Help me! Do i have to go to mediation???

[MyLittleMiracle]

Some of you may recognise me but i have name changed, so please dont tell of me, its a permanent thing too.

Well today (6weeks later) i received a letter from my solicitor in regards to the divorce and contact through a contact centre.

He has said he is reluctant to accept it blah blah, denies the domestic violence and says he wants a divorce because i was irrational and unreasonable.

His solicitors are being quite pushy on the mediation, or they are threatening to go to court, but they want to settle it amicably. I do not wish to have direct contact with him,

Do i have to go to mediation, and do i now need to go into detail with my solicitor in regards to the domestic violence, as i held most of it back on our first meeting?

Those are all acceptable conditions in my view. Your email idea is best, simply because if you do get abusive emails, you will have a record of them. So if you do, don't deactivate the account - you will need it as evidence.

yes email.
best way.
keeps a clear record.

you can also get a separate pay as you go mobile - but if you going to be using contact centre there will be no need for contact

as you can do thru centre eg if you delayed dropping ds off due to traffic etc

I want everything to be as simple and straight forward as possible. Juet want to keep my little boy and me safe.

Your right i should keep the email as proof if it were to happen, and not deactivate the account, instead just hand it over to the relevant agency. If they are threatening then i will hand them over to the police, if they are verbally abusive, then i will hand them over to the family solicitor to sort it out.

I am glad i dont seem unreasonable, just wants whats right for both my son and me!

Hi there,

Regarding contact center I do not think you have to pay anything. Also your solicitor should definitely know about this.

Also, I am facing the same kind of issue, I do not want mediation because of the same reason.

When you will be in court he will be far away from you and both solicitors between you and him. Also you do not have to look on his direction and just let him come in and come out before you. Also wait for him to go in his room with his solicitor.

You have to be firm, solicitors will always try to convince you of what is the best for your child and make you agree on things you will regret later.

Be careful and prepare your case thouroughly. The aim is to protect your child fight hard always according to what is in the best interest of your child.

Be strong

Apparently, you can deny them to have a 3rd party present at mediation, and solicitors do not usally attend anyway. Shuffle mediation means i wont have to see him, and it should avoid court too. I suppose the mediator will be a sort of go between, and therefore i wont have to see him. In court he would be in the same room etc, and in shuttle mediation, he wont even be in the same room. Maybe this is something you might consider too? It might be easier and less stressful.

I am going in with a note book with what i will and will not agree to and i will not be budged, but i dont even know whether this is an option or not yet.

I wish you all the best of luck.

x

Went to my solicitor today and she will refer us to mediation, which will be local to me :) She has also said, that he most probably didnt take it straight to court, cos he has to try mediation first and get the certificate to say it failed, before legal aid would fund it. Mediation is likely to take longer. He also seems not to have petitioned for a divorce...so guess who is now!!! Yep, ME! Apparently mediation could drag it out quite a lot longer than going to court, but with mediation, i can actually speak to them, and state that i do not want to be in the same room as him, and they can even arrange appointments on different days and at different times, to prevernt him following me home. They cant however, arrange mediation in central london. I had one of two choice, the area where i live, or the area where he lives. Which is for me some distance away.

Seems to have gone in my favour really. He is now waiting, again. The contact centre is FREE in this area, in neughbouring areas, it is 30pounds PER HOUR! She did say there is a 4 to 6 week waiting list for a place at the contact centre, sometimes even two months BUT, this is not a problem. I can get there easily, no matter where in the borough i move to, cos it is literally next to a whole load of transport links.

Wow, i am lucky. Hopefully everything starts looking up!

AND by the way to everyone who has and is continuing to help me a GREAT BIG THANK YOU.

[WINE] [BREW] [THANKS]

That obviously didnt work as planned
so