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In brief,
like everyone else on this site i am struggling with access to the kids.
My ex wife and i have our absolute. Finances agreed and child maintenance is being paid. we have 2 beautiful little girls aged 7 and 10.
We have an agreement that i see the kids over night on a Tuesday and have them from Friday school pick up to Sunday afternoon every other weekend. which is cool. All the above was agreed via solicitors without the courts prior to August when the Absolute came through. Since then i have signed the house over as agreed, she now seems invigorate! with rage which is doing the same to me.
Recently I have tried to broach the subject of holidays but have been flatly refused any further contact. I have suggested we go to mediation but again she flatly refuses. saying there is no way she is sharing the kids during the holidays.
It has all come to a head following a very heated telephone conversation on the topic.
Following an earlier attempt to spend time with the kids i was reprimanded (by her) and instructed not to discuss anything with the kids before i discussed it with her. So, that i have done, in fact i had tried to do that then but matters got very out of hand (verbally).
On this occasion she has sat the kids down and discussed the matter with them and concluded it isn't happening. The kids have now told me they don't want to spend time with me in the holidays.
What am i supposed to do? I want to be able to influence their lives and am absolutely convinced this recent request is not 100% of their own minds.
It seems my ex wife is able to play the 'its what the kids want' card and i am expected to sit back and accept it. Knowing they are being primed and grilled over what happens when they are with me (when they are, we have a great time). It seems i am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do i force the situation and go against what i am being told by the kids knowing it will be better in the long run but be accused of being a villain because i am only pursuing what I think is right, or do i just sit back and accept what I've got knowing i can offer the girls so much that my ex wife can't. I'm their dad for a start.
I am terrified that the kids would end up involved in any legal proceedings, should i go sown that route, my ex and i have put them through enough. and knowing her if i do go to the courts our anger for each other will probably get worse, and the kids will be aware of that which isn't healthy.
We cannot communicate about anything now, save for texts when she wants more money. Amazingly now i was told by her that i was never a good dad, that the girls don't want to be with me, that i personally caused her fathers heart attack. All rubbish i know, but it demonstrates she is more than capable of lying. I would rather let the kids go quietly about their lives than have a judge swallow lies from my ex which undermines my credibility with the kids.
The reason for this approach. I have lost faith in solicitors in family matters. Sadly my experience is that they are all too keen to create a fight. On hindsight i may have been foolish but i fought hard to stop mine engaging aggressively. I do wander now whether i should have just let her loose. But the one time i did, she was full of bravado, but ultimately back tracked on all her advice got me nowhere and charged me £700 for the pleasure.
Help!
It's horrible!! :boohoo:
Hi Marriot and welcome 🙂
I'm really sorry to hear of your turmoil and I wish I could give you all the right answers to help make your decision an easy one... I can see that you put the children first, or else you would have entered the fray by now. Its a heart or head decision isn't it. I guess the way to look at it is, if you dont address the issue of holiday contact now, and that includes Christmas and Easter, you will be stuck in this intractable place for the forseeable future. Is that acceptable to you? It wouldn't be for me.... Plus if you make a stand now, she will think twice about bullying you in the future....just my opinion.
My advice to you is to make an appointment with the Mediation service and talk through all the issues with them. The person that instigates mediation always has an intial meeting on their own anyway. Once you have talked to them, the mediator will write a letter to your ex inviting her to attend. Its very easy for her to refuse you on a personal level, but receiving a formal and "official" letter from a third party is quite often a different matter. If she still refuses, well she's made the decision to go to court an easier one for you, and by refusing she has already shown herself to be unreasonable in the eyes of the court. The judge will want to know if you have tried mediation, and if you have not, its highly likely he/she would send you both away and order court led mediation anyway.
I feel confident that if you applied to the courts for a defined contact order you would be successful. The courts would see that you have been totally fair minded about everything, signing the house over and contributing financially. Most contact orders make reference to shared holiday time, and I can see no reason why it should be any different for you.
Perhaps all it will take for your ex to back down is the realization that you wont be bullied over this, and that you will go to court if necessary. It is in the childrens best interests to be able to share quality time with you and will only enrich their lives.
Good luck with everything and keep us posted 🙂
Hi There,
I agree, If you don't push for holiday's with your children then your ex will continue to push for what ever she wants, I don't think your ex will just roll over and give in but showing her you won't take things laying down may make her think.
I wouldn't discuss things with your children before talking to her about it as this is likely to make her less amiable to agreeing to anything, I'm in a similar situation and after many years of not being ablt to take my son away anywhere nice on holiday I'm going back to court to enable it too happen.
As NJ says though try mediation first to see if you can get an agreement without going to court
Thanks for your advice.
I am utterly confused what to do. I am leaving things to cool down in my mind. I have had another great weekend with the kids, who seem absolutely fine when they are with me (us-my girl friend and i). I specifically didn't talk to them about, well...anything other than what mattered there and then.
I do know they are absolutely definitely keeping things from me and my ex, which is crackers! They are 7 and 10!! They obviously think they can 'protect us' from each other. I feel so absolutely helpless to extract them from the childish state of affairs between their mum and me.
I can appreciate the sense of protection a mother feels towards her kids, but it feels like nobody gets that dads feel it too!
A classic example of my situation. My my kids have always eaten well. I now find when they are with me that they have become more and more fussy, Normal stuff i hear you say. But this weekend i sat at the table with my eldest and insisted she ate her burger, because she had turned her nose up at it. ( a home made burger! It was beautiful) Why the [censored] do i feel guilty for doing that? She was in the wrong and needed telling, but i know at some point that will get thrown back in my face by my ex. As a dad in this situation i feel like i am walking on egg shells with my own kids.
It is [censored]!
Just out of curiosity, how involved do kids get if matters go to court regarding holidays. I just cannot bear the thought of them having to go through any form of scrutiny with counselors or whoever do such things.
cheers
Hi there
...If you were to go to court its likely that your girls would be interviewd by CAFCASS, but its in a very informal way, just a little chat with some gentle questions asked. CAFCASS would also want to talk to you and your ex and then they would submit their report to court.
Heres a link to mediation, I think its worth trying as it will give you an opportunity to get your points across without it developing into a row!
www.nfm.org.uk
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