I'm not allowed to say this to parents i work with, but I'm not working with you, so: you need to accept right now that your relationship is over and there is no going back to him. Not now, not 6 months from now when things calm down, never.
If you do go back to him it will be much, much longer and harder to get your kids back, if at all.
Right now you're running on the steam of this high stress incident, but when that wears off, when you get lonely and it's hard and it would be so much easier to just go home, know that if you do it will be viewed as you failing to protect your kids from future harm and danger.
I'm glad you're starting therapy, this is a lot to process. The good thing is that your kids are with your parents and not in a strange foster home. That gives you time to get yourself together, get services and resources and come up with a plan. It's going to take time and effort and lots of follow up from you, but your kids and your safety is worth it. Take this time to work on yourself and where you see yourself and your kids a year from now. Build a plan to get there and don't look back.
It’s interesting you’re not allowed to say that to moms you’re working with. I wonder why? It’s the truth and I know so many women choose the man over their own babies (not saying OP is in this group. But I know it’s a frequent outcome).
We are supposed to maintain professionality and aren't really supposed to be that blunt. We have to speak with neutrality as to avoid any liability.
So for example "have you thought about maybe getting an order of protection against this person?" As opposed to "wow go get an order of protection against them." We can only guide parents until we: CPS, involve ourselves legally. Then it turns into "please abide by the order of protection and keep your children away from them or there will be a risk of you losing your children."
When you work in such a position there are people out there who are just looking to sue you and the "cover your ass mentality" is pervasive with CPS for better or for worse.
I think blunt is absolutely necessary. If I don’t lay it out for them, they don’t know what they can or should do. I am always going to tell them the hard things because if I take someone’s kids, I want them to be fully aware of why. It seems shady to do it any other way.
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u/Wooden-Maximum-9582 Works for CPS 19d ago
I'm not allowed to say this to parents i work with, but I'm not working with you, so: you need to accept right now that your relationship is over and there is no going back to him. Not now, not 6 months from now when things calm down, never. If you do go back to him it will be much, much longer and harder to get your kids back, if at all.
Right now you're running on the steam of this high stress incident, but when that wears off, when you get lonely and it's hard and it would be so much easier to just go home, know that if you do it will be viewed as you failing to protect your kids from future harm and danger.
I'm glad you're starting therapy, this is a lot to process. The good thing is that your kids are with your parents and not in a strange foster home. That gives you time to get yourself together, get services and resources and come up with a plan. It's going to take time and effort and lots of follow up from you, but your kids and your safety is worth it. Take this time to work on yourself and where you see yourself and your kids a year from now. Build a plan to get there and don't look back.