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Original poster

Please help me...

148 replies

Desperatedaddy · 27/04/2012 11:35

Hello everyone - please help me. This is the first time I have ever used a forum/vehicle like this one to ask for help, but I am on my knees and hope there is someone out there who can help me. In summary, I am a seperated dad with the most amazing 3yr old son. I seperated from my partner of 6 years, 2 years ago now. We were engaged to be married, and were blessed with the most amazing gift in the form of our son. I ended our relationship, which was the single most difficult decision I have ever made in my life, and it was not made lightly. I have spent the past 2 years doing everything possible and everything in my power to show that I want to be an active, involved, loving and caring father for our son and that the decision to end a relationship is unrelated to my committment as a father. I was there every step of the way through my ex partners pregnancy, was there every moment of my sons birth and have been there ever since from all perspective including of course financial support (it is not even a question, and never will be), child care support etc. The desperate situation I find myself in is that despite 2 years of hard work, several mediation sessions (I initiated them, paid for them etc.) and quite literally begging on my part, there are many examples of visitation arrangements, contact arrangements, holidays, phone calls etc. that have been broken, breached and disregarded. I have tried everything on this earth possible to avoid courts and contact orders because I love my son, want his mom (who is a good mother to our soon, I hasten to add) to do well and just want to get on with being brilliant parents. I feel that I now need help, and that the court is the only option to issue a contact order to protect the very precious little time my son has with his dad. I live 1 mile from my son, have never, ever, ever missed a single appointment, a single moment of time together, a single phone call etc. etc.

Does anyone have any advice for me? My heart is broken, and I feel like I continue to be punished through the medium of my son's access to me and I can't see an end in sight. I am so desperately in need of help. Please share any experiences you have or know of with me and offer me some help...

OP posts:
oohlordylordy · 28/04/2012 20:33

I do agree with you on that. The only way forward is to go for a CO. But with a child that young... I'd still expect to see it broken a fair few times, and there is a lot of time for parental alienation to occur.

Another reason I would ask why the OP wanted to leave... SOmething bad (or major - another woman) must have occured for you to be so clear you wanted to leave your relationship and go through this heart ache.

(Hathor - this is not some attack on you for leaving your marriage, just a genuine desire to understand why someone so desperate to be part of his son's life would walk out at such an early stage)

PoorAudreyHorseface · 28/04/2012 20:38

What I don't get is how two people can be in a relationship that is, presumably, loving and solid enough for them to decide to bring a baby into the world and then a short time later decide they don't want to be with their partner any more.

hathorkicksass · 28/04/2012 20:44

There is no law that says you have to stay in a relationship that isn't working and the court won't take the reasons for leaving into account.

Maybe he met someone else. Maybe she was having a fling. Maybe he didn't like how she buttered her toast. Who knows. And who cares. What matters is that there are two parents who love the DC and that they should be co-parenting.

And fwiw people don't always "decide" to bring a baby into the world.

oohlordylordy · 28/04/2012 22:10

FUnny that the OP, however heartbroken, has not been back Hmm

WhippingGirl · 28/04/2012 22:35

i found the op a bit ott actually. as if he's perfect and blameless in all this - he may be - who knows but its too try too hard for my liking/trust.

my exp could have written this op but theres always two side to every story arn't there?

my ex thinks i am unreasonaable about contact because i insist its planned and follows a rough routine. he wants it at the drop of a hat with no regard to the dc usual routine/classes etc. for the record he can see them any time at weekends and during one week day

i also know that a mediator will suggest contact arrangements based on the age of the child. i would make a rough guess that for a 3 year old it might be a short session twice a week? if the op is asking for more than what was suggested in mediation or ignoring the mothers reasoning then they will never get anywhere.

balia · 29/04/2012 13:21

What is it we are saying here, exactly? That if someone leaves a marriage then the relationship they have with their child depends on how upset the other parent is? Really?

That if a parent has an affair (not that I'm saying the OP has) then the child has no right to a relationship with them any more?

I'm sure there are plenty of us who have been through horrible break-ups, divorces, betrayals...but to use a child as way of punishing the 'guilty party' and to try to ruin the relationship between that person and the child is child abuse.

balia · 29/04/2012 13:22

(Not aimed at you, BTW, WGirl)

swallowedAfly · 29/04/2012 13:24

not necessarily a means of punishing though is it? people are human - if they're hurting and feel massively betrayed by a partner who walked out on them leaving them with a baby they may find it really hard to trust them with the child or to face them to do handovers or to feel able to deal with it all. it's bound to have some fall out.

we have no idea of anything here other than an OP - we don't know how much he sees the child or how much more he wants to or what happened in the relationship. and tellingly the OP hasn't come back.

just looks like a f4j style wind up to get people arguing about 'father's rights' imo.

hathorkicksass · 29/04/2012 13:28

The end result is punishing the NRP though SAF - withholding contact.

swallowedAfly · 29/04/2012 13:30

yes but lives and emotions are not black and white. and we know nothing to be able to judge on imo.

hathorkicksass · 29/04/2012 13:37

Well, I feel hurt and betrayed by my ex.

