hi

[misi]

hi everyone,

I am a new member and a single father. have been recommended this site as a good place for single parents. I have a near five year old DS starting school soon so any help I can glean from other members on here when I need to will be most welcome and I hope that I will be able to reciprocate on anything that comes along. I am a near qualified medical herbalist (not allowed to treat, diagnose or anything like that online though) but can offer advice as to what other people have tried etc if that is a help to anyone. thats all for now before I bore you all

misi

[cheesesarnie]

hello misi.welcome to mn.you might want to put this in chat so more people see it and can all say hello!

[misi]

thanks cheesesarnie,

[misi]

maybe a silly question, but where is ''chat''? I have looked and looked but can't find it, it must therefore be at the end of my nose

[shelleylou]

hi misi, welcome to MN. Chat comes under the fun and games section on the topic list.

[misi]

thank you

[gillybean2]

Hi misi, think I know you already from elsewhere

Good to see you here. How's things going?

Gilly

[misi]

hi gilly, yes you do know me from elsewhere . it is what you said some weeks ago that got me interested in this site. things going slowly, in court tomorrow over schooling if lies do not prevail to get the hearing adjourned yet again. my ds is confused totally now so I need to sort this and get an order from the court one way or the other. no adjournment order so far but I had no post yesterday as postie was off with her bad back again and todays post is somewhere in the system so you never know!!

[cheesesarnie]

sorry misi,i should have said.hope you found it.

[piratecat]

hello misis , just was wondering who yu were, and where you sprung from, and here you are!

welcome to the place of solace, support and scandalous learning!!

I habve been on here for about a yr and a half. my ex husband just got marreid again, and he treats my dd like poop. I am slowly trying to build my life, and find this place invaluable.

welcome.

pirate x

[misi]

yes, I seem to be popping up in a few places now
don't let your ex getting married effect or worry you, although saying that, it will now make you think about what you shouldn't worry about, so you will therefore now worry about it !!
he has his lfe now, you have yours, don't measure yourself by what he does.

me? well, I was told about this site and as my son starts school soon, even though I have partially experienced this before with my little sister and the first 3 of her kids, it will still be new for me so any help, tips etc will be invaluable.

unfortunatley, some men are like that (but also some mums like my sons mum is). revel in the knowledge that you ARE good for your child. if your ex is like that then know that you will have the positive influence which should make you feel much better about yourself and worthy which I gather from your posts you do not feel at the moment?

[piratecat]

good luck withyuor son starting soon! It's such a milestone, which in turn becomes the norm, but it's great to hear your dc being spoken about as a 'person' iyswim by thier teachers, and reflects the hard work.

I am just plodding along, having mademyslef rather availabelt o a certian person who then decided to lap itup , make me hopeful then not bother explianing himslef. I hate people who are not honest.

bah!!

wher abouts do you hail form, or livenow?

[misi]

I'm in essex, just a different part to where I was before but not too far from where I was before that if that makes sense?
I am looking forward to him going to school at the same time I am also sad as it is an end of an era for him and me. we are very close and I can imagine myself hanging around the school gate for that last glimpse of him before he disappears inside and then the first at the gate waiting later on

my problem is, is whether I will get to see my son at school. my ex scarpered off 150 miles away without telling me till 2 weeks after she moved recently and applied to schools there after we had applied to schools over here and got the first choice one. she wants contact cut drastically because of the ''new vast distance'' between us to a derisory every other weekend and some holidays. so what she wants is for me to go from main carer to small bit part player (and eventually cut out altogether). the words honesty and intregrity have no place in her world. she admitted privately that she wanted DS back because her benefits would be cut and she would loose all the help she gets now but unfortunately, my tape recorder batteries were dead so didn't get it on tape
but little does she know that if I loose, I fully intend to be involved and have a friend near to her that will put me up every week so instead of the saturday am to sunday pm she wants me to have as contact, I will ask for friday pm after school to monday am and take him back to school and I will stay at the friends house on sunday night. if I ''win'' ( I hate those words, win or loose, it makes as if my son is a prize to be fought over) I have said I want as near to 50-50 contact as we can get and have tentaively agreed a reduced price at a very local hotel so she can stay over night sundays to take him to school monday morning. but hey ho, I'm rambling now!!

[shelleylou]

i hope the case goes well for you misi. It shows in your post that you think loads of your son. Its awful when people use a child for their own gain or as a weapon. Unfortunately so many do

[misi]

thanks shellylou.
my son and I have been through thick and thin for the near 5 years of his life, from his mother rejecting him at birth, starting a new business with him strapped to my chest firstly facing inwards, then outwards, then up on my back getting all the grannies coming in the shop drooling over him (and me sometimes, yuck, the goo was not nice!!) then his mother taking him away for 2 months refusing to let me see him, the original court battle and everything since. but we are stronger for it and I dare say that his mum is finally getting some sort of motherly feelings even if she still does see him as a cash cow, so we live in hope!!

