just got a nasty solicitors letter

[ObessiveCullenDisorder]

from exp demanding that I allow him to take ds age 3 away abroad for a week on the 7th June and if I dont agree I will be taken to court where they will make me allow it.

he does have regular contact with ds but has only recently started having him for 2 nights consecutively (has only happened 3 times) and he took him away for a weekend last september for 2 nights in this country.

The final part of the letter threatens me because I took him abroad when he was 9 months old without his written permission even though I have a court order for reasonable contact in my favour.

Apart from the fact its a massive difference from holidaying 2 nights in the same country to a week abroad, ds doesnt like being away from me and we have the same upset every time he goes. He is only 3 and not old enough to know his own mind and wont understand why he wont see me for so long.

In addition exp and his parents have serious drinking problems (he regularly gets locked up for violence etc etc) and they are also going. He would also refuse to have contact with me while they are away.

Any advice? I'm really going out of my mind here. will they force me to allow it?

crazycrazy.....although what you are saying isnt what people want to hear,it does seem to be the way the courts think! alot of judges tend to award access to dads who we all KNOW are less than perfect,but the thinking does seem to be along the lines of 'any relationship is better than none' serious welfare issues aside of course.

the only option is to fight and get a good cafcass officer. solicitor is optional....its cafcass who you need to be working with.

in my experience i should add!!

I didn't realise a parent had to be 'perfect' before being allowed to see their own children...oh no, I'm forgetting, that's only if they are men.

I think it is really offensive to make sweeping generalisations about all men (semi-mythical ) in a thread that is about a specific situation. The list of actions that would be taken by a father who really cared about his children but was being prevented from seeing his children would result in him being prosecuted for harrassment - and as for immediately agreeing to be labelled a danger to your own children and inflicting supervised contact on them - well I would have to think carefully about it.

Presumably all the people who are so concerned about never making a child do anything they cry about would agree that if a child cries when it is time to go home to Mum they should stay with Dad?

tanga.....i was thinking about op's particular case and my own when i posted....but i do agree alot with what you say

crazycrazy - are you by any chance a father not being allowed acces to your DCs by an unreasonable ex, or a partner of a man in said situation? I just seem to detect a note of kneejerk hostility against the OP.

Reading the actual facts she states about this situation, I do not get the impression she is an unreasonable bitch trying to stop a loving father from seeing his DC. She is rather a worried mum who is understandably not happy about being bullied into allowing her very young DC go off abroad at very short notice with a father who has not taken the trouble to establish a proper relationship with the child beforehand.

I do not have any axe to grind here, I have a family member who is being denied reasonable access to his DCs by an ex who has told him she is stopping him seeing his kids because he left her and deserves to be punished. When he manages to get some time with them he does not waste it by leaving them with his mum and going off to visit drug dens.

crazycrazy - im seriously stunned at the fact im being accused of abuse, my postings here are merely the tip of the iceberg to the crap ive had to put up with. I dont take this lightly I HAVE NEVER EVER STOPPED EXP SEEING DS, and nor would I unless there was a threat to him.

DS is 3 and has never been away from me for longer than 2 nights and had ONLY been away from me for that long 3 times (in the last month and a half fortnightly) and once on holiday in this country with exp. dont accuse me of stopping exp taking him on holiday i simply want it built up so that he's adjusted to the longer weekends and is comfortable staying away longer. its no attack on exp, i wouldnt let any member of my close family take him either.

Do not attack me for wanting whats best for my child

OCD - most people here think you are being very reasonable.

Crazycrazy is well named.

TO clarify: a man pushing for more contact when he has not behaved well during the contact he does have (eg being unreliable about turning up, regularly leaving the DC with other people, harassment of his XW during handover and/or harassment of anyone else doing the handover) should be seen as an abuse indicator - there are lots of men who se their DC as pawns in this way; what they really want is to continue abusing their XWs and this battery of solicitors' letters demanding more contact/even custody, is being done to abuse the XP.

Thank you sgb and lim.

Up until the 9th april the contact we agreed was every wed 1 til 6.30pm and alternate saturdays 4.30 pm til 6pm sunday. It was ME who suggested he start having him from the friday at 4pm to the sunday at 5pm so if im some unreasonable bitch or only using my child as a pawn to get to exp why would I do this? My objective was to improve their relationship and for them to spend more quality time together so im not sure how i can be seen as the unreasonable one not wanting to suddenly jump to a weeks holiday abroad

just want to add crazycrazy - indeed ds wasnt with exp the night he was arrested but he WAS in his care and thats who I thought ds was with. I received no phonecall from his parents who could have easily told me ds was safe but they instead avoided my calls after I found out via a friend and of course i assumed the worst

Is STIDW a man? Is this crazycrazy's first post?

Oh, realised she's not a man. OK . This ex is clearly abusive and using the child as a control pawn. AM seriously confused as to why crazycrazy is sticking up for him.

Also how would it look if a child in the mother's care was being babysat and its mother got arrested for being at a drug dealer's house where someone was murdered...great, innit

it's crap whichever parent it was

he should have been looking after his child. Not out doing God knows what with God knows who.

No, it isn't Crazycrazy's first post but I think she might have some issues with a kind of reverse situation from a quick glance.

That's my impression of crazycrazy - a kneejerk reaction without considering the real facts of this case.

I am sorry if you have been at the crappy end of a situation involving a mother refusing reasonable access for a responsible Dad, crazy, but you MUST be able to see that this is not the situation here. I know such situations are all too common, though, a member of my family has been the victim of one.

But situations where abusive bully Dads use access arrangements to bully his exP and Dc are also all too common.

well solicitor in the morning so will soon find out where i stand hopefully

Good luck. I'm sure he will put your mind at rest.

thank you xx

Hope it went ok x