Urgent advice needed please

[Mithered]

My BF and her DH are hoping to adopt.
She was married before but no children. He left her, had affair and now married to same person and got 2 children

SS have now told her they want a reference from her ex H

Has anyone any experience of this?

Seems very unfair but suppose SS can do what they want

I have heard of this a few times now. My XH was not approached at all even though his son (and mine) was living with us.

Are they on amicable terms?

No they are not on amicable terms.
I would hope he would be decent enough to be honest that she would be a fantastic parent and they had no children of their own so no reason to have any contact with each other now.

Just seems to violate her human rights somewhere - surely she should be entitled to a bit of privacy in that she doesn't want exH to know she is going through adoption, especially as he has 2 children of his own now with his DW.

I can understand the DV aspect I suppose but surely they would have to take the XP with a pinch of salt?
Feel really helpless as she is so upset about it

Social workers will be well aware of the possible sniping from ex partners and I'm sure they make allowances. It's routine to check: they need to vet people thoroughly and it's quite a major thing having been divorced, even if she was not the party at fault.

Imagine the situation where they didn't check out someone's previous marriage and there did turn out to be something awful they were hiding - whose fault would that be?

Sadly when you get started on adoption you give up quite a lot of "rights" to privacy. It's the safety and security of the children that needs to come first.

I appreciate that the children have to come first as did she. And she totally understands the need to thoroughly check eveything out just that this was totally unanticipated.

I will let her know it is routine to check -just very hurtful for her about what happened and the fact what he says may have a bearing on her adoption. I am sure as you say that they will make allowances.

Thanks for the messages - appreciate people taking the time to help

This happened to a friend of mine. They consulted his ex-wife and discovered that the relationship had broken down because the dh had had an affair with ex-wife's niece while she was living in their house and they were in loco parentis.

The niece was 17 at the time.

The adoption application was refused.

All sorts of skeletons could be living in people's closets and need checking.

But I totally accept that the invasion of privacy must be very hard to bear.

Thanks for replies again. Having slept on it I can totally understand why checks need to be carried out, especially when hearing accounts like these.

Just when I know her and what he is like it seems unfair but I will try and support her as best I can. I may be on this topic again for advice as I really want to help as much as I can. She has helped me through so much. Any words of advice for friends?

this approach is now standard pratcice after an adoptive father murdered his child some years ago. On investigation it was found that his ex-wife had left due to domestic violence but never reported it.

I would tell her not to worry unduly about it, she needs to be honest about the circumstances behind their break up and that she is upset that he needs to know about her plans with her DH. However I can say that maintaining any knd of privacy is not really compatible with the adoption process, between social worker and references from work/family/friends etc it really isn;t a private process - she just needs to grit her teeth and bear it.

Sorry thats not really very helpful is it!

Kewcumber is right you do need to go with it.The adoption process is very invasive.

I can understand why your bf is so upset though. My ex had to be interviewed and I was devastated. We have a child (now adult) together and split up 20 years ago due to his domestic and emotional abuse.

He told SS that I had been the violent partner and cited many instances when I had allegedly abused both him and our child. Both him and his currant partner made my life hell for years. It emerged that 5 years ago his partner (a social worker) had made 3 anonamous calls to SS regarding my alleged abuse of my dd (then aged 16) the calls were not acted on.

Fortunately SS are skilled at dealing with dishonest people and my 20 years of working with children went in my favour. They launched an investigation into my ex and realised the sort of person he is. My, now adult dd was able to confirm the truth and there was a lot of evidence from his other childrens schools and the police to prove my side of the story.

It was though, extremely traumatic and as we had fostered our dd fom birth the thought of losing her was unthinkable.

Your bf just needs to be honest and remember SS get lots of referances so 1 bad one doesn't mean she won't be able to adopt.

kewcucumber - advice is helpful as i want to be able to support her through this and show her this thread. I have advised her to join and come on this board as told her how helpful everyone is.

See.. if they had told her the reasons why everyone gets the same approach she would have understood but there doesn't appear to have been enough explanation given to her.

She did know the process would be invasive and would be lots of checks just never imagined that ExH would be relevant. Now that you have all given me the other side I understand and sure she will do.

Dolphin13 - Your experience is frightening and shows what lengths some people will go to. Glad that SS made good call in your case and i know they must be absolutely 100% sure when the childs welfare is paramount.

I agree with everyone else - this is standard practice.

One other tip: generally, it's fine to have less-than-great experiences in your background, the social workers are looking for people with life experience, who have been resilient and resourceful in coping with adversity. So your friend needn't worry that everything about her life hasn't been wonderful; she must use this opportunity to talk about what she learned from the relationship and its break-up and how it helped her grow as a person. For example, if he bitches about her, she can take the opportunity to talk about how she and her new DH are committed to treating each other respectfully in front of the children, even if (god forbid) they ever split up, and demonstrate understanding of how distressing family conflict can be for children.

Oh, and tell her to get on here and talk to us. We're very friendly

Thanks hester - that is really useful advice and makes sense. I will send her the link to this page and hopefully can convince her to join. She doesn't know anyone else who has been through the process and although she can talk to me anytime I can't give her the practical and emotional support of someone who has been through it

my brother has just adopted 2 children and social services wanted a reference from his first wife whom he divorced over 10 years ago. They were very young and were only married for 3 years. he didn't know how to find her but eventually he did> It was really hard to write to her asking her to do this for him as it was he who had filed for divorce.

Thankfully she agreed. Social services though as we told him at the time have to explore every possible avenue, people's pasts could be full of all sorts of messy stuff. Knowing the reason behind a split could bring to light crucial facts that might otherwise not have been known.

just to lighten the mood a bit - I hadn't previously been married but had a long term partner who had (kind of) lived with me for periods (he was in the army -hence th ekind of!).

sw - "would you mind if we contacted him for an interview"
me - "no problem we split very amicably and are still friends"
sw - "oh good - I'll arrange to see him, where is he?"
me - "Tashkent"
sw - "Pardon?"
me - "Tashkent - its the capital of Uzbekistan"

It was never mentioned again.

Perhaps your friend could pretend her ex lives in Uzbekistan...

Hester you are absolutly right. That is exactly how SS veiwed my experience.

Wish I could have said it so well.