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Hi all
wonder if you could give me any advice.
My wife and I are seperating, we have lived in Swansea for 13 years and she is relocating to Liverpool way as soon as she can get a job transfer. The relationship ended with her just falling out of love with me and wanting to move back home, We have 2 young children together which she will be (as per usual ) taking with her. We discussed for months before having children as i have twin boys from a previous relationship which i split from when they were 2 years old due to the mum playing away, My fear was my new wife would leave me and going through all the heartache again which has happened. Now she will only let me see the boyus on her terms, basically when she needs me to babysit when she goes to work and i take the eldest to school so no real quality time at the wekends and she is refusing to let me have the kids at my new home too (Which is a 200k 3 bed semi overlooking the sea). All this is driving me mad and we cant spend 2 seconds in the same room without rowing (usually in front of the boys which is totally unnaceptable). Also ontop of this i gave her half of the estimated equity on the house as originally i had planned to stay there but have since moved out as we couldnt live together, she still owes me over half this money as the house is still up for sale.
So in a long winded kind of way i am wondering if legally i can....
A. Get my money back before the house has sold or would i just deduct it form the 50-50 settlement once the house has sold?
B. Does she have any rights legally to keep the kids away from my new home, Can I get weekend access overnight??
If anyone can help or point me in the right direction iwould be extremely greatful.
As far as keeping the kids away from your new house, is there no chance of coming to a mutual agreement?
Or even mediation to come up with a black and white, easy to follow agreement?
I tried for 3 years to ask/beg for my child to stay at my house. In the end I gave up ,went to court and got a court order forcing her to let my son stay overnight. I tried to do it amicably and it was no hope.
If you cant talk to ex partner then suggest mediation. She has no legal right to stop your kids coming if there's no court order in place. Although I wouldn't want to do it 'behind her back' and make the situation worse. She could turn around and say your not seeing them at all.
So try the amicable way, But keep in mind it may have to escalate to a court order.
I'm not sure about point a ,sorry I couldn't help anymore.
I agree with Jim,
My ex would not let me have my son at my girlfriends house for over night access, claiming he did not like it. I took it to court as soon as I was able to. Cafcass got involved and the report was completely in my favour. I now have my son for half of all school holidays and she also has to share the transport from down South to up North.
I had the same problem with my daughters mother so also took her to court. The outcome was the same except she does not have to share the transport. It was a cheap process because I represented myself in both cases.
Before mentioning court to her try and gather as much evidence as possible through text messages. Remember she can use messages against you too so don't be argumentative. If you do represent yourself then look up a 'court bundle' because it is the format in which you should submit evidence.
Hi Leedog
I think the best way forward is to try mediation. This is the accepted first step before court should even be considered...in fact the court will expect this to have been tried first. Legal aid is still available for mediation in certain circumstances. You would attend alone initially and then the mediator would invite your wife to attend, if she refuses you would then be issued with form FM1 which you would need to submit to the court when applying for a contact order.
If you check out the stickys at the top of the Legal Eagle section you will find plenty of information about self representing and also about the C100 form which is what you would need to apply for contact through the courts.
Unfortunately having PR doesn't give you a legal right to contact as has been mentioned above, and if you can't reach an agreement between yourselves or through mediation then court would be your only other option.
The fact that she is moving quite some distance away is perhaps more reason to have defined contact agreed prior to her moving.
Here's a link to the mediation service
www.nfm.org.uk
Here's a link to the legal aid calculator to check for eligibility to legal aid for mediation
www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid
Unfortunately I know very little about the financial side of separation/divorce.....sorry.
If you look in my wife's vocabulary I don't think the word mutual is in there, although selfish, hardfaced and cold are! All jokes aside she isn't budging on this one and will not give a valid reason why too.
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