Scared...

[Hopefulmummys]

Hey all have been looking through lots of threads here and it’s been fab so thank you!
Me and my partner are just about to start are adoption journey we are excited scared and everything in between. I think most things will be fine reading through things but I’m scared about one thing in my past particularly,

I was married a few years ago, the marriage ended badly due to domestic violence (no police record) and sexual assault (again no police records but it is on the divorce paperwork) I have not spoken to my ex since and have no contact at all he doesn’t even know where I live. There is no likelihood of him even trying to contact me either that’s very much in the past. But I’m scared will the social worker want to contact him?
I have accepted the marriage didn’t work and the situations that happened are in the past I have worked very hard to not hold any anger or negativity but I don’t know how I will cope if he has to be contacted and his actions will again affect the outcome of something we want so bad.

My social worker has said that she doesn’t need to contact my ex (heroin addict) but I need to provide references who knew me throughout the period of the relationship. I think it depends on the agency though, and my relationship was 25 years ago so maybe it’s less relevant than your more recent one.

Yes its normal practice for SWs to contact former partners.

However, he will not be able to impact the outcome of your assessment. SW will be well used to dealing with vindictive ex partners, there is no reason why his voice would drown out your referees.

In any case, if he does not know where you live, presumably you don’t know where he lives?

If the SW wants to play detective and track him down thats up to them, but if you don’t have contact details what can you do?

My ex wasnt contacted, for this reason. He has a John Smith kind of name and I’ve never been able to find him on social media.

I had no desire to try and find where my ex lives and the same with my wife and her ex husband. Having references that knew us when we were in that relationship was enough for us so they were not sought out.

If they can not contact your significant ex partner it needs to be documented in your PAR why this could not be done and as long as its reasonable and they have a good account of you during that time it should be enough.

Depending on how long ago the relationship ended your sw may not want to make contact. If it’s fairly recent (for me that sound be under 5 years or so) they may feel it’s important but if you don’t know where your ex lives, it’ll be hard to contact him. The sw will want references from people who knew you at that time and will want to explore the relationship with you. That means having a think about how quickly the relationship turned abusive, the form the abuse took, how long you stayed, what brought the relationship to an end, the support you needed, how you understand yourself now and how you’ve recovered from that time. They should have a good understanding of domestic abuse and know that the vast majority of domestic abuse goes unreported so not having police reports isn’t an issue in itself.

Don’t let your fear detract from the process, you’ve put this behind you and it’s time to move forward with the process, good luck.