[Solved] Ex wanting to change my access

Hi. This sounds like you really need to go to mediation potentially you are still communicating quite well.

I would make a couple of comments. Firstly, your daughter probably is feeling quite uncertain about both your divorce and the fact that you are having another baby - she is going to feel that you are giving more attention to a new baby than to her - which you will do simply by the fact that the new baby won't have to leave you for some days in the week. The second comment is about you not picking her up sometimes until 6pm - this must be rather unsettling for your daughter - I know that you don't want this to be the case, but it may be best for your daughter if either she does stay with your wife, or if you can arrange regular after-school care so that she knows what is happening after school - you could suggest this as a solution if you go to mediation.

Hi, on the comment about picking my daughter up at 6 pm, this has only been for the last couple of weeks on an odd occasion and isnt a regular thing as I have had to work late which never normally happens. After next week it will have stopped and be back to finishing work normally. I have had family offer to care for my daughter until I got home on these occasions but my ex partner will not allow this as she says she does not like my daughter going to my family. If the situation is the other way round though and my ex partner is stuck for somebody to look after my daughter she often directly contacts members of my family to ask them to watch her.
I think the worst part of it is though is that she is saying that I could still go collect my daughter Monday-Thursday even if it is at 6pm as long as I take her back to stay the night with her. I have a special bond with my daughter and putting her to bed at night is a big part of our relationship and that is what she is trying to take away from me. I believe that her main motive is child support. Obviously by reducing my overnight stays by 2 nights per week is going to increase what I pay. It looks to me that she is wanting me to do everything that I do now by still having her my days Monday-Thursday and then returning her to go to bed, then I would still have her the same for overnight stays at weekends. Meaning I still get the same quality time with my daughter but have to pay more to my ex partner because she has her staying there the nights I have had to return her at bedtime. Don't get me wrong I will pay whatever I have to for my daughter but I believe this is just a dirty trick to get the CSA to take more money from me. When I have my daughter I provide all her clothes, meals, toys etc the only thing I ask my ex partner to send is a set of clothes that I can return my daughter in so I don't lose what I have paid. I took my daughter to Turkey in April for a week with my ex partners permission, and paid for everything and my ex partner never offered to send any spending money for her (not that I wanted any, but would have been nice for my daughter). In contrast to that my daughter went to Blackpool for a week with my ex partners auntie in August, I made sure that I gave my daughter some spends (not a lot, but what i could afford) and this really made her happy. I think my point is that I am totally independednt with all the cost that are incurred when I have had my daughter 50% of the time.
As for the new baby my daughter is very excited about her new sister and we always include her in everything and she helps when we do any preperation around the house. Even a couple of months back when a friend was round with her newborn baby my daughter hugged her and said "awww i like my baby sister" 😆 . She is very understanding and has shown no signs of uncertainty, she has even started a collection of toys of her that she wants her sister to have. A comment my ex partner said to me a few weeks back was "Please don't talk about your new baby around anymore, as I don't appreciate her telling me all about her while I'm eating my tea". I feel that she is wrong in saying that as all I'm trying to do is give me daughter the best sort of preperation for our new arrival and reassure her that nobody will be taking her place and she is very much involed in this.
Sorry about another long post but I have so many details as I keep a daily diary of everything involving my daughter. So feel I am pretty well prepared to fight to defend the time I have with my daughter.

Hi

I think you covered both my concerns nicely. I think you could be quite correct about your ex's response to you having a baby, there could well be some jealousy there - if there's any acrimony, then it's almost human nature that we don't want to see our ex's having a good life without us - that goes for either side (when I got married to my current wife, my daughters were bridesmaids - my ex threw their bridesmaids dresses/shoes/flowers etc out as quickly as she could after the wedding).

You could also be correct in the maintenance front - and if you are prepared to pay more than the minimum, this could be your opportunity to keep contact with your daughter. Work out what you would pay your ex in maintenance if your daughter were to stay with you for 2 nights per week, instead of 3.5 nights per week (and don't forget that you can reduce maintenance payments by 15% once your new baby is born) and then you could offer to pay this in maintenance even if you have your daughter for an average of 3.5 nights per week - this would be financially more beneficial for your ex as she would be getting the money from you, but not have to pay for food etc for those extra nights - I know that this is not something that feels right, but if you fight it out, you may only get 2 nights contact per week, in which case you would be paying for maintenance on that basis anyway. There is nothing to stop you from paying more than the CSA calculation (I think that's the whole point of the new CMEC - to try to encourage parents to come to an agreement without using the CSA where possible). You might also have the saving of not having to go to court to try to increase contact.

Hi wbhrlfc6,

Up until now you appear to have quite a reasonable relationship with your ex, which is a really good starting point.

