I wrote this to my ex, we have our first mediation session this week.
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At the end of the day I know that relationships break down, though this one seems to have been an emergency stop with no-one really understanding why. Surely it has not been my entire fault, there are two people in this but I was not afforded the courtesy of being given a chance to remedy the situation i.e. talking about problems etc.
It has gone from, in a matter of weeks, a situation of excited wedding preparations to, in plain speaking, the abduction of my son by you and your parents, which in legal terms is ok because you are his mother, and has left me devastated and paying for the privilege and having to try to rebuild my life from scratch.
Meanwhile you and your family seem oblivious to the enormity of what you have all done and lead your lives, whereas I and my family are devastated and are finding it difficult to cope and adjust to life without our son, grandson, nephew and cousin.
It does not mean that I am taken into lesser consideration with reference to the welfare of our son, all of his family are important to him for his rounded wellbeing. I know the system is biased towards you and that you hold all the cards, but I would like to have as much contact as possible. Bearing in mind the locational distance between us (caused by you moving 2 and half hours away), and the fact that, unlike you, I do not have the ability to realistically change my work location and live nearer to him.
He is a much loved little boy and we all want what is best for HIM, not ourselves and the lives we personally want to live, we made him part of all our combined lives when he was born. We are of secondary consideration.
My son and I have a very, very strong loving bond between us and I want to maintain that being, not just in name, but the Father of our son and an influential presence in his life now and always.
That's a very nice civil letter too 🙂 But I have to disagree on the bias part..the law is not biased to mothers, it does recognise now that children need fathers, (it was biased many years ago though!) although yes they (the mothers) do make it very hard for fathers :boohoo:
I've just got to disagree with you EnyaM ....and I think there will be many others on here that will too, as we have all had direct experience of this...My son has just received the section 7 report from the SS prior to the second hearing at court in two weeks...full of lies and slurs against my son, and playing down all of the horrendous things the mother has done....gutted!
😆 I have put the cat amongst the pigeons hey! LOL!!
I can only go on my experiences..sorry peeps. As I said in another post, I have known fathers bring up their children (personally known) and who have done a brilliant job!
In my working life I have seen fathers win at their applications for contact or residency. In my area the Court must be very good because I have seen very few fail.
NJ I am very shocked (not that you will be!) at the result of your S7 report. For the things that you have said are wrong i.e. the BF DV and arson.....I have seen SS make partners (who are father too!) move out of the property!! Supervised contact etc. Some times I have thought that they have been far too tough, i.e the parents argue greatly/smoking weed!). Gawd my parents used to argue all the time! LOL! So with that amount of violence and the drugs small or large, SS would be so for father...in my area anyway! I can only suggest that you again point to the evidence of the drugs,violence, criminal history!
Kenny I agree there are a lot of fathers on here going through a tough time and made to jump through hoops - I can say I have seen mothers having to jump through hoops too - and why I wanted to help out...I feel very very strongly that men should have contact, it is the right of the children. I know I am getting old ...hahaha....but we are now in a world where too any children don't know who their fathers are, its not right! My husband's niece has 4 children each by different fathers and only 1 of them knows who her father is 🙁
It is wrong that mothers say what they want, but at the end of the day the Courts are protecting the children whatever at the end of the day. Unfortunately in many cases, women have learned...and I do firmly believe this, to slag off the other parent and allege all sorts, its become increasingly drugs of recent years...i frequently say its made up...[censored] abuse has started to creep in..yes mother alleges that...and that is dirt that sticks 🙁 Its made up because they know it delays things, or they gain an element of control 😡 Its not nice, its not on and I strongly do not agree with it! Trouble is once they start saying something eg [censored] abuse, I really don tthink they think it through properly, its a pandoras box and things like that can end up causing trouble for them too.
And as has frequently been said in here, i think many women do it because they think their partner will give up!
In my own case the ex disappeared, didn't pay a thing, and only re-appeared when the Court found him after about 15 years...and he owed thousands....and he blackmailed the children, i.. if I don't pay I will have to go to prison....they dealt with it between them and now my son says, he plays mindgames with us...i wont play! He is more than old enough to know what his father is doing now!
But that is the thing about this forum isn't it, we each have a side! LOL
I have seen and acted for clients with good experiences - one in particular was alleged to be schizo, medical could have been better., but he got contact!
Anyone can disagree with me I am big enough and ugly enough to look after myself as they say 🙂 I guess I am just lucky to have seen that "my" side of things can work too.
At the end of the day the law is actually there to protect the child's rights 🙂
...I wish it were as you say, if it were this forum would be far less visited though thats for sure....you have your opinion, based on experiences, and I have mine based on experiences too...There's no cat amongst the pigeons here, just healthy debate...we may differ in this but we are both here to try and help too.
I am the childs biggest advocate....but the law should be there to protect the whole family as one unit....divide and rule is the mantra I'm afraid....who protects the fathers? If the law was so fair why are there millions of fatherless children?
a few years ago before I ran out of money……When I was trying to prove my ex was lying I was told by a solicitor:
What you have to do is try and look at it from a total outsider’s point of view (courts point of view) difficult when you’re the one being lied about! But what happens if just one allegation your ex (generally the mother) has made turns out to be true?
You just have to look at the blunders the authorities have made over the years….cases like the recent “Baby-P” case.
it not what anyone facing false allegations and lies wants to hear but it does show you how the courts and CAFCASS etc… have to look at things…….it all boils down to you having to prove yourself and as I’ve said many times before……..record, log, copy, note everything in detail….texts, emails, phone calls between ex and you that show her claims are false.
Stick to the truth and eventually it will show through her lies!
