Ex is abusing system.

[icarus7]

Hi,
I am having a tough time with my ex partner.
We have 3 daughters none of which were expected by myself.

Our relationship deteriorated as soon as my ex revealed that she was pregnant after 3 months of meeting each other as I felt that she had been deceitful in not revealing that she was trying to get pregnant.

Despite this I wanted to be part of my child to bes life and to be the best parent that I could. I decided to buy a house with my ex and we got a joint mortgage together. We bought a place in my exs home town as I felt that she would need the support of her friends/family.

My ex proved to be very domineering and unreasonable, quite different to the person that I had shared evenings with for the 3 months before she fell pregnant.

Over time my things have gradually disappeared out of the home until you would not even know that I lived there.

She has installed spy software on the computer and has all of my passwords for all of my digital stuff despite there never being any evidence or accusations of wrong doing.

I never really felt that the house was jointly mine, I have always felt like an unfortunate side effect of my ex`s buying a property in the only way that she was able to on her income.

Our relationship has never got any better, which is unfortunate but probably obvious if I had not been so naive.

It has been 8 years since we met and my life has been difficult, I work full time and devote any spare time that I have to my children when allowed to.

My ex claims that I have not payed half of the mortgage in an attempt to claim more of the equity in our home despite the fact that she has only worked part time for all these years.

She claims that I am emotionally abusive and bad mouths me to all of her friends and family. She has had issues in the past such as eating disorders and a quite horrible bereavement and it seems that her support network still see her as this poor unfortunate child and believe everything that she says.

I have left the property on 3 seperate occasions to live back with my parents, it got to the stage that I started to believe that my children would be better off living apart from me even though it was obvious that my ex was at the core of all of the bad feeling in our home, she has a very quick temper and emotional issues.

Recently she obtained a restraining order against me for both her and the children and applied for an occupation order.

She had fabricated an assault in her statement to enable her to claim legal aid.


I defended myself in court and the restraining orders against the children were dismissed, there were not even and claims of miss conduct by myself towards the children in her statement.

The occupation order and restraining order against my ex have been adjourned as I made undertakings to the court not to go to our home for 12 months in light of the fact that she was pregnant and I thought it may be for the best. If I break this promise it will go back to court.

I provided these undertakings with my statement before the hearing, it was not forced onto me.

I am now back at my parents and my ex is now not letting me see the girls, the last time that I was there my youngest stood in front of the door to stop me leaving and I had to physically move her to be able to leave.

Why are some people so jealous and selfish that they are able to put their own spite before the wants, needs and rights of their own children?

What is the best thing that I can do to stop her completely controlling and spoiling the lives of all around her?

I do feel sorry for her and the issues that she has had but she is an adult and a parent now, she need to accept responsibility for her own choices and actions and stop feeling sorry for herself.

It is sooo difficult for a male parent to get any help or support with family problems, when I went to citizens advice before the court hearing they literally told me:
"I am very sorry but it looks like you are going to be fed to the wolves!"

I understand why the system in this country has become what it is but it seems to me that the system is outdated, sexist and in need of a serious overhaul!?

Ignoring the rights and needs of some children because we are dealing with the majority where the father is at fault is simply not good enough.

[TeapotDictator]

Have you joined up to Need Fathers [[http://www.fnf.org.uk/]]? They will help you.

Was contact not established during previous court hearings? If your ex is not letting you see the children my advice would be to act quickly. It may feel as though "the system" is against you but my experience from the other side is that the courts take any unnecessary prevention of contact very seriously and will help you. Feeling as though the system is against you will not help you here, you need to work with it. Get a McKenzie Friend if you cannot afford a solicitor, make an application ASAP, and get contact re-established.

[TeapotDictator]

Link fail - sorry - try this Families Need Fathers

:)

[icarus7]

Thanks for the reply, there was only one court hearing and it was to defend myself against non-molestation order/occupation order.

I would guess that my first action would need to be mediation?

As for "feeling" that the system is against me, I do not think that there is any cause for discussion there. If I was female this thread would be flooded with replies of advice and support from concerned members and official organisation representatives, as it is I have 1 reply in 6 hours advising me to bugger off to a different forum! (slight exaggeration, sorry TD!)

[icarus7]

Did you know that you must pay £40 membership before you can read the forum on families need fathers?

There`s that system that is not against me again!

[TeapotDictator]

That might partly be because this site is called mumsnet and therefore is populated in large part by mothers.

