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I have three children with my wife.I currently have no contact with any of my children due to her poisoning the minds of the older 2 against me and my family. The youngest is currently 10 and severely autistic. We are still legally married but separated. We split up over 6 years ago. I went through the whole court process and managed to get supervised contact with my children with a view to eventually getting some sort of custody. It was difficult to build on this as she was clearly turning the older 2 against me and everytime I tried to bring this up with CAFCASS it was basically ignored. Eventually the court case ended and I was only allowed to see my children supervised in a contact centre every 3 weeks for just a few hours.
In late 2022 I Islamically divorced my wife but we are still legally married. She then made sure the children stopped coming to the centre for my visits after the Islamic divorce. The older 2 are now both over 16 and I have to accept the fact that they will not want to see me or my family. The issue is I want to re-establish contact with my youngest son. He has little awareness of what is going on and is happy in his own world but I still want to be a part of this. I also want my mum and sister to be able to see him as well as they miss the children more than anyone. The problem is my ex. In the initial court case she accused my sister and mother of grooming the children against her and CAFCASS believed every word she said despite me saying I could provide evidence that the kids were in stable and loving environment.
I am hoping to try and get a mutual family member to contact her to see if she will allow us to see him, even if we have to travel 100 miles to where she is now. I would also like this to progress to eventually being able to take him home for maybe the odd weekend here and there. Most likely she will refuse this so I will have to go down the route of trying for mediation and then a court case. The question I have is, I know the mediation would only have myself and her present and I doubt she will even turn up.
But for the court case, would it be best to apply as a family. She will obviously bring up that I have not seen him for a couple of years and this will be a big change for him as he is autistic and I would not be able to cater for his needs but I am hoping to counter this by saying we would come down as a family to see him. My sister is also a teachers assistant in a special needs school so she is in fact trained to deal with autistic children. Even if I don't get any custody eventually but I and my family are allowed to see him under supervision I would be happy to accept this.
Also I am up to date with her cma payments and I have no interest in getting this reduced if I do get some custody. I am happy to keep paying her the full cma but if I apply for a court order would I need to show my finances if I am only applying to come down with my family and see him supervised as was the case before when I would see my children on my own.
Sorry for the ramble. The last 2 years have been really hard on me. Having your kids not want to see you made me go into depression and I am only now starting to fight this injustice.
It sounds like it's been very difficult for you and for your family. As the children become young adults and more independent of their mothers care, it is worth bearing in mind that you can reach out to them and let them know that you are there, that in fact you have always been there and that you care. Maybe things will shift for them and they might be open to listening or tentatively having contact with you, even if it's just messaging at first, nothing is set in stone after all. In the meantime, do your best to show and evidence that you and your family are there to care and support your children and that may help your case. Best wishes
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