There are ways in which you could gain a set amount of contact with your daughter, the first option that you should consider is that of family mediation. Most parents who eventually apply to court for a contact order try mediation first, the courts like to see that all other avenues have been tried first. In many instances, National Family Mediation ( http://www.nfm.org.uk ) offer a nationwide service and can be contacted directly for more information regarding this option.

Going to court can be a stressful and expensive experience. It is a 'last resort'. Before making an application for an order parents should seek legal advice.

It may be possible that you qualify for legal aid and therefore will be able to use a solicitor free of charge. To determine whether or not you qualify for legal aid please follow the link to a legal aid eligibility calculator: http://www.communitylegaladvice.org.uk/ ... ution=e1s3.

The court will make a decision regarding what contact to allow based on what is considered to be in your children's best interests.

If a contact order is put in place then your ex-partner cannot override this. Your ex-partner will be bound to follow the order and there are penalties for breach of a contact order.

For further clarification regarding this issue or any other issue of child law then please do not hesitate to contact the Child Law Advice Line on 08088 020 008.

I will refer this to our childrens legal centre for some further advice.

I hope this is orks out for you, let us know.

Hey there,

I was in the same position as you last year, when we broke up, communication was amicable, and i was having my 3 year old daughter 3/4 nights per week....
then all of a sudden my ex was pregnant with her new partner (and i also had a new partner, which i believe shes jealous about) and she has stopped me seeing my daughter, giving me pathetic excuses....

i applied for mediation, which she ignored, then i applied to court for a contact order, and now its all gone messy....
shes lying in court and alleging all sorts of things about me....

surely its having an effect on my daughter as i now only see her for 3hrs a fortnight under supervision from my ex's mother!!!
Ive never needed supervision to look after my own daughter before(my ex's is fully aware of this)

but you gotta be strong and as suggested, try mediation as it seems you and your ex are getting on alright, and hopefully there will be a compromise that will make the situation better for your daughter...

But if your ex does start to play games and uses your daughter to get at you... be prepared, it will cost a lot of money to go to court (i should know, im currently representing myself due to a huge solicitors bill) and there will be lots of accusations and bitterness involved.
Keeping a diary is a very good thing, i kept one (even though my solicitor didn't even bother showing it to the courts) it basically shows how often you were having your daughter, which will obviously bolster your chances of getting shared residency.

Hope it all goes well 🙂 )

I'd echo a lot of that, especially about keeping a diary (and every bit of correspondence and records of conversations) and the costs (I think my legal costs were close to £40k and that was totally separate to the divorce a few years earlier).

[censored] [censored]!! how come it all came to 40k???

my bill was for 3k the other day and he guesses it would probably end up around the 10k mark, that's why i decided to leave him go.

I think there were 9 court hearings in all, 2 or 3 of them purely because my ex wasn't complying with court orders to provide reports - plus my solicitor was London based (ie more expensive) and experienced, and on 2 occasions, I also had a barrister present.

My ex did all sorts to bump up my costs - as above, plus changing her solicitor at one point (so my solicitor had to repeat a lot of work), not replying to correspondence etc, etc. and, in a later action, representing herself.

Having said all that, my ex had a much less experienced solicitor, so her costs were a lot less, but the difference in experience showed in court.

That £40 also includes a discount (family connection), otherwise it would have been closer to £50k.

Also had an extension build to accopmodate my children - probably cost around £90k which only added about £50k to property value, so another £40k loss.

Having said all of that, if I knew then what I knew now, there's not much I'd do differently - having my children live with me (and so also being in a safe and clean envrironment) has been worth every penny 😀

well i hope i don't have to go through all that, i cant see there being any more incurring costs to me, apart from unnecessary psychiatric tests if my ex prompts them to request them (which im sure she will)...
its crazy how they can get away with it, and after reading a load of posts on here i am far from alone in this... and majority of ex's are claiming legal aid (illegally) my ex is.....

I know certain father groups have approached parliament to amend the system to give fathers a better chance and more equality in these matters but as far as im aware there seems to be nothing being done about it...

On the positive side (well one of them), I was paying my ex around £5k per year in maintenance, of which very little was being spent on them - at least I am not paying that to her now, so that's probably around £75k not going to her in total, but going where it's supposed to go 😀

If your ex is claiming legal aid illegally, do you have any evidence? If so, surely there must be a way of reporting this?

