emotional blackmail from ex son in law..advice please !

I'm finding this difficult to grasp. You say 'the ex abducted my grandson and we had to......to get him back'. Is this the same 'ex' and the same grandson?

jodi.....sorry my daughters ex husband took his son away from her......without her consent

This situation sounds very complicated. On a simplistic level I think that perhaps the time has come for you to learn to step back a little from all this to save yourself. Once our children are grown and have made all the so called grown-up choices they wish to, we should be able to reduce the amount of emotional and financial support we give especially as we age and begin to need support ourselves. Yes, that sounds very cold hearted but there has to be a point where they cant keep dumping all their pain at our feet. Its so dreadfull when we really cant solve their problems as we used to when they were children and thankfully most children do learn to take responsibility for what they choose to do. That being said it all sounds very messy and I'm surprised that your ex-son in law is still able to call all the shots if he is guilty of abducting his son. Perhaps Social Services need to be involved, certainly get some advice fro Citizens advise.

Hilda I couldn't agree with you more. angiebaby Do you have a life of your own? You don't mention your normal life for us to base our imput on.

One of my sons and his partner split when their daughter was five. Both sets of grandparents refrained from interfering. It took time but both GD and her parents are happy with the arrangements. It's what it's all about.

It is not easy but at least possible to make good arrangements for sharing the children after divorce if there is goodwill on both sides. Angie is talking about an abusive relationship, where she, her DD and her DGS are still being bullied by the ex. such that normal amicable arrangements cannot be made. In these circumstances the best source of support and advice is Women's Aid who are well versed in dealing with this, sadly, very common situation. Best advice I can give is contact Women's Aid - they, not the CAB, are the specialists in this field.

Good advice from Granny23. This is not an amicable situation and your daughter needs to think of protecting herself, and her child, from her ex.

I do not think this is a situation for standing back and letting them get on with it. Daughter needs help and support.

angiebaby When your x sil was found by the courts to have abducted your DGS then surely the powers that be would not find it inconceivable for visits to continue without supervision,an order for the visits at a contact centre can be arranged and there is nothing he can do about it if your daughter produces all the evidence she has.If he works can an attachment order be put on his salary to take any maintainence out at source or is this not done now,it would at least make sure your DD received money for your DGS on a regular basis.Take time for yourself as you can get very weary when things like this happen.

That's what I though glamma

It's all to do with control. Whilst the child is young he has a link to his ex wife and can use that to continue to control her. Insisting on her meeting him, changing access times and denying her financial support are all control mechanisms. Can she go back to her solicitor? She needs certain things in black and white. For example ..the day and time he will pick up their son. He messes with this because it means she can't plan to do anything or she has to change plans hence he has control. It should be set in writing what will happen if he fails to arrive or changes the time at the last minute.

Was maintenance set by the court? If he's not paying it or paying it late then your daughter needs to go back to court. As glammanana says they can take it from his wages and pay it directly to her.

Hello angiebaby--Not a good situation to be in but there is always a solution and help--First of all how can he have this power of getting to see the child when he was arrested for abduction?????--Second of all you need to get Social services involved letting them know of the abuse that he is herling in the way of the text messages etc, get any proof of his bad behavior that you can eg keep the text's and record on your mobile or any type of camera any bad behavior--all you need is some concrete evidence so that you can take it further.//to the police if necesary and with recorded evidence you have all you need. Realise that he has started a war with your family and DONT let him win. To be honest I was shocked at the advise you were given to take a step back..This is your daughter we are talking about, how can you just let her and her child deal with this nasty person on their own. Get strong angiebaby and make this man regret the day he ever chose to do your family harm x please keep us posted x

Hi Cheelu , you are a newbie , welcome ,enjoy .

thank you Nonu

I am afraid such behaviour is not unusual. He sounds very controlling.

I don't think Social Services would touch it with a barge pole unless there is evidence that there is serious physical or emotional abuse of the child.
They do not become involved in these custody and access wrangles unless a Judge dealing with this orders them to do a welfare investigation. This would happen if the judge felt either parent was being totally unreasonable about trying to arrange such things as family mediation, to discuss the problems with someone who can help.

I am sure social services would refer you back to your solicitor.

If the father has full parental responsibilty, which sounds likely, he probably cannot be thought to have abducted his own child, unless there is a court order such as a residence order already place to restrict his contact.

If he is making abusive or threatening calls or texts that could be harrassment and would be domestic abuse. There should be a Domestic Abuse team in your area who could offer you advice.

Your daughter really does need legal advice, you cannot do take action on her behalf. I know this could be costly and I don't know if legal aid covers it now. but you must get this advice.

Oh dear its all in the words we use isn't it? So difficult to make oneself completely understood unless you write an essay. My comment about stepping back was tempered by the words 'a little'. This is because its something I have learned as both a parent, grandparent and an official carer. Self preservation is important if one is to offer calm effective support. Having a tearful relative (no matter how much one loves them) filling ones head and life with all their trauma and drama is counter productive in the end. After a while we can only do so much, and each person has their own limits. Its obvious angiebaby needs support herself as she seems to have reached the end of her tether emotionally supporting her daughter. I am no expert in which of the official bodies can be used (Social Services proved very helpful to us when we had child custody and safety problems with DH's son - so thats why I mentioned it).
angiebaby, I do hope you can get some help to support you through all this, perhaps a conversation with your Doctor might be a help, they do have access to agencies that support young families.

HildaW what you say does make lots of sense and although we all have our own opinion, I can understand and appreciate your thinking.

thank you everyone,,,,,,,,,,for all your advice its greatly appreciated, the ex son in law wants more and more,,,my grandson is 11.my daughter cant wait for the day the son reaches the age when the court order stops and she will tell him the ex husband to clear off and leave her alone, she has been divorced quite a few years now and the ex husband is in her face every fortnight when she hands the son over for his weekend with him, this horrible guy shouted at me that it was all my fault he hasnt got his son,,,!!!!!! exscuse me,,,nothing to do with me,,,,,,,i have kept out of it,,,but you can only take so much and then you have to help your children, it breaks my heart to see my daughter in so much stress all because of this idiot, social services,,,no they dont want to know,....harresment we thought of that one, but the police say he hasnt done anything wrong,,,they dont know enough about emotional blackmail do they !!!!!!!!! now we are battling with not letting him chat to his son by email everynight,,,,a child is not safe......but he dont think of that,,,so my daughter said ok for a bit of peace,,,,i would chuck the pc out the window,,,but the son tells him all whats going on with mummy back at hiome....oh it goes on,,,,,,,i just hope i live lomg enough to see the day when i will take my daughter to his place and throw the court order up and hand it to him and say leave us alone or i will call the police,.......thanks all,,,,

Angiebaby, so sorry to hear about your daughter's problems with her ex. I had similar problems with mine, many years ago. He used our son as a weapon to control me and made our lives difficult for years. The ex always insisted on having daily phone contact with DS so that he knew everyhting that was going on in my life. He invariably pushed the access arrangements to the limit but was totally inflexible if I wanted to make any changes so that DS could attend family parties, weddings etc.

Now that DS is grown up, the ex takes almost no interest in him at all. They just exchange birthday and xmas greetings and meet up very rarely. I am really sorry for DS as I would have liked him to have a good relationship with his father and I know he feels hurt and disappointed.

Sorry I can't help you with any good advice, all I can say is "hang on in there, it will get easier soon". Also, I think it's good that you support your daughter, she's having a tough time and I'm sure she appreciates your backing.