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Other post called 'He won't leave me alone' has the background details to this:
I'm going out of my mind right now -I called the police on my ex and they didn't believe me and called me paranoid.
My ex has been saying he wants a relationship with me still and said he had stopped and never wanted to drink again and wouldn't drink around our son or when son is with him.
Tonight I spoke to him and he was drunk so I drove over to his place. This is not first time he's done this.. He told me he hadn't been drinking, obvious he had, and he also told police he had had a few in the afternoon.
So long story short my son is still there and I'm furious that my ex is still lying to me and not being responsible.
Was mistake to call the police but at the time I couldn't think what else to do. Now I've made MY self look bad. I feel totally numb, like in shock. There is nothing I can do from a legal standpoint. He is smugly getting away with this and had the gall to try to say he wants a relationship with me and I'm a b*tch for not wanting to!! I feel completely helpless. All I can do is throw my hands up and try not to think about him and 'HOPE' nothing ever happens to my son. I think it's disgusting. sorry I'm feel angry. My ex will know exactly what's up too. Or he'll know in the morning. Is he a psychopath or what -how can he spend so much time and energy to convince me he doesn't have a problem just to go and drink and spoil it all again. soo predictable yet sooo infuriating.
mama...I don't think that anyone could make you leave your son in this situation. Suppose he were to take him somewhere in a car. I would get my son out of there as fast as I could and I would only let him visit with my supervision. I think you can do something legally. No judge would let a child stay in harms way with a drunk. I would sit outside his home in my car all night if I had to. I don't think I would even be giving thought to mine and his relationship. The only thing that matters this minute is your son. Please...please...get him out of there any way you can.
I feel like I really screwed up because the police man said he thought I was just being "paranoid" (the choice of words has really been bothering me) and pretty much said that if I keep doing this it will seem like I'm frivolously calling police on my ex just to stop him having a relationship with his son. And that is BAD, because I don't have any family here and my ex has a big family, (who all turn a blind eye to alcohol I might add) and my ex could then state a case that I'm trying to stop him having a relationship with his son and he has more family so is more able to look after him, or something like that. Crazy, but they are like that. It's like he can do no wrong, a master manipulator: he will say to me in private (when he wants to be with me) that he acknowledges all the things he's done and the drinking. Then in public he denies it and points finger at me calling me a trouble maker. Sick.
Hard as it is unless you can gather documented information that would convince a Judge that you son's father has caused and will continue to put your son in harms way it is very difficult to make a boundary that we don't have back up for. The law says that an adult has the right to drink in his own home.... just as an example an attorney had told me about a 16 year old gal that was dealing with her alcoholic mother.... and as we know the disease of alcoholism causes unpredictible behavior in the alcoholic (and yes, even in us).... in this case the mother was insulting the gal and insisted that she turn off the tv.... the gal in fustration threw the remote... the mother called the police and the gal was arrested for domestic violence as they said the mother as an adult has the right to drink in her own home. You didn't say how old you son is. If he is old enough to call 911 you can make sure that he has a child cell phone that he could use when he is with his father to have incase he ever feels that he is in danger..... just a thought... don't know if that is something you could do. I have learned to look at alcoholism as a true disease that definietly affects the family as a whole. Even though we have not lived with the alcoholic for the past four years, my 13 year old son for the past year has been drinking and smoking pot. I can see the struggle clearer as I use my Al-anon tools in dealing with my son, something I certainly didn't do as well with my ah at the time. This is a family disease. I know that I have to continue to ask myself.... am I reacting or acting rationally.
My A has children from a previous marriage. I don't live with him, he lives with is parents. When we were still dating, and he was still drinking, he tried to push for visitation with his children on occasion. I think it was to impress me with his fathering skills, because he'd really rather just stay in bed, drunk. Anyway, his ex-wife forced him to sign a paper that promised he would not drink in front of the children and would never drive them anywhere if he had been drinking. He signed it, and I can honestly say he has NEVER driven his kids anywhere drunk. His parents would drive the kids under the premise that it wasn't a good idea for him and his ex-wife to confront one another. I don't know how it would've held up in court, but she got the idea from a social worker who told her she could be in trouble for putting her children in a dangerous environment. I'm not a lawyer and don't know your legal rights in this situation, but it is important to get whatever legal advice you can get.
