Denying Access to My Child

[JurassicAllstar]

My Ex and I have childcare arrangements where I have my daughter every other weekend and we share the holidays. I would have my daughter more but distance between us makes that difficult with Schooling.

I have recently got married, my wife and I chose to marry abroad for just close friends and family with no children. My 6 year old was in school at this point so I wasn't going to take her 2 weeks out of school for this with many people she doesn't know, only one of my family members could make it.
So we made the decision to have a smaller event in the UK after that would be more suitable for my daughter, we can make it more special for her then and not have to take her out of school where she would have more family around her.

My Ex (Daughters Mother) has since denied me access to my daughter, she is very angry I didn't take our daughter abroad. On fathers day she sent me a really nasty and abusive text message and I have had more since.
I have explained the reasons and that we have another event but she is having none of it.

Me not taking her abroad and out of education for 2 weeks I did in her best interest, it would have been selfish of me to put her in that situation with people she doesn't know and very little family of our own there, she already has anxiety issues.

Any attempt I make to find some middle ground with my ex just results in more abusive messages that are intended to hurt me but more alarming is that she is upsetting our daughter.

My Ex has a history with social services etc.
I just feel so desperate now, I want to protect my daughter and I don't know where to turn.

The ops clearly already blamed the mum for everything else. I’m wondering what this ss thing was?

So would I.

And I'm not sure that the OP was being entirely truthful about SS involvement.

I think he just made that up.

Because if he was really worried about his ex wife's parenting, he'd have asked the courts to give him custody.

A wedding with no children - your own words.

How would she not know anyone. - you’re her dad, she knows you.

You’ve been called out on you insensitivity and you’re trying to justify it to yourself.

Indeed. If I actually had a child in a situation that merited SS involvement, there's no way I'd tamely be accepting EOW at my ex's discretion.

You have implied that you think her mother is an unfit/unsuitable parent and you want to "protect" your daughter

And you've done what exactly about that before now? You've been happy for your daughter to live with someone who you feel she needs protecting from?

And now you're being denied access, you've done what? Sent some texts to your ex saying "pretty please"?

What legal routes have you taken, and if you've not taken them why haven't you?

I can just imagine one of my daughters at 6 years old being told that daddy’s getting married. 100% their first thoughts would be shall I be a bridesmaid or a flower girl? I can’t begin to imagine their heartbreak at being told ‘oh you’re not allowed to come on holiday and to daddy’s wedding because you’re at school’. That’s one hell of a core memory to give your child because she’ll never forget it

I'm afraid OP that yes, this is on you. it doesn't sound like your ex is behaving very well, but I imagine she's been dealing with the fallout of your dd being devastated that you didn't include her in your wedding. And it's very difficult to convince anyone that a 2 week trip abroad to get married without your child was literally your only option and your DD is very unlikely to be stupid, so she knows perfectly well that this isn't okay.

is your ex possibly hyping it up and making it an even bigger deal? Possibly. But then, do you have form for being a bit selfish and inconsiderate?

Reading back all he says is ‘she has a history with ss’. That could be anything. I got a phone call once after one of my children was admitted to an and e with an injury after what was admittedly a bizarre accident. Luckily said accident had taken place in an adventure park right in front of cctv which had already been pulled and viewed by health and safety due to equipment potentially failing. I guess that means I have a history with ss 🤷🏼‍♀️

You see Im not convinced this mum did really want her 6 year old to go abroad for two weeks. She's moved away and doesn't facilitate the journey for her dd to see their dad, so if he didn't do all the driving home would that child see their dad? He didn't move away. Maybe the wedding is another excuse to distance the child from her other parent?

It was a deliberate choice in order to exclude her. And only one he could make because her mother has her nearly all of the time.

Unless one of you is from the country where you had the wedding, you and your wife were unreasonable to design the wedding like you did. That was a crappy and selfish decision.

You would be perfectly reasonable to get a Child Arrangement Order to protect your time with dd. It’s pretty shocking that you happily disclose that ex has had SS involvement but you accepted her moving away (you could have legally stopped this ) and happily fuck off for a couple of weeks to get married. If your dd is in danger then you wouldn’t have made that decision. If SS was involved for minor stuff then you would have at least gone for 50/50 custody.

This ^

Can you honestly not see that not inviting your own child to your legal ceremony to create a new family unit could be seen as at best uncaring and inconsiderate and at worst as though she's not even part of your new life?

Jesus fucking Christ.