I've had several hearings in the family courts, most of them to do with children and contact (mine went to a final hearing). I can tell you that my ex, who behaved appallingly in court, was rude and obstructive, and who has behaved terribly with regard to our children with repeated long instances of removing himself from their lives in order to try and prove some sort of point whenever he didn't get his own way, was treated at all times with courtesy and respect, and the judge in our final hearing put a lot of his bad behaviour down to being made to feel "less than" by the system. It is my experience that fathers are treated fairly, although it might not feel that way to you.

Since I have an ex who has behaved as per the above paragraph, and who is highly active in Families Need Fathers, and who will tell anyone who will listen how hard done by he is, when in fact I've been begging him to take up his allotted contact, and who even went onto Channel 4 news to discuss changes in child maintenance (despite being heavily in arrears himself) - I am often suspicious of people who say the system is against them.

It just won't help you to feel as though you are 'fighting the system'. What will help you is rational, reasonable behaviour, fighting the good fight to get the outcome that you want, and consistently being seen to have your children's best interests at heart. Which I'm sure you do. The £40 you have to pay to join up to FNF is applicable to all and sundry - including me, a mother, who joined up in desperation because my ex was refusing to see his children and I hoped they might be able to help me.

[Jackieharris]

Huh? From the wording I thought at first you were a lesbian.

What a strange expression 'my DCs were not expected by me'

There are these things called condoms. They work very well at preventing pregnancy. Maybe try one next time you are fucking a woman you don't want a child with?

[icarus7]

JH You are right of course although 3 months into a relationship with a 31 year old women who be all accounts presented herself as a intelligent and rational human being and was utilising the contraceptive pill, there were times that I naively thought that condoms were not essential.

I had considered using the term "unplanned" but, as it turns out, this term is probably not 100% accurate.

[icarus7]

TD I did notice the title of the page and also the heading, by parents for parents and the award "The country's most popular meeting point for parents" The Times.

I would imagine that in this day and age the countries biggest forum offering advice on parenting would not discriminate against people based on their gender?

My situation is a truthful one, I am not here to start a gender war or try to belittle anybody else`s experiences but I am slightly sceptical as to whether I will be offered the same level of advice and support as everybody else on this parenting forum.

I am happy to answer any question at all regarding the situation of my children for the sake of clarity, I have nothing to hide.

My children are being deprived of a fulfilling relationship with a truly devoted parent. I am finding it hard to find free and good advice to help improve this situation for the sake of the children involved.

In this regard we may well be in a more similar situation then is apparent to either of us.

[icarus7]

As far as the system, I am deemed a lesser parent by virtue of the fact that I go to work and thus have less time to spend with my children.

Due to this fact it is me that has to do all the legwork and pay any costs arising from my trying to fulfil my childrens right to a loving relationship with both of their parents. <br /> <br /> My own situation is that despite being a successful small business owner dividing my working day between quoting jobs, fulfilling the work obligations and all involved admin and website maintenance I still cannot afford to move out of my mothers house as I, quite rightly, pay child maintenance and (maybe not so rightly?) 50% of the mortgage on a house that I have currently promised a judge that I will not enter with out written permission from my unreasonable ex. <br /> <br /> My ex then uses the fact that I do not have suitable living arrangements to deprive me of overnight visitations or any sort of reasonable contact arrangement with my children.<br /> <br /> Despite this, during my exs last pregnancy, there were complications meaning that she was in hospital for 3 weeks.

During this time my exs gave me written permission to be in our house and for 3 weeks I cared for the girls. Had them to school on time in a presentable and clean condition, picked them up again, did all the shopping and cooked, good, fresh meals every night (I enjoy cooking) while working in between.<br /> <br /> Now she is back out, I am no longer needed and we are back to square one, it is like a bad joke.<br /> <br /> Over the last (2 week) half term I have seen one of my daughters once for half a day as I took her to be fitted for coloured lenses as she suffers from visual stress ( I had to borrow £400 to pay for these lenses.) I was berated and practically accused of abduction as I did not have her back home before dinner. (despite calling to arrange to drop her off and not receiving a reply for around 2 and a half hours.) The assessment for these lenses took around 3 hours (look up Irlen assessment) after that I let my mum bake fairy cakes with my daughter (my mother sees the girls extremely infrequently) and then I dropped her back off.<br /> <br /> My ex knows that I will jump at every chance to see my girls and uses it against me. last week we arranged for me to have them overnight (her suggestion, wow!) on Wed/Thurs, she then called to re schedule Fri/sat, this suited me as it meant that I could work, come Thurs she called me to tell me she had arranged to go out Fri morning but would be back at 2pm. This did frustrate me, the weather Friday was good, the last day of sun before Saterdays rain. I told her this, I may have been a little stroppy I admit, but I did not get aggressive or swear. She put the phone down and would not pick it up until today.<br /> <br /> Now she is telling me to come over today (may have something to do with the maintenance money I have for her) but the girls have a party at 4 oclock.... I am so frustrated. I feel like I am stupid to come running every time she calls. The more I accept this behaviour the worst she seems to get.

