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.

@JustDad46 do you now have a clearer idea of the process, the next steps and possible outcomes as well as the timelines associated with your specific situation?

I think it’s important for you to be realistic about what is ahead so that you can pace yourself emotionally otherwise you will waste headspace, time and emotional energy on the things you can’t control or make rash decisions that won’t serve you well.

Just checking in @JustDad46 sorry to hear things are not progressing. Our friend finally got to see his girls this week after a long slog (sorry it's not a quicker fix but there is hope). Hope you are hanging in there

It's tough. On Thursday my GP sent me to A&E with a letter for the Emergency Surgical Unit in respect of a condition he recorded as being brought about by family stress. GP is fully aware of the situation. I won't go into the medical details here (it's not particularly nice!) but it really annoyed me that I was being sent for a potential surgical intervention and couldn't let my kids know despite the anesthesia risks etc.

In the end, they went for a non surgical intervention and I'm at home dealing with the predicted side effects... quite off my feet, so haven't been on here much. NSPCC have advised to get a welfare check done on the kids by the police after being contacted by my mother.

Last night I cried for ages just thinking that the kids might have been encouraged to think that I do know where they are and don't care enough about them to contact them. VERY disheartening.

It amazes me that so many people just accept that the best outcome is to go from a very involved, loving dad (effectively singly parenting the kids very recently) to a "see them every other weekend dad".

What would that do to my kids?

Bur you can go for 50 / 50 childcare - so it doesn’t have to be every other weekend.

Additionally both DCs are of such and age that they can decide who they want to live with - rather than it being a negotiation between you and your STBXW - so you could have them 100% of the time if they choose you. I would also imagine that any ‘arrangement’ will evolve and adapt quite quickly and flexibly as they become young adults.

It seems like you also need to work with managing your stress and health at this difficult time. Have you thought of seeking professional counselling to support you?

Also upping your self care - eating, sleeping and exercising well etc so that you are able to cope with the next few months navigating a new and emotionally exhausting legal landscape as well as being physically and mentally fit and ready to sole parent effectively.

One piece of advice as you embark in the court process, you really have to strip down all of the emotion of how it's making you feel and see it from your children's eyes and talk from their perspective abd not yours.

Every post you post is highly emotive and stressed and mostly about how you feel.. of course that's natural, you're in an absolutely heartbreaking situation but the Court will only care about the best interests of your kids and nothing else.
As pp said, you're in the position where your children are old enough to have their wishes and feelings taken into consideration.

Yes keep strong, not everything is set in stone, it's early days and as previous poster said, you need to take care of yourself. Shower, eat and talk to friends, family and get out. I find night the hardest so I go for a drive some evenings to switch off, not even going anywhere just to get out. You will be of no use if you break and you need to build up strength for coming proceedings.

Not all is lost. Six months later I think I have made some headway and someone is listening. Not had report yet but Cafcass I believe have taken notice and are aiming to put things in place, they've raised it to management.

👆

What is it you don't believe specifically pp?

Believe whatever you like. Sick of these throwaway comments that are simply intended to be spiteful and serve no other useful purpose.

Thank you. I am actually with a counselor and she's been amazingly supportive and helpful. She's actually keeping my chin up at the minute and encouraging me on the self-care front exactly along the lines you have said. I do tend to let the body go to pieces when I'm under stress and this has been pretty rough with no let up.

The sessions with my counselor I actually look forward to as I know there'll be tears but also a release and I respect her experience. The last time I went she actually had to step in on my developing self-loathing spiral.

I was sitting the other night and realised that, since marriage and kids, I've actually been quite isolated friends-wise. i always viewed the world as being family centric. Which is fine until your family disappears and you realise that you haven't many friends just to bounce feelings off or play a game of snooker with etc... Most of my old friends are in other countries. So maybe I'll use this time to develop that side. I really don't have much of a support network.

That's a very fair comment. I guess I was looking for a bit of emotional support here but I have always interacted with my solicitors, social workers etc from the children's point of view. They didn't have much choice in what happened and they are paramount. I want them to be listened to directly and fairly, not in a room with either parent or any "influencers". I just want them to be happy and well.

On here, I guess I just wanted to bounce some feelings off others with relevant experience. I guess I need to work on that friend thing (above).

Thanks. I find the night the hardest too, when the mind starts to ruminate on what the wee ones are going through, if they are missing or trying to contact me but have no opportunity etc. etc. I also take the car out or head for a walk. I usually enjoy being in a rural area but it seems to add to the loneliness right now. Really need to get a network around me. It's just that those kids were my world and my time was focused on them.

I hope things shift for you soon and that you'll be on here in no time with happier news. Be thinking about you and all the others.