Then honestly you’re more than likely going to have to jump through hoops she and the courts put in your way pal until you satisfy the judge.
They do all this in “the best interests of the child” and “for the welfare/protection of the child”
It stinks pal…it really does….but it seems the way the system is set up against the father.
If it were the other way around and the mother had to prove her allegations then what happens if she were able to and some harm were to come to a child due to the courts allowing contact to continue?
Like I say…..it stinks but ultimately its supposed to protect a child from harm….which for most of us as a parent is really all we try to do for our children.
Having been able to prove my ex’s allegations as she tended to use people who ultimately backed me up its easy for me to sit here and tell you my opinion…..but despite being able to prove my ex a liar in court I’ve still been forced to jump through hoops to “appease her” as the judge and CAFCASS put it to get contact back up and running due to the 4, 5 and 6mth breaks in contact between me and my little one.
Their explanation (court and cafcass) was that it would be better for my little one at the ages 3,1/2 / 4 and 4,1/2yrs old as he was at these times….they didn’t think going straight back to full contact and over night contacts (that I’d been fighting for in the first place from 2010) was a good move for such a young child!
That’s despite cafcass and the contact centres all reporting I’m child focussed and come across as a devoted caring dad.
All so frustrating when you’re told it, see it in reports about you, the judge and everyone agrees but because your ex stamps her feet and won’t accept it….you have to keep on jumping through hoops.
I’ve no more hoops to jump through and I’m still fighting her….however now she’s facing a possible prison sentence or change of residence which would be my preferred option.
Thats the perfect way to think about it 😉
You see I suppose you could look at it from another angle, when parents separate why do the Mums always keep the children? There are very much fewer separations where the father has taken the children, rightly or wrongly, but I assume its something to do with mothers giving birth, I don't know the answer to that. If a parent has those issues the leaving parent should remove the children too in my book,
I so know that there are many instances where children have been badly let down, not just BabyP, but there was another child recently, who was badly let down and the mother and boyfriend killed him. Since BabyP, care proceedings just about tripled! And there have been more fathers of late taking the children off somewhere and none of them returning...so yes, you can understand the welfare and protection of the children.
Funny someone was in our house yesterday and we were talking about my job...he won residence of his daughter because the ex had issues with drink and drugs. It transpired that after he got involved, he found out SS had been involved for some time and he had not even been informed! But he won his residence application. Oh and NJ it was the Chester area too!
Well it is a healthy debate and nothing will ever be solved by us talking about it will it unfortunately however I ill say that while Fathers for Justice do some good stuff....I think they (or some of their individual members) do some silly stuff that hurts their cause too much.
I know its a long haul and as NJ says, all I can do is keep helping where I can along the way and urge you to keep on going and NOT to give up at the hurdles 🙂 I can say that if the roles were reversed i.e. Dads have the children), women have to jump through hoops too 🙂
Oh and Kennymac...I know what you are saying too but until you know exactly what she is saying about you, I think you have to ease up or you will make yourself ill, and you need to be strong for what is ahead. The one thing you can rely upon is that the Court will err on the side of caution. 🙂
Children are increasingly being let down by SS and in my opinion there are several reasons....the mother is still all too easily believed and whether it be because of funding or old school attitudes, children in need or at risk are not being adequately protected....they seem to deal with crisis rather than early intervention and prevention!
Whilst there is this imbalance where mothers are treated as if they are the superior parent and can do no wrong, and the fathers are demonised and their parenting role belittled the situation is just going to continue....
Once SS make an evaluation they will not back down or accept that they are wrong...this collective ego is so destructive! This organisation and I include CAFCASS in this, have been known to lie, to mis-inform and to make wrong decisions...these often based on a framework that is antiquated and no longer fit for purpose in the modern family dynamic.
I have spent a couple of posts commenting on the bigger picture and haven't responded to the topic which is your letter.....sorry!
I think it was a good idea to write to your ex and try to tell her how you feel, as you say you weren't given the opportunity to talk anything through.
There are certain words that I would have suggested you leave out, purely for the sake of keeping things as amicable as possible....abduction is one! Although that is what effectively happened, she won't want to hear that and it will most likely get her back up! I would have left out the biased bit too, not because its not true but because is might give the impression that you are not as important as far as the authorities are concerned....better to tell her you have rights and are considered as important in your sons life....as this will dent her confidence and may make her doubt her position.
Other than the points I raised it might help to open a dialogue and as you quite rightly point out, it's what's best for your son at the end of the day and everyone else is secondary.
Thanks,
We went to mediation last week, it was terrible. Ex has been given advice from solicitors who told her to go to the CSA, which would have put me in an awful position financially. She also proposed that I only see my son alternate weekends, so she gets more quality time with him. We obviously have differing opinions on what quality time is actually percevied as. When we were together I cherished the time I had with my son when I returned from work. She does not class it as "quality time". I proposed to her that I would swap positions. I'll have him in the week, she has him every other weekend, but she laughed it off. Strange that she chooses not to view it from that angle.
She went back on our previous agreement that I would be able to see him every week (1 day on one weekend, weekend the other). I don't think this is fair, I understand the usual arrangement is alternate weekends plus one day in the week. This isn't possible for me because of the distance.
Anyway, after the mediation we talked afterwards (for the first time in a while) about things and what happened with her leaving etc. She seems to have finally understood my current financial position and agreed that I would be able to pay her a small amount of maintence until I was able to get back on my feet again.
IMy son is 2 and a half, is she being fair/reasonable about the visitation arrangment?
On a side note, I visited my GP this morning, who referred me to go to counselling, hopefully it will help.