[icarus7]

What can I do, do you think that mediation will help? Is it my only option?
I honestly have no idea what my options are, what they are likely to entail or what I can reasonably expect to happen.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

"my Dcs were not expected by myself"
LOL really - did your mum or dad not have the 'chat' with you?

[icarus7]

Ok, maybe I should have expected hostility with that comment.

Do you think the percentage of women willing to "camouflage the truth" shall we say, when their own plans on starting a family do not align with their partners would be high?

[icarus7]

I truly think that sex education for boys should be better, I truly expected that when I started a family it would be a shared decision.

I was not shagging around as a testosterone fuelled 18 year old, me and my partner were both responsible adults.

Is a woman`s primal instinct to reproduce stronger than her own moral, decision making, concious self?

I would expect the thought process to be:

1. Hmmm, I really want to have a baby.
   

1. But without the agreement of a willing partner I risk forcing the child into a life without a father which comes with all sorts of negative repercussions.
   

1. That is bad, It would be selfish to go ahead regardless. I would be putting my own desires before the happiness of the unborn child.
   

1. I will try to persuade my partner that having a baby is really important to me and convince him to agree.
   

1. Failing that I will have to give him an ultimatum and maybe find a more suited partner.
   

But I am not a woman, maybe I do not understand?

[icarus7]

Also my own relationship was only 3 months old, so maybe not representative of the female population in general.

If you have already put a lot of time and effort into a relationship and your eventual goal is to start a family, I understand that it may not be as easy as "give ultimatum, find more suited partner."

[VikingVolva]

If you do not like the charges that F4J make for their services, take it up with them.

You may have felt duped about the conception of the first child, but you went on to live with her and conceive more children.

Endlessly rehashing the circumstances of the conception of the first child is not going to serve any useful purpose now you have three to provide for. And trying to generalise your thought pattern to 'all women' is a hiding to nowhere.

You need a good lawyer, and never give up on your children. All of them. Not just the younger two where there was no such deception.

[ashtrayheart]

Yes that explains child number 1...you have 3!
Anyway as for the rest I would go for mediation and legal advice.
I don't believe the system is loaded against fathers, I have read far too many stories about abusive fathers who still get access to their children in all but the most horrendous circumstances. I hope you manage to get it sorted though.

[SunnyBaudelaire]

icarus it is a bit late for that , isn't it?
You have three children and need to manage that situation without any 'what ifs' and so on.

[icarus7]

Lol, sorry.

I am serious about my situation. Probably best to keep my own meandering thoughts to my self

[TeapotDictator]

You could try mediation but IME it doesn't work if one party is abusive or controlling, because they will recognise very quickly that the process carries no intrinsic weight.

In your position I would start the court process rolling ASAP.

[TeapotDictator]

Viking - don't conflate F4J with FNF..!

[icarus7]

I will never give up on any of them.
I will not bore you with the story but there was deception in all 3, the fact that I never gave up is part of the reason I could be deceived 3 times. That and primal instincts overpowering my own moral conciousness!

[fourteen]

Right to be honest your posts are pretty difficult to read. Anyway I would say that if you feel you are not getting a fair hearing with regards to the kids then you need to get a solicitor involved. If you work and earn a decent income (presumably you do if you're paying a fair whack to the kids) then you should be able to afford a preliminary chat with a solicitor.

You need to get over what happened in the past and move on. The only relevant information is that you have three kids and are no longer in a relationship with their mother. The circumstances surrounding their birth, your relationship Nd subsequent split are irrelevant and you need to move on.

Keep contact with your ex factual and free from emotion. Record everything ie if you need to ask her about contact then email her so there is a paper trail.

Did she get a restraining order against you in the end? I couldn't tell from your post.

[AlternativeTentacles]

JH You are right of course although 3 months into a relationship with a 31 year old women who be all accounts presented herself as a intelligent and rational human being and was utilising the contraceptive pill, there were times that I naively thought that condoms were not essential.

Well, you could have kept your cock in your pants and [shock horror] taken responsibility for where your semen end up. Not being funny but why is it all her job to stop babies being born?

You lost me with that 'We have 3 daughters none of which were expected by myself' comment. As it is the attitude of an arse.

In future - perhaps be more careful with what you do with your cock?

[fourteen]

I agree with what Tentacles said fwiw but I don't think getting a pasting on here is going to help you.

There are a ton of people who have been in your position op. You need to get some proper advice from a lawyer.