Partner has taken kids away and blocked contact

[JustDad46]

Hi,

Wife has been under a lot of outside strain for a few months and has been acting out of character - quite emotionally abusive and neglecting kids etc. Neither myself or the kids could talk to her without her blowing up. We actually lived avoiding her with the kids sharing their concerns with me constantly.

Eleven days ago she demanded a divorce, became surrounded by friends and family who never liked me and had blanked me for years, then phoned the police and concocted a story which, when a court looks at it will be so transparently untrue it will be crazy. She tried to take out Non-Mol and Residency Orders which the judge immediately set aside.

But it's still very hurtful to be accused groundlessly. And have friends all hypothesizing that she's cheating because she had everything in place so quickly.

But the ABSOLUTE WORST part is that I haven't seen my kids or spoken to them in ELEVEN days. It's tearing me up and she knows it will be. She took them away and I don't know where any of them are. My children's last texts show that they wanted to be with me, love me etc.

I'm not sure if this is in the right thread. i'm just very emotionally and physically exhausted and exasperated that despite everyone telling me how wrong it all is, how everyone looking at the evidence tells me I'm right, social workers are taking forever to assign a case worker, police are doing absolutely nothing an passing the buck to social workers and my solicitors DESPITE there being welfare risks to my two kids from a third party and neglect and emotional abuse history from my wife. My solicitors aren't finding HER solicitors very co-operative (my wife started the solicitor involvement).

Every crisis helpline and charity has supported me 100% but they are powerless. What shocks me is how common they say all this is.

Tonight, I'm grieving for my children. It's absolutely like a bereavement. I don't know where they are, if they are safe and no-one who could and should do something seems to give a damn :-(

NO orders against me nor grounds for any. I have parental responsibility and am actually the one who listened to and looked after the kids but i am the one being deprived of them.... At wit's end.

On day THIRTEEN of not seeing or being able to talk to my kids.

This is so hard emotionally. No sleep and mind in turmoil all night every night. Stomach constantly upset, carrying toilet roll in a backpack for emergency dashes.

My heart goes out to everyone else going through this cruel treatment. And to those who, like me, thought they were in a long-time secure relationship an might find their whole world turned upside down overnight.

I'm sure you will want to save this thread showing a large number of strangers also find your wife erratic and unreasonable so that you can show your supporters and the courts in due course.

Your solicitor told you there was no point in attending court? I don't know anything about law, so fair enough, but it seems like such a waste time and resources for all concerned or did your solicitor go on your behalf?

Well exactly.. I was excused from a hearing fairly recently due to risk but I don't understand why if the OP is paying for a solicitor and there aren't the issues of risk, he wouldn't want to be in front of the Judge

@anunlikelyseahorse @Zola1 It may be similar to a gatekeeping hearing where his presence isn't required at this stage.

If you make a claim of DV they have to investigate even if it is nonsensical.

In England if there is an accusation of DV then that goes to the DV court, the family court will handle child custody. DV has a larger pool of courts that are trained to deal with it, family is a specialism. You can get a matter in front of a DV court a lot faster then in front of a family court.

You seem very hostile with no basis for a judgement wither way from what we can see, but you seem to be assuming based upon not understanding the courts (particularly as this is NI).

Thanks @Thisistyresome for pointing out the hostility of @Zola1

The court date I didn't need to attend was some sort of preliminary at which I wouldn't be able to speak as I understand it. I think they were fixing dates for actual hearings but await an update from my solicitor.

@Zola1 you have a very idealistic opinion of the police which maybe applies where you live but certainly wouldn't be the widespread experience of Joe Public over here.

Note I wasn't excluded from the hearing, only advised by the barrister that I didn't need to attend on this particular date.

I have written a ten page rebuttal of my wife's statement submitted with her orders and provided documentary evidence (emails, reports, texts etc - mostly from her!) to show how fallacious her claims are. Far from @Zola1 's interpretation about not wanting to be before a court, I've literally begged my solicitor to get this document before a judge. I know I'm in the right and have evidence, not wild claims.

