Wife won't allow our children to see grandparents

Person_one

I have to say, it sounds like your marriage is over if nothing else.

I would definitely speak to a solicitor, maybe you could find one who specialises in complex custody cases? Is there not some sort of flag that can be put on children's passports so that they are stopped at airports if there's a concern they may be being abducted?

mrs_sparrow

Nicki wrote: »

Perspective is an interesting thing sometimes

If we read a story about an english woman married to an asian man, living in a foreign country with two young children and no other family, where after 10 years the husband's family had made no attempt to welcome into the family to the extent that even the husband could see that at family gatherings she is outright ignored, because they have discovered no common interests with her, and her wishes in respect of the children's upbringings were disregarded and her opinions undermined, and the husband is wholly on the parents' side, would we be similarly horrified that the woman wanted to end the marriage and bring her children "home"?

I would not want my children taken to a foreign country, and I would IN THE SHORT TERM take steps to make sure this didn't happen while I tried to work on the marriage. However, if OP doesn't want to work on his marriage and his parents relationship with his wife, and thinks his wife is a heartless person doing this only to cause suffering to him and his parents, then ultimately there will be a time of reckoning and a divorce, at which point there will have to be decisions about where the children are to live, and that could as easily be Asia (or the UK but hundreds of miles away from OP) as with OP himself.

I think your post is a little unfair with this bolded bit. First of all, the children are at 'home'. The couple have lived here all their lives - as have the children - so if she wants to go 'home' then she needs to go without the children. She has clearly been here 15 years as this is how long they have been married so she could have actually been here longer than she has there.

However, all of this may be a moot point as the father of the children is perfectly entitled to let them see his parents. Unless the mother feels they are in some sort of danger she has no right to stop him taking them to see them. None whatsoever. And if she did have these concerns then a court injunction would be the way forward. Not the threat of removing the children from the country as these are the words of a control freak and a bully who cannot get her own way.

Question is, would she carry out her threat and leave her life here. Has she got the money to go and start again over there without your financial input. People cannot just 'go' unless they can support themselves.

Secondly, what a horrible situation to be in Eric. I know exactly where you are coming from and I have seen first hand that a woman who threatens these things can get the man removed from his property with no proof or evidence and what is more, she can withdraw contact for no reason too - and the father not see their children again. All because he 'grew a pair' and stood up to his bullying and controlling wife. Before you all say that this does not happen, it does - too often. If the wife makes any sort of abuse allegation against him she will be believed, the man (even if he has evidence for the contrary) will not be and she will be given free help to remove the man from the house. Sadly, this still happens in 2012 and the woman will always be seen as a victim - even if she is a liar and has no proof.

For a woman to threaten to remove the children to another country I would say she is capable of these things and I would not put it past her. Sorry, hard lessons, the OP needs to be on the alert for the moment in this regard and sing to her tune while he gets legal advice on where he stands.

I honestly have no idea what to say but wanted to let you know I understood the situation that you are in Stressed-Eric. I personally would get some legal advice in your lunch hour if you can, to find out where you stand and what you can do to stop your childrens removal and move forward from there. From the way you speak it is your children you care about, not your wife. You are not fussed whether she is there and you are only staying for the children. That says quite a lot whether you admit this here or not.

If she does other things here that you do not want to talk about (and please do not be ashamed of admitting these, it does not make you a weak person, it is the bullies fault and they will make you think you have deserved to be treated this way - you have not) then please find the strength to talk to someone. You should be able to find advice on your local police website and they will have a browser that enables you to have no history of having visited the site shown.

What a horrible nasty woman for using her children to control her husband in this way, if she does not like them she can simply say 'you take them but I'll not be going' instead of stopping the children, who have known these relatives all their lives, from going to see them by using these threats. Shameful.

On another side of the coin - if this is something that has only happened since her mother was ill I would think that something deeper stems from this and she is punishing your parents for something her parents have done to her in the past or when she went to see them. Maybe she feels guilty that she has not been there enough and she is taking everything out on those that she can - maybe her parents/relatives in Asia laid on the guilt for seeing your family 'too often' and now she feels guilty, especially if the children did not know who they were, and so your parents get the brunt of this.

