Should ex tell me his address where he will be taking the children at the weekends

[evolucy7]

I'm after some opinions on this, my ex has now moved to a new house and despite me having known where he has lived for the past 2 1/2 years and where the children have been staying overnight, he has now point blank refused to tell me where he has moved to... He was told to inform me where he lived and took the children by my solicitor 2 1/2 years ago, but now we no longer have solicitors as we have been through the court process and have a court order in place. I suspect he now won't tell me for this very reason. Would you want to know?

A court has to sort out what is a genuine desire and what is a desire that may have been influenced, and the courts do hold that it is in the best interests of a child under normal circumstances where there is no abuse etc. that it is in the best interests of the child to have the father-child relationship. And even in a case of abuse, the accused parent can try to get away with it by claiming the RP is just making an accusation for the sake of ending contact.

Children's desires are thought to be fickle or whimsical or open to undue influence to a far greater degree than an older child (late teens for instance) and it is generally held that just as in the case of eating vegetables, a young child does not necessarily know what is in her best interests.

While a court would quite rightly think that it is in a child's best interests to have a good relationship with both parents, a court would not insist that a child who they had decided was truly speaking what they felt stay overnight all weekend for example if the child said they did not want to, and CAFCASS and subsequently the court had established this to satisfy themsleves etc. They are far more likely to try and rebuild shorter day contact.

I think they hardly ever take the wishes of the child seriously, sadly enough, even if they do decide the wish is genuine. It is more likely to be seen as something the child will 'get over' (even something of a positive developmental milestone ) with consistent exposure to overnights and more time to develop positive feelings for the experience.

Evolucy- is anyone in real life advising you?

Truckulent...I have been through the court process having appointed a solicitor for roughly 18 months.
We do seem to be going off on a theoretical tangent here with this discussion
Mathanxiety I may have misunderstood, but I got the impression that you were not in the UK?

The child visitation part happened outside the UK, but comparing notes with friends who have gone through similar I have found eerie similarities in the assumptions of the law and the way it's applied. Maybe it's a shared culture or maybe the shared common law foundation.

A cynic might say the NRP gets far too much of the benefit of the doubt and that the courts don't really try to see things from the pov of a small child who likes his or her cosy, familiar surroundings and wouldn't mind being taken to the zoo every so often or out to play for a few hours but isn't ready to be away from familiar surroundings, familiar monsters under the bed, etc., even with a parent.

A cynic might also point out that sometimes it's one parent's complete inability to be a decent, burden-sharing parent that contributed to the breakdown of the relationship in the first place, so why should that parent then be accorded the rights to parenting time that (s)he obviously didn't care about when (s)he had the chance to do it 7 days a week. Not that I'm a cynic or anything...

mathanxiety...I totally agree in particular with your point about young children and that perhaps it is just that they like their familiar surroundings. Obviously if they don't go to the NRP much then the chance for those surroundings also to become familiar is reduced. I understand that this can lead to the idea that it is in their best interests to go even if they are not happy about it. But equally it could have the opposite effect and make them want to go even less, and begin to resent it when, had they felt they had been listened to and not made to go they may in time become more comfortable with idea and happy to stay..

I know in my DCs' case, keeping on at it didn't change their minds one little bit.

With regard to the NRP getting the benefit of the doubt, I think reading MN can give a bit of a one sided view. I mean look how much stick step parents get.

With my split I used the forum Wikivorce which has equal NRP and PWC posting and all ranges in-between and it shows no one in divorce really has it easy.

I have spoken to my solicitor this morning, and she said that as we have equal parental responsibility we both have the right to know where each other lives and takes the children. She agreed that I should send an email. Before I sent it, she called back as ex had rung her, she said under the circumstances she spoke to him...lol...and told him what she told me that it was ridiculous and he was making people suspicious by his refusal to tell, and that was why I said they could not go then. He said he was going to contact the court as I had breached the court order, she said do you really think that is helpful? And actually that I had a good reason as he had made me suspicious with his refusal to tell. He said that he didn't want to tell me in case I went round to his house, she asked him had I done this in the last 2 1/2 years, he said no, so she said well that it is not an argument then. She said that I was sending an email and that he should respond with the address and then contact would resume.

sounds like your solicitor is giving good advice. I hope your ex listens to her.

There are new powers now to order the resident parent to pay compenstation etc. The court does have the power to make orders about parenting courses, but I am not at all sure how this is working in practice, because who is supposed to pay for all this?

the Court of Appeal have also just ruled that a father who simply opened the door when the mother came round to pick up her son, and offered no encouragement to the child to go was NOT in breach of an order that he 'make the child available' for contact as he did precisely that... but didn't create an environment where the child felt encouraged or comfortable to go with his mother. Unsurprisingly, child kept on saying he didn't want to go.

Can't remember how old that child was but the general problem is that most child psychologists/psychiatrists agree that it is very unusual for a child under 6 to hold views which differ from the parent who lives with him/her. Thus there is always a suspcion that if such a young child doesn't want to see the NRP, this is a result of influence from other parent.

I don't believe that any children over the age of 12 are or could be 'forced' to see a NRP. There was another recent case involving (I think) a 15 year old where the courts awarded residence to the NR father because the mother was clearly emotionally abusing the boy and brainwashing him. However, boy refused to speak until returned to his mother and the father reluctantly conceded.

These are not areas where the law can do very much at all to help. It is all about the emotional and psychological fitness of the parents and their abilities to cope with what can be very hurtful endings to relationships.

