Hi all, I'm a father separated (never married) from the mother of my three kids (11, 14 and 19). When I left her I foolishly had an affair which took things to a very high level of anger. The affair didn't last and was an affair only I was set to leave anyway. With the benefits of hindsight my ex has a narcissistic personality which at the time I didn't know about. I was walking on eggshells for 20 years for fear of rages and sulks and shut down friendships and relationships with family members because I was too weak to fight it out yet again. An event happened around my father dying which indirectly came about because I didn't want to upset her and have a sulky family event with secret arguments in the other room etc. Anyway this galvanised me into leaving, I was not in a good place mentally, I stopped drinking which really opened my eyes to what life was like without the comfort of alcohol, I haven't touched a drop since so 3.5 years or so. I left, gave her my half of the house and everything in it which was probably £150k. She was not happy with this and wanted half of my business too, this turned out to be worthless. Let me make it clear our relationship was not one built on love and respect, she was never happy or showed any love at all. When we split up she did a broken heart routine that everyone bought into as they had never seen the mask slip. So fast forward, we split in June 2019 and in Early March 2020 I got Covid, and then long Covid. The business closed down for lockdown while I was ill and went into administration due to no money coming in for 6 months with a fixed outgoing of 25k per month it couldn't carry on. I had personal guarantees so I was also made bankrupt because I'd transferred all my assets to the ex the year before. The official receiver see this as a fraudulent transaction, they make the rules not me so I'm under bankruptcy restrictions for 4 for years from now. I live with my widowed mum and help her. I am still ill with the long covid and am on universal credit. My mum has been paying the £900 per month maintenance which we are going to have to reduce to £500 this year as we can't afford it. Throughout this my access to the children has changed depending of how upset she is. We have an arrangement for a while then things change. I never know what's happening with holidays and Christmas, she has tried the last two Christmases to not let the kids see me. We live 5 minutes walk away from each other so it's not hard to move between houses. This is where it gets tricky, the official receiver is trying to get the equity they see as being fraudulently given to her back and she wants my mother (shes 83) to get the money from her house to pay off the debt (probably £40k) if she had not been so awful in everything she would have tried to help, but she was frozen out and she has tried to stop my children seeing her on a few occasions and caused untold pain over the decades. There is no way she will help, I cannot help as I have no strength or money. I need a solicitor or someone to stop her constantly contacting us. I need to sort out a court order for the children who have been absolutely used and torn apart by this. She is not a reasonable human being that can be rationalised with. I tried mediation but that didn't work. I have a good nature and apart from (significant I know) affair I have tried my best to be reasonable and generous.
Has anyone got any experience with a solicitor or similar that has experience of domestic abuse, on top of all the other things that we have going on? I did have to call the police to remove her from mums place about 18 months ago but that is the only time anyone apart from my mum has seen anything going on. All our mutual friends don't speak to me, god knows the tales they have heard because she tells me things I've done that never happened (helps being sober).
Thanks for reading G
I'm sorry you find yourself in this position but there is a lot of help out there. You can contact Mankind.org.uk for help with domestic abuse or you may have a local charity which supports victims of domestic abuse. You can google it. Sometimes they have access to a solicitor who works pro bono and will give you some basic advice. It sounds as though you may need a non molestation order and a child arrangements order. As a victim of domestic abuse, you should be able to get legal aid to help with these applications if your income is low. However, the difficulty with the equity is something you may have to pay to get advice on. Sadly domestic abuse is very common and I expect most solicitors have someone who specialises in this area. Not all will offer legal aid though so you may have to do some ringing around. You can also look on the CMS website to check how much maintenance you should be paying. They have a calculator there you can use. You may like one last try at contacting your ex setting out that you do not wish her to constantly contact you, that you want to start regular contact with the children and that the maintenance payments will be £xx a month which is the recommended rate. You can say that you hope an agreement can be reached amicably and if not, you will have no alternative but to pursue this through the courts. Hope this helps as a starting point
I would look at getting some professional legal help for both you and your mother to make sure that any assets your mother has aren't involved in any way in this settlement, and let the received go after the assets your ex holds. I'd also change your mobile number if you can to stop her contacting you this way, if she is doing so.