Either way it is not on, you need to get advice before putting your foot down as this can do more damage than good. But, if it has been going on for longer than this, please, please make the first step and get some help.

mwddrwg

Hi OP,

I'm in almost the exact same situation with a partner who doesn't get along with my parents. My parents are semi-retired and live about an hour away from us and during a Christmas Day visit two years ago there was a row about something fairly trivial which escalated. My mother discussed what happened with my idiot brother who lives further away and he promptly turned up at our house, threatened my partner in front of our kids whilst I happened to be out shopping. Since then we've disowned my brother and his family and may partner implicated my mother in the incident and all of it put a massve strain on relations. My partner banned both of my parents from the house (they used to pick the kids up from school a couple of times a week). She didn't stop the kids from seeing their grandparents as I took them to theirs regularly and they have them in the school holidays on the odd day but it's still not ideal.

Things are getting better though as my partner manages now to have a civil conversation on the phone to my mother and this has cheered me up no end. Although they're still not welcome at our house

Thankfully we seem to have come out of this fairly OK although I haven't spoken to my brother for 3 years

Nicki

mrs_sparrow wrote: »

I think your post is a little unfair with this bolded bit.

I think you completely missed the point of my post

The point was about different perspectives, not who is and isn't right. We only have Eric's side of things here, and the majority of posters (you included) have already jumped to the conclusion his wife is a bully and a control freak. She might equally well though be a desperate woman, finally standing up to herself after 15 years of emotional abuse and neglect, and trying to find a way out of an unhappy marriage. None of us know that based on what Eric has said.

She may feel she has a right and parental obligation to keep the children from the grandparents. What if the grandparents have other daughters in law which they treat with love and affection and she is the only one who has been ignored and undermined for 15 years. What if she believes that this is because she is of a different race from the rest of the family (if this is the case) and she doesn't want her children being exposed to an attitude that she is of less value than other family members by reason of her race (which they share half of). Again, no way of knowing just on what Eric has posted whether this or isn't the case. The point is that the wife has a story to tell too and has reasons for the way she has behaved , and not one of us here (myself included) can say whether she is wholly unreasonable, wholly correct, or whether there is a middle ground in between.

I do still feel after reading your post mrs-sparrow that it does not do Eric a favour to rev him up with sympathy about how awful his plight is and stories of how other dads have been done over. Better surely for him to focus on how to solve this problem for good, and protect himself in the short term from losing his children, than rev up the paranoia and force him into entrenched positions which lead only to the end of a marriage and the loss of children to some extent (assuming he would not be granted 100% sole custody with no access at all to the wife), than any constructive way forward?

daska

mrs_sparrow has a point, the system is weighted towards mum gaining residency BUT this is largely because it's mum who is primary carer, it is not the case that women are always viewed as truthful victims, nor is it the case that mum will automatically get permission to remove the children from the country if they were born and raised here. Conversely there are also plenty of parents who feel aggrieved at the outcome of residency/ contact cases simply because it didn't go the way they wanted. I'm not saying the system is perfect, I'm well aware that it isn't, but it certainly isn't as biased as it is frequently made out to be. IF it were you would never find a father with contact let alone residency.

Nicki also has a point, but on a board like this you have to accept that you will only rarely get the other side of the story - the exceptions I can think of were that notorious thread about an affair and another 'problem with the in-laws' one that featured window tapping. So it's not unreasonable at all to respond to the OP's version rather than second guess it - after all, if it is a crock of poo the advice provided will be pretty worthless!

OP, please go and get some proper legal advice. Ideally you need someone on the children and family panels. Start HERE, and please don't be embarassed to explain the whole situation to the solicitor if there's more you haven't mentioned here.

mrs_sparrow

Nicki, it was an honest opinion that he should pay heed what could happen and my suggestion was that he be careful about 'manning up', as has been suggested, because this could lead to further repercussions that will spiral far out of control. And then it really will be too late.

