STBX wanting more contact with Daughter

[btsmummy]

Hi,

Thought I'd post here as well s the Divorce section, hopefully it's OK.

I have been separated from my H for just over 4 years and have just started divorce proceedings.

He moved out when we split and paid the mortgage and all the bills, along with the running costs for my car as I was at home with our then 18 month old daughter.

She is now nearly 6 and he has seen her on a weekday and on a Saturday every week since, they have been on holiday together, so there have been times when she has spent a week with him. They have a great relationship and to be fair he is a very good dad and she loves her time with him.

We have always got on very well, and many times we did family things at the weekend when he came to see our daughter (i am still in the FMH), we also continued to sleep together up until the beginning of last year when it became obvious we weren't going to reconcile, thing have been a bit frosty since but got slowly better and we started having family days out again (tho not sleeping together), that was up until this May.

He is now asking for more contact with our daughter and is asking for overnight stays, one during the week so he can pick her up from school and drop her off the next morning, and overnights at the weekends, he has said he would like 3 overnight stays a week so he can spend more time with her, possibly 4 the next, amount to equal care. I have said he can't have this but I have offered him 1 overnight every other weekend, with the usual midweek after school and weekend daytime in between. I also told him I won't discuss it any further and that he needs to speak to my solicitor.

Do you think he has any realistic chance of this, as I've told him we'll have to go to court as I won't agree it?

Thanks

B

mitmoo you are full of rubbish, in my respectful submission.

Your posts show quite vividly how ill educated, biased and limited your experience is.

You've insulted me, you've insulted my profession, despite accepting that the profession you admonish achieved a good result for you.

And I do a mix of legally aided and private work, so it satisfies me to a smug extent that when you bang on about my work ethic being dictate by those who pay me, your taxes ( if indeed you actually pay any) are lining my pocket.

I tend to agree, SGB. Actually, I know many separated couples, but I don't personally know of a single case where a kind, reasonable man has been denied the access he requested after a separation. I'm sure they exist, but they're in the minority. In most cases, if a mother wants to limit access she will have very good reasons for doing so.

solid so basically if I suggest there is a bias towards women on MN ( wah wah ) , which I do to a degree, that automatically makes me a sexist wife abuser.

There is always a reason why someone will be difficult about more access, it's a question over whether it's reasonable or not. Every poster on AIBU is offering up a subjective scenario.

I was in a similar situation to the OP so I can relate to his concerns.

mitmoo you based your posts on things that where never said in the thread, I asked you a few questions in response to you, but you haven't come back with anything, instead choosing to throw more generalised abuse, why is that?

solid you are making assumptions and while I get that you have to to an extent where noone actually knows either party, your assumptions are all that what was originally posted is rubbish, you assume he is sexist and abusive, which is your right, but as mrGin said, you are giving weight and to some extent justification to the OP posting as his EW, noone had any problem believing it when 'he' was a 'she.

If indeed this scenario is real, what would the OP gain by not telling it like it is, sympathy counts for nothing if he is genuinely after what he says he is, IE more contact with his daughter. I'd say he stands more to gain by actually telling it like it is than not.

Maybe she is the controlling on sexist and abusive one and that's why he doubts that what he is asking is fair and needs other womens opinions, from a 'womans' point of view.

solid ( and all those suggesting OP's ex must have good reasons to not want to increase contact or that OP is not to be trusted because he is the man in this situation) this recent case might be of interest

www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed85810

The Family Courts are misunderstood due to secrecy issues.

You don't get to hear of the numerous examples of family Courts finding that it is the mother who has been dishonest/deceitful/manipulating. Just, because you don't hear about it, it doesn't mean its not a real, common occurrence. its also important to remember the standard of proof is balance of probabilities.

A Judge only has to be 51% satisfied that an allegation is true for it to be found, so from the outset, any person defending an allegation in Children Act or DV cases (be they men or women) have the tougher of the tasks.

I'm not saying for a second treat women with distrust but as the above case shows, (and my experience has shown) women can be just as "liberal with the truth" as men.

The only way to address such scenarios therefore is to look at each situation from a real, honest, level playing field. Don't assume badly of a poster because he's a male. Don't assume women are more truthful than men. both can be just as bad as the other when the stakes are so high. And it doesn't get much higher than your children.

to save time effort and (probably yawns) the facts behind the case can be found if you scroll down to the "information" section

The fact remains that pretending to be someone else in order to paint a negative picture of them suggests a manipulative and unpleasant person.

but that wasn't why he was doing it was it solid.

He has been pretty true to his word about sticking to facts. I don't believe he's been slagging off his XP.

You post like you have a massive chip on your shoulder.

What MaryZ said. Mitmoo, you have your own experiences of the family courts and family solicitors, but that doesn't make you an expert on the general ethos of solicitors across the board.

I am not a family solicitor but I spent some time in family law when I was training and we often have criminal cases where there are family proceedings running in parallel.

Any decent family solicitor, and I was fortunate to work with extremely high quality lawyers during my stint in family law, will not simply pander to their client's wishes, no matter how unreasonable. I did a lot of contact work and spent a lot of time saying "no" to ridiculous demands by my own clients. No, you can't deny your ex-husband any contact whatsoever until your 2 year-old turns 16 just because you are unhappy that he has married again. No, you most certainly can't demand that the court remove your children from your ex-wife and hand them over to you because you earn more money than she does. No, you can't reduce your maintenance payments because she won't let you have your child on your mother's birthday.