Apologies to any and all if I have been venting too much here or using this forum for emotional support. I didn't mean to add to anyone's existing burden. It's just tough putting one foot in front of the other at times.

@JustDad46 so sorry to hear that I hope you are feeling better at least physically

Thanks. I'll get there. At least the journey has started. I've climbed out of worse holes (physically) and there are a lot of people worse off than me. It's just everything at once.

Thanks again for the kind words. They mean a lot. Isn't it telling how the kindest people are often those who've gone through hardship and know what it's like to suffer?

I stopped reading when you said, your kids were being neglected whilst you were also in the house?
you're trying extremely hard to paint your wife in a certain light, this post seems more like a smear campaign against her than you asking what help is available
bye

also find it extremely telling that you came to a female dominated site to rant about a woman

The kids were neglected whilst I was undergoing domestic abuse. Do you want all the details? Would that entertain you, or could you understand that this is a forum not a court and some people aren't on here to tell every excruciating detail of their marriage for your delectation as a self-appointed Judge Judy?

Could you conceive that the kids were provided for by one parent whilst the other showed them neglect?

And, what does the great Poirot conclude exactly? Could Monsieur Poirot permit that I am not familiar with many of these forums because I spend little of my life online and heretofore spent most of it as a D-A-D? That this site came up on a google search about break-ups and kids in the UK and that I didn't see a Dadsnet? Or that Fathers For Justice turned out to be a site that offered help in return for a fee?

@truthhurts23 If the truth hurts, you must be smarting.

Don't be put off posting you are welcome here. Some of us have male family members who have been through similar and no it's not all man Vs woman.
My brother got married in 97 and had a baby in 98. He had waited to have that child. He got posted for 6 months that year and wife left. When he came to visit and he danced round the room with his one year old to " I just want to dance the night away with senoritas that can sway...." as soon as I hear that song it takes me back to that moment in 99 and all the life plans that got taken away
He didn't have any more kids cos he couldn't go through that again - moving from family quarters back into the single men's barracks again. Affording the CSA and maintaing contact.
It's wrong how long things take and how costly they are
But I have utmost sympathy for your situation, as you say going from a family to nothing to what hope for the future.

My dh went through a very similar situation with his ex wife when they split up. He eventually got to court and was able to prove her claims of DV and drug addiction were false. She had been having an affair and lots of people locally found out about it as was with someone semi high profile. I think she just wanted to redress the balance to her reputation and attempt to justify her behaviour -and also try to get sole custody of the kids. He was eventually awarded close to 50/50 care of the children.
None of their formerly mutual friends believed her and this was of great comfort to dh at the time, because even when you know you are not guilty it's awful to hear those things said about you and think others might believe them.

There was no consequence to her for her false allegations. But at least he was able to see and parent his kids again after I'm sorry to say a very long 9 months of not being able to do so. It also cost close to £20 k in solicitors and court fees. So Buckle up for that.

The bad news is that even all these years later the woman is a nightmare. She is working very hard to coerce and control the children into rejecting their Dad (and me, as their now Step Mum-I came along a long while after their break up btw). Co parenting with her is stressful and incredibly difficult and most things are still controlled by her, court order or no.

I feel for you and I hope you get to see your kids soon.

Don't worry about some comments, it's the unfortunate downside to the Internet. Some people don't understand that abuse happens on both sides, that not every man is built like a brick shit house an oaf or a thug and is aggressive.

I experienced the same, abuse. I have never and would never hurt a woman, especially not my wife or my children. In reality it was a role reversal, I was the calm and caring partner and parent, teaching my children how to be calm and respectful of others to never hurt anyone, while my wife was aggressive and violent, disrespecting and hurting everyone in one way or another. I was being psychologically, emotionally and physically abused and I never retaliated, I don't agree with aggression or violence.

Just like with women who can't escape it's the same with men, especially when you have children. Mine were being neglected also and I did everything I could to raise and keep them safe but was also trapped at the same time, isolated.

Then what's the result when you do actually stand up and say no this is not right, you are treating the children and me horrendously? Scapegoated. They become a victim, take everything including the children and you're an abusive man, a stereotype that's easy to label.

You're then stuck because parental responsibility seems to mean sweet fuck all in these scenarios and you have to wait for court. The whole while, grieving not being able to even speak to your children, being vilified by someone so malicious with false accusations, anything that will stick.

There are women that are justified in doing this who are escaping abusers who are dangerous but there are also women who are abusive themselves and are lying, knowing they can take advantage of that claim for their own gain.

I'm sure it happens too but imagine an abusive husband doing this to his wife, imagine the loss and pain of not knowing how your children are, hearing their voice or seeing them. Not for a couple of days or weeks, but say six months or more. It's beyond cruel, for the children and the parent being blocked.