Family Courts

[stokieginge]

Has anyone got any experience of going to the family courts to get child arrangements set in stone?

After a brief chat with @Zampa was interested to see if others had.

[stokieginge]

Bump

[TooSassy]

Yes. Lots as a result of my DP.

If you want answers, you may want to be more specific in what guidance you are seeking.
FAmily courts are notoriously grey and every situation can be vastly different. Your question is too vague.

[stokieginge]

@TooSassy costs, duration, what to expect etc

[incognito0]

Yeah they're all dependant on your specific case.

Are you using a solicitor?

[TooSassy]

Cost. Relatively cheaper if you’re prepared to be litigant in person and have a direct access barrister. Barrister fees depend entirely on level of expertise you want.
Duration? Depends entirely on what you’re dealing with? I know people who have gone through years of litigation. Others are months.
Do social services / cafcass need to get involved?

The family courts are seriously overburdened and timelines (for non urgent applications) can take months to be heard depending on where you live.

No one will be able to give any specifics without more detail

[stokieginge]

@incognito0 @TooSassy

We currently have my DSC EOW & 1 day during the week. We never ask to change our weekends, are never late & DP pays his maintenance religiously (has never missed a payment).

Biological Mum, makes plans on our days/weekends and gives us less than 24 hours notice. An example of this being she booked her wedding on our weekend (we don't have jurisdiction on weekends). She didn't tell us until 2 days before the weekend that it would affect our weekend and never even gave us the option to switch - this is a reoccurring theme.

So we're just trying to figure out our options and see whether going through the courts is a viable option financially or whether we will just have to grin and bare it until DSC is at an age where she is able to make her own decisions.

[MissMalice]

How often does she do that?

[TooSassy]

How often does she do this?
How much of this do you have in writing (as proof?)
What steps have you taken to try and remedy it without going to court? I.e have you tried mediation? How old are the DC? (without outing too much).
I presume there is no existing court order in place?
Also when you say she makes plans are these plans for the DC? So do they still come for contact but have activities planned on your time? Or is contact stopped?

Based on what you have said, before going to court, I would ensure that I have plenty of evidence in writing. (I.e how many times she has done this).
I would have proof that you have tried to resolve this amicably. I.e that there is lots of written proof back from your DP asking that more notice is given for ‘plans’ on your weekends and that you would be open to reviewing plans for critical family events. You can start that immediately.

Whatever you put in writing needs to be child focussed. I.e changing of plans with such short notice is disruptive to the DC (they need routine and structure). That they miss him when they do not come as planned. Avoid anything that implies it’s wrong for the adults etc. Everything should be about the fact that this is not in the best interests of the children.

[stokieginge]

@TooSassy we have everything written down. As DP & her only communicate via messages. Well it's now actually myself & her as she was so vile to my DP it was agreed that I would be the go between.

She did it as most recently as last weds, because she was taking DSC to McDonalds

I've looked into doing a parenting plan. Which is all composed it's just never been sent. DP & his mum have been dictated to her since DSC (6) was born. And they're now concerned if they begin to stand up to her that she'll prevent visitations.

We she changes the plans DSC always misses out on planned activities at ours. She goes to swimming/ballet so misses out of those. And as we don't get the opportunity to have a catch up visitation both she & we miss out.

She's recently booked a holiday for her & her new DH and instead of messaging to say 'we're looking to book a week away on x,y & z dates, would you be able to have DC on any of these' we got 'we've booked a holiday you'll have to figure out between you how you'll have DC'.

May I just add that we have no issue with having DSC (we would have her full time if it was possible).

I'm waiting upon a call back in reference to mediation as I'm aware you aren't able to go to court until you've done so. I'm wouldn't hold my breath that that will be productive.

She's very much under the impression that she's the boss, and we all must do her bidding.

I sound so bitter - I must say that other than the above manipulation i have no issues with her parenting. I just think she plays god with a 6 year old and holds us hostage.

[TooSassy]

You don’t sound bitter to me. But i would take a step back for your own sanity.

Personally i wouldn’t act as the go between for messages on contact. Your DP needs to manage that and deal with the stress himself. I don’t think you should be a conduit as it will over time cause you an incredible amount of emotional stress and (in the nicest possible way), it’s not your stress.

