[Solved] Hello everyone

Hi,
sorry but there is no way to dress this up, from my experience you have long road in front of you and you will have to stay strong and resolute if you want to be a part of your daughters life, there will be obstacles along the way, not having been married to her is one, more so if your ex takes up a new (serious) relationship.
She has already started "controlling" the situation by restricting your access at this early stage., and believe me unless she is a very caring and understanding person she will eventually try to get you out of her life for good, she will not want you to have any influence on "HER" child. There are many other people on here who have been in a similar situation so you won't be short on support and advice, good luck

Hi Legodad,

Welcome to DAD. Sorry to see that your relationship has broken down.

Does anyone have any experience of reasonable levels of contact for a child of my daughters age as I feel that I am more than capable of tending to my daughters needs without the supervision of my ex girlfriend or members of her family and without such strict restrictions being put in place.

There are no prescribed reasonable levels of contact however you sound very capable and it doesn't sound unreasonable to want more time with your daughter. It might be worth considering trying to discuss this again with your ex - however if you don't think this is an option then it might be worth considering mediation. Basically the two of you can sit down with a mediator talk through the situation and hopefully find some compromise that you can agree on. Here is the link for National Family Mediation they are experts in this type of situation and will be able to help you.

I hope this is of some help
Keep talking to us.

Gooner

Hi LD and welcome 🙂

It must be so frustrating for you and your family to have such harsh restrictions placed upon you, and quite unfair!

It doesnt sound like you're ex is in the frame of mind to compromise so I would advise getting the Mediation Service involved. If she refuses this avenue then you should waste no time in applying to court for a defined contact order. As your daughter is still very young, I would imagine you might expect a couple of hours a couple of times a week initially, but with a timetable of increases over a set period. I would hope that by the time she is 12/18 months old you should be looking at contact midweek and an overnight stay alternate weekends.

There are a couple of great and very informative stickys at the top of the Legal Eagle section, one is called " Contact Order C100 Guide", this is the form you would fill in and submit to the court for contact, and the other is" A Guide to Representing yourself in Court".

Good luck with everything 🙂

Thanks for the advice gents.

The reason that I asked the question is that I do want to spend more time with my daughter but I also want to remain on amicable terms with my ex and do not want to go in all guns blazing via a solicitor with demands for overnight access etc etc. However; at the present time I feel that my ex is holding all the cards and is being unreasonable for the sake of doing so by restricting the frequency and duration of my access. I have been told that I will never be able to have my daughter overnight or take her on holiday.

Emotions are quite raw on both sides at the moment as the split is relatively recent so I think that I will step back for a while and give the situation time to cool off and then approach her again regarding the arrangements. I have previously suggested mediation but this has been turned down on a cost basis.

Many thanks again

LD

If she's turned it down on cost basis, she's amenable to the idea - perhaps you could both find someone neutral you could both chat with who can help you out to see if that can work.

Thanks for the advice everyone,

The situation has moved on somewhat from my earlier post.

Following some research I advised my ex gf that it is in the best interests of our daughter that she has short but frequent contact with me to enable her to form an attachment, the sugestion being a minimum of alternate days. This appears to have held no water whatsoever and it has been reiterated that I can only see my daughter for 2hrs every two weeks and this must now take place at her mothers home and my ex will not be there.

My ex is refusing to discuss the situation and is refusing mediation which has left me no option than to obtain advice. The solicitor has advised me to try again to sort the situation with my ex directly (which she still refuses to do). I now feel that I have no choice other than to pursue this through the legal system which is something that I wanted to avoid on both an animosity and cost basis.

My ex has also advised me that she has taken advice but on speaking to my solicitor I was informed that it is unlikely that her solicitor would have advised her to hold out to go to court as the access I am asking for is reasonable and I would be in a very strong position to obtain it.

I'm probably going to open a can of worms here but how have people found solicitors to be when dealing with this sort of issue? I must say that the solicitor I spoke to seemed all for the situation to be resolved amicably between ourselves and to avoid the court process...

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

LD

Honestly?.....i found my solicitor very helpful at the start as I had no clue about legal things….i hadn’t found any website at the time to help me think I could represent myself.
The information I found from websites all pointed me to the conclusion that the legal system just dragged these things out for their own gain….
Solicitors letters cost to and from….in my case £35 to send a letter to the ex….£18 for them to forward me a letter from her solicitor!
Bear in mind we got to a point where the letters were 2-3 a week from her were full of nothing but a way to cost me more money….my solicitor at the time said that there was no need for 50% of the letters the ex was sending via solicitors but he had to forward them to me regardless! She was receiving legal aid so it never cost her anything!