This kind of works both ways as I’m not convinced that it was her who moved away from the op. He’s already proven himself a liar. If there was even the slightest hint that she would have denied her daughter the holiday, then I’m sure he would have used that in his list of excuses. But neither of us should be making stuff up that the op has not even said. What we do know is that she’s happily given eow and half holidays to the op with no court order, which is obviously how it should be but certainly not how it would have gone if she’d wanted to be awkward. And the op has said himself it was a child free wedding, apparently arranged at the only possible time he could do it, and he wasn’t pulling her out of school for it. It’s completely unfair for you to make something up to blame mum when going by the ops accounts it’s not even true

This is total bollocks. You could have got married in the UK and give on honeymoon. You could have TOOK YOUR CHILD WITH YOU 😂🤷🏼‍♀️. Are you shit heart broken, you are one of THOSE dads clearly.

If your ex is preventing contact with your child then you need to either start mediation or go straight to court, either to enforce the existing CAO (if there is on?) or to request one that species exact times that your child is with you / other parent.

Lots of people are questioning why your DD wasn’t included in your wedding. I agree that it’s bizarre that she wasn’t included (I recently remarried and the date / time was planning completely around my DC being there - I couldn’t imagine it any other way) the point is that your ex should not stop you seeing your DC just for this reason, the courts would not look favourably on this. However I do wonder if there’s more to it and if you missed out on any contact time with your DD whilst you were away?

You also might want to ask this to be moved to the legal board rather than childcare.

Yy to needing to know details of SS involvement.

When my kids were younger, a trip to A&E often led to a call from SS to check in. Also it’s not unheard of for a neighbour or family to make a malicious call to SS. It happened to me and the allegations were immediately dismissed once they called the school to see if my child was turning up with injuries and they were told no.

Also he won’t answer whether he missed contact when he was away. He has every other weekend and went away for 3 whole weeks. You don’t refuse to take your child on holiday, miss contact and then complain when the other parent cuts contact too

If marrying abroad was a non-negotiable then 99.9% of parents would have done the honeymoon at a later date and taken just a few days off depending on how far away the destination was. Having a honeymoon in term time would be made more sense.

Not having your child at your wedding is hugely damaging. You didn’t have to have a wedding abroad. You could have planned a wedding that focused on your new blended family.

have you asked your ex why she is denying you access? Is she angry or is your child upset and your ex is protecting the child? Have you actually reached out to your child to start to rebuild trust?

Whilst I don't agree with withholding access, you are clearly a bare-minimum parent.

You see your child 4 days a month.

You choose to spend a large bulk of your annual leave going abroad in term time, rather than holidaying with your child and use your term-time vacation as an excuse for not taking your child with you.

You chose to get married at a time and place that made it difficult for your child to attend and refused to take her with you.

You've made your child feel rejected & unwanted and now you expect her to jump when you say so (& also ask "how high?")

There is more to parenting than visiting once a fortnight.

The emotional distance between you and your child is on you. You need to close the gap by making better decisions which involve spending time with your child, if that's achieved by going to court, so be it. But at least admit you've made some bad choices here.

whether he was or wasn’t genuine in his reasons for getting married abroad without daughter present is not relevant to his ex withholding access.

Completely separate issues.

Not taking DD on holiday is not paramount to a safeguarding issue and therefore mum has no right to refuse access. It is parental alienation.

It also sounds like mum would not have let her daughter go away for 2 weeks with dad, not a chance in hell. If she refused any more contact than EOW.
But because it suits the narrative it is handy to abuse him with.

OP might be a useless parent, perhaps he is, but useless again is not reason to withhold a relationship from the child.

No, I can easily see that the mum wouldn't have wanted this. Because if he's a EOW dad, to then have her for 2 weeks, in another country, is a LOT. But a sensible, considerate dad would take that into account and choose NOT to get married in another country. Or, arrange for his dd to be there for at least the few days over the ceremony or whatever.

This looks like the classic situation where he thinks he's hard done by because he offered to do x or y, but didn't think about how x or y is not, in fact, all that helpful or practical for the child involved.

Why have you just made most of that up though? She has not refused any more than eow. The op has said he gets eow, half of the holidays, and doesn’t have more as it’s ’awkward’. She’s pissed off her dd was left behind. He has stated he refused to take her as the only time he could possible arrange the wedding was 2 weeks during term time and didn’t want to pull her out. Not a single word about mum previously denying access or the possibility of her refusing her dd to go. Given the fact he’s put her down in every other way possible, I think it’s safe to say the scenario you’ve just made up isn’t true.
You are right in that normally this shouldn’t be a reason to cut contact. But we don’t know the other side. There might be people on here of the opinion that a 6yo doesn’t get a say, and should be forced into contact with a parent. That wouldn’t be me though if it were my 6yo heartbroken at her dads actions, and wanting a break from contact to process it