Absolutely get to mediation. Again your DP needs to be the one driving this IMO, he will need to attend the mediation with her. A parenting plan is perfect and all attempts should be made to get one in place. With a view of it being in the children’s best interests for stability and routine and structure.

Yes of course she could start messing with visitation even more if you start this, but if you don’t start the ball rolling when will you? If she starts withholding visitation for no good reasons, a view will be taken on this in court.

I personally wouldn’t accept what is happening around Xmas. And your DP needs to line some mediators up ASAP and attempt to get into them to try and work on this.

[stokieginge]

@TooSassy me being the go between is the lesser of two evils. 99.9% of the time we both get along perfectly fine.

I just get annoyed when we get a message on the day of our contact saying 'oh can you get her later because of x, y or z'

When DP was dealing with her It put quite a strain on our relationship and since they've not spoken (since April) that's actually gone - she would probably speak to something age trod in better than she speaks to him. With me she has to be polite. And the issues with have in general regards to DSC have reduced too. In a weird way it works for us currently.

The main issue is just her leaving things until last minute and basically her thinking that DP has no say in DSC. Or just cancelling our contact.

Court was originally discussed back in April at the last big blow up and it was decide that we would try them not speaking and me being the piggy in the middle - which for the most part does work.

[msgro]

This was our situation two years ago.

Please stop being the go between, I did this and I believe that it made it look like Dh didn't care, it needs to be him.

We did mediation, she screamed at dh for both sessions bringing up various things that had nothing to do with DSS. Anything in the sessions is not taken into account in court and is suppose to be for people that get along fairly amicably. It was a waste of time for us and delayed the court process.

Cafcass are absolutely useless, overworked and do not assess situations properly. We had all the info you have, plus a report from social services whereby she was known, reports from school that DSS was suffering as a result of his bio mum being negative about DH I'm front of him and him repeating things.

We have spent over 10,000 on mediation, solicitors and court fees and we have ended up with indirect contact via letter because DSS no longer wants to see us. His mum alienated him and told him things like we hated him and that his grandmother didn't want him to be born etc we went from having him every weekend to nothing.

Bio mum would not allow us to know anything about what he did even if asking casually how he was or if he'd been ill, she didn't tell us anything about an operation he had, took him away without telling us, wouldn't let us have him any other times or take him on holiday. He never spent a Christmas with us or was allowed to see his paternal family without us present and even when we did she'd scream on our doorstep.

She took us to court made false allegations that we'd go to her house and harass her and when she got the above she moved so we had no idea where he was and got a p o box address for dh to write to. She can allow further access at any point as it was proven there was not an issue with violence but because DSS didnt want to come and because emotionally he was very unstable it was decided that indirect contact to then progress to normal contact would suffice.

The weeks after the hearing she kept hand delivering a photo once a month to my house and when found her here she laughed in our faces and told us he hates us and that she got exactly what she wanted which was us out of her lives. She knows we cannot afford to go back to court and does the bare minimum she needs to do and if we were to go back if he said he didn't want to come no changes would be made.

Please please please consider if this is the best route for you. Make sure you have the money and support your family needs. My Dh and I have been through utter hell and there is not one day that goes by that we don't think maybe we should have just put up with the shit to have him back.

[stokieginge]

@msgro THIS! Is the biggest worry.

But it's also why I'm the go between. Because it's gets stuff done. And all parties have agreed that it's better now because of it. It's very clear that they both despise each other.

We do have a group chat, that everyone is in so my DP is involved. It's just primarily me and her that speak because she's civil to me. It was actually her idea when my DP threatened to go to court. So it was our go between to see if it helped. Which it really does.

She does the same as your DP ex. We never used to get told about sick days etc but now she speaks to me we actually find out more - I still don't think we know it all, but we definitely get more updates.

[msgro]

@stokieginge

I really hope it continues to work out for you, I can only offer advice from my own experience but it can be seen by the courts as him not being proactive. My dh struggles academically and I had to fill out all the forms for court etc and it's taken so much of a toll on me because we now don't see him I feel like it's my fault even though it's no ones fault.

The other side you need to take into account is that the contact is relatively regular (when it happens) you could be in and out of court repeatedly for her to stick to it too. We had ds every weekend her argument was that she never saw him and cut it to nothing three times for prolonged periods and then said he could only come on a Sunday day time every week. We asked for it to be as you have it and she wouldn't budge.

