My son doesn't want to see me

I think socks's 3 suggestions are very wise. Your current approach will come across as not respecting your child's wishes, and even stronger than "may well", I would say it's guaranteed to make your situation worse, including the future prospects of a relationship with your child. I say this as the  of divorced parents, where one parent thought I should not have or express opinions and that they, by virtue of being a parent, were in the right.

If you can contain your actions and communications now this may help in the longer term. Take a look at the AQ test then get some help - whether that help is for possible autism, or for coping with this situation that is causing you a lot of distress and, by virtue of your communications, is distressing to others.

Much as the recent responses well be difficult to receive, I hope you can take steps from here to improve your situation.

Hi Andy,

It is interesting to read these emails etc and I think it suggests a problem that you need to address.

Your ex's family (your ex, your son, your MIL) are fed up with you. You have clearly been unable to maintain a civil relationship with them and that may be their fault or yours but it takes two willing and able parties to continue a civilised relationship.

I would seriously suggest, at this point, that

a) you completely back away from any further contact for the moment. Your email read like a spanish inquisition and your son's email leaves no room for doubt about how he feels towards you at the moment. If you persist with your desparate enquiries you may well only make the situation even worse.

b) you don't publish any further personal emails. I know that you have removed all names and such but the way that you are publishing them does not exactly put you in a good light - that is my personal opinion and I am sure others will offer theirs which may be different.

c) You take the aq test to see if you have the traits. This could be the key that unlocks this problem. If you have autism, like me, then you will struggle to see things from others points of view. You will struggle to make sense of what they are saying and you will struggle to make sense to them. The unhappy confrontation that you are going through is typical for people that don't understand themselves or others and it is common in people with undiagnosed autism.

I hope others will chip in at this point as I haven't experienced all of the events that you are going through. I have seen these things unfold and am very sorry for you and particularly for your son who is obviously distressed and traumatised by the situation that he finds himself in.

Today, I received this email from my son through his mum's account:

drive.google.com/.../view

After trying to call my EX few times, I've sent her this email:

drive.google.com/.../view

An email received form my ex on Sat 11/06/'16:

drive.google.com/.../view

A log of some events:

drive.google.com/.../view

NAS10665 said:

Hi AndySmith,

I am really sorry to hear that you are not currently seeing your son. I have experienced this personally so can completely relate to how you are feeling. It sounds like you really care for your son. There are a lot of people out there that would have given up by now, so keep your head high and don't give up! I have 2 children, a boy 7 who is high functioning autistic and a girl 4 who is suspected autistic. I also have Aspergers Syndrome.

Are there any support workers or professionals involved with your son that you can talk to? Professionals and the legal system will take the view that contact between children and the non-resident parent is beneficial and will support and enable it.

As clovis has suggested it may be worth sending your son a letter, if only to remind him he is in your thoughts and you love him. Although you did mention your ex has called the police so you would need to be careful about allegations of harassment.

For me the situation was slightly different. The reason I could not see them was because withholding contact was being used as a a means to cause harm and to exert a level of control over me (I was also being harassed by my ex partner at the time). Which is very unfortunate for the children too. It happened on several occasions ranging between a day and a week, before being stopped for over a month, at which point I took legal action.

Legal action is a last resort, it is not fast, it is not pretty but (in my case anyway) solves the problem. The legal system in the UK encourages parents to attempt to resolve issues themselves before going to court, which if possible is a much better way. I ended up going the whole way and now have a court order in place, things are much better for myself and most importantly my children.

I absolutely would not suggest that this is the right solution, it can often aggravate the situation. There could be merit in attending mediation though. Getting in a room with an impartial mediator may help you and you ex-partner agree a sensible plan for contact between yourself and your son. As an additional benefit it is a pre-requisite for family court applications - so if all else fails you will have moved 1 step closer to seeing your son.

Here are some websites you may feel useful

www.separateddads.co.uk/LegalCategory.html

www.gov.uk/.../types-of-court-order

fnf.org.uk/.../parental-responsibility

Hi gramit108,

Thanks very much for your reply and the useful links.

There are support workers involved with my son at school & his mum's.  For certain reason I can't hold of any of them.

My ex refused to give me the contact details of the support worker who is vising her & my son at home.  My ex said she passed on my contact details to the support worker.  I never received a call from her.

