to think SDs mother needs to grow up a little?

[Laurelie]

I have a nearly 7 year old SD who has wanted a brother or sister for a while. I'm now pregnant and she's over the moon (never seen her so excited!). Her mum however stopped her from seeing us since she found out, and isn't happy that we are having a baby before she is.

I do genuinely understand that it must be hard for her knowing that her daughter is going to have a sibling that she is not involved with, but the other part of me is upset that she's taking it out on us as a family.

We've never had a rocky relationship with DPs ex and she's pleasant to me, but this has now resulted in DP applying to court and having to pay upwards of a few thousand pounds just so he can sort out child arrangements. Not great when they had a good arrangement and we are about to have a baby.

AIBU to think that it's ok for her to be upset, but she's totally out of order for not letting DP see his daughter? She literally just turns her phone off and he now hasn't seen her for two weeks.

I had not seen your reply as I wrote last post immediately after I wrote my first post but it took a while coz I was interrupted by my dd who needed me. So it was posted b4 I saw your reply. When I suggested mediation I was referring to third party mediation with a professional who deals with family legal issues like a social/family services counsellor or legal representative. Is this what you mean by mediation? It's just that you said there hadn't been any issues before and arrangements had been amicable which is in the best interests of the child really. It would be a shame to lose that by acting prematurely, that's all. I am not taking sides on who is being unreasonable as I don't have enough information. I just wanted to give you a different perspective to think about. I have heard of both positive and negative outcomes from family court decisions. It's not always a simple process. There is a lot to consider.

And I am not saying to not go through the courts I'm just suggesting to explore all the options. Consider what will have the best outcome for dsd. Try not to make decisions based on being reactive.

manasmitten. For heavens sake, read the OP’s posts, she’s already explained this at least three times.

Laurelie

Congratulations 💐. I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well.

Your title is a bit inflammatory, I suspect you’d have had fewer snitty posts if it had been worded differently.

That aside, you and your DP are doing the right thing. You’ve consulted a solicitor and had good advice. I don’t think there’s much more you can do to sort it out legally.

I would suggest that DP contacts her teachers & explains what’s going on just in case she’s upset at school. He’s her parent too and totally at liberty to do this.

Are there any family members of his Ex’s that DP would be able to speak to?

If it gets as far as court I’d have a good think about the contact he actually wants, as you say he’d like more. How’s the time to ask for what he wants, not just what he had.

Good luck, I hope you can get it resolved quickly.

Your SD's well-being is paramount here. I feel her Mum denying her access to her dad will cause her a lot of confusion and instability.
Her mother is not acting in her best interests.
I totally this now needs to be sorted officially.
The way you write about your SD is lovely. It comes over that she is part of the package with your husband and you really care for her and enjoy her being in your life.
Good luck.

Ive been through this whole process albeit in slightly different circumstances.
When you are dealing with a situation like this, a court order is an absolute must (once you have gone thru the legal loophole of mediation which you have to by law).
Without the court order, you will be forever walking on egg shells that she might withdraw contact again. You cant live your life like that, it is not fair on anybody.

Mammasmitten, OP explained well over an hour before you posted that they had tried for mediation and the ex wouldn't have it. Her partner has a lawyer who will have gone through the correct procedures including the formal offer of mediation through professionals. It really isn't difficult to read all the OP's posts on a thread before contributing to it.

I used to work as a legal secretary and one of the solicitors I worked for was on the Children's Panel and specialised in contact arrangements. It really doesn't have to make things worse. The aim is for the two sides to reach agreement on the contact arrangements.

It's not a way to create problems but to resolve them.

OP, you both are doing the correct thing. It may be a long haul but you are doing for exactly the right reasons. No parent has the right to suddenly stop contact and not pick up the phone.she is being bitter and using a little girl as a punishment tool. No parent should do that.

And ignore the twats on this thread

You have tried to go down the mediation route but as she is being non responsive. Get it all laid down to be dealt with legally. Sending you all hugs.

p.s I don't have kids myself but have had something similar happen to ppl close to me. It's a horrible thing to go through but you are doing this for all the rights reasons as there is a little girl being denied contact with her dad.

Thanks all. I really can't see any other way other than court. He's just had a text from his ex saying to stop calling her and she will get in touch 'when she's ready' - no idea what's going on!

I'm surprised that the SD, at 7, hasn't realised how dicey it is to discuss anything about the situation in one household with the other. My children were always very tight-lipped - they're now, as adults, telling me things I wish they'd told me when they were little. But children don't want to rock the boat, and are desperate to prevent friction between the adults in their lives. She'll be tight-lipped about the baby from now on, which is sad.

"Her mum however stopped her from seeing us since she found out, and isn't happy that we are having a baby before she is."

Not excusing her but could this be the root of the issue? Is there a chance she's suffered a miscarriage or secondary infertility or something that has caused her to react to your news?

If she's normally on good terms and hasn't ever needed a formal agreement before, this could be something happening in the background that you're not aware of, and she's dealing with it in the wrong way now.

What she's done would still be wrong but perhaps it's something to consider rather than thinking that she needs to grow up a bit or that she's acting of of spite or something, so that you can go into this more calmly and hopefully resolve things in the best way for your step-daughter.