I told my solicitor about it and he said he was looking into it and would put it forward to the courts, I know the DWP have been "informed" that she has a man living there who works.. and that shes claiming as a single parent, but shes on maternity leave now (well im assuming so) so she will probably be eligible for it now anyway,

looking back in hindsight, i feel that my solicitor could have done a lot more for me when we were in court, but he sat there in silence most of the time, he was very knowledgeable about family law, but the only thing he did was get an interim order (this was only because my ex has stated she wouldn't mind me having contact with my daughter, as long as it was supervised)

next time im in court... and if it goes my way, im gonna ask to amend to interim order to include non supervised contact as my family miss her dearly...

One thing I learned a few years ago (a friends case, and not family related) is that solicitors learn to cut things down to the minimum so that the big issue isn't swamped by trivia - it may be that your solicitor was concentrating on getting a contact order to establish a record before going for a more extensive order later on.

Then again, may just have been a rubbish solicitor 😮

Although generally, the courts don't (or didn't when I was their) generally make orders beyond the immediate parents, I believe they do like the idea that contact with the extended family can be maintained if possible.

Dear Wbhrlfc6,

Thank you for contacting the Children’s Legal Centre, we apologise for the delay in responding to your query.

At present the arrangement that you have with the mother regarding contact is purely an agreement, meaning that this can be altered at any time. However this should only be done in the best interests of your daughter.

If the mother is being particularly difficult then you can ask your solicitor to write to her regarding this and possibly consider mediation. If all else fails then an application to court for contact or shared residence can be made.

With regards to you talking about your new child, there are no laws surrounding this and it is a matter of you using your discretion to decide what is and is not suitable to tell your daughter. The mother does not really have a say in this and should try to be reasonable regarding it, as it is likely to be thought best for a child to be included in the family unit and this sort of situation to ensure she is comfortable with what is happening.

We would advise that you do speak to your solicitor regarding the alterations the mother has made to the contact that you are having, and see what they believe is best for you to do at this time, as your solicitor has all the information on your case and is in a much stronger position to advise you than we would be.

We hope this information is useful to you.

Kind Regards
Children’s Legal Centre

Hi everyone, Just thought I would post an update. Since my ex restricted my access on Monday 20th September I have seen my daughter for overnight stays on 24th & 26th of september and she then came over for tea after school on 27th (took me 15mins to be allowed to take my daughter after my ex had instucted not to let me take her last week, even though she had agreed for me to pick her up today). When I returned my daughter my ex asked if could have my daughter overnight on Friday 1st October instead of Saturday 2nd. The reason for this was it was my ex's sisters 21st Birthday party on the Friday and everybody was going there so she did not have a babysitter. I felt that my daughter would have liked to have gone to the party and I had made arrangements around the days my daughter was coming to stay. So she came and stayed Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd October overnight, however things took a twist over the weekend. I was due to collect my daughter at 12:30 on Saturday from my ex's house, but I received a call at 11:30 from my ex asking if I could pick her up from the local A&E department as she was there with her sister. She told me on the phone that she had split up with her partner last night and that the number she was calling off was her number from now on (bearing in mind I have had no contact number for at least 8 weeks). Anyway I picked my daughter up ans she stayed the weekend, I then picked her up from school again on Monday and she same for tea. When I took my daughter home I asked my ex if it would be OK to have my daughter over for tea Thursday, she said that she was going to ask if I would have her overnight Wednesday. I had to refuse as I had already planned to go to antenatal class with my partner Wednesday evening (it was only 14 days ago she told me she did not want my daughter staying with me Monday-Thursday).Yesterday morning at 06:15 I recieved a text from my ex asking if my daughter could stay over that night as she had cried for me all night. I was a bit unsure of what to do about this as I did not want to pass up the chance for my daughter to stay the night, but I did not want my ex to think that she can just play me like a fool. In the end I had to reply and say no as I had an appointment with my solicitor and had planned to go get my daughter some christmas presents while I could afford it. I suprisingly got an understanding reply from her saying she thought it would be too short notice and she agreed that I could have my daughter overnight on Thursday and Friday. Now this morning I recieved a phone call from my ex again at 06:15 asking if I could take the day off work to look after my daughter as she was ill and not going to school. I told her that I wouldn't be able to take the day off as my daughter hadn't been staying with me and I was due to set off to work in 15 minutes. Surely it is my ex's duty to take care of this situation when she has been the one taking care of her. I text about 10:15 asking how she was and my ex told me she had sent her to school.

Regarding my solicitor, I am very happy with how it went yesterday. She explained in detail about PR to me and I had took all my evidence which she told me that its looks as though all the decisions my ex is making are all for her convinence and of no benefit to my daughter. So she plans to write to her informing her that I want to maintain the amount of contact that my daughter is used to and if she is not willing to come to an agreement that I will begin court proceedings.

In all I am feeling a lot more confident that I am not going to lose my excellant relationship with my daughter and hope to be back to the old amount of time we had together very soon.