By his own admission he is only staying for the children and he fears they will be removed if he goes against his wife - sorry, but that is bullying.

Better surely for him to focus on how to solve this problem for good, and protect himself in the short term from losing his children

Yes, I absolutely agree - however, once they are gone, they will be gone and she has already said she will do this - a Prohibited Steps Order is the only way to stop them being taken and then the passports will have to have a block put on them. However, this really will be the end of the marriage.

He needs to watch his back, that's all. And for now that includes doing nothing rash which may result in her either removing them from the country or him from the house and then he gets help, on the quiet, to ensure he protects himself.

More or less what you said really - except with the warning as to how easy it is for determined (and spiteful) women to get things they want at the fathers cost. They are not stories, if you look on the internet this happens every single day and it is so common, I know more than one dad who has 'lost' his children in this way and the mothers have moved away with the children and the dads simply do not have the money to fight the allegations and to keep on fighting to enforce broken contact orders. It's not fair, which is why I said he needs to get legal help and find a way forward from this without her knowing.

As it stands it's either do as his wife says and stop his parents seeing the children or he accepts it is the end of his marriage and gets the PSO so the kids cannot be taken. Clearly if he tries to argue with her over it and put his foot down there is the risk they will be taken and he says he does not want to take the risk so he needs another way around this.

A PSO would ensure the kids passports are blocked (both nationalities too assuming they have dual citizenship) and they then cannot travel without the other parents permission - I've seen a PSO recently and this is how it is worded. This is the only way for him to ensure they absolutely cannot be taken. But yes, this will signal the end of his marriage and will have further repercussions.

Gigglepig

Eric have you tried to have a frank conversation with your wife to find out what she finds difficult/annoying/rude/disrespectful? It can be quite difficult to have a good relationship with in-laws and some times we are blind to the faults of our own family.

I think I'd start off talking to my partner saying I'm really sorry they feel ignored by my parents, sorry that I haven't taken it seriously before, and ask what we can do about it.

I don't think anyone should need to be ignored by guests in their own home, but perhaps you can work out a compromise where you and the children see them occasionally, or you all go on neutral ground?

Have you talked with your wife about precisely what she likes and dislikes about how they are around her and the children? For example, if there are certain things like giving lots of sweets or toys she disagrees with, perhaps you can work out a compromise.

FBaby

It is amazing that not once has is it been asked what the children want or think of not seeing their grandparents any longer. It's not about mum's feelings, or what the grand parents want, it's about what the children want. It is well established that having a good relationship with grand-parents is an important factor to a child's happiness. They already have lost one set, so surely it is even more important that they could see their other grand-parent.

My ex new partner has fallen out with his parents. Rightly or wrongly, it certainly wouldn't be my place to judge. However, she is imposing on my ex that their children AND my children with him should have no contact with them. Thankfully, I've remained in very good terms with them, so they get to see their grand-parents, who have always been fantastic grand-parents with me. They are however not allowed to say that they have seen them. I think my ex is a wimp to allow this and I can tell that he himself misses them even if he supports her, but that is his problem.

I really feel sorry that you are finding yourself in such a situation of blackmail. I can't imagine anyone being so selfish to make such threats. Maybe there is a good reason why your parents act the way they do towards her....

shays_mum

Hi Eric,
Does she have any Asian friends/family here who can maybe talk to her & talk to you, so nothing is lost in translation?.
Sometimes its quite difficult to think in one culture & try to express those feelings in a way that's easy for another culture to understand, especially in times of stress.
I know you all have been through a really rough time recently, so hope all gets sorted soon, goodluck.

Nicki

mrs_sparrow wrote: »

By his own admission he is only staying for the children and he fears they will be removed if he goes against his wife - sorry, but that is bullying.

Really? In his first post he says all he wants is for things to get back to the way they were (ie him happily married and his parents seeing the kids) and in later posts he says he can't sleep with worry that she will divorce him over this issue and move back to her home country with their kids. I can't see anywhere where he says he is only staying with her for the sake of the children.