[shelleylou]

So he a partner in the business to then lol . Thankfully the courts will look at whats in the best intrest for your child. They may well give her access to form a relationship with your son. IMHO it would be madness to give her majority residence from what you have said.

[misi]

shellylou, unfortunately, yours and my faith in the family law system is misplaced.
toaday at first directions, my XP basically got main residence by default. she changed the status quo by stealth and has been rewarded for it. a cafcass report has been ordered but that will take 14 weeks, and not next in court till early dec with a final hearing probably around feb-march next year, by then my son will have been made to go to school where his mum lives and even though the childrens act says ''the best interests of the child'' and nothing about staus quo, no judge will upset the status quo no matter how it was obtained, so my son has just been sentenced to a life term he does not want or deserve.

he definately was a partner in the business though. the best marketing tool I ever had, the grannies coming in just to see ''the man who carries his baby with him''. his first word was said at 6 months old, a sort of ''hello' as every one who came in talked to him first and then me if they remembered to .
one day, my XP had walked out of the shop leaving me with my son and a shop full of customers. he was crying for a bottle, so one of the regulars went upstairs to the kitchen and warmed a bottle, I sat behind the till feeding him whilst another customer helped out on the till. when a particularly difficult sale came up, she came over to me, took my son and finished feeding him while I sorted the ''difficult'' customer out. after that, an 82 year old granny begged me to let her ''burp'' him, so she did and she was ecstatic. he loved the attention too so we all won out of it. (I will say I had got to know all those who helped out, they weren't strangers!!)
ho hum, off to work on plan B now

[shelleylou]

im sorry it didnt go your way today. Hoefully Cafcass do a proper report minus the status quo.
I wrote what i know i have never actually experienced it myself would be too much hassle for my XP.
I bet hes a great at marketing future advisor there lol.

[misi]

thanks shellylou. I hope cafcass can be unbiased and straight but I doubt it, they never have been before but we do live in hope!!
believe me, it is not something you would want to experience, it is always far better to work it out yourselves but some people are just bloody minded.
I also live in hope that my boy will make a fortune one day and remember me at the same time hes very good at getting what he wants in a nice way I mean though

[shelleylou]

I hope they are aswell will keep my fingers crossed for you.
My xp is just a waste of space hasnt seen ds since fathers day and that was only as i invited him to stay at mine with his dd. So not a lot to sort out really. He tries to tell me when he'll see ds. It went down a like a lead weight when i told him he cant have ds this weekend. Didnt refuse to be petty just cos we go on holiday on saturday which xp wasnt told about and still doesnt know just knows that I have plans for the next 2 weeks that cant be changed lol.

Im sure he will do. My little lads the same i have no idea where he gets it from

[misi]

thanks again shellylou.
I dislike fathers who do not see thier kids regularly. you have kids, you look after them or if separated and become the NRP, you go see them consistently. regular and decent communication between parents is essential and doesn't cost anything. maybe he will learn that one day???

[shelleylou]

i doubt it very much. The only communication between us now is the occasional text of how is ds and when he wants to see him which is even rarer. He doesnt even want to see me when he collects ds in a few weeks from my mum. Its going to hurt so much that i cant say bye 2 my son at the car like i always have done

[charlotte121]

misi, you sound like a very level headed guy which is really nice. So many of us on here have been treated like dirt by our exp's and you forget that there are decent caring men out there! So thanks for reminding me of that!
I think its an utter disgrace that you ex now has your son when you have raised him single handedly and set up a business at the same time. I just hope things go your way and that you little man is happy! x

[misi]

I know what you mean shellylou, I hang around my ex's car till she drives off and I can no longer see my little man waving out the window, I drive the long distance home quite sad. the other way round when I collect him, my ex is often walking off to the service station to ''have a wee as I am busting'' as she loves to tell me, before I have even got my son strapped into his chair or even in the car itself. doesn't look back at all. I know this may be her way of coping but knowing her like I do, its not. her cash cow is going away for a few days so she can go home and put her feet up or go shopping. she never says a word to me either when I collect him apart from if she wants to make a point like ''he has had a brilliant time this week, didn't want it to end by coming to you'', that sort of thing.

thanks charlotte. I hope I am level headed, but never been able to stand on my head so it must be rounded a bit
my son will be happy, I will do everything I can to make sure of that. taking stock now and planning whats next, got a long statement to produce now, should be interesting

[mankymummy]

hi misi... thanks for the advice on my water butt bugs... will post photo tomorrow, am dreading going to see if they are still there and what they might have mutated into.

sorry to hear about your problems with your ex. my dad brought me up on his own and he was absolutely wonderful !