Take a look in the legal section at the guides by Yoji regarding filling out the forms and representing yourself…..if you felt you could try this yourself you could save yourself many thousands of £££’s
You can get a good feel for how and where you stand legally by going along to a solicitor for one of the free consultations sessions some hold….it’ll give you an idea of if you have a strong case and how you should proceed.

The first year I was represented cost me over £8.5K (that I am still paying off!) for the last 15mths though I’ve been representing myself…..armed only with the truth and the many answer questions by DAD.talk/DAD.info contributors. The main reason I started representing myself was costs…I felt that my solicitor was dragging things out….and that I just couldn’t keep spending money on him that I could see no return for. In a year I went from having a little contact to virtually nothing and it was looking worse. My solicitor could not attend on one hearing…but arranged for a barrister to represent me as that for a potential day in court was going to be less expensive for me….that was to be the best and worst move he made….the barrister was awesome…shot her and her barrister down in flames and got the court to raise it from magistrates court up to county due to county having more power to enforce orders that my ex was breaking and refusing to comply with! Shortly after that hearing I kicked my solicitor in to touch and started representing myself….
i’ll be honest I couldn’t have done it without some great advice and help from here…

I’m sure I’m missing many out here but….Darren/Actd/Yoji/CLC and many others have been instrumental in building my knowledge of the system up to feel confident enough to take on her barrister in court and get the contact orders…..the majority though has to be down to me telling the truth and the ex’s lies and being found out lying to court etc…!

if you can afford many thousands of £££’s then a trained legal professional will be a great help to you….if you can’t then what have you got to lose?

I’d say sit and have a think about it…have a good read of what advice is available on this site and the internet.

If you think you can do it yourself, then I'd do it. In my case, I did use a solicitor and it cost me tens of thousands, but my ex was a solcitor (company law, not family) and I think she would have run rings around me at the time, so I would say that my solicitor was worth every penny at the time. I think, with the advice that is on this forum, I would seriously consider representing myself now if I was going to do it again.

I thought I'd provide an update on my situation and hopefully obtain some advice.

Since splitting with my girlfriend in mid December I have had restricted contact with my daughter who is 6 months old.

My ex has engaged a solicitor who has notified me that my contact is 2hrs every two weeks and will take place at my exes mothers home. My ex will not be in attendance.

I have had two contact visits since receipt of the letter and to be honest I've been treated like a criminal on both occasions, the atmosphere is extremely hostile although I have been nothing but courteous and pleasant. I am handed my daughter (who now doesn't even recognise me) and shown to a 12ft x12ft room where my contact takes place. There is an activity chair for my daughter and a handful of toys and books for which to entertain her.

On my first visit my daughter began to tire after the first hour and subsequently fell asleep for the remainder of my visit, at the end of my allotted time my exes mother came into the room and took my daughter from me. The second visit was exactly the same scenario except at a similar time my daughter began to cry. I am not sure whether this was due to tiredness, teething or boredom, nonetheless my exes mother came into the room and took my daughter from me, returning her once the crying had stopped however, almost immediately on return to the room my daughter began to cry. This happened a couple of times. Once my daughter was settled I told the exes mother that I would leave as it seemed to me that being returned to the room was causing her to be unsettled and I would rather leave my daughter in a settled state than have her upset again...there was 7 minutes of my contact left.

I had previously responded to the original solicitors letter stating that the contact arrangements offered where unacceptable and requested a full day at the weekend and some time mid week to maintain my bond and also to enable my family to spend some time with my daughter as they have only seen her 4 times since birth. I also sent a follow up letter after not receiving a response two weeks later. In the week after my last visit I received a response from the solicitors stating that my visit 'had gone very badly' and that my daughter had cried for the duration of my visit and that I was unable to placate her with the toys etc available and that as a result my ex could not contemplate extending my contact. They also added that I had chosen to end the visit early! I have responded stating the true situation and said that unless a satisfactory arrangement is received within the next 7 days I will submit a contact order.

Does anyone have any advice as I feel my ex via her solicitor is twisting the situation to make it look like I am not capable of looking after my daughter and using this as an excuse to minimise my contact. My ex has also stated that she will make life very awkward following our breakup, refuses to discuss contact arrangements and has also refused mediation.

