First of all, sorry for all the topics I keep opening.
I know I am not alone in this, I'm looking for some advise from you all! on what steps to take next.
I will give you the short story otherwise be a wall of text. from other topics you will understand that all of this has come out of the blue to me, the child is now 4 years old, i was lead to believe it was someone else but turns out it was not. This other man brought this child up, signed birth certificate everything but they done a DNA test and turned out not his, with that all of a sudden CMS contact me and it turns out i am the father of this child and need to pay maintenance.
As you can imagine I have massive knots of anxiety in my stomach and the feeling just wont go away! I contacted the mother and reached out to understand what the [censored] has been going on. I kindly asked her if we can go to a private agreement as this has come out the blue and it would be nice to try and be civil about things and act as grown ups and not have the CMS involved as it feels like they are constantly breathing over me! not a nice feeling having these people involved adding extra pressure when we can cut the middle man out.
To my surprise she was quite pleasant and agreed to it, she told me to phone CMS up and ask them to contact her as she works from 8:30 in the morning till 4:30 in the evening, she asked me to tell them to call her on her break around 1ish, she couldn't ring up herself because of the time it takes to get put through to them like 30-40mins. So with that i rung them every day for a week because they are a nightmare and do not really care and it takes them forever to do the tasks you request. anyways the stress getting put through to them and getting them to call that time was a nightmare but they did and she did not answer the calls, when i rung her she kept saying she had to work on etc. okay fair enough but it kept happening throughout the week. she then told me she booked the Friday afternoon off to to close the case.
I did not hear anything from her so I contacted the CMS the following Monday which confirmed she did not call them. They then contacted her for her to turn around and say no she wants to keep the case open.
So I text her from my phone so she could have my contact details, and we discussed further about the case to get closed she agreed because now she has my contact details. so then i offered to pay for a solicitor to draft up an agreement to make her feel safer that i would not mess about (which i wouldn't). she then throws another obstacle in the way she wanted the solicitor letter first before she closed the case, now because of the way she been acting i was reluctant to even pay a solicitor to draft up an agreement for her to turn around and say she didn't want to close the case. I drafted up a document with the agreement and sent it to her for her to amend and put into place what she was happy with, and have the solicitor sign it off as a witness.
She then acting to have a solicitor who was looking through the documents, yet another obstacle and kept mentioning things Asif the solicitor was advising her, so i asked who he was etc. she told me i rung him the next day and he didn't remember who she was and told me complete different advise. so i told her i contacted him and spoke to him about it, you could tell she was not impressed. The thing is this solicitor basically told me the agreement doesn't really matter and anyone of us could break it at any time, so if she did speak with him then he would of told her the same thing.
Anyways i was truthful with her and told her that, and she just said easier to stick to the CMS, i was polite and said ok that's up to her and then the tables turned where she went nasty towards me etc. said some nasty stuff towards me, bare in mind i have not done anything wrong but to try and sort this mess out and act in a CIVIL way, i believe that she never had any intention to close the case and wanted to keep it open the whole time and was just playing games!
1. My question is, what do i do next? do i just ignore this women and keep paying the maintenance?
2. do i contact her again to try and fix things? or do you think the same thing as me she is bitter and wants to take it all out on me? even though she said it was someone else to begin with?
3. I even mentioned about future contact to get to know him, she said that can still be achieved with CMS involved but if she's being like this what is she going to be like in the future, she's already playing head games and using the CMS as a weapon, she knows my mental health conditions
4. The end was she told me to never contact her or her child again, so its confusing what to do next.
5. I have a feeling of guilt, anxiety and mixed emotions about everything, if she was honest to begin with this would of all been dealt with years ago like! its [censored] situation. What advice can you give me i am desperate for help
6. I mean i understand it takes to too tango, but this is a complete different situation I wish she could just be decent about things and not turn everything into [censored] drama, seriously all i done was be tidy and try and sort this whole situation out
Hi
I think you need to accept and move past your issue of having CMS involvement which seems to be the key issue you have and from your exes point of view you may come across as being unreasonable to have this issue which is why she has responded on the manner she has. Appreciate the CMS can cause anxiety but they are what they are. Once they have sorted out a payment plan, if you continue to pay it then you will not hear from them other than an annual review. I started up with them last year aug/Sept and haven't heard from them since. I'm expecting to hear from them again in Aug. I've never missed a payment and pay my ex directly. As your solicitor says, even with an agreement drawn up it holds no legal weight as the CMS can get involved at any stage at the request of either party.
From your exs point of view, you may come across as keen to avoid CMS with no real reason to do so which can be concerning especially if that anxiety feeds into any of your communication with her (you've gone as far as suggesting legal agreements via solicitors which is very unusual) . This can lead her to become difficult or standoffish around other matters such as child contact.
I would suggest you familiarise yourself with how the CMS works and navigate through the system, make the payments on time and you will only hear from them once a year or when you have to notify them about mandatory changes to your circumstances such as income, job, address etc. I know it's not as simple as I make it sound however like many of us dads on here, sometimes it is better to accept certain things and focus on what is more important than try to fight a losing battle which detracts from the priority, which can be seeing the children amongst other things.
In relation to child contact, I would suggest that you file a C100 if you wish to see child and go through the courts considering her stance of not contacting her or child. It's a very fine line, in that now she has told you no further contact. If you continue to attempt contact, many dads on here have found themselves being paid a visit by the police in relation to harassment of ex and child which would add a whole extra level of complexity to your situation that you can do without..
Lastly, reading your messages, potentially you may also need support coming to terms with something that has landed on you unexpectedly which is a huge life changing situation. It may well be one for your GP or some sort of counselling (I had counselling with my situation being too complex and difficult for me to deal with) which may help you move forward.
Hope this helps.