When enough is ENOUGH!!!

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger ... I think am turning into the frikken Terminator here.

I have had 2 very concerning contacts in the past week. One by email and one by phone.

Last week someone from ex's new job contacted me - he found a job in Nov and I had thought he was pulling himself right. FINALLY!

Then today the woman he has been staying with for the past 6 months or so contacted me. We spoke at length.

The boys had not seen, or spoken to him, for 3 months - from 16 Aug. Both a psychologist, and my attorney recommended that I keep them from him, based on the history I gave them and what they saw of the boys. So I did not contact him in that time at all. I was hoping he'd just disappear actually.

He contacted me around 2 weeks ago asking to see the boys again, now that he has a job and seemed to be in a more stable state. The boys were keen to see him, so they went. They have seen him 3 times now, but I have noticed a behaviour change in them since the visits started. Everything had been cool up to then and we had a good family dynamic going between the 3 of us.

Anyway this woman (who sounded very nice, caring and reasonable) phoned me today, since she said she is laying a charge against him for abuse and domestic violence, and wanted to warn me about what goes on and how the boys are treated when they are with him. He is apparently using cocaine again (among other things) while the boys are there and is basically just completely inappropriate as a parent. She says she looks after them when they are there, and he does virtually nothing (at best). She said she totally understood and could see why I left him. They have continued to share a place because they both can't afford a place alone. But now she is getting out and is worried what would happen if my boys are there and she is not... which is why she wanted to contact me. (Which I really appreciate!)

I am therefore not going to be allowing them to go to him again, and certainly not unsupervised and/or without drug screening first. He has caused too much damage to my children already and I am not allowing it. IT STOPS NOW!!!

He is a drug addict and has a serious problem, but he won't let anyone help him. He is causing damage to too many people now. She said she'd also tried to help him and he just screamed at her and told her to butt out because as usual 'he is fine.' She said so many other things which completely mirror my experience. We actually almost had to laugh as we could repeat his standard lines to each other. It would be funny if it wasn't so - well - NOT funny.

Countless people have advised me not to let him see them and I was always worried that I had perhaps misrepresented him and the situation and caused bias in people's opinions, but 2 independent people have now contacted me expressing concern and warnings and I simply can't ignore that.