Is it right im not aalowed to see my Daughter

[mike6491]

Hey all I am just trying to get a wider prospective of views. I have a 3 yeard old daughter who lives with her mum only a few miles away, but despite me asking I'm never allowed to see her and when on the very few occasions I have been allowed last time being sept 2009 there are a lot of conditions. I have parental responsibility and there is no court order preventing me from seeing my daughter, I don't want to bad mouth her mum but just want to hear some views from other parents.

I think the funding cuts are now in force, so agree it may be difficult for you to get free legal help. But see a solicitor, they will usually give some initial advice cheaply.

The law in this area is not complicated so you could self represent. There are a few books about being a litigant in person. I have heard Families need Fathers can offer good support, but my experience of them in court hasn't been great.

Have a look at the Children Act 1989 on line, the welfare checklist us at section 1, contact orders are dealt with at section 8.

What makes these cases difficult is not the law but the fact that they are not generally legal problems at all - rather emotional problems about relationship breakdown and a lack of emotional intelligence from one side or theother - and often both.

Be very careful of the more militant organisations such as Fathers for Justice - extremism and bigotry from either camp is never helpful. Not all fathers are deadbeats, but not all mothers are heartless slags.

given your maintenance should be 15% of net income minus deductions for you having another child living with you it seems that you reckon it is making you unable to afford your rent. it's a cost you knew you had before you remarried and had a child and chose somewhere to live and chose what work you and your partner needed to do to pay your bills.

@ Magneto 1st thing I put this thread up to ask advice not for people to comment just to judge me.2nd I have not just walked away I have been going through solicitors who say I must try mediation.My ex either doesnt make any attempt to attend or she attends then goes against whatever she agrees and points out to me that any mediation agreement is not legally binding. I will never walk away from her I happily pay maitenance in fact it was me who contacted the CSA to pay maitenance towards my daughter. However I cant afford rent most months unless I do extra shifts at work which mean not seeing my son or wife so trying to find money for court costs is very hard. I would also like to thank all the others who have tried to give helpful advice it is much apreciated.

@swallowedAfly When I first contacted CSA to pay money to my daughter they told me this was not possible as it had to be the parent who needed the money who had to claim, so I left it at that and offered my ex partner £30 a week. Which is more then CSA have said i should pay but no where near what i would like to pay but it is what i could afford. I moved house and never informed the CSA as i beleived i had no reason to, untill around a year ago i received a letter saying i was quite severly in arrears for CSA payments. So my current CSA payments are in fact 40% of my net income minus the deductions for my son, my partner is only just going back to work after having our son and i do the best job im able to do my wage is quite modest. but i infact do pay rent and child support to my ex.

Mike, your ex sounds rather like my husband's exW, and actually I can fully understand how things have been dragged out for this long, it is a practiced method of stalling the process and working the system. Good luck with it all.

how did the csa have you as in arrears if they didn't let you go through them - or did she go through them in the end? how much longer till the arrears are paid off? hope it won't be long till it's back to 15% minus deduction for your ds and all gets more manageable.

@ swallowedAfly they basically started a claim from the day I contacted them even though they said they couldn't. I have happily just managed to talk them into dropping the monthly payments from around 253 a month down to 150 a month including regular maintenance payments, this will take 13 months to do. I do not begrudge paying money for my daughter i just beleive that my ex's income aswell as mine should be considered when working out the payments. She earns around 3x a year what I do and lives with her mum and pays no bills except car payments and associated costs

not the point though is it - it's your share of upkeep and it is worked out as a percentage of your income to make it unimportant as to who earns how much you know? i don't think there's anything to gripe about there and it sounds petty to do so tbh.

i can see you begrudging paying arrears though if you were actually giving her cash in hand during that period - how were you paying her if you weren't seeing her? surely if you were paying into her bank you'd have evidence?

and if she's living with her mother couldn't you have seen your dd by going when you knew her mother would be there? or was there some reason that wasn't viable?

If she lives with her mum why would you have had to be alone with her and your dd when you visited?

And what did the police say about her chasing your wife in her car?

I dont know if its different from court to court but I took my ex to court wrt his contact and other issues and it cost me £200 per Order and I represented myself.

So it shouldnt take too long to save up and put in your application.

The judges and cafcass can be very supportive of parents representing themselves.

I'm with others, she has not stopped you having contact you have chosen not to accept the contact offered and that is how a court will view it.

