To think “Family Court” is a joke?

[Bananallama18]

Absolutely appalled at the treatment my husband is experiencing. In 2 years of proceedings, not once has his (extremely bright and articulate) DD been asked her opinion on what she wants. Her mother has prevented her from seeing her dad (or extended family) for 2 years. Ever since we told his ex we were planning to marry. I was never the other woman. Met him over 2 years after they split. It was a casual relationship and he got her pregnant. Accepted the consequences and tried to build a relationship. It didn’t work, they split when the baby was 8m old. He stayed in the area for a further 18m in order to maintain a relationship with his child. When I met him, he was travelling 400+ miles every 4 weeks to collect his child and have her for between 4-14 days (before she went to school) he met me and we slowly built our relationship and gradually introducing me to his dd and him to my (older) dc, all with his exes knowledge. Definitely the turning point was her realisation our relationship was more serious.

Fast forward to now. We have a 9m son of our own and been fighting in court for access to husbands dd. I honestly cannot fathom how it has taken so long and at no point has his ex had to present a single shred of evidence to support her reasons for preventing access. I am at a loss as to why nobody seems to be listening to anyone but the mother. We’ve had 6 different sheriffs preside over the hearings so no one is ever familiar with the case. We’ve been given yet another continuation of one Saturday in every month contact for 6 hours. (We won this last time, with zero contact in between) for another 5 months. I just cannot see that this sudden drop in contact with her father, is possibly in the best interest of the child. We are now £4K in debt and self representing as we have run out of money (ex gets legal aid so can drag it on for as long as she wants)

Please someone tell me how to get somebody to listen?! We have repeatedly asked for CAFCASS intervention but they do not operate in Scotland. SS were due to interview the child but a “mistake” by her solicitor meant that when they arrived, the mother had taken her on holiday and no follow up has been ordered.

The frustration is killing me. It’s been 2 years already and by the time we go back 2 and a half. The stress is unbearable. His DD is distraught at not seeing her daddy. My heart is breaking for them both. Please someone help us. I’ve no idea where to turn.

We cancelled our entire wedding 6 weeks before as neither of us felt comfortable agreeing to these demands nor did we feel happy marrying without his daughter present.

How very very odd.
You actually cancelled your wedding because you didn’t like her demands?

Something isn’t ringing true here

I susoect the 400 mile round journey may also play a part.

Well, you paint your partner as an angel and this woman as evil and unreasonable.

One option has to be for your partner to move closer to his DD. He should live there permanently and see you at weekends or even split. Depends if his relationship with you is more important than a relationship with his daughter. It probably is.

Your problem isnt this will an, it’s the distance your partner put between him and his DD. I get he needed support but it was still his decision.

We’ve had 6 different sheriffs preside over the hearings so no one is ever familiar with the case. We’ve been given yet another continuation of one Saturday in every month contact for 6 hours. (We won this last time, with zero contact in between) for another 5 months

This says it all 6different people independanly reviewed your case from both sides with all the information being the same. Access has been awarded 6hours once a month due to distance no doubt. You’re dh has five months to prove he is consistent in his contact for 5months before it is reviewed again, his focus he attends all 5 times. The courts are testing to see how committed you’re dp is to his dd.

The reason it's different when females move back to their families for support is because in that scenario the women have the DC and need the emotional and practical support to raise them, not being stuck as a single mother and DC with no support network. Your partner's situation was very different. He may well have needed support but he had to weigh that up against living near his DD and he chose to take care of himself.

I hear you say that she still facilitated contact when he came back to see DD for the first four years, but surely that changed simply because DD started school so suddenly the time she was available was much less flexible. That's why it has now diminished and weekend trips are untenable and splitting holidays really boils down to not much at all and will become less appealing as DD gets older.

No doubt the ex-partner is difficult - that's why it was a casual relationship and a big gamble to go into a parenting situation with her. Maybe she is bothered by you, maybe that's not really the issue. Or maybe it's a mixture of factors, because by settling down with you and becoming committed to your own co-parenting schedule, he's even less able to offer flexibility on seeing his DD.

These things are rarely easy, but on balance it does seem that the fact your DP moved so far away and is unwilling/unable to change that is the real problem here and the priority should be minimising upheaval to DD. If he wants to see her, he should travel down there for the most part, and then maybe look to a handful of stints in the holidays when the situation is less fractious.

