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Ex wanted adoption now back

3 replies

frankieandbenny · 18/12/2018 09:37

Morning,

I need some advice please SadEx husband and I have been divorced for about 3 years. Divorced because of his unreasonable behaviour (gambling addiction and he pushed and bruised me when I was heavily pregnant which he accepts but says it was my fault because I made him angry) his girlfriend read our court papers and is pressuring him into marriage and kids apparently Hmmwe are both 25 and I have two girls with my fiancé now. My ex has been in and out of my sons life since we split and originally we arranged that he would see our son every fortnight. Soon after that got less and less. He's in the army so I can understand the work side but not the holidays, stag dos, parties and so on. He's constantly giving excuses about how he has no money to see him but when he first started saying this we lived less than 5 miles away in the next village but had the money to drive an hour and a half away to see his gf every week.. This year he has seen him only a handful of times if that and a few months ago he said that he doesn't want to be a dad and could he hand his parental rights over to my fiancé. So I explained what that would mean and the process and he was adamant he wanted to go through it and said that it was in the best interests of our son. I spoke to the social worker for step parent adoptions and we got the ball rolling. He's in Afghanistan now and yesterday he sent me a message saying that he doesn't want to go through it anymore and that he misses him which is fair enough I guess.. then he started saying I make him feel like a bad dad and that he can never do anything right. All I want for our son is the best? It upsets me that our sons behaviour goes downhill for a few days after he's seen him. He doesn't speak about him anymore and he's so confused when I try and explain about daddy. He's in and out of his life and provides no stability. He puts his needs before our sons and says that he's entitled to a social life etc. When our son was in nappies he used to come home with the same amount and a huge wet nappy with nappy rash. Bringing him home wearing wet clothes after jumping in fountains in London and it was dripping., I regret not getting legal advice at that point. Sad

Child maintenance had been quite difficult with him. When we agreed on how much he would pay he ended up giving excuses every month so I went to CMS and they sorted it. When we went through with starting the adoption process he said he doesn't want to pay cms anymore so I could kind of see his point seeing as he wasn't going to be around anymore. During yesterday's discussion he mentioned that he can't pay cms until February and he would backdate it but he's said this before many times so this is why he got cms in the first place because he doesn't keep to his word. He called me a c word and was saying how horrible I am to him. I don't intentionally mean to be? I just want what my son deserves.. he also demanded that he will have him one weekend a month (from Friday to Sunday) and he said that he can do this because he has as much rights as me. He expects me to take our son an hour away (about half way) to meet him once a month and My partner works a way a lot, I don't drive and I have two other children.. I said to him that I don't think it would be fair on our son to go from doing an adoption and saying he doesn't want to be a dad all the way to a 2 night stay at his girlfriends flat roughly 100 miles away once a month? He also has been attending a stage school every Saturday and thriving with that. He has a great routine and since starting school he's been doing fantastic. I said that we should start off small steps and once there's an established routine of him seeing him properly we can talk about overnight stays.. so now he keeps talking about his rights and what is going to happen. I don't really know what to do because he doesn't have our sons best interests at heart at all. Our son barely even knows him and he's only met his girlfriend once? I also feel uneasy because he's mentioned on numerous occasions about signing off from the army and moving to Cyprus and having him abroad and it wouldn't surprise me if he tried to keep him to be honest. So me and my fiancé feel quite a lot of strain and emotion right now. He's also mentioned that he will be definitely signing off from the army when he gets back from Afghan and that he won't be able to pay any cms and will get his gf to pay for him to come see our son.

What do I do? Sad

OP posts:
LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 18/12/2018 09:43

Honestly, for now - do nothing. It sounds to me like he's sitting over in Afghanistan (which fair enough, is a stressful situation) and thinking about 'his rights' and 'his son' and all the rest of it. Whereas you know when he comes home, he won't bother following any of this up.

I would maybe (quietly) get a wee bit of legal advice, keep records of everything that has been said and do nothing - I mean, don't even reply to his messages. Completely stonewall him. I get that it's frustrating with the adoption, but I'd honestly ease off. You want something only he can give - he's enjoying that power for the moment. So don't give it to him.

He won't be paying any CMS when the adoption goes through, so let him do the sums.

JustMarriedAndLovingIt · 18/12/2018 16:28

I feel for you OP. He is just feeling sorry for himself and is finally waking up to the fact that his bio son will be gone for good once the adoption goes through. Well boo hoo. If he had been interested then it never would have come to this and he wouldn’t have to just be (a pretty rubbish) Disney Dad. It sounds like your little family is doing just fine so enjoy it and don’t let that idiot spoil it because he feels sorry for himself.

Gramgram · 18/12/2018 21:32

As Jonny has said get some legal advice.

You don't say how old your DS is; is he old enough to understand adoption and what it means?

I can give you some hope though, a friend of mine had a DD, I'll call her Sarah not her real name, from her first marriage. Sarah didn't see her bio dad very often and called my friend's second husband "dad." No maintenance was paid either. When Sarah started school they ran into problems, Sarah didn't like having a different surname from my friend or her little brothers.

Just before secondary school she got into an argument with friends at school over her different surname, not helped by her feeling embarrassed every time her mother and step father corrected the school as they were being called by Sarah's surname. Then her DD said she wanted to change her surname to the same one as the rest of the family.

They got legal advice and she could change her name or be adopted by her stepfather the one she called dad. Friend 's ex husband put up some resistance at first but when Sarah wrote him a letter, via the solicitor and social worker, saying this was what she wanted and that she didn't know him, he backed off. It was also pointed out to him that he hadnt paid maintenance for Sarah and though he lived just a few miles away hadn't seen her very often either. He would manage one visit a year just before Christmas, but showed no interest the rest of the year.

The adoption went through without any opposition. Sarah now has a DS of her own.

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