I don’t post to reddit often, but I find myself and my family in a bit of a pickle.
Location: Oregon
My ex and I have been divorced for 6 years now officially. Our divorce parenting plan has been 50/50. Since then due to his “work” he’s only ever done an 80/20 split with the 80 being me. Consistently since shortly after we divorced. We share 2 children (15f and 13m) both on the autism spectrum. I’ve always adhered to this and whenever the youngest had issues (the oldest is non-verbal) I’ve always encouraged him to go to his dads no matter what. I want both of them to have both of their parents no matter what. It’s been very important to me.
My youngest idolized his dad. Fully, just like any young boy would. But something shifted recently. He’s been telling me more and more about the things he’s endured that he feels pressure from. He gets yelled at for not knowing math too well, he’s been told that Elon Musk is a nazi (this post is not meant to be political on any level, just pointing out the things that have been said to the 13 year old) and he wants to kill his mother. When son said “March 28th will be a boring day” (something he saw in a video) he was told, “you don’t know about war.” There’s also moments where the boy was frustrated about a game he played, was told to take a shower to calm down and when he was crying in the shower, was threatened to have the water turned to cold. Just the tip of the iceberg. Again, he’s 13.
13 year old asked this week if he could stay with mom (he’s far more brave than I was at his age), the first response was “no, I don’t want to give up any more time, it’s been a month+ since I’ve seen you.” And that would have been a great message if he stopped there. But before the 13yo could respond, he said “you know what? Do what you want. You’re a spoiled ungrateful brat, I bought you all your electronics, I doubt you can replace them if they break.”
I have tried to have the conversations with dad to explain where th 13 year old is coming from (including many messages that 13 year old wrote from his own perspective– not at all on my request, I’ve told him I will talk to his dad to try to come to an understanding. No 13 year old should have to defend themselves so heavily to their parents!) All in text message.
Since trying to be a mediator between the two, I have been accused of “putting s**t into his head” and “just because you grew up with out a father doesn’t mean you can make him too.” I have tried over and over again. His messages to the 13 year old are similar, but shorter. “I do care.” To “if you want to end the relationship, then I’m done. Goodbye.” This is all just truly paraphrasing because without the full messages (which I have) you can’t see the full extent to which dad only focuses on how he feels and never anout how the 13 year old feels or how I’ve defended the 13 year old and played mediator. He’s unemployed, has been for almost a year draining his UE and 401k and telling me that with the end of that is the end of CS.
My question is, what do I need to do and who do I need to go to to maybe get full custody? Or is there something else I need to do in order to protect my kids? Help? I’m lost.