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.

I don't know if you're inferring that I'm more than one person on here?

I can only assure you that I'm just a dad trying to see his kids and quite sick of the situation where one party can just take the kids away and we have to wait for social workers to get their fingers out and police see a woman and automatically take their side esp. male officers with superhero-rescuer fantasies.

If I or any other dad had been the one to take the kids away, I'll bet it'd have been a different police response and, if our social worker manager above is anything to go by, the Social Services would have been round with clip-boards and an assault team. By the way, that's hyperbole before people start typing.

Anyway, I have to try to keep the chin up and not let the emotions take over until next week. It's hard though. They're the best kids in the world and I miss them.

The clue is in the name. We'll, yes and no. Having a charity solely for abused women, fine. Having a charity spreading misinformation about domestic abuse, not fine.

Even if domestic abuse was more commonly perpetuated by one sex - and that's a topic of debate in academia rather than settled fact - it's still unhelpful to call it a gendered crime, because it is not. Saying something is a gendered crime is saying "this is something one sex always does to the other." And that is simply untrue. This matters because the knock on effect is that it makes it harder for some victims to get justice. Whether that's half of victims or one in a hundred, it doesn't matter. It still inhibits justice and is an irresponsible thing for a charity to do.

@JustDad46 You have to take the long term view. If you can stay calm and trust your legal representatives the likelihood is that in the worst case you will get alternate weekend access. If she is shown to be lying this could snowball for her, up to and including you becoming the RP and her getting a criminal record. It's also quite likely the children will want nothing to do with her sooner or later, that frequently happens in cases of false allegations. It's not something people who are in full command of their faculties do very often either; normally it's a desperate action for control that backfires spectacularly in the end.

@JustDad46 ok sorry.

Thank you for that. I'll take all the encouragement I can get at the moment and really appreciate the way strangers (not just on here) have been kind to me and how many people have been through this or knows someone who has.

But I think that latter point is indicative that something is horribly wrong and needs to change. It's hard to think the best of people's motives when they blatantly lie about you and take away the most precious gift in your life, your kids. And any system which facilitates that, apparently without question, is inherently flawed.

When this is all over, I'll seriously think about fundraising or volunteering for one of the helplines that have offered me a compassionate ear and/or helpful advice.

No need to be sorry. You were just raising an observation and very respectfully. I guess most of us are just dads trying to get our heads around things. Sending you a bro hug (and I don't even do those) :-)

I'm not a bro but ok 😂

Ahah, awkward!

@FSTraining That's what I've been advised, basically may have won skirmishes but not the war. In my case, nothing makes sense at all it's very much like a loose cannon and has been obstructive every step of the way regarding the children. Third parties dragged into this so far have been a bit taken a back once the full story has been shown so I'm hopeful courts will also.

I think it normally becomes very quickly apparent that someone is lying if the allegations are false and it gets to court. Repercussions don't happen as often as they perhaps should, but unfortunately this can be because the person making false allegations can't be proven to be lying any more than the person on the receiving end of the false allegations can have anything proved against them.

Whoops! ;-)

And to @Catsafterme , ditto on all outside parties agreeing who is right and who is acting rashly and, in my wife's case, out of character whilst admitting being in poor mental health due to outside factors (not me, dear social work manager!).

In my case I have everything evidenced in her own texts and emails. Hopefully it is similar for you. All she has are wild allegations contradicting her own texts, letters, emails and the observation of others who are prepared to give witness statements.

OP I really sympathise, it is incredibly hard when one partner is determined to take the kids and throw mud against the other.

The problem is on here that we don't know you or your kids. I have recently supported a friend through a horrendous breakdown with a husband who has been emotionally abusive for years. The trouble is, having known them for a long time, I am not convinced he knows or understands that that is what his actions are. He is just pretty dysfunctional. I can imagine him writing very similar posts to yours. He loves his kids and simply did not and does not understand why she has left.

many of us have had similar experiences, so my first instinct whenever you hear one side of the story (and that could be male or female) is - what is the other side.

Those working in the family courts etc are doing just that. They know that one version of events is only one side, but it can be hard to unpick whose version is nearer the truth, and some people, like my friends ex are very charming and able to talk the talk.

But the truth tends to come out eventually. SS were involved with my friend, and he soon showed his controlling side to them when he didn't get what he expected.