Oh c'mon there's a huge backstory/dripfeed here.

Hear many of these stories about the batshit crazy ex whos with holding contact and the df will tell anyone who wants to know when the reality of it is contact has been intermittent and the child in question has been repeatedly let down and the dm ends up doing the sole parenting.

This says it all 6different people independanly reviewed your case from both sides with all the information being the same

Actually that’s not true. A sheriff decides whether or not to read the information submitted, or just to hear what both parties have to say on the day.

In 3 years of hearings, never once did the sheriffs decide to read the back story, nor did they consider any of the compelling information submitted.

If you don’t know anything about a legal system, please try not to state your opinion and dress it up as fact.

Solicitors will tell you it all depends on the mood of the sheriff that day. And it does.

There is a huge lot of support for first families on MN and you can understand but do just ignore anything that is upsetting as it just reflects the bias. I would not have moved away however. I did not have family support on my divorce and I just coped with it myself. In fact had my children's father moved them to a saudi desert i would have moved there with my tent and stayed by them.

Anyway this are as they are - he chose to move a very long way away and has a baby with you. Whilst she is still 8 she may well be prepared to go to see her father a bit but it is a very very long way away. We sometimes put our 8 year old on a train to her grandparents in Yorkshire - put her on at one end and they got her at the other or a grandparent did the journey - in myv iew in tihs case the father should pay the rail costs or flight costs as he chose to move away however. I know one man whose partner moved away with the children and he bought a small property near their new place just so he could come up every other weekend hundreds of miles to see her - not financially an option for most people of course.

The wedding demands were ridiculous. At least you got some kind of wedding before the baby arrived.

So this girl is 8 and living hundreds of miles away. She will not at that age want to spend a month of her summer holidays say away from everythign she knows to see soimeone she doesn't know and if you annoy her too much from age 13 she will just refuse to bother as then they want to be with friends anyway more than anything else. I would go up just for the day every 2 weeks to an airbnb perhaps without the baby and new wife and just take her out for a few hours; go to all school events however inconvenient like the Christmas play and parents' evening once a term and I would keep things very happy with the girl who will not want to feel her mother is constantly in court. The courts cannot easily solve contact issues in any jurisdiction. In a sense you've failed if you get to court.

So daily skype was psosible at one point. Have you found out what compromise she will accept, Sorry not to remember every post. It may be skype once a week, 2 hours contact every 2 weeks at the weekend and starting with say 3 nights at half term in October or whenever half term is in Scotland staying with the father but perhaps near by where she lives rather than where you live just her and her father just to start with and get things going okay again.

I don't know anything about the legal system, but I would have thought the overriding priority was the child's best interests. Not rewarding or punishing mothers or fathers, and not the parents' convenience.

What is in the kid's best interests is to start to rebuild the relationship with short regular contacts without much travelling.School holidays and weekends are for the child to rest up a bit not travel 100s of miles
.My friend lived in Yorkshire and had a dad in the north of Scotland and had to have contact with her DF in the north of Scotland.It was hugely traumatic to have to travel so far away to stay for 2 weeks with virtual strangers.
Please remember children that age are eager to please their parents and will say whatever they think that parents want to hear at the time

He moved away for support? Dear me he sounds like a wet drip
Well, don't you sound just lovely

I don’t know how to tag but @yetalkshitehen that’s exactly what’s happened. None of the sheriffs have so far looked at anything presented. I won’t bother further with the posters insisting there is more to it. He saw his child for 4 years. Mother stopped contact when we announced plans to marry. We cancelled a big wedding on the grounds his daughter was missing from it as we weren’t bowing to the demands of his ex. I don’t see that as shocking. We didn’t want “family” pictures of a day when one of the most important components of our family was missing. Whether some of you accept it or not, not all women are nice people in exactly the same way not all men are. This woman is not a good person. Her wants come well above the wants or needs of her child and that’s the bottom line. Accusing my husband of being violent on one response but a wet drip on another is laughable. He’s a good man that’s made a few mistakes in life, same as most of us. I highly doubt most men would have moved from a life abroad that he loved to a cliquey Scottish town to support a woman he hardly knew but was pregnant with his child. I hardly think moving away but maintaining a relationship with his child is more harmful than withdrawing access entirely.