I tried to get hold of the support worker at school 4 times now.  Everytime I leave my phone number and I get promised a call back but haven't received a call yet!

Last time I spoke to my son, he said: "The Autism lady at school said to mummy to change her number!"  I was hoping she would offer more constructive advice.

I'm trying to avoid the legal route.  I'm trying to appeal to my ex's better nature & try to sort it ourselves.  Also, my ex's family are nice family and hopefully they'll help.

I feel my ex wants me to go the legal route because she knows if our son gets asked whether he wants to see me or not he'll say No.  As I said, legal route will be my very last resort.

It's interesting that mentioned mediation.  I spoke to Citizen Advice Bureau and they suggested the same thing.  I might give that a go.

I

AndySmith said:

I can't however understand my ex reporting me to the police or not picking up my calls.  I thought it would be better if we work together & try to get all the help we can get for our son.

it is possible that this suggests such a complete breakdown of communication which makes no sense to you but it might make sense if it turned out that you, or she, had autism/aspergers.

AndySmith said:

Sometimes I wondered if I'm slightly autistic like my son.  I don't know, I might be.  I might check that in the near future.

Best place to start with that is to do the free test at aspergerstest.net/.../ This is remarkably useful and is from a very respectable source.

NAS7937 said:

I'm really sorry to hear of your painful separation from your son who you obviously love a great deal.

We autistic people can be binary about our relationships, we want to see you or we don't, there is no middle ground as there is with neurotypical people. This can be hard to grasp if you're not autistic. It can feel wrong and arbitrary.

Your son's reasons for not seeing you may have nothing to do with your actions, he may just be finding it very hard to cope with moving between two houses and two households. Again it is hard to understand how stressful we find such things if you are not autistic.

I think you must give your son the space he has asked for, as you have been over the past months. You could write him a letter saying what you've been doing and asking for his news and that you love him. There is no point in using neurotypical 'reason' to persuade him to see you as its not our reason and makes no sense to us.

Its a hard place to be for you but you're his dad and he will want to see you again. Right now the easiest way for him to cope is by not doing so. Just be there for him when he's ready.

Hi clovis,

Thanks very much for your reply.

I'm trying to give him space.  I haven't seen him for 3 months now. 

My son not wanting to see me, that's I can understand.  Bless him.  

I can't however understand my ex reporting me to the police or not picking up my calls.  I thought it would be better if we work together & try to get all the help we can get for our son.

I'm going to keep doing my best for him and hopefully, as you said, he'll want to see me again.

Hi recombinantsocks,

No, not using my real name.

Sometimes I wondered if I'm slightly autistic like my son.  I don't know, I might be.  I might check that in the near future.

My Ex & myself both moved on years ago.

Hi Gramit,

Many thanks for sharing all of that. It sounds as though you have come out of it stronger and wiser which is not the common outcome for such disputes.

I think we do come across as negative and critical (I have been told this on more than one occasion!) Trying to deal with a child and husband with undiagnosed autism is also likely to be very stressful so things may have been perceived more critically than under normal conditions. My problem when we were bringing up kids was that I was too open to negotiation and would end up debating things endlessly with the kids when I should have just been more consistent.

My dispute is about a construction issue - we are suing over a home renovation project that went wrong - some of the confusion was propbably down to my communication skills but the main cause was the builder was a rogue trader. Hopefully I will feel positive if we get a good result - winning or losing must have a big impact on how well we think of it.

Hi Gramit,

You must have been through the mill to get to this point, life with troubles such as yours is really tough. Well done for keeping a level head through all of that.

I will totally agree with your statement about legal action being a last resort. I am pursuing a different matter and the process is utterly awful and arbitrary and it absolutely discourages people from using it. I think this sometimes means that some people will get away with things that they shouldn't.

I'm interested in your views on how your autism contributed to the breakup of your relationship - I have read that undiagnosed autism is a risk factor for relationships and I can see that people who struggle to see eye to eye will get into difficulties. I think I have been fortunate in having a relationship that has lasted but the autism (only diagnosed relatively recently) certainly hasn't helped us to have the best possible relationship. What do you wish you had known about yourself that might have avoided or reduced the difficulties you have had?

Hi Andy (I hope you haven't used your real name???)

The first question I would ask is whether you have considered if you and/or your ex are on the autistic spectrum yourselves. Autism is frequently inherited but often unrecognised and undiagnosed autism leads to relationship breakdowns.