SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How are you doing NewMom? Thinking about you this morning and hoping you're all ok and safe.

Here is an update....

On Thursday night after I found out that the order of protection was not granted, I sent STBX the following email:

It is unacceptable for you to call my mother, father, and sister to make threats to take DS by force or take one of [my sister's] children. That is completely unacceptable. You should not be contacting any member of my family to insult, threaten, or harass them.

The following statements you made to [my sister] this morning are threats:

"I'm tired of doing things the legal way. I'm going to take matters into my own hands."

"If anybody gets in our way, I'm gonna take them down."

"I'm gonna take one of your kids, so you can feel the pain."

My family is now in fear that you will carry out your threats. My parents no longer can extend an invitation to you to come to their home and therefore the visit for this weekend is cancelled. Do not come to their home. If you come the police will be called.

If you or your family have any questions please go through your attorney.

He replied that he didn't make those statements. I forwarded a copy of my email to my SIL and said, "FYI...I know you were planning on coming down here this weekend and you may not know what transpired today."

My SIL responded saying, "STBX told me what he believes he said. I know his brain does not interpret things accurately so I tend to think that the statements below are closer to accurate. In any case, I don't know what to do cause I have gifts for you & DS, and parents that are dying to see him."

The next morning SIL called me and we spoke for about an hour. I told her to please come and bring the inlaws, that they should come and see DS and still have their visit with him. I didn't realize this when I forwarded my message, but underneath my email was a string of emails with weeks of our emails back and forth. She could see that I've been asking STBX to come visit at my parents' house and also explaining the every other weekend visitation. She and I talked about a few things, I said, sometimes I want to call your brother, he used to be my best friend, I used to be the one who would reason with him about things. Sometimes I feel like calling him and saying, what are you doing? But I know I'll get the same guy who raged on my sister. I told her that his attorney is petitioning for me to pay the legal fees so he is thinking that a long drawn out case is great, cause I'll be the one paying for it. In the meantime, that's money that could go to our son. She said in her opinion, every other weekend is generous since STBX has NEVER kept DS overnight or even longer than 6 hours. I tried not to talk too much about our case, but it was good for her to see those emails to see that I haven't been keeping our son from him, but rather encouraging him to come visit since he will not agree on a temporary visitation schedule.

She said STBX doesn't share things with his family and they have no idea about what is going on. She said her parents are depressed and just wanted to see DS. So they decided to come without STBX. She said she asked her mom if she still wanted to come and her mom said, do you think it will make STBX mad? She told her mom, do you want to see DS or do you want to worry about making STBX mad?

SIL said that when she tried to talk to STBX about his behavior he lashed out at her too. She tried to tell him that this isn't a battle and he should put his weapons down. She asked him if his Lawyer is making him promises she can't keep (about 50/50 custody) and if their family isn't seeing DS in the meantime because of misguided legal advice. She tried to reason with him about "doing whatever it takes to see your son, and if seeing your son at your inlaw's house is what it takes then why can't you do that?" He told her she must be on my side. That she was using language that I use. That she must be talking to me. She said no, I'm not, I'm just telling you what is in the best interest of your son.

They came and got a hotel room to spend the night. My FIL does look pretty weak after his surgery and he has to use the bathroom every 45min or so. It was a very nice visit and they spent all of their time with DS playing with him, feeding him, holding him, etc. They brought us Christmas gifts from the family and it was touching to see how much DS means to them.

After seeing how hard it is for them to make the trip and realizing that this custody case could take forever, my mom and I decided to go back to my old town between Xmas and New Years so that they can have a visit with DS. Not sure how this is going to work with STBX but I'll have to ask my attorney for advice.

It sounds like everyone is pretty much on your side, at least, even his own family.

That is SO good.

If you ever get the urge to reach out to him as who he USED to be..you remember the threat of taking your son. NO ONE threatens to take our babies. NO ONE.

Use that to keep you going.

I'm so glad the weekend went well and you didn't have to deal with STBX. His family sounds reasonable and decent, but don't let down your guard. Inlaws can suddenly side with their blood rather abruptly and leave you feeling like you've been betrayed all over again. Don't share TOO much info with them. You can be kind and generous when it comes to them visiting your son, but just be on your guard.

Inlaws can suddenly side with their blood rather abruptly and leave you feeling like you've been betrayed all over again.

This was exactly what happened to me. The more info they found out about their precious son, the more evidence I showed them which contradicted what he was telling them, it was like they couldn't take anymore, and it was easier to shut me out and stick their heads back in the sand and pretend everything was ok, than to admit that their son/brother/cousin was a lowlife disgusting sociopathic cat killer.

Wow you did an excellent job! Congrats! I would agree though that you want to keep stuff related to your case close to the vest where your STBX's family is concerned. No matter what they say they may one day turn on you

After seeing how hard it is for them to make the trip and realizing that this custody case could take forever, my mom and I decided to go back to my old town between Xmas and New Years so that they can have a visit with DS. Not sure how this is going to work with STBX but I'll have to ask my attorney for advice.

As hard as this is to say....I wouldn't do it.

If you could go to a town closer perhaps? I don't know. Traveling away from your home base and going down there leaves you open to anything. You have a stance at your mom's house, but if you are in town and at a hotel, he could call the cops on you for refusing to give the baby to you.