[stokieginge]

@msgro can I ask how old your DSC is?

I can't even comprehend how a court even allows things like this to happen. Parents who turn children against their parents when there's no grounds for it should be prosecuted. It should be deemed as a form of child abuse. All children should be able to equal access to both parents as long as there's no risk to the child.

I'm really sorry that you & your DP been let down by the system. This is the reason I started the post, as it's interesting to see peoples experiences. Obviously each is individual but I imagine if it came to it ours would end up the same as yours. Mum has already said on a number of occasions to my DP that if it was up to her he wouldn't see her.

DSC has kind of been brain washed to an extent as she'll turn up and say 'mummy says you have to do x,y or z' or 'mummy says you can't do x,y or z'.

This weekend we had 'I know daddy hates me' - DSC is 6. and we were only discussing how my DP isn't fond of Christmas. And if she's not able to stay longer because we're at work we get 'yeah I get it you don't want me here'. So I don't know whether she's getting fed this from home.

[msgro]

He's 10 now. We started the process when he was 5 1/2 years due to his mum stopping contact a month after I had my Ds we didn't see him for 3 months. Dh went to mediation and it went back to normal she had a baby and a week after he was back with overnight contact every week. About a year later she kicked off because we asked to take him on holiday and stopped contact again so back to mediation. Dh finally took her to court when she moved without telling us and he kept saying weird things and asking odd questions like did we like him. She told him that we liked my ds more etc.

We also have a dd now and I don't even know if DSS has any idea, we're not 100% he gets his letters, we only get a picture as a reply and even then it's blurry or black and white and he never looks happy which is heartbreaking. School isn't interested in getting involved either.

Friends and family have seen him out and about with her and say hello etc and it's like he has no idea who they are. I just hope we did enough when he was younger to know that we love him and he's welcome here. Dh has written and said that many times. I hope when he's older he would at least hear us out.

It's also really hard to prove parental alienation it's been in the news recently but I honestly don't believe the current system is set up to asses cases like this. Cafcass came for two hours to ours and two to theirs Dss was not even seen with dh by cafcass for them to see how they got on. We had a letter delivered to say our worker needed and extension too because she had too many cases. She had 6 weeks to do a thorough investigation!

[Zampa]

Just to offer an alternative view, CAFCASS were great for DH and his DC. The officer didn't take any of his ex's nonsense. For example, she claimed that his eldest DC didn't want to see him but this was disregarded. (DC was 11 at the time).

[Bananasinpyjamas11]

I’ve no experience of courts. Just wanted to wish you luck, the short notice is about control, and is terrible for the kids. Hopefully a more manageable arrangement will come out of this.

I suggested a calendar, in my situation, 6 months in advance, which DP agreed and took to his Ex, who screamed and shouted but then mostly, very angrily took on board. The cost was me being vilified for spoiling her arrangement- so be careful about putting yourself in the middle!

@msgro sounds horrendous. The things that go on.

[stokieginge]

@Bananasinpyjamas11 we have a calendar EOW. As far as we're concerned that's the agreement. It's on both our calendars from now until forever.

We book our entire lives around that. So next year we've got a wedding. We already know it falls on a weekend we don't have DSC.

This year my DP booked a getaway for my birthday so he could propose. That was on our free weekend. Everything we do the first thing we take into account is how it will affect contact with DSC. And if it does. We don't do it.

Shame that mum doesn't work the same. All we ever get if we say that she's made a plan on our weekend - I don't know who's weekend it is.

My phone calendar has the option to repeat and event at intervals so I simply chose 2 weekly. It's all very simple. 🙈

[msgro]

@stokieginge

I totally sympathise with you. Ultimately you will always have to put your step child's needs first, I've had friends get pissed off with me in the past and it seems like everyone had an opinion of how you should do things. Honestly do what you feel is best for your own situation but it can be a really tough journey.

We made the decision when we married to have it midweek with 6 people with a meal afterwards because if we'd gone all out and invited dss he wouldn't have been there or she would of spoilt it!! Dh did say to her AND ME at the beginning of our relationship that he never wanted to get married. When we got engaged guess what she brings up even though they're not together?! I had visions of her turning up. I was heartbroken the kids couldn't come, but ultimately it would have cause everyone including dss more stress and anxiety.