Regards

LD

I'm not surprised that the solicitor is twisting the events, he is representing your ex so you must expect more of this. However, it's not unusual, so I wouldn't worry too much about this - ending contact a few minutes early for the sake of your daughter shows that you have her best interests at heart, not your own. Make sure you keep a diary of all events so that you can use this if it goes to court. Also, if contact does continue as at present, is there anything to prevent you from taking new toys or activities with you?

Thanks actd.

As far as I'm aware contact is to continue on the same basis, and yes I suppose there's nothing stopping me taking additional toys.

My main concern is the level of hostility shown, it creates an awkward atmosphere and I'm unsure as to whether my daughter senses this...I know that I'm definitely not myself.

Do you think that now would be a good time to submit a contact order?

Regards

LD

It's tricky - you are already getting contact so you'd be asking for a change of venue. I'll move this thread into the legal section as I think it's more appropriate there now.

Hi LD please dont waste any more time, take her to court it will cost you £200 you need the form c100 and you can explain on a seperate peice of paper for section 7 as the space isnt big enough. You are in the same postion as my son was 4 years ago. It improved if you can call it that to a few hours then he was allowed out of the house and it was built up to 7 hours unsupervised, but so many restrictions, not allowed out of the area, no more then 2 family members and permission must be granted. I went with him once to be imprisoned in a house for 2 hours and I said never again, so I know exactly how you feel. We are in the court process now as we want the stupid restictions lifted she will be 4 years old in a few months. I so wish we had done it years ago.

hi u going though same as i am at the moment wot is it with exs and power aint seen my kids now for 3 weeks and hearing lots of storys she is telling people about me like she was perfect going for contact order just waiting on legal aid did u go court in the end how long did it take

It takes about 6 weeks to go to court after you submit the c100, you need to submit it to the court nearest where the child lives. You will get cafcass phone you a few ays before the hearing, this is basicly to see if you have any wefare issues, we were nice about her but she said my son had yelled at her and was abusive on the phone ( he hadnt), my son got told if she had any issues cafcass would phone him back to hear his thoughts, but they didnt and it went into the report, so be warned ! The first hearing is very short and its called a direction this is just to decided where to go from there, as in cafcass recommended mediation. This was supposed to have taken place withing 8 weeks, but in my sons case it asnt so he as just written to the court and ask to post pone it till April to give mediation a chance. when he goes back it will be to review what as happened in mediation, hopefully an agreement would have been reached, if not It will go to a full hearing, with full reports, its a long game but in the end worth it , to stop the control. You can ask at the first hearing to see your kids in the interim period, dont be afraid to speak out and ask, my son was struck dumb ! but hes now more positive . In one way at least my son sees his child a couple of times a month not great I know but theres lots that dont even get that pleasure .

This is my opinion, do not waste your time with mediation, they have no teeth and I always felt it was a waste of time. Women lie, they lie to get what they want, they lie to stop access and to be spiteful. I have no access to my daughter at all so you are lucky to get a few hours. My solicitor (get one now it will be one of the best decisions you make) and I am currently going through the contact order process.

In my whole experience women just use children as a weapon or tool to get what they want from the father, many have no interest in the childs wants and needs.

Yes i am very bitter, but then I wasn't the one up to no good.

Hello everyone,

Many thanks for your responses and advice...all greatly received. I haven't been on the forum for a while as I've been suffering with severe depression as a result of my circumstances. A brief summary of my current situation:

I'm still getting only 2hrs supervised contact with my daughter every two weeks.

About 8 weeks ago whilst visiting my daughter at her grandmothers house my ex started flirting with me, making sexual comments and reminiscing about our time together. I took this that she may have had a change of heart and was subtly trying to see if I was still interested. She also told me that the next visit would take place at her flat. The following day she sent me a text re paying my maintenance then followed it up with a further 20+ banter type text messages. We had not exchanged text messages for 3.5 months! The following visit she made similar sexual comments. As you can imagine this left me feeling very confused as I did not want us to split up in the first place, so the following visit I told her that I felt she was giving me mixed messages - which she denied and told me that things were over between us.

On the following visit (whilst my daughter was asleep) I politely asked her about increasing my time with my daughter to which she responded 'no', when I asked why she told me 'because that's the way it is' and then refused to speak anymore about the subject. She then picked up her phone, sent a text and 5 mins later a further two people arrived at the flat. The three of them remained in the bedroom loudly laughing and joking whilst I spent time with my daughter.