I totally understand the situation and that you want them to have time with their grandchild, but the bigger picture just doesn't warrent that kind of risk.

So glad you and ds are safe! I think it was good for SIL to see those emails but I would not share anything else with her or anyone else in their family. You need to play it close to the vest. In the mean time continue to have witnesses and do not let them take ds anywhere. As much as they are kind and loving to him these are the same people that harassed you about your move. They do not have your best interest at heart.

I would make the effort to continue allowing them occasional visitation at your parents but not taking ds to their town. It's too easy to be cornered or caught off guard.

Your stbx scares the living shit out of me and I don't say that lightly. I think he has every intention of punishing you for leaving and has the desire to harm you. Make sure you are documenting every single interaction, back those up with var recordings, email trails, texts ( take pictures of the texts). And phone records. Any third party documentation to interactions between you two are important too. Have your sister document what he yelled at her, and consider following up with an email to his sister documenting that they had a nice visit to see ds and are welcome to keep in contact with you to schedule further visits. Save any emails between you and his family too, that will all help to show that you are going out of your way to keep ds involved with stbx's family but that stbx's himself is a risk that's too great at this point in time. I truly hope he ends up with supervised visits.

[This message edited by betrayedfriend at 11:30 AM, December 9th (Monday)]

The more info they found out about their precious son, the more evidence I showed them which contradicted what he was telling them, it was like they couldn't take anymore, and it was easier to shut me out and stick their heads back in the sand and pretend everything was ok, than to admit that their son/brother/cousin was a lowlife disgusting sociopathic cat killer.

Exactly what happened to me, too, minus the cat killing. (He killed a cat??? )

As nice as inlaws can seem, their wayward child did grow up in their environment, so you must always be cautious that extreme dysfunction could be lurking.

I'm afraid I have to agree. Maybe down the road you can be more generous with sharing DS with them but, for now, one good interaction is not sufficient to start making gestures that help them see him, like traveling to their town. At least not until you have something legal in place...

It's hard for me to say that because you are just trying to be kind. But I don't think you want to set any kind of visitation precedent. You take him down there once and I bet you'll hear about it down the road as something that you should be doing regularly, etc.

You are a very kind and thoughtful person, so I imagine this is very hard for you.

I too worry about precedent setting. I have read on here time and again how the families of disordered people like your x, turn on the reliable spouse.

You don't know what will happen in the future, so what you do now matters. Offering them visits when they come to you is more than enough, right now, before the legalities are settled.

And show you are reasonable.

Going to visit them can turn on you. Their lawyer can say, "Obviously you thought they were great people because you went to all that trouble to see them Christmas 2013."

If anyone questions you blame it on legal advice.

I'm agreeing with the rest. If I recall these are the folks who already murmured about a grandparental rights suit. Grandpa will get stronger in time - right? The trip won't be as taxing in the future hopefully. And once you have a legally binding agreement - you can revisit when and where they see DS. Don't set a precedent, and don't leave yourself vulnerable for now...

After seeing how hard it is for them to make the trip and realizing that this custody case could take forever, my mom and I decided to go back to my old town between Xmas and New Years so that they can have a visit with DS.

OMG, no! NO NO NO NO NO!!!

Do NOT go back to their town until you have a legal document in place for custody/visitation. You would be on their "turf" and could easily be in a situation where they take the baby and you won't be able to get him back.

Please keep that in the forefront of your mind at all times with regard to your inlaws. They can come visit you in your current town if they want to see DS.

If you go to their town to help make things easier for them, the meeting should be on neutral and public grounds where they cannot claim "ownership" or rights. Your hotel room or the hotel lobby. They cannot take your DS anywhere. All the same precautions should apply. I particularly like the show of your family strength and the "car that just happens to be conveniently parked behind their vehicle".

You all are amazing! I wrote my atty and she says a holiday visit is fine but make sure it's in a public place and that your parents (or a few people) are with you. Etc...

I'm always quick to forgive and forget because I just want this to be over and want a normal existence. But you are all right, his family is his family and they are always going to enable him. I guess I just want DS to have both families in his life and not let his messed up dad ruin all of his firsts. He already ruined so much of this first year...but I have to protect him and I have to get over my fear of being perceived as the bad guy.

You guys are the best BTW....I'm so grateful for all of you. This is the best worst group that no one wants to be a member of. But seriously, I usually post here when I write to my attorney and then compare responses...just to make sure she knows what she's doing.

I'm going against the grain.

I don't see anything wrong with taking your DS to visit the GP's at Xmas time. Go to their town and invite them to see your sweet DS, wherever you are staying. You are present - ALWAYS. They take him anywhere alone - NEVER.

There aren't many states that recognize *grandparents* rights.....especially over a parent who can show that the child of the grandparent has made *threats* towards the child.

So how did the IL's manage a visit without your stbx tagging along? How did that play out and has there been any blow-back from it?

@SS -- you REALLY need to put this on your tagline

their son/brother/cousin [is] a lowlife disgusting sociopathic cat killer

[This message edited by gonnabe2016 at 12:24 AM, December 10th (Tuesday)]