Someone from the solicitor's office attended for me. i think it was all about going on record with the court as to who was representing whom, dates etc... I've asked for my solicitor to apply for a contact order if appropriate, having just learned about them.

@JustDad46 just wanted to express some solidarity. A friend of ours is going through very similar (we are also in NI) and has also had a lot of conflict of interest. I hope you get to see your kids sooner rather than later I'm sure they are bursting to see you too

@Objectionhearsayspeculation Thank you VERY much for the kind words. The kindness of strangers has been staggering over this and has actually brought me to tears, although I'm preciously close 24hrs a day with what feels like a bereavement just from missing those two special kids. It's so cruel and I hope they can resist the wild claims and psych job that must be being done on them right now. Please always send warm words if you think them because they can mean so much to someone in need as yours have to me 🙏

Just to say that the Men's Advisory Project here in NI have been very helpful if that's any use to your friend. But they do say this is VERY common. The figures the lady mentioned shocked me.

@Zola1 newsflash, although less likely women can be abusers to you know
social services are not always quick at reacting in england we have all seen the stories and you have no idea if the setup is different in NI,

Abuse is never acceptable but it's not always the man and unfortunately being a man in this position you are already on the back foot because that's the stereotype.

Strangers, neighbors all believe the lies because it's so believable and most commonly the man. Someone who is the abuser, just like a man, can and will lie to anyone they can in order to get the upper hand. This includes abuse lines, he did xyz, yes you're right that's abuse, we support you. Lie to their own legal support, look he did xyz and these support me too. Yes you're the victim let's keep you safe and while we are at it, destroy him and take everything he's got, keep him away with NMO and ruin his reputation.

The worst part of it all, is not the money or the house, the reputation but blocking a relationship with the children and that is the key. The children are the weapon in order for those who are malicious or abusive to gain everything else.

So, just like OP, nothing absolutely nothing has happened on my part, it's the opposite. The entire thing is fabricated and I too have evidence and their own behavior makes no sense. Try getting their legal team to see that though, mine must know, they are doing the bidding for an abuser.

All we can do is be patient, bide our time and eventually show how illogical, contradictory and malicious it is... because anything you do between now and then is ammunition feeding that stereotype.

Keep your head up @JustDad46. It's hard, very hard but keep strong.

I am sorry to hear that you and your children are going through this. It is a nightmare to be taking so long.
I wish there was a way for it to be sorted your kids must be feeling it too.
We have been through similar and my D's now has a court order with 50/50 care.
Great you think but on sports day this year the maternal grandmother decided she was taking gd7 even though I was there to collect. She stood in front of the whole school (but nobody saw) calling my son a fucking waste of space, and me a fucking slut I didn't argue back not the place. She took gd I didn't want to upset gd by causing a scene. Police said nothing to do with them don't know what court order is actually for.
Haven't had an incident since.
I'm saying all this because I hope you get the kids and I hope after their mother weaponising them like this you get custody. I could go on all day about injustices. I grew up without a dad and when my son had his DD wake up at his on Xmas morning last year I quietly cried my eyes out and thanked the fathers for justice men. My brother had a daughter and never had a proper chance to stay in her life on a daily basis and it's heartbreaking. It is harder now for women to behave like that.

Well I did have some advice and then saw you calling the police shitty names and changed my mind

Thank you so much for the support and everything you have said shows you know exactly what I'm going through. I'm so tired, weary and hurt. I can't even type right now. Just trying to hang in :-(

I feel and share your heartbreak. i wish I could say more but, right now, I'm just too sad. Have to go and do something to distract from the utter sadness and futility :-(

@Zola1
“I'm a long term senior social worker..manager actually..”

Well that is worrying on several levels.

We actually have very little detail to make any judgement on the OPs situation. We don’t have any proper detail of any accusations against him here but you have invented “evidence” to support your conclusion of him being an abuser.

Your evidence seems to consist of your not understanding legal processes in the field you say you work.

It is perfectly normal for the police to investigate a complaint, even nonsensical ones. They need to do this.

You operate from the assumption that only man can abuse women when estimates put the male victims at between 1 in 3 and 2 in 5. We have no way of forming any judgement of who has done what in this circumstance, but you have ignored that reality to come down as he is an abuser.