I see other families that have blended and I just can't understand why we can't get along for the sake of the kids.

[stokieginge]

@msgro after hearing some stories and just actually having read another thread that's on going at the minute, I don't think courts are the way to go.

We couldn't afford it financially and I'm not sure it would even have the outcome we'd want.

My DP never wanted to marry & never wanted another DC. We're engaged and we're TTC. I guess perceptions change when you meet the right people.

I think we may just try mediation and attempt to get a family plan put into place rather than the verbal agreement. She's said before she doesn't want to go to court - maybe because she knows we'll be the ones in the right. And maybe a letter from a solicitor including the family plan we propose may be enough to get stuff sorted.

The only think I'm conscious with as we're TTC, is the way in which it could affect the DC relationships. But that's for another day.

[Bananasinpyjamas11]

There’s that website online for families where you can put up the shared calendar. Or even giving a copy to the kids (we used to do that, they quite liked the calendar!) and another family member?

And maybe even refusing to alter this for a while. Ultimately you’ll probably have to be prepared to take the kids if she just says no, no, no. But psychologically it can be effective just being very clear and sending monthly reminders.

I once felt utterly worn out, Ex would send the kids whenever she liked, no real agreement between the parents (or really DP covered for her, as there was supposed to be an agreement), and I’d be home with the baby and maybe DSCs would just turn up 3 of them.

One day, after talking with DP etc and him talking to Ex etc etc to no avail, I just texted the Ex and said I needed to be told when the kids were coming. She tried to phone to scream at me. She texted horrible messages saying it was the kids home how dare I, that I wasn’t their parent, that the kids didn’t need a parent, they were old enough to do what they liked. I just firmly replied that they were not to be sent around without asking me. Their Dad was at work and as far as I was concerned I was responsible for them when they were here. In return I would not just send them to her house without telling her.

I refused to engage with the fallout. She’s never spoken to me since and turned her kids against me. But you know what it was the best thing I ever did and she didn’t send them around again. She did lots of other interfering stuff but i think coming from me and not DP was key. It cost me a lot in my relationship with the step kids however to be honest the Ex was only not bitching about me previously because I was being an unpaid child minder for her, which is not a cost I was prepared to pay forever.

Sometimes, just being very firm with no and not getting into an argument, done a few times, can be very effective. Your DP, like mine, might not be as assertive as you think.

[stokieginge]

@Bananasinpyjamas11 I tried the shared calendar. She said her email had been hacked so wouldn't give it to me so that I could send the link over to her, said she'd give it to me once sorted and never did. But i didn't want to keep chasing her for it so it's been left.

DP only ever said no to unreasonable requests/changes. They don't actually talk anymore and I've seen all the messages because he sent me the chat to print out the first time we thought about going to court. So we had proof of all of the arrangements she changed etc (obviously I sat and read through them all - who wouldn't 😂 or maybe I'm just nosy).

Example - Mother's Day fell on our weekend this year. She had not said anything to us about it, so I told DP to send her a message saying it was Mother's Day and would she like her back. She said yes and asked what time. We advised it would be 11:30am as DSC had swimming lessons (ongoing) at 10:30 and we would drop her home afterwards. Which she agreed to:

Come Mother's Day (she likes to leave it until the last minute because then we decline were the arseholes). He got a text at 8:30 saying we had to take her home for 10. DP advised it would be 11:30 as previously arranged due to swimming lessons. He just then received a barrage of abuse from her.

[Bananasinpyjamas11]

I hear you! My DP often just gave in to the barrage of abuse. Reality is though, they can shout as much as they like, you do have a certain amount of power. Don’t react or reward that abuse. You could now never accommodate her changes at all ever again. None at all.

My Ex was similar. Changed things last minute. I now don’t get involved at all, our son is 16. They sort it out between them, if Ex can’t be bothered to check with me if his son has a commitment, tough, he doesn’t go. I don’t even reply to his rants. So he’s stopped ranting. Almost!

[Bananasinpyjamas11]

So for Mother’s Day, I would have refused. Point blank.

You could put in email very clearly, that no last minute changes can be accommodated. Then leave it.