some support. Even if it’s not all fine at hers they just put support in place.

How old are the kids? Is equal shared care by agreement it court ordered?

You have to be careful what you say to her. I made things worse for my son by trying to talk to ex. Because son then got punished for telling me stuff.

If youngest is so upset about going back try to find out what they are scared of without asking too many questions. If they tell you something really bad then I would contact social services yourself and say you’re keeping them with you until social services have talked to them.

But it’s tricky as social services are so biased towards Mums.

[boyce57]

Yeah it's the shouting apparently. But she has always had a short fuse. Except now I cant say or do anything without her having to come out with some negative response.

We have equal shared care. But I live where the kids have been brought up. She moved away where they have no friends.