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Hi there,
I am looking for some advice before I have to get a solicitor, and I do apologise as this will be a long post.
My son was born on the 2nd of jan this year, after having struggled to conceive for 3 years. Since my son has been born my wife has been super controlling over ever aspect of his life, she limits the brands of food he can have now he is weaning and she has to be the one who picks his clothes on a daily basis. She recently returned to work part time and our son is watched for 2 days by my mum and 1 day by her mum. But my wife freaks out about what happens with my son when he is with my mum, she gets upset and angry because she can't control what clothes he wears(as he may need changed) or what food my mum may choose to give him, she insists that my son gets his bottles/food at exact times and there is no room for those times to be adjusted, not even by 5 or 10mins. I thought this was over the top so got in contact with our HV who agreed to come out and see us(my wife has a history of mental health issues), this visit didn't happen as my wife and I split up.
My wife and I split up as she has been sneaking around sending hundreds of text messages to a male workmate, this has been going on since my son was born, when I found out(end of june) I left my wife for a week(while returning everyday to see my son), I returned to the family home
and tried to talk to my wife, she refuses to see that texting this other man was wrong, in fact she went into her work and gave several false reasons for our breakup(all of which blamed me for various reasons) my wife and I work in the same place and the stories she was telling got back to me, I asked her to put an end to these false stories and to tell the truth, she repeatedly refused to do this. I attempted to arrange counselling but was advised to wait to see what the HV said regarding the above behaviour regarding our son.
The evening before the HV visit was planned my wife goaded me into an argument regarding our relationship problems and her behaviour toward our son, the upshot was that she walked out and took my son with her to her mums in the middle of the night. I later found out(she called my mum to arrange childcare for monday) that she is claiming that I turned violent and grabbed her by the throat(completely untrue). I believe this was a deliberate ploy to fall out and then make this claim to stop me getting access to my son, since she has left I have only seen my son once, which was again a deliberate act to make sure she knew I was tied up in the house with my son while she went and removed cash from the joint accounts and transferred it into one of her secret bank accounts, I also suspect that she went to the council and a solicitor, she has told my mum that she has spoken to solicitor and that she would need to check the childcare arrangements that my mum was to provide with her solicitor. At this point my wife chose to tell my mum the reason she left in the middle of the night was because she feared I would be violent after grabbing her by the throat and she thought I might harm my son, again I would like to state I never touched my wife. If she feared I would harm my son why then leave him with me for several hours with him? Anytime I have seen my wife since the night she left, she comes to the house with her stepfather in tow, again I assume this is to add to the fear of me being violent.
I would dearly love some advice on how much access I should be getting to my son, as I am used to spending at least every evening and every weekend with him and want to continue to spend as much time as possible with him?
Also how do I handle the aspect of my wife transferring/hideing money? she has a history of running up debts and obviously I would be accountable for half of any debts, we currently have a mortgage in joint names and bank accounts?
Also how do I handle the lies and stories that she tells at work(I could potentially lose my job over this violence lie)?
I am also still concerned that she may have some mental health issue such as post natal depression.
Hi Gary and welcome
I'm afraid that you really need to discuss a lot of this with your solicitor as there are a lot of complex issues, and the contact is tangled up in the rest of everything else.
One thing you should do is to keep all correspondence, whether text, email and keep a note of any conversations (write them down as soon as possible after the conversation has happened) along with a diary of all events. I'm not sure that there is anything you can do about her cleaning out your accounts, though make sure you have a note of all of this and that it's accounted for in the financial statements you will give to the court in the divorce - but certainly make sure that she can't do any more withdrawals (if she's left anything). I would also have a word with your employers to explain the situation - you shouldn't lose your job based on what she is saying, otherwise your employers would likely find you going against them for wrongful dismissal, but in any event, there is no reason why they should believe your ex, especially if you are going through a divorce.
Hi thanks for the advice ACDT.
I am trying to get an appointment with a solicitor, but in the mean time my wife is making life very difficult to get to see my son.
As I see it, you could go for an interim order for contact, but I think realistically, until the accusations she has made are resolved, you would only be likely to get supervise contact (probably at a contact centre) - it's still a lot better than no contact at all.
Have a read of yoji's guide to representing yourself at the top of the legal section, that may help.
Thanks for the advice, I have looked at that thread several times, but at the moment its a bit hard to get my head around everything as I am pretty broke up about whats happening.
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