@JustDad46 Yes, same here. The actions of someone who is not behaving rationally and it shows, so fixated on the goal has slipped up multiple times, lies on top of lies that contradict. Basically dug a massive hole and rather than stopping has continued and doubled down. Give enough rope was said to me in this case.

I've got all mine and I've shown the pattern, the lies and flaws in this narrative and it's plain as day. I have already had to defend myself from lies of an event that took place, that didn't happen the way it was portrayed and let's say I had undeniable proof because I covered my back just in case.

@steppemum Yeah that's understandable, it's hard to gauge the reality of the situation based on one sides story. Some people just don't get the reason for a breakdown and they paint their side without still understanding. Not the case in mine because this isn't normal behavior, been dealing with this for years and it affects others too it's just gone full nuclear this time.

Problem is it takes so long to get both parties story and in this situation, one party is firing off their side and attacking the other, damaging their reputation, financially draining them and weaponizing the children and damaging their relationship. One is on the offensive and the other is on the defensive, batting off illogical threats.

Don't want to be married, that's fine...but not take the children for themselves, co-parenting isn't and never had been on the table. I am to disappear and because I haven't, because I care about my children, I must be destroyed.

It's lowest of the lows, cruel and most damaging to the children. I can't even believe it's allowed.

EXACTLY everything you've said yet it's happening. So frustrated and sad.

@JustDad46 As a matter of interest, how old are the children and would they be able to back you up on the false claims by your STBXW?

11 and 15 and I have already given my solicitor texts from the eldest confirming the falsity of the wife's claims.

At this point, I wish we could take the STB out of STBXW!

Are you currently in the family home?

Are the kids going to school?

If not why not and is this not an issue to be addressed?

Do your DC have their own phones - can you contact them directly or through their friends or school?

Is the first step not mediation rather than court?

Are the direct preferences of the DCs around contact patterns when their ages taken as the priority?

What contact pattern do they want / would they want ?

You said you've used the same solicitor for another case - was that also about the children?

No. A completely unrelated employment matter.

I am in the family home and the kids are not in school as of my last contact with the principal. Remember, my STBXW has taken them to an undisclosed location.

My daughter has her own phone but it has been switched off since her mother took the kids away.... I strongly believe by the mother as my children and I are very close and she is attempting to alienate me.

Regarding mediation, I would have been keen for this but my wife went straight for the orders so quickly that several mutual friends suspected that this was in the offing and possibly indicative of an affair. I believe that she was just being spurred on by other parties.

I haven't been able to discuss anything with the DCs but they had said in the period leading up to the wife's departure that, if there ever was a break-up, they'd like to go with me.... Who knows. Obviously I want what they want and will always love and care for them. I just want them to have a free choice not to be enticed or propagandized by their mother or those surrounding her some of whom I believe have never liked me.

As a victim of DV and having been dragged through the court system by my abusive ex three times in the past 6 years I can assure you they really, really don't take the woman's side. It's quite the opposite. In my experience and many others, courts are super keen to maintain contact between children and fathers even if there is evidence of DV, abuse towards the children and drink/drug use. If there is no abuse from your side you will see your children soon. It was perhaps biased towards women about 20 years ago, not now. Your children are of an age where their thoughts and feelings will be taken into account, especially the older one.

@Alicenwonderland Sorry to hear that, awful. I'm also sorry for those like mine that are making it harder for true victims to be taken seriously.

It's true the courts are not biased these days and in fact they probably never were. A lawyer's currency is evidence. The problems tended to be with CAFCASS and social services as far as I understand it.

I am absolutely sickened to hear of your experiences. I don't care what the gender of the victim is... abuse is abuse. I hope you are in a better place now?

It is only looking back with the help of family and friends that I can see the signs of coercion that I went along with. I was aware of being abused emotionally but I tried to explain this in my mind by writing it off due to her being drunk although this didn't really work because I'd always ruminate on her demeaning words which were very hurtful.

I'm heartened by your observations about getting to see my kids. i certainly have the evidence on my side. I just feel very hurt that, until a court does see it all, I'm deprived of my kids as they are of me and she's weighed in with Playstations etc in the interim. While that'll be good to keep the kids occupied, I seriously doubt that her intentions aren't those of self-interest.

I just want to say that my heart's in pieces. Despite my wife's behaviour, I did fall deeply in love with her and a longish marriage is hard to have torn away from you. Every piece of my heart goes out to anyone in a position of having their life ruined by a partner and being bereft of their children's company and love. Somehow we all have to stay strong.