To mediate or not to mediate?
My ex and I have soon-to-be two year old twins and have been broken up since I was pregnant. Initially, I kept very strict boundaries with communication and visits with the twins but since January this year, he made efforts to be consistent, repeatedly begging for reconciliation and ultimately getting me to relax those boundaries. The final straw this week is not hearing from him at all even though he knows the twins and I are moving house. He’s not been around to help (am I being unfair with this?) or even contacted us to check how it’s all going? We’re now in a not so pleasant situation as I now suspect he’s seeing someone else while trying to get back together with me and over the last few months has not kept up with financial contributions or even seeing the twins.
He’s refused to consider a parenting plan, insisting that now that we’re moving closer he’ll be seeing the twins more regularly but I honestly don’t believe him. I need him to have a consistent schedule with them so I can do the same for myself and he’s making it soooo difficult. Everytime I bring up the topic, he just makes vague promises and then I don’t hear from him for days or weeks. It’s so frustrating and it’s been two years of this.
I’m considering mediation support to draw up a parenting plan that we can both agree and stick to and putting those boundaries back in place. My question is, will that be forcing someone who doesn’t seem to care to be responsible in a way that they don’t want to be?