You claim that the court details stated are proof he is an abuser. What he appears to have described sounds like the NI equivalent of a case management hearing. I would expect a social worked to be well acquainted with this as part of the legal process in these cases. In fact I would expect most people logical thinking capability to work out that such a type of hearing would exist.

Actually there are many made up claims of DV, for all kinds of reasons. There was a jump in claims of DV after the government removed legal aid but said they would fund cases where there was a claim of DV. It was a spectacular own goal pushing false claims in to the system taking up resources from multiple public bodies in the process. I would also point out it is not just women who use the false DV claims as a tool in these cases, men can too. That is also before we get in to the other reasons for false claims.

Perhaps the OP is the monster you have decided he is. But if this is way you approach your job as a social worker I pity those living in your area.

Well, I'm certainly not a monster and it is shocking how prejudiced the social worker manager is.

Naturally, I'm not going to put full details of the case online, but to assume that I must be guilty because the police responded to someone phoning them in a domestic incident (which they are duty bound to do in NI) is just staggering.

Actually, I was the original police complainant, for @Zola1 's benefit. Yes, I was the only party to allege Domestic Violence over a protracted time and I contacted the police on the advice of Victim Support!

And the other half made no complaints to police of Domestic Violence or abuse. She ran off with the kids and started firing orders in as soon as her solicitor's office opened. BTW both our solicitors our women if that's something relevant to your world view.

So much assumption. You must be a nightmare to try to deal with having so blinkered a view.

One only needs to look at the comments here from people who have made their minds up despite having no possession of the facts of the cases before them that making false accusations of abuse can be a considerable power play in a relationship breakdown. Whether that means false accusations are common or not I couldn't possibly say but the current laws in England - particularly the unduly restricted access to Legal Aid - do incentivise such behaviours.

The stereotype of the abuser being a man is so prevalent in the UK that it remains very difficult for a male victim of abuse to know where to get support. For example, anecdotally at a local level some branches of Women's Aid will support male victims, but at a national level they have the audacity to claim it is a gendered crime without, frankly, putting forward any evidence to support that claim. I would certainly like to get their view on why domestic abuse is most likely to happen in lesbian relationships if it is a gendered crime. Police services are similarly a lottery; their training (gendered crime) tends to be at odds with their experience (both sexes can be abusive) but what an individual officer believes is pot luck.

Another problem is that abuse isn't very well defined. The CPS has a definition of it but this only covers criminal offences; abuse is broader than that. A lot of people also mistake abuse for violence; it's broader than that too but this misunderstanding possibly explains the "man as wrongdoer" stereotype. Men are more violent, that's pretty well established. For example, using institutions like the courts and police against a victim is another form of abuse. Stalking is another. Emotional abuse, financial abuse... there are lots of examples and they are not gendered crimes.

My experience of this site is that most of the people posting on it are misrepresentative of the population as a whole in that the prevalence of abused women on this site is much higher than the average in the female population, let alone the whole population. This will inevitably make this a place which is more likely to believe the unsupported "gendered crime" view of domestic abuse and explains the "guilty without evidence" responses provided.

In the legal profession, it's important to keep an open mind because statistics won't necessarily be relevant to the case before you. I would urge others who are jumping to conclusions here to consider their actions because based on the information given here, they have at best a 50% chance of being right. The other 50% risk is being fuel to an abuser's fire.

I'm on OPs side. I think. But the writing style of many of these replies (in agreement) is uncannily like the OPs 🤔

@FFSTraining The clue is in the name though, women's aid. There are plenty of male centred charities for men surviving abuse why would men not go to them?

And statistically it IS a gendered crime HTH.

Got a hearing of some description - it's being called a review - on Tuesday of next week. I hope that it'll be an opportunity to refute the wild allegations on the other party's claim statement for orders and to possibly apply for contact or other relevant orders.

Still quite new to this and it's a sad bloody situation when a marriage which was very good until very recently ends up with adults firing pieces of legal paper at each other. But what can you do? I didn't start it, am still not clear on the motivation for it and have different mutual acquaintances offering different takes from affairs to outside stress etc.