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Hi
I am a newbie to this site and seem to be in a fortunate position compared to others who have posted.
I have an 11 year old son with my ex and we split up some 10 years ago. Initially she readily agreed for me to have him each and every weekend with him also staying with his grandparents two nights per week. When the issue of child maintenance was raised (we have an out of court agreement based on CSA guidelines) she then asked to reduce the access so for the last 9 years I have my son two out of every three weekends and swapping weekends for special occasions has never really been an issue
My relationship with my ex since the split is nonexistent to say the least. She will not speak to me and currently I have to go through her husband and prior to that her mother. My son has constantly been fed poisonous comments and has often said/repeated things that a child would not understand. In the last four years I have been denied access to his school events (parent’s evenings, sports days, concerts etc) with the threat of “access to him will become difficult”.
More recently things have gotten worse. I now get messages on the day I am supposed to pick him up saying he is not coming. He does have a mobile (yes at 10, not my idea!) but I have not been given the number. Any message from him is through my ex’s mobile usually starting “Hi this is XXX and I am using my mums mobile to save credit ...”
I am no longer in the position of not being able to plan any weekends. I have younger children (5 and 2) with my wife and they constantly ask where he is and they are aware (in the loosest sense) and so is a great disappointment to them when he is not there as agreed.
I seem to get a lot of drivel from my ex’s husband about how my 11 year old is mature enough to make his own decisions. The decisions only seem to be when it suits them not to send him and they have no regard for any informal agreement. Whilst he is a clever boy he is in no way emotionally mature to see the pressures being applied to him.
I have seen threads relating to contact orders but mainly in relation to having no access and I am unsure if this would apply in my case.
Can anyone advise what options are open to me
Thanks in advance
Daz
Hi
I would say at this stage, although the communication is far from ideal, it is there to some extent, so you should look at mediation as a first step to see if anything can be gained - you ex may be more reluctant to explain to an independant party why you shouldn't enjoy a reasonable and consistent level of access, and sometimes this can be enough to gain an agreement.
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