Father's Court Success Story!!!!

Gazing_On_Sunsets

Congratulations! My husband-to-be had a similar fight. His ex decided that he was to have no contact with the son unless he married her. The pregnancy was unplanned, and they split before the birth, but he still wanted to take responsibility. TO everyone's amazement she refused all help and contact; she wanted all or nothing.

So off he went to court, spent £1000s but has fortnightly access now, and the little lad (now 6) thoroughly enjoys staying with us - I hope! He's autistic and not very verbal, and the ex is starting to un-thaw a little now, as she seems to appreciate the break, because single parenting is hard even without the child having additional needs. Took 6 years but we're getting to a smoother place!

pimento

What's an "LO"?

puppypants

Little one!

BARGAINHUNTER!

post deleted

[Deleted User]

That's great news! You must be so happy and relieved! I read this post with interest as we are going through a similar situation with my OH's ex....have been through 4 years of sh*t now and just can't wait for it all to be over and sorted finally. We started court proceedings a couple of years back after too many last minute cancelled holidays and refused contact and after months of waiting got a court date only for OH's ex to go on holiday and decide not to come back and state that they were now living at the other side of the world, all before we actually made it to court and so OH didn't have his parental rights....needless to say we all went through 18mths of hell and I watched my OH fall apart not seeing his child but after his ex's new "perfect life" fell apart (which we knew it would deep down all though that is no comfort at the time)they are finally back in the UK and we have now restarted court proceedings to get things set in stone once and for all....we have employed a solicitor who is very good but along with that very expensive....was wondering if you could let me know how much it cost you to go to court yourselves and how difficult it was without a solicitor (if thats not too personal a question??) also how long did it take you from start to finish?OH has asked for very similar contact to what you say your OH asked for and our solicitor seems to think we will win hands down as its not an unreasonable or extravagant request and most importantly OH's daughter wants to be here for the amount of contact we have requested and her mothers only arguement for refusal is that she doesn't see it as acceptable for her to be with her dad for more than 2 days a week simply because that isn't what she wants.....I could rant on about how much I hate her guts and what a disgusting human being I think she is after the way she has behaved but once I start I won't be able to stop.lol.......I am just looking forward to the court order being put in place and I know my OH is really looking forward to just been able to take his daughter on a holiday somewhere as she is 9 and he has never been allowed....how sad is that.....anyway I have ended up rabbitting on more than I intended but just to finish that it is really nice to read about some happy endings and gives us hope that things will happen like this for us too so thank you for posting about your success and congrats! :j

snowmaid

That's great and I am pleased for you. But how is this going to effect the child? That is, 3 nights by you, 3 nights by mom, all during school week, back to mom. He is never going to be settled. He will never have 'his home', because he will always be between the 2.

Reason I ask is that my daughter and her ex share their child. The child doesn't refer to 'my house', it's either 'mommy's house' or 'daddy's house'. It breaks my heart because to me it appears as if he MIGHT feel as if he doesn't belong anywhere. That he is just an object being shunted around to satisfy the parents?

Please, this is truly not a criticism.

Humphrey10

snowmaid wrote: »

It breaks my heart because to me it appears as if he MIGHT feel as if he doesn't belong anywhere. That he is just an object being shunted around to satisfy the parents?

Please, this is truly not a criticism.

I was older (my sister was younger, 11-12 maybe?) when my parents split up, and my sister and I only stayed with our father every other weekend, but still both houses were 'ours'. Both parents were our parents, even if they didnt live together. We had a room each at both houses, so we had a space each that was just for us in both houses. My sister was younger and as far as I know she didn't mind staying there. Just make sure the child has somewhere proper to stay, just don't dump them in a shared room or on a sofa, and I don't see the problem really.

puddy

BARGAINHUNTER! wrote: »

Many congratulations! I read your post with interest, as it looks like my partner is going to have to go to court to sort out childcare arrangements with his ex.

Since sept he has been having the children tues and thursday one week, tues, fri, sat and sun next week and half of all school holidays.

He fell out with his ex over the arrangements for Christmas, and she sent him a text to say that "because of his nonsence over christmas she was changing the arrangments" He was due to pick the children up from school on Friday, drove 45 mins to get them, and when they didn't come out spoke to the teacher who told him that his ex had picked the kids up at 2.50pm! She sent him a text at 3.30pm to say that the kids were with her and if he turned up she would be calling the police! He phoned his solicitor for advice and his solicitor advised that it would have to go to court, and he will be phoning solicitor back on Monday (with payment of £750!!) to start this. His ex text him to say that he could have them from today at lunchtime until school on Monday morning, but unfortunately my partner is borrowing a car at the moment as his is broken and he had to return it last night, so he had to text her back to say that he went to collect them from school on Friday as arranged but found that she had taken them out earlier to stop him from getting them, and as he had to hand car back yesterday would not be able to come and get them. He spoke to his daughter on the phone, and apparently her mum told them that the reason they were collected early from school was that she did not want their Dad to get them!!!

My partner would like to apply for a joint residency order, and for the pattern of Tues, Thurs one week, Tues, Fri, Sat and Sun the next and half of all holidays to be reinstated. What is the likelyhood of him achieving this? What makes it worse is that my partner is 40 on Monday, and we were going to do something together with the kids, and he would have seen them for an hour before school on his actual birthday. Now he won't see them until Tues (providing she lets him of course!) and he is absolutely distraught!!!!! Surely the fact that she took them out of school early in order fto deny him contact will go against her in court?

its likely, as long as there are NO other factors at all in what happened (what do you mean by fell out over christmas?), then the judge will instruct that the previous order is maintained. she has no right to change the terms of the order, she is now in breach of it, unless your partner changed it first himself, which is why i ask my question above

[Deleted User]

snowmaid wrote: »

That's great and I am pleased for you. But how is this going to effect the child? That is, 3 nights by you, 3 nights by mom, all during school week, back to mom. He is never going to be settled. He will never have 'his home', because he will always be between the 2.





Reason I ask is that my daughter and her ex share their child. The child doesn't refer to 'my house', it's either 'mommy's house' or 'daddy's house'. It breaks my heart because to me it appears as if he MIGHT feel as if he doesn't belong anywhere. That he is just an object being shunted around to satisfy the parents?

Please, this is truly not a criticism.

This is one reason my OH's ex has given as a reason she feels its not acceptable for his DD to stay with us 3 nights out of 8, I personally feel that as long as the child knows that they are loved by both parents then what is the problem with the child having two homes? My OH's DD has a bedroom at our house and her own toys and clothes here just as she has at her mums house, why is it that she should only be allowed ONE home and that should be at her mums? I'm not getting at you snowmaid but we have been faced with this as a reason and I really can't see the arguement, unfortunatly lots of parents split up these days and as sad as that is children have to have the time divided between parents, I don't understand why unless there are welfare issues or one parent has shown no interest that one parent seems to think that they are more important than the other, they both brought the child in to the world and they should both have equal rights to see their child an equal amount of time. Thats my opinion anyway....:)

Triker

Fantastic news, can totally relate to the battle you've both been through, went through much the same with my ex and his ex!

Finally after years of heartache and harrassment from her he managed to get court ordered access including holidays etc only for his ex to move and her and her solicitor refused to tell him where they'd gone. He gave up after that...there's only so much fight in a person and the trauma and abuse the child was subjected to from her for wanting to see his Dad was horrific.

Anyway's well done again, I hope all goes smoothly for you all now.