Equally, I spent a lot of time with clients weeping on my shoulder over the unreasonable demands of the other party. And generally, no matter how entrenched the views of the parties were, when the solicitors actually had conversations about the situation it was quite clear that both sides were working very hard on their own clients to try to find some sort of compromise.

And then there are the cases where the child has to be separately represented and their interests looked after by a solicitor completely independent of the fighting parents, or the parents and the local authority. In those situations the solicitor's only remit was to work with the guardian to put forward what was in the child's best interests. How does that fit in with the idea that family solicitors only want to "win"?

The family courts are very far from perfect. But they would be even further from perfect if it was not for some very dedicated and hard-working solicitors, some of whom I was lucky enough to work with.

MrGin: Oh yes it was.

Oh no it wasn't .....

Lol pantomime

The family courts aren't perfect I think most people agree with that but there aRe some wonderful people involved who are trying to make square pegs fit into round holes. The whole system needs a overhaul with the assumption of 50:50 shared care for all children unless there are real wellbeing issues being the starting point.

There is only one chance to get things right for the child and every child thrives with and deserves to have a full relationship with both parents. That means both parents are involved with school, activities, holidays, day to day care, major decisions, discipline, emotional wellbeing, life skills.

The OP hasn't said anything negative about his wife. He has from what I read only one main concern and that is being a part of his Childs life. Yes he could have a totally different agenda but so could all the other thousands of OPs on here. We have to take things as they are presented because filling in the blanks gives every reader a different story.

But HOW do you know solid? what makes you so certain? or are you just not willing to consider that there are any other motives but damaging, devious, controlling ones, simply because he is a man?

You don't know though do you? You are making an assumption based on your own prejudice. It's undeniable! And given the strength of your prejudice, it's unreliable.

And I'm grateful to those who have spoken up for family law and those who practice within her btw!

I completely agree with you Glitterkitten. People are so binded by their own experiences that they aren't willing to go beyond that and see things from a different perspective.

well, i meant blinded, not binded, but I guess both will do!

Although that would be bound...not binded

...damn the inability to go back and edit your posts.

Glitterkitten: Because it's fucking obvious that the man's a self-righteous self-obsessed prick. He's not looking for practical advice, he started this thread so he could get a whole lot of women to say horrible things about his XW by painting a picture of her as unreasonable, obstructive and selfish for no reason. He feels it's fine to enter his former home whenever he feels like it, no matter what his XW thinks, he records her conversations, he disregards her wishes and clearly holds her in contempt.

Yes and she is a saint that stops their child from having reasonable contact with their father.

He doesn't say he entErs house whenever he feels like it. He informed ex that he would do so, he has keys because it is also still his house. Ex said ok and then complained about him entering house.

Recording conversation is legal in this country and she is equally allowed to record him. If both parties are resonobale there is no worries. I would happy have any one record my conversations because I would not say inappropriate things. Her wishes seam to be that her child is punished by being prevented from enough contact with father therefore it is a good thing that he is questioning it.

If he is telli the truth then she is UR if he is making everything up then yes of course he is being UR. But regardless of full facts their child deserves to see a lot of both parents (bar the cases of wellbeing issues)

Well it seems he's still seeing his daughter so his exw can't think he's that bad, if she's allowing him access but only on her terms then she sounds like the controlling unreasonable one

We need to make our minds up on MN. When a husband does an idiotic thing some posters pile in with "he's a man, he doesn't think like us etc"...thisis S quickly scorned as not being an excuse. However in this kind of thread it seems some believe it is impossible for the woman to be the unreasonable one, it has to be the man. So which is it? Do men have these inherent traits or not? Or is it just when it suits?

This is not about All Men versus All Women, it's about a particular type of man who is dishonest, self-righteous and manipulative and demonstrates it.

It's reassuring to note that at least the wife appears to be getting good legal advice :)

But surely she may be a nightmare as well?

don't be daft Ninky

She has a vagina

therefore she's defo the goody in all this

As a man who was against the OP in the guise of a woman I can completely understand and agree with others who now can't see anyway in which objective advice can be given.
If someone proves they are deceptive from the off, from then on it's too easy to ascribe subjective interpretations of the rest of their posts and statements. So we now can't know if any of what he says and the picture he paints of himself as the reasonable ex who is going above and beyond despite the unreasonable barriers he faces is true, and people who want to slate him have an easy path to do so. He lied about x so he could well be lying about y.
It doesn't help when their deception was to paint themselves in the best possible light and the other party in a pretty bad one, although in fairness to those who continue defending them when someone comes on here and gives one side of the story and says dp does x/y/z unreasonable things they will often be defended with "well we can only go on what we're told so will have to take the op's word for it. etc.".
Don't see what the issue with entering the home is, it's still his house so he has a legal right to do so unless there is some form of barring order due to a history of dv

If you want to see why a man might feel it's better to post as a woman look no further than this thread...

It's official. ALL men are bastards.