Since our breakup I have been totally amicable with my ex, I have always been polite and courteous to my exes mother in the face of being treated with utter contempt by her when visiting my daughter and have tried to discuss increased access, taking my daughter out in her pram when I visit and taking her swimming - all met with a resounding 'no' or silence from my ex!

I must admit this has now angered me and I can feel a change in attitude in myself from despair to resilience and have decided that I have had enough of playing the nice guy and going along with what she has said the terms will be. I have done this for 5.5 months now to give my ex assurance that I am capable of looking after my daughter unsupervised...all to no avail!

I have received some legal advice but have not engaged a solicitor. The advice I received was that 2hrs contact every two weeks was quite good and that he deals with people who get a lot less and that I should be nice to my ex and go along with the contact visits as she stipulates and try for more access!

I have now decided that I am going to represent myself in court and have printed off the forms and read the extremely informative guides on this site however; I have a number of questions/queries that I would like to hear members thoughts/experiences on:

1. My daughter is currently 9.5 months old and although I know there is no prescribed contact rules does anyone have any experience on what I could realistically expect? As a bit of background I live 50 miles away from my ex and I already have a 9.5yr old child whom I see every other weekend and half of all school holidays, birthdays, Christmas etc so I would class myself as a capable parent.

2. My Mum has only seen my daughter 4 times since birth and not for 6 months, this is causing her a great deal of distress. Additionally my other child has only seen his sister twice in the space of a week since birth, this was over 8 months ago. I am unsure of how my child feels about this but he is obviously aware that he has a sister and he received a lot of build up to her birth. Would the court take this into account when determining access? I feel that it is extremely important that my daughter experiences the love of my family as well as her maternal family.

3. I have tried to amicably discuss contact with my exgf and have also suggested mediation which she has turned down verbally and via text message (retained). Is this sufficient to add to the C100 form? I am open to attending mediation.

4. This may sound ridiculous but I'm struggling to complete section 7 of the C100 and any advice/suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks very much in advance!

LD

I would say that at this young age, you are unlikely to get staying contact. However, I would draw up proposals for contract increasing in length and with a long term aim of having staying contact. I would also mention that you want her to have contact with your family and that initially you will do that by bringing your family to the contact you already have.

Hi everyone,

In need of a bit of advice and moral support if I'm honest as I'm in a bit of a quandary!

Since my last post life has been a bit of a rollercoster!

Back in April my ex started flirting with me and making sexual comments during my contact visits. She also started bantering me by text and trying to draw my attention to her via Facebook. After this happening a few times I asked her if we needed to talk as I felt I was getting mixed messages. She said not and that our relationship was over. I've since asked her for improved contact and been turned down flat with no explanation. I decided that enough was enough and informed her solicitor that unless contact arrangements were improved court forms would be submitted.

No formal response was received but a complete turnaround came from my ex she wanted us to be amicable and get along for the sake of our daughter. My ex agreed to increase contact and to bring my daughter over to my home so my mum and son could see their granddaughter/sister. All verbally agreed between us with no formal documentation received from her solicitor even though I requested it.

We've got along really well and as a result contact has improved in leaps and bounds. I've had daily contact, sometimes three times a day with my daughter via Skype/face time and my ex has been sending pictures and videos even texting me to say that my daughter has woken looking around for me and shouting 'daddy daddy'.

Things moved on and we talked about the issues that resulted in our break up and that progressed to the possibility of reconciliation. We entered into a physical relationship in July and my ex sent me links to houses with a view to me selling up and us all living as a family and talked of us all going on holiday. I took time off work and we spent family days together as well as days at the weekend and mid week after I'd finished work.