For a young child what she is preposing is not unreasonable until she can be satisfied its not a whim and and you want to be there and are not going to let her down etc etc

As you have now not seen your daughter for 18 months and since she was 18 months this is definitely not an unreasonable request, in the eyes of that child you are now a stranger and whisking her away from her mother at an age when her understanding is limited could cause serious emotional harm.

If you care that much and are that desperate to see her you would make the effort to do it on the mothers terms and use the opportunity to build on having some sort of civil relationship for the sake of your daughter.

I have been through the courts and it can drag on for years and is very unpleasant and causes severe stress & hostility and kids pick up on that and it does them no good in return.

You have a chance to see your daughter and work on building a civil relationship with your ex until you one day get to the point where you wish things to be. Court should be an absolute last resort imo.

Gobbledegook, I disagree that the OP's ex is being reasonable re contact. The idea that it might just be a 'whim' on his part to want to see his daughter is very insulting IMO. If this were a woman posting everybody would be screaming blue murder on her behalf.

i don't think they would if she'd gone 18months without seeing her child even though it was possible for her to do so in that time. everyone would have been saying how on earth could you not see her for all that time? the poor child etc.

And particularly if she said the main reason she didn't was that her ex would start rumours about her which would upset her new partner. Despite the contact taking place in in the presence of the child's grandmother. Oh and if she said that the ex had chased her new partner round town in his car, but didn't elaborate onnhow the police dealt with this threatening behaviour.

"If this were a woman posting everybody would be screaming blue murder on her behalf."

I would have said exactly the same thing as I did knowing it was a man TBH.

and if she refused to answer how long elapsed between conceiving this first child and marrying and having another child with someone else.

yes there is no way actually there would be sympathy for a woman who had not seen her first child for a year and a half even though she easily could have but had gone on to have another child in that time with someone else.

people would have pointed out the JK'ness of the story long ago.

2 children with 2 different mothers in a couple of years realistically.

i'd have thought choosing to conceive and have a second child when you hadn't even sorted out a proper relationship with your existing child and reckoned you couldn't afford to live and pay maintenance would be seen as pretty irresponsible.

Some of the answers on here are awful, although TBH I would possibly have thought the same until I recently saw my DB go through a custody battle with his ex. I think it is disgraceful that a father who had previously built up a relationship with his child can have that taken away on the whims of the child's mother.

OP, I don't blame you for not accepting her terms, from bitter experience with my DB (and some friends) it is often the case that once you accept unreasonable terms some mothers keep changing the terms.

Obviously I only experienced the problem second hand but I would say, join families need fathers. They were incredibly helpful ot my DB, from recomending a brilliant solicitor to providing moral support throughout the process. Speak to your solicitor, if they say to try mediation again tell them they no, you've tried that and it didn't work. Push for court.

Make sure you have copies of everything, from contact requests to mediation outcomes. Every contact with the mother that you have copies of.

Good luck OP, I hope your DD gets to know you and her brother.

Making moral judgments about the op is not particularly helpful - he is still the only father this child will ever have and she has the right to make up her own mind about whether or not she wants a relationship with him.

But I agree, it is not good that op would not see her for so long because he didn't like the terms of contact. That may have been a way of building upmconfidence and trust between you and the conditions may have relaxed.

You will never get this time back with her. Children grow up very quickly. This is not a time to say you won't play unless it is on your terms.

i wasn't making those judgements btw i was just saying they 'could' have been made and that i don't think he has been treated unfairly and that i think a woman posting with parallel circumstances would not have been supported unconditionally and unanimously as someone suggested.

hmm but maybe i did word it in such a way it sounded like i was making that judgment so apologies for my phrasing - it wasn't what i meant in my head iyswim. it was a follow on from the jk'ish comment and how it could have been responded to.

Basically this is a man wanting advice on custody and a lot of people are just ripping him apart.

You're making out that unwanted sexual advances and spreading rumours and evasiveness and controlling are as nothing and I repeat, if this were a woman posting I think they'd be treated more symathetically and the ex branded an abuser. I am not saying a woman would be offered unconditional support, but something a lot closer to it.

By criticising the OP, rather than offering support what are you hoping to achieve? It just comes across as nasty.

I don't think the op has been 'ripped apart'. I think most of the comments and criticisms are quite valid. I think he needs to get on with trying to resume a relationship with his child and to try to build up some trust between him and the child's mother. I don't think making this into a gender issue helps anyone.

no one has ripped him apart. he's been offered a lot of sensible advice but people have also criticised elements of how this has been handled. you can repeat your assertion about if it was a woman... and i can also repeat that i disagree. it's a bit circular though.