I was wondering if anybody that may have been through the same situation may have some advice for us...
My husband was granted primary care of his kids March 8, 2012, since then the mother has told the kids she would never see them again, they were escorted out of the house by police (God knows what they went through while we made the hour drive to go get them), she didn't have contact with the kids for a year (since this time my husband was granted sole custody, and she was given supervised visits only should she ever show up again), in the last couple of months we have found out that she is pregnant again and has moved to a different province, she had been bugging us for phone contact, and since she followed our instructions with starting slow and starting with written we agreed that she could start phone contact, I gave her that permission on June 24, my reasoning for that was that the kids were out of school and would have the time and counselling to get through whatever reaction they might have to her contact. It is now Aug 3 (school starts in a month) and she is finally contacting me via text asking to call them. She is very in and out of the situation, doesn't pay child support (obviously), and to ME if it were MY kids I would have called them as soon as I was given the okay and not taken a month and half to try to call.
We're struggling with whether to allow the contact, legally we are in our right to withhold contact until she decides to come back and take us to court over it, as we are doing what we feel is in the best interest of the children. But I guess that's my concern is ARE we doing what is in the best interest of the children by denying contact with their birth mom? We have facilitated the written contact, we don't have an address but I take the time to scan their letters vs typing them so she can see what their writing looks like now, I send her pictures etc, I feel I've put in more effort trying to maintain healthy contact than she has. I am so concerned that her contact is going to have a negative effect on the kids stability and that she is going to make false promises of seeing them and break their hearts. But I fear they will resent us later on for denying the contact.....sigh any advice? I just wish years ago during the divorce she would have been more reasonable and sane and none of this would have happened, we didn't even want sole custody, we were happy with weekends, this just turned out to be the safest spot for the kids.
My husband was granted primary care of his kids March 8, 2012, since then the mother has told the kids she would never see them again, they were escorted out of the house by police (God knows what they went through while we made the hour drive to go get them), she didn't have contact with the kids for a year (since this time my husband was granted sole custody, and she was given supervised visits only should she ever show up again), in the last couple of months we have found out that she is pregnant again and has moved to a different province, she had been bugging us for phone contact, and since she followed our instructions with starting slow and starting with written we agreed that she could start phone contact, I gave her that permission on June 24, my reasoning for that was that the kids were out of school and would have the time and counselling to get through whatever reaction they might have to her contact. It is now Aug 3 (school starts in a month) and she is finally contacting me via text asking to call them. She is very in and out of the situation, doesn't pay child support (obviously), and to ME if it were MY kids I would have called them as soon as I was given the okay and not taken a month and half to try to call.
We're struggling with whether to allow the contact, legally we are in our right to withhold contact until she decides to come back and take us to court over it, as we are doing what we feel is in the best interest of the children. But I guess that's my concern is ARE we doing what is in the best interest of the children by denying contact with their birth mom? We have facilitated the written contact, we don't have an address but I take the time to scan their letters vs typing them so she can see what their writing looks like now, I send her pictures etc, I feel I've put in more effort trying to maintain healthy contact than she has. I am so concerned that her contact is going to have a negative effect on the kids stability and that she is going to make false promises of seeing them and break their hearts. But I fear they will resent us later on for denying the contact.....sigh any advice? I just wish years ago during the divorce she would have been more reasonable and sane and none of this would have happened, we didn't even want sole custody, we were happy with weekends, this just turned out to be the safest spot for the kids.