And I have good reason.

Does that mean I should withhold contact?

swallowedAfly · 29/04/2012 13:38

given he is a violent abuser yes you should imo since you asked.

hathorkicksass · 29/04/2012 13:39

How?

The court does not agree - I don't have evidence that will stand up.

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 13:39

Agree with Swallowedafly. People are human.

I also wondered about F4J after their recent antics. The OP has not elaborated on what happened for him to abruptly leave the relationship or what contact he currently has or wants. In other words: No real information on whether his 'issues' are justified.

To Balia - I think it's fair to say that if you have an affair on your partner and leave the relationship at such an early stage of your child's life, you shouldn't really expect your exP to bend over to accomodate your new requirements. That is all.

balia · 29/04/2012 15:19

First of all, although the OP doesn't seem to be around any more, and even if it is a F4J wind-up, whatever, I think it is only fair to point out that there is no mention of an affair in his post. There is also no suggestion that the OP has asked his ex to 'bend over' to fit in with his life. Using such emotive language and making massive assumptions about what an OP may have done to somehow 'deserve' or provoke abuse would not be acceptable on other abuse threads, would it?

And however a marriage ends, (and very rarely are break-ups one person's fault entirely) the children are absolutely entitled to relationships with both their parents, without having to take on any adult issues. There should be far more help available for parents without having to apply to court, that I would agree with - it isn't easy.

But lots people have had their hearts broken at some stage, worked through bad divorces and betrayal. Most of them do not respond by abusing their DC's.

swallowedAfly · 29/04/2012 17:55

righto so you come on saying people shouldn't use emotive language then accuse a woman you know nothing about of 'abusing the dcs' Hmm

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 18:14

I make no apologies for making 'massive assumptions' on the OP. Given the OP hasn't clarified what happened to make him leave, what the current arrangements are, how much they are being messed with or what arrangements he feels would be acceptable.

I stand by the fact that if someone leaves the family home, their partner and their child, they dohave to accept that they are going to classed as a NRP and therefore see less of the DC and have to deal with the routine the RP decides on. It's not really breaking news, is it?

The OP chose to leave and is now bemoaning his 'lack of rights' - but he's exerted his right to leave without problem. So, OP - Man up. You left. Your ExP obviously isn't best pleased about it. Go to court and get it sorted.

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 18:17

SO, yes, it still sounds to me like the OP wants to be able to do what HE wants without consequence, but he expects his ExP to suck up whatever shit he chooses to chuck at her and deal with it in the interests of 'being a good parent'.

That's how it reads to me.

balia · 29/04/2012 18:31

Certainly I think that parents who try to break down a child's relationship with the other parent to serve their own emotional needs are abusive, yes. I'm not sure I have 'accused' this woman specifically of doing so, in fact I was responding to the general approach of the thread.

The word abuse may well be emotive, but it is the (only? accepted? technical?) term for inflicting emotional damage.

Leaving a spouse if you are unhappy, even if you have young children, is not a crime punishable by having your kids taken away. And certainly the kids should not be punished by having a parent forced out of their lives.

Wanting to see your child on a regular basis is not 'throwing shit'.

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 19:30

So, Balia, putting your emotional needs ahead of your children is abusive? Right?

A woman struggling with being a new parent and then being dumped, struggling to deal with her ExP apparent demand to co-parent Hmm is abusive.

But a man having a child with a partner to whom he'd made a committment and then deciding the grass was greener for some unknown reason and leaving his partner and his (adored) son is not abusive.. Did the man not put his own emotional needs ahead of his child by leaving? Did he not consider that by leaving his child he was losing the special place he had in the child's life?

Having a child with a partner to whom you have made a committment and then leaving is 'throwing shit'. Buggering off and then demanding you aren't sidelined is 'throwing shit'. Wailing about how hard it is, but not doing anything concrete to reverse it (like getting a CO) is throwing shit.

The more I think about the OP, the more of a immature selfish person the OP sounds.

hathorkicksass · 29/04/2012 19:31

So I threw shit then?

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 19:34

ANd, Hathor, I appreciate your situation is very different - but you have never started a 'woe is me', I do everything right and he's such a PITA (even though, the more I read, he probably is) thread.

hathorkicksass · 29/04/2012 19:36

But at the end of the day I walked out.

Which is all we know about the OP - he left.

NotaDisneyMum · 29/04/2012 19:38

if someone leaves the family home, their partner and their child, they dohave to accept that they are going to classed as a NRP and therefore see less of the DC and have to deal with the routine the RP decides on. It's not really breaking news, is it?

Thank goodness that fewer and fewer courts see it this way Sad

oohlordylordy · 29/04/2012 19:44

NOT the same, Hathor.

You didn't walk out and leave your kids. You would, I believe, stop or limit contact with your Ex if you had the proof.

That is SO different to leaving your children and calling your ex a good parent (which he says, but patently doesn't really believe). There are a lot of things in the OP which are making me question the vailidity of the whole thing now: I Was there for the birth: Whoopy do!

There is much more to being a father than being at the birth.

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