Thanks for those with helpful advice. It’s much appreciated.

None of the sheriffs have so far looked at anything presented

None of ours did either, nor was I allowed to present any of it in the court. Drug use, excessive alcohol consumption and random wasted people in and out of XHs house were irrelevant apparently.

I hope you get somewhere OP, this wee lass needs her Daddy.

cant believe how many people are ignoring everything the ex has done and blaming it all on ops dh because he moved. Christ.

Hear many of these stories about the batshit crazy ex whos with holding contact and the df will tell anyone who wants to know when the reality of it is contact has been intermittent and the child in question has been repeatedly let down and the dm ends up doing the sole parenting

considering hes been to court several times, it seems quite unlikely that that is the case here, doesn't it.

How very very odd.
You actually cancelled your wedding because you didn’t like her demands?

if dps ex wanted to chose things and attend my wedding, and asked for a breakdown of what everything cost, or dps kids didn't get to go, I would bloody well cancel as well.

would you REALLY tell your ex all those details and involve them in your wedding?

The ex may be a very difficult person etc but your dp chose to move 200 MILES away from his daughter. It's absolutely not unreasonable that this would have a major impact on his contact with her. I understand he had his reasons but ultimately as a parent you sacrifice for your child, even if that means living in an area you 'absolutely hate' and dealing with other stressful situations. Not fair on the daughter to expect her to make a 400 mile (!!) round trip, I would hate that personally and I can't imagine an 8 year old would find it anything other than unsettling. The idea that he's entitled to this is frankly ridiculous actually, she is settled where she is, why should she have to travel so far to maintain a relationship with her father? He's not dad of the year in this scenario and I really think you are being unrealistic. You have once per month contact, if he wants more he needs to be closer by, it's that simple.

It's absolutely not unreasonable that this would have a major impact on his contact with her

no, its not, but he had reasonable contact with her even after he had moved away. It seems to be the fact OP and his relationship getting serious that stopped the regular and reasonable contact. That is ENTIRELY the ex being a dick, not anything the dh has done.

the fact he is entitled to have access to HIS OWN DAUGHTER is ridiculous to you? wow parent of the year award goes to jiggly

You actually cancelled your wedding because you didn’t like her demands?

Er no, it was cancelled because the demands were beyond unreasonable even by MN standards, and OP and her DH didn’t want to get married without his DD there!

@flamingofridays
the fact he is entitled to have access to HIS OWN DAUGHTER is ridiculous to you? wow parent of the year award goes to jiggly
What a ridiculous comment. It's about what the daughter is entitled to, what's in her best interest. He made the choice to move 200 miles away! Yes contact was facilitated before but things change, she's at school, she'll be tired, want to do extra-curricular stuff and see friends and rest etc outside of that.

its in her best interest to maintain a relationship with his father no matter where he lives.

things changed because her mum doesn't like the fact that op and dh got married so she threw her toys out and stopped access. do you think shes acting in the best interests of her daughter? I don't.

and actually considering they met abroad, and then the mum left, she bloody well moved too but that's ok clearly.

@flamingofridays you seem set on the idea that the ex is a nightmare etc, yes she sounds difficult but the simple fact is a 400 mile journey was always going to cause problems. It says they met and had a casual relationship when he was working abroad, she got pregnant, moved back to her hometown btw which is not the equivalent of moving 200 miles from your own child. Or do you think that being pregnant gives a man the right to dictate that based on what was then a casual relationship it seems? OP seems to be presenting her partner as a bit of a martyr in this whole situation but really, it's not about him. It's about the reality that he went from living with his dd, to moving out, to moving 200 miles away and the fact that this changes things especially as the child gets older.

yes, and I have agreed with you that a 400 mile round trip is not one you can do every day, or for instance they cant have his daughter over for tea, but that isn't what theyre asking for. Half the school holidays for example is not unreasonable.

I don't know how many times you want me to say it but the change in access DID NOT happen because he moved 200 miles away, it happened because the child's mother threw her toys out because the father was getting married. Is that acceptable to you?

the access he had previously, would be fine now, except the mother just doesn't want it.

Flamingo you have one side of his story I would imagine there’s more to this mainly the dd getting messed about.