Please someone help.....

My ex has decided for the last 2 months to tell the kids they do not have to visit with him. He has sent me and the courts a letter stating he is withdrawing his visitation unless 1) he notifies me he has changed his mind or 2) the kids call him and tell him they want to see him. How do I make him use his visitation? I've tried calling him and sending emails but he only ignores them. If the kids call to talk to him, he gets angry and asks them not to call him unless they want to visit (which they don't). I have done everything I can think of short of leaving them on his doorstep! Please help.....

Can someone please let me know what they think about this?

Thank you!

Court ordered visitation doesn't mean that the father MUST come see the children. His sending a letter to the courts means nothing. He cannot "withdraw" visitation----he never HAD to show up in the first place. He can stop visiting. It doesn't matter to the court. The point of visitation is if he WANTS to see the children he can. If he does not, he doesn't have to.

You cannot make another person DO anything. You cannot make him want to see the children and, in fact, I would have serious concerns about attempting to FORCE someone who clearly did not want to, to be with the children. Leaving them on his doorstep means you are subjecting them to a face to face realization that they are looking at a man who, for whatever reason does not want to be a part of their life.

As the old expression goes, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Until he "gets thirsty", so to speak, you cannot compel him to be a good father AND trying to FORCE him to spend time with them when he clearly has no interest in doing so is a futile, and even potentially dangerous situation.

Leave the man alone. Any effort on YOUR part to force him is only going to make him resist even more. I know its sad, but even if you got him to SEE the children, you still could not force him to care and to love them. And saying he won't see them unless THEY (the children) take the initiative to contact him and ASK first, is a textbook example of passive aggressive behavior.

Good luck.

Thank you so much for your response. You make valid points that I agree with but this man always has another agenda for his actions. Like trying to say I am not encouraging the kids to see him or trying to "alienate" them. I just wanted an outside opinion. Thank you again!

Very sad, that is for sure.

Perhaps some 'down' time away from everyone and everything so to speak will give him time to work through some things and he can return to being a father again.

Good luck.