QLD Get Another Protection Order for Harassment?

[Marteena]

For 6 years, I had a protection order against my ex-husband for serious domestic violence towards me. It went to court and the protection order was granted.

Roll forward to present day (after 6 years of off and on behaviour from my ex) and he's harassing me and my children (phone calls, text messages, emails, etc). I just want him to leave us alone, or just be nice. He can't!

Can I get another order? Is it still a protection order or called something else now we haven't been married for 5-6 years?

 

[sammy01]

Do you have court orders / consent orders about when the kids spend time with their dad?

Do the kids see their dad? Maybe he is calling because he wants to see his kids.

You could seek a DVO - chances of it being granted based on a few phone calls - not great. Is he actually threatening you?

 

[Marteena]

There are no court orders, they've just always lived with me full time and spend time with their dad whenever he feels like seeing them, for which I've always been accommodating. At the moment, he's rarely in town so it's a bit hard but we make it work when he'd like to see them.

He wants to take them away next year, which is OK by me as he's taken them away before with no drama, however the dates he has given doesn't fit in with the kids schedules and I've asked him to negotiate the dates for which he's refused (he needs our dates to fit in with the dates his girlfriend is around) and now he has started the drama of harassing phone calls, abusive texts and contacting the kids with insulting remarks about their mum.

I don't know what to do, it's quite upsetting.

 

[AllForHer]

Maybe just on this one occasion, you could try working with his schedule, instead of him working with yours? If it's only once, surely that's the better option than going back to Court?

 

[Marteena]

We've never been to court. After 15 years together and a lot of domestic violence, he upped and left for a few years (after the police issued a temp protection order), then when he came back, which is fine. His time away allowed me to rebuild our lives and when he returned, he was able to gradually spend time with the kids.

There's no court order, no agreement, we just all knew the kids were better off with me. He doesn't pay maintenance, doesn't work and doesn't have a vehicle, and yet, I've never stopped him from seeing the kids whenever he likes. His abusive personality still rears itself from time to time, usually when I try to negotiate a more mutually beneficial pickup and drop off time around the boys commitments (I say commitments because they both attend school, play rep sports and have casual jobs, so we can't pander to his lack of a schedule every time he feels like it).

He has mental health issues, which swing either way depending on certain things that he does in his life. The thing that's kept things normal for the kids is our own routine, I'm reluctant to change our plans around him as I've done it before and he's failed to show or changed the plans at the last minute and our original plans would've been perfect in the first place.

I feel like I'm already being reasonable 99.9% of the time and it's not like I'm preventing him from taking the kids interstate! I'm asking him to change the dates by 2 days. I feel like I'm already doing enough to support the kids seeing their dad and by him now turning on me by this constant barrage of abusive degrading messages and now involving the kids in his nonsense is distressing.

I'll see if he wants to do something with the family dispute resolution, but he more than likely won't go as it's too far from him (no transport) and he'll be worried about having to pay maintenance as a trade off, or disclosing his domestic violence record, there'll be some excuse. But I'll give it a go.

 

[AllForHer]

I still stand by my above position. He might have accommodation/flights/etc. already booked, so moving by two days may be significantly more inconvenient for him than it is for the kids two miss a day or two of school/sports/work.

My husband's ex insisted that we move our plans by an hour, once. Not a big deal for her - she just wanted to 'say goodbye' to the child before the child went to her dad's for the weekend, but it was going to cost us $900 because it would have required a change to flights.

When you have residency and dad doesn't see the kids that often, it seems mundane to pursue a DVO over a difference of two dates.

 

[Marteena]

I understand what you mean, and that you'd be passionate about this and stand by your point of view, however your situation is very very different to mine. He didn't have anything booked at the time because we are paying for the flights and there's no accommodation costs, the trip is to see his side of the family! he doesn't pay maintenance.

He doesn't work either. And yet I've never ever stopped him from seeing the kids, that's their dad, even though he bashed me stupid for 15 years. He sees the kids as much as he wants to, it's just he never wants to, maybe 1 day a week, if that, we live within walking distance to him, so there's no excuse really.

My point with the DVOis so I don't have to be called a fat c#*t (etc, etc, etc) and then for him to send the same text message to his kids about their mum, and all because for this one time I've asked for a mutually agreeable date. There's also no reason why he can't move his dates by one day, all it means is for the 2 weeks holiday the kids only get to go camping for 3 days and not 4.

Anyway, since I wrote this post 2 days ago I'm not going down this route. I've booked in for some Family Dispute Resolution so we can, hopefully, put some structure in place.

My intake is beginning of December.