The only solution I can see is what one senior family lawyer has proposed and the setting up of national family therapy centres... but then what do you do with the parents who refuse to attend therapy or don't think they need to ?

evo, if it helps I spent the afternoon with a child protection social worker and was asking for her perspective. She said if it had been her own children (similar age gap in her eldest two although now grown up) she would have done the same and she felt that he made the decision not to take them, not you.

I asked what she would do if her children (ie in care, not influenced by their RP as there isn't one) that age said they didn't want to see their parents and she said she doesn't force the issue. Part of it is how much they know their own mind, she said a child like my eldest she'd accept it. Obviously it may be a little different in your situation as a parent rather than the social worker but I thought I'd share in case it helps.

The mother of my son and I seperated 3 years ago. Since then I have had regular contact with him without the need of court orders despite his mother on a number of occasions stating she would stop access only to go back on it within a short period of time.
Having left the family home I moved in with friends for a short period of time. During this she knew where I was living and on many occasions turned up without warning and twice I was assaulted on the doorstep, one of these being infront of our son.
Having moved from there I refused to inform her of my new address due to the possibility of this happening again and potentially exposing our son to this. For 6 months there was what you could call peace (meaning less abusive e-mails, calls and texts than normal) and I informed her of where I was only for the first time of her dropping him off to see her enter through my front door without knocking and begin walking around my home without permission.
I am now in a new relationship and my partner has met our son and they are forming a good friendship however his mother has also been able to make contact with my partner through social networking sites and has threatened her via sending e-mails to me.
In the time that we have been seperated I have had 2 cars damaged, constant emails and texts ridiculing every aspect of my life past and present and my family have also received much of the same treatment.
Further to this I have again been assaulted on the doorstep of my cuurent home in the middle of the day whilst my neighbours were present.
The police have been involved on more than one occasion however I have never proceeded with anything formal on the basis that 1. His mother works within a field that should she be convicted of a criminal offence her employment could be in question and 2. How do you explain to your son when he is old enough what had happened.
I know what most of you reading this will think? Surely its not as plain and simple as this and no your right seperating never is but surely when people seperate both have the right to move on with their lives and deserve some privacy.
Our son now lives in another part of the country as his mother saw fit to relocate so my access is now limited to school holidays.
I have recently informed her that I am moving home again to be presented with the ultimatum of "IF YOU DONT TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE LIVING YOU ARE NOT SEEING YOUR SON".
I have informed her that the answer is no. This is not a matter of control, this is a matter of I deserve to have a peaceful life and irrespective of the distance past history has shown that if she knows where I live she will certainly make the efforts to turn up there.
I now have roughly a week with our son every 6-8 weeks and he and I deserve to have quality time with each other that is not interupted.
I know this is a long winded way of getting to my point but people may have valid reasons as to why they dont wish their ex-partners to knwo where they now live.
I wish nothing more than my circumstances to be different and it not to be like this but the fact is it is and I cant allow this to go on and on.
At some point the other person needs to think about how their actions have instigated a set of circumstances that have escalated to the point where they are not allowed to know the address of where their child/children will be staying when not with them.
I do empathise with you Evo and this is in no way an attempt at undermining your position. If he is truly witholding this information from you as a matter of control and he has no valid reason then he is wrong but I would strongly urge you that unless you have real concerns regarding where your girls are staying dont deny his access.
One thing keeps me going in my situation and its that there will come a time in the future when my son is old enough to understand what happened and I will be able to explain my actions with the knowledge that I did what I honestly believed was right. I dont think his mother will be able to the same.
Our children will one day be adults and they will be the ones who's opinion of us counts and they can make their mind up about their father when the time comes.

Olliesdad....sounds like it has been a tough time and I sympathise, as I think everyone here has said there are different circumstances and reasons behind individual situations.
I am now acting on advice of my solicitor again, who has said to make it quite clear that if he does not provide the address there is no overnight contact, if he does not then agree to return the children at the end of the day then there is no contact. Bear in mind that she has spoken directly to him 2 days ago, he is unrepresented, she dealt with him through the court process for 18 months when he was unrepresented, where even the magistrates ended up telling him to basically grow up, move on, stop arguing black is white and think about the children.
Yes I do have concerns about not knowing where they are staying overnight.

There is no history of any of what you have had to unfortunately experience, I have known where he has lived for 2 1/2 years and been there once as agreed with him to collect one child for a party. He is basically an awkward sod who does like to remain in control.

I think you actually do need those court orders, Olliesdad. Highly recommended.

Evolucy- how is this going to end though?

If he doesn't agree (and I think he should) he never sees his children again?

Truckulent, I think it is unlikely that he won't agree, we have been through this kind of thing before. He will usually turn around and say, 'Well you have given me no choice, so you have your way again, you selfish spoilt ***'! Despite the fact that I am acting on advice of solicitor, who by the way in the past has suggested I do things and agree to things that I didn't really want to, but because she advised me to, in line with what she said a court would deem to be fair and reasonable.

I just thought I'd update this thread, as it may be of use to someone else in the future.

Ex applied to the court for an enforcement order, he kept emailing me how adamant he was that this was going to happen, it didn't.

The Judge said to him, 'do you think a mother of a 3 and 4 year old should know where her children are overnight?' Ex said 'Yes', so the Judge said that's good then so give your new address. The Judge did confirm with my solicitor first that there had never been any fact finding regarding any issues that may mean the address should not be diclosed, which there hasn't.

With regard to the children and their views on not wanting to stay with him, the Judge told us both to go away and work out what we needed to do to make them happy about it. One issue had been that they were sharing a double bed very unsuccessfully and this was causing issues for them, the Judge told him to buy some bunk beds! It's not funny, but it does make me chuckle!