The truth will come out in the end. I had the same thing happen to me. The first time I took my ex to get supervised visitation, the Judge threatened to throw me in jail. He acted like I was doing it to be vindictive. I called one day after work and my ex was passed out drunk with our daughter. She answered the phone and was crying. I called the police. They went over to his apt and said everything was fine. I was not about to allow him to keep her while he was drunk and on drugs, so I called the police again. They told me to hurry to pick her up because they couldn't take her unless a legal guardian or parent was there. I flew in my car 2 hours away. I called the police as soon as I got there and they allowed me to take my daughter and gave me a police report. He was drunk out of his mind. I went back to court and the Judge told him he would have to go for drug and alcohol testing every month and until he was clean for six months, he would have to have supervised visitation. He failed the tests and I haven't seen him in 5 years. Keep praying and have faith. The truth will come out. You are NOT being paranoid! You're job as a parent is to protect your children and that is exactly what you are trying to do.
Woah, kissers, what you described is exactly what I was afraid of. I know that if he chooses to continue on this way, the truth will come out, other things have before. It blows my mind how police can come and say everything's okay. What's to say the A won't keep on drinking after they leave and get worse? Glad things worked out for you, but scary how close things have to get before they do. My son's too young to use the phone. The police said if I were to keep going back there like that on other occaisions that I would start looking like I was just being vindictive or harrasing for no reason. However I'm feeling a lot better today, got my son back home last night and he is well. Starting to accept the watching and waiting and leaving up to a higher power.
I watched a Dr Phil special last night called 'Escaping Addiction' about an alcoholic husband & wife who had 3 kids, one of whom has to be on a ventilator due to muscular disability. I was shocked and disgusted by the sheer lack of consideration for their children, and selfishness. The were truly truly sick: some of the things described: while drunk the husband has fallen asleep in the bath with one of the children, fallen asleep and nearly crushed one of the children, crashed through the shower door causing the son to think he was dead, stumbles around, standing on his son's ventilator... Both the husband & wife drive drunk and the wife got into an accident while the kids were in the car. While the disabled son was in hospital his heart stopped 7 times and the mother was in the bathroom chugging a beer and went to the liquor store to get a vodka as soon as she could leave the hospital. Through all that she would tell Dr Phil what was going through her head was that she thought she wasn't drunk, and it was 'only a few', including when she would drive drunk. Dr Phil sent them to a top notch rehab clinic, and *2* days after returning home the wife relapses. Then she gets arrested for drunkenly molesting the airline flight attendants on the filight over to see Dr Phil for a recap. My blood was boiling watching this. And it made me see that these are real, normal looking people living in suburbs. On the outside you wouldn't think anything was wrong. Which is why I was soo mad about that policeman telling me I was being paranoid. Alcoholics aren't always stumbling down the street throwing up they are the people next door.
I don't know how old your son is, but there was a similar problem here with a friend of mine. He knew the mom was drinking and using drugs when his son was with her. He tried calling the judge that order the custody arrangement but got no where.....basically all comes down to "proof". So one afternoon he took his son to the judges office (the boy was 6) and told his son to tell the judge what mommy was doing at her house. My friend walked to the outer part of the doorway, so as to leave the boy alone with the judge, and his boy told the judge what the mom was doing, how she couldn't walk because she was drinking beer and "water from a little bottle" how he had to sit alone because she was "sleeping" as he couldn't wake her up. The judge changed the custody order and the mom was only allowed supervised visitations. Maybe you could call your areas family courts and ask for some advice. It couldn't hurt.