@Laurelie, I beg your pardon. I'm sorry, I had no idea and of course she's much more vulnerable having chemo at her age. I have a friend who at the same sort of age had terminal prostate cancer - terminal according to the NHS - but he went private and had chemo of a sort not offered by the NHS. It was horrendous for him, he was so ill and it really took it out of him. He recovered though and two years on he's living life to the full again. So I do realise how hard it is at that age, and I'm sorry for my insistence. I hope your mil recovers as well as my friend did but it's a long haul.

Sorry - he tells DD on his weekend.
Assuming EOW - next weekend is mothers - 1 week
His weekend - denied - 2 weeks
Her weekend - 3 weeks.

So what are we saying one weekend and a few days and he is in court?

Methinks there is a bit more background here, reasonable do not flip with out provocation.

Interesting point

@takeittakeit it's the opposite. Weekend before last was his weekend, last weekend he asked again to have DD as his weekend had been missed, and he was meant to have her last night as this would've been his regular weekend so two official weekends have been missed.

He went to mediation after she had missed a weekend and had not contacted him for three days. They arranged the appointment for two days later. Thought her phone was turned off as calls not going through but she was reading his WhatsApp messages, clearly she has blocked him. They phoned her to try and arrange and she refused. He is waiting on formal confirmation of this for the courts. He went to a solicitor this week as he had not seen his daughter for any of his days, weekend and weekdays included, can't get hold of her mum, and is not sure when he will see her again. There really is nothing else to it. Three days is a long time to not know how your daughter is, whether she is ok or not etc. It's a scary prospect knowing that your ex can just block your calls and that's it, no contact with daughter! Nothing has gone to court yet and he has simply spoken to a solicitor who has advised. It could be weeks and weeks before this gets anywhere near court!

I do not agree with her witholding contact - let me make that clear.

However, the time frame is so short and this is so in your face confrontational - i can see no good coming from such an aggressive way of going about resolving this. The melodrama is unreal.

There are any number of families where the RP or NRP are not allowed to know where, when or what goes on during other contact time permanently. This is days.

If we all went to court because the EX ( male or female) stopped phone calls / contact for 2 weeks the courts would be flooded. My EX took the DCs for his weekend and flew off on a 2 week holiday - finally got round to telling me after a week. did not take me long to find out what was happening. he would not tell me where he was or allow me to speak to the children.

Never considered going to court - found out what was going on and waited to sort it out like 2 adults - never considered going to court.

Just think this is being blown out of all proportion. Something lese is going on

Getting an official access order is the right thing to do, regardless of how “reasonable” the agreements have been so far.
Taking an official stance shouldn’t be the last, final resort, it should just be a matter of fact.
You don’t actually need a solicitor you can manage an access order request by yourself without paying a solicitor (can be complicated of course), you will need to go to mediation first but if she denies to attend then lodging the application is the next step.
I really wonder why people would rather just make it up as they go along than get things in order legally? It doesn’t have to be acrimonious to go to court (and if you both agree at mediation then it doesn’t even go that far!), it’s just a way to remove the emotional aspect from discussing child care, the courts will ONLY consider the welfare and best scenario for the child. The mother snivelling in court or the Dad acting petty will have no baring on the outcome. Unless there is a safeguarding issue then the court will not side with either parent, it’s purely what makes most sense for the child.

As a previous poster said, if the father just refused contact there’d be a whole lot of different comments on here.

Get an official access order, she has shown that she is willing to use her daughter to get back at your ex, it’ll happen again and again. Again, you don’t NEED a solicitor to do this if money is a concern, perhaps see One for advice and an official letter before the mediation but you can def do the court bit yourself

Also, when you’ve seen the damage that with holding contact does to the other parent you would agree that access orders are really the right thing. It’s easy to say “discuss as adults” when you have a reasonable ex partner, if the ex partner is a vindictive shrew who will quite happily withhold access for 5 mths then turn up to court bright and breezy and agree to all the terms it’s a bit different.

All the "maybe she's having fertility problems" are really irrelevant.

That wouldn't be any reason to stop contact. It's just jealous, bitter and cruel. Extremely controlling behaviour.

Sadly it seems like one poster on here would do the same, as she spouted nonsense from the get go. I don't need to identify her by name.

I actually wish he'd go for 50/50 and get it. That would make her wish she'd never pulled this crap.

Why are people bending over backwards to make the legal route 'aggressive'? So you'd be fine if your dc weren't allowed to come to see you, and the other parent wasn't totally uncontactable, would you? Just one of those things to shrug off and hope resolves itself?

No. You'd be utterly besides yourselves and would take steps - mediation followed by court - to ensure this couldn't happen again.

I actually think there's an unpleasant undertone to this thread, and it's because it's the father doing this. Newsflash - some fathers love their dc just as much as their mothers do.

This thread has seriously thrown me. DP has no contact with daughter, can't get hold of mother, she's refusing to communicate, she's unhappy we are having a baby and using her DD as some sort of pawn in her weird game, we have no idea how long this will go on for, once it's settled (if it does) there's nothing stopping it from happening again, DP worried DD will be stopped from seeing us and baby once he/she is born, yet if DP goes to court he will be seen as aggressive? I'm out, seriously!

It's not aggressive. Your only crime is being a step. Trust me.

It could be your dsd is not as excited as you think she is, maybe reality of a new sibling not as good as thinking about wanting one?