I'm a lurker, former/future stepmom, and bio mom to a 12 year old boy.

Problem is my ex- he voluntarily gave me full custody (physical and legal) in the divorce and did not request any visitation time, so our decree says that he may have visitation "upon arrangement with the mother". My ex was required to pay child support and to provide health insurance for our son.

He's been a terrible bully for all the years since we've been divorced, doing things such as calling me 100 times per day demanding that I allow him to claim our son on taxes, demanding money, demanding that I have the child support amount reduced, etc, and always threatening to take me to court and try to prove me an unfit mother if I don't. Although I have been told by several different lawyers that he will not be able to do this, just the thought has scared me so badly that I usually gave in to his demands. This, of course, resulted in further demands from my ex all the time. I tried to get a PPO to get relief from the demands, threats, and bullying, but because I had been married to him once, the judge wouldn't grant it, saying that it was a family court matter, and I am terrified of family court, so I dropped it.

Now he has stopped paying child support totally, and has also cancelled our son's health insurance. He has moved from Michigan where we live, to Wyoming, back to Michigan, then to Kentucky where he is now. Although he keeps moving to different parts of the country, he expects me to drive halfway to meet him wherever he goes, which puts a lot of pressure, myself, on our son and our whole family. I cannot afford to make these trips, and have never been ordered to do so by a court. But in the past, I did it anyway, out of fear of being accused of PAS and losing my son.

Here is the EMERGENCY- My ex took our child last Friday for a four day weekend, and he is supposed to return him tomorrow. I currently am pregnant, and am suffereing from such severe nausea and vomiting that it is unsafe for me to drive. I become violently ill frequently and suddenly. My ex husband, after several arguments, finally agreed to make the whole trip himself. He wanted some extra days, because the trip is so long, which caused our son to miss school, but I still okayed this. However, on Saturday, after he already had our son with him, he emailed to inform me that he is not going to make the drive back, and that I'll have to come get him- I can't! That is a 12 hour drive in my condition! He also will not allow me to speak to our son on the phone, will not answer, claims the phone is broken, and that his car is broken down, too. Those are both lies. He sent me his address so that I can pick our child up, but I can't get there.

Now my mom is going to have to pay to fly him. We're afraid he'll let my mom buy the ticket and then not bring our son to the airport. She can't afford this, but she's worried, so she wants to do it anyway.

The question- I don't think that I should let my ex take our son out of state anymore now that he has done this- I can't trust that the arrangements we make will be kept on my ex's part, and so I can't be sure that our son will not be stranded out of state, not allowed to talk to me, possibly scared, and missing school.
I want to suspend visitation temporarily until supervised visitation can be established. But do I have enough evidence that supervised visitation would be granted? The exchange with the original visitation arrangement and then my ex's emails refusing to bring him back and saying his car and phone are both broken are all documented. And of course there's no court order in the first place that says I have to do anything at all.

I don't want my son to lose his relationship with his dad, but this has got to stop. It's not safe or fair to my son or to me. What can I do? Can I be accused of PAS for this? Is there anything he can really do to me if I just say no from now on? I think it's almost kidnapping- my ex says it's not, because I have his address. But the bottom line is, he said he would bring him back Tuesday, and is now saying he won't. Even if he does, is the fact that he put us all through this enough reason to say no next time? Sorry so long, I'm very upset, obviously, and thank you again to anyone who has any answers or opinions.