It was my daughters first birthday in August and a joint party held with one of my exes friends who is extremely wealthy (fairground, petting zoo, marquee, entertainers etc etc). I didn't get an invite to the party, apparently due to the animosity between members of my exes family towards me, I was quite upset by it but understood. We agreed to spend my daughters actual birthday as a family and I booked the day off work. My ex suggested a joint present and I suggested that we send a joint card (as my daughter had received seperate cards and presents at Xmas). The day before her birthday it all changed, I had to buy my own present and card and the family day was put back to 6pm so her family could see our daughter. Needless to say I was annoyed but was asked to understand the situation my ex was in. I ended up spending the day buying gifts for my daughter, food for us and eventually saw my daughter for just over an hour.
The following day my ex brought my daughter to see my mum; it was 9 months since my mum had seen her. My mum was over the moon, she has been so upset having only seen her granddaughter 4 times since birth. My mum was great, made my ex very welcome and at ease, no problems whatsoever. The day continued with lunch out, a visit to friends, a walk in the park with ice creams and an Indian meal. I was so happy, felt like everything was falling back into place and we'd be a family again. We made arrangements to spend the following day together however; It all turned sour after my ex had left and I started receiving strange cryptic texts. Turned out that while at my house my ex had gone upstairs to change my daughter (as well as rooting through my drawers which I heard her doing) my ex had accessed my FB account and read all my messages to my friends detailing what had been going on in respect of my contact and the way I'd been treated and me asking their opinion on the flirting etc, needless to say my ex hadn't liked some of the responses.

Things have declined thereafter, I've felt that everything has been one sided with me making all the effort. My exes offer of regularly bringing my daughter over so my mum, son and family could see her has happened once while I've been over there 30+ times. All the effort and cost is mine, 2.5hr round trip in the week and 2hrs at weekends and over a 2 month period I've spent £2k on maintenance, travel, food, meals out and additional items for my daughter. When I've brought this up my ex doesn't like it and I've apparently got a split personality and we can't be together as a result.

Consequently, my access has been drastically cut. Members of her family are covertly present for my contact arrangements. I've been told that neighbours have been round after hearing altercations that haven't taken place, threatened with the police if I don't bring my daughter back from a walk on time and to top it all she's vehemently denied in front of members of her family that we've been having a relationship, the house move and the holiday and called me a liar and that I'm mad and imagining it. She's also told me that she's had a very large financial windfall and is looking at luxury cars, doesn't need my maintenance, doesnt care if i take her to court as she won't be paying but then she tells me she's on income support and can't afford food, can't afford to bring my daughter over to see my family, can't afford mediation. The story just switches according to the point she's trying to make...very confusing!

I can't get a clear answer out of her about anything and to top it all after discussing what's happened with a friend (who knows my ex well) who runs a support group for women with PND she informed me that both herself and her friend who is an experienced health visitor think that my ex has severe PND. There is some history of mental health issues in her past with depression and panic/anxiety attacks and I'm aware that she's had cognitive behavioural therapy to help her change how she views situations. My friend has advised me that issuing court proceedings may be the straw that breaks the camels back and pushes her over the edge. As odd as it may seem I still love and care for my ex, she's my daughters mum and her carer.

There lies my quandary. Do I take her to court and risk pushing her over the edge, or do I back off again and continue being messed around about my contact? I know only I can make that decision and I have to admit that amongst all mixed up emotions due to this rollercoster ride I've thought about whether it would be best for all if I just walked away and had no contact with my daughter. I know deep down that I could never do it, I love my daughter beyond words, this is not any of her doing and it would break my heart not to see her.

This situation is taking its toll on all aspects of my life. I'm seriously at risk of losing my job due to the ongoing stress which is affecting my performance. Health wise I've been getting severe chest pains and have had to have blood tests and an ECG on which I'm awaiting results and my relationship with my son has been affected due to me being constantly in turmoil with all that's going.

My questions are as follows:

1) I've offered my ex mediation on numerous occasions and received mixed responses from no to avoidance of giving an answer. Is this sufficient to complete the section on the C100 to say that it has been offered but refused?

2) in terms of my previous access this has been quite complicated from ad-hoc whilst in an on/off relationship and then two hours every two weeks for six months then all over the place again. How much detail do I need to go into for the application?

3) In terms of the contact arrangements I appreciate that these need to be aligned to my daughters emotional needs so I'm going to ask the court to assist me in a structured ascending level of contact. Can't find a lot of information on what to expect, or what is reasonable other than this document (which may be of use to others in a similar situation).

http://www.kittybrewster.com/family/Sealey.doc

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Regards LD

Im sorry but if this is making you ill you should really take this to court as others have said, waste no more time, as it sounds like you are being led on by your ex to delay things.. From what I gather you would have to find a Mediator in your area to contact your ex to see if she will mediate and if she refuses you will be issued with form FM1 which you can send with your application to the court, to prove mediation has been attempted. I would also be very careful when visiting your daughter as it sounds like allegations have been used already against you and could well be brought up in court, im sorry to sound negative but some mothers will stop at nothing to stop contact with your child. You need to stay strong and be prepared, as it could be a long process as others have said.