My niece is getting a divorce and they have signed all papers about a property and child custody settlement. Her ex is off work because he says he is bi polar and he says hisself very unstable. He demanded half of the time with the children. She one week and him the next. We think this was because it cut his child support in half though he is not working so he is paying nothing. My niece is very careful not to make him feel he is no longer a part of the childrens day to day life. I am getting worried because he is calling here threatening people who she knows or he thinks caused the divorce. He is living with a woman yet takes this woman with him to follow my niece and threaten any man she talks to. He threatens to take the children and not come back. He has the four year old in tears every time he has to go to spend time with Daddy. He usually takes them to his brothers and has had to call asking someone to come and get children on more than one occasion because of family violence in that home. He calls me and tells me how the doctors say he could snap at any moment and hurt someone but not remember it. Twice he has tried to get a gun to shoot a lady friend of my nieces because he thinks she told his wife to leave him. He claims he has no memory of this. Do you think we should do something to stop or supervise his visitation and what can we do.

J_9

If you are not already, you need to document, document, document everything that is going on. Make a diary, if you will, of incidents, places, dates and times.

I personally believe that if all of this is happening supervised visits would be in order if she is reluctant to stop visitations completely until he gets a mental health exam.

The gun issue really frightens me. Although many times it is simply an idle threat, some people do tend to follow through. If there is violence of any kind whatsoever, including verbal, she should immediately get a restraining order issued.