Court for birth certificate

[Ccc111R]

Thoughts appreciated thank you:

I didn't put DS dad's name when registering his birth certificate as he was not willing to support us financially and he was fully in conversation (or more?) with his best friend otherwise know as his ex girlfriend.

I wasn't ok with the emotional energy he would put into her and ignore us.
He gamed heavily (50+ hours a week - it was like living with a very noisy ignoring ghost) and drank too much (~30 cans a week or more) that he was up until 5am every weekend and I was left to struggle in the mornings something he knew was extra challenging as I had to take sedative medication at that time.

We are now going through the court, our son is 3 and he has our son every weekend since I've been in hospital. Previously I was insisting I was present on weekends as can't bear missing out my one and only son's childhood.

Do I need to put in place a Prohibited Steps Order you stop him potentially taking our son to Northern Ireland and not bringing him back where all his family is (and they have spoken about how he should move back there and how cute it would be for him to have an Irish accent)
The solicitor is so expensive but I worried if I don't act now I may regret not addressing these kind of issues.

Dividing Christmas and Easter is going to be so tough

@FunZebra who mentioned name? You can call a child whatever you want and still acknowledge their parentage

Our relationship has been fractious since my dad died two years ago. She had an affair pretty much the whole of my childhood that none of us realised about until I was 18 and she keeps saying I'm like my dad

So yes I question her relationship with the father of my child. They have acted suspiciously at times and once I was aware they both smelt strongly of the same sweat smell and he looked shocked when I bumped into him as he came rushing through the hall

The way they were acting makes me suspicious
He went down for water when there was water in the bedroom
He was downstairs for half an hour

I don't want to bring it up again because it got me sectioned for two months of hell
But I am seeing the psychiatrist this week and the doctor tomorrow and being monitored as I've been but on lithium and depots (which have given me the shakes which I'm so gutted about)

@Ccc111R nobody gets sectioned simply for that... there must have been enough evidence for the medical professionals to believe you were delusional about the situation for them to section you. By your own admission, nobody you sent the video to agrees with your take on it. If I were you I'd try to challenge your own thinking around it. Because from what you've written here, the evidence for it NOT being true outweighs the any evidence that it is. If you had this video in your possession, and tried to use it to back yourself up and were sectioned it's highly likely your thinking around it isn't real. Nobody gets sectioned for two months for thinking their ex has slept with someone else.

I did

@Ccc111R inpatient beds are at a premium. If there was any truth in your claims you wouldn't have been sectioned for making them. I would imagine it was one element of your mood and behaviours at the time. If my partner decided to start telling people tomorrow that I slept with his father, he wouldn't be detained under the mental health act for it. Nor would anyone else. I think perhaps you're lacking some insight into your own mental health because that in and of itself is not grounds to section someone.

I became unwell from the stress and fear of thinking this was happening

@Ccc111R can you make room to consider that your thinking around this is a symptom of a delusional or paranoid state? Why is it that no one you shared the video with thinks the same as you? Surely EVERYONE else can't be wrong and you're the only one who is right?

Please seek some professional help - you want to be well for your son, that’s the priority.

He will definitely get his name on the birth certificate - it is a document of fact and you do not dispute his being the father.

You should go via CMS for financial support. Call them tomorrow.

You should apply for a residency order, which sets out that the child lives with you.

He will be allowed to take the DC to Ireland to visit his family. If you object he can apply for a specific issue order and will likely be successful (unless you can demonstrate serious evidence of him not intending to return dc)

You need more support for your MH and anxiety. Having a parent who is sectioned for 2 months may lead to questions of your suitability to be resident parent, and could be used against you should he apply for residency.

You cannot dictate being present for all father's contact with dc UNLESS you can demonstrate significant risk and contact is court ordered to be supervised.

It's extremely unfair for him to have every weekend and you to have weekdays.

Switch to alternate weekends immediately. Once this arrangement has been in place a while if there are further disputes and you are at loggerheads then you need to get this formalised through court.

If he's not a risk to your son or domestically violent then I don't see why you would keep his name of the birth certificate.

However there is no need whatsoever to change your child's name, not his middle name or his first name. You don't have to and shouldn't if you don't want to change any part of your child's name. It's annoying as an adult to always have to put names you were formerly known by and especially if there is no good reason for it.

This. And it's also evident that contact was regularly and successfully taking place for two months without OPs presence so she has no grounds now to dictate that it must be supervised by her now.

I meant not his surname. You don't need to put your child's father's surname on his birth certificate.

Loads of people don't have their mother's surname on their birth certificate and nobody bats an eyelid. Father's surname is no different.

Your ex should be on the birth certificate and fighting it is silly because DNA will prove that he’s the dad. Your son shouldn’t have his surname changed to his dad’s. Most likely outcome is a double barrelled name.

I don’t want to be unkind because of your mental health issues but you are unreasonable on insisting on being present at contact when you x coped fine when you were in hospital. If you go for a Child Arrangement Order then he’s get unsupervised contact. Yanbu to want every other weekend though. The courts would see it as a reasonable request as chilling with you is as important as chilling with dad and you need the weekends in order to facilitate contact with your side of the family. He would be allowed to travel with his child to Northern Ireland but a Child Arrangement Order can include conditions like how much notice, how many days long etc that might help you feel a little less worried. Your son is normally resident in the country that you live in so not bringing your son back when agreed would be kidnapping.

As for the recording… I hope that people have advised that you get support with this. There’s a reason why everyone who has listened to it doesn’t agree with what you think that you can hear. You’ve presumably asked people that you normally trust to listen and I hope that you can find a way to remember that these people want the best for you and wouldn’t lie if your ex was having sex on the recording 💐

Previously I was insisting I was present on weekends as can't bear missing out my one and only son's childhood.
This is out of order and controlling, you're doing yourself no favours with much of your behaviour.

To add, why is it unfair for his father to have him at the weekend? this is not about you and your feelings, this is about a child having. relationship with his father. You're trying to find any desperate reason to keep his son from him.
MH or not, you sound incredibly selfish and determined to alienate your child from his father.

Having his name on the birth certificate doesn’t change the child’s name…

You would not have been able to put him on bc unless he was present. Is your mh stable now? Has he said he will take you to court? Using a security camera in a bedroom is extreme behaviour and likely inadmissible as evidence.

Hold on I'm confused. Why was the dad and the grandmother both in the bedroom with the kid ? Do they do bedtime togther, was this when you was sectioned or before?

Isn't it obvious?

Imagine you work 9-5 Monday-Friday and your child goes to nursery or school 8-3 Monday-Friday. This is typical.
During this working week you spend the majority of your time away from your child or asleep, because this is how modern working life works.
You spend a lot of the time with the child organising their school bags, getting them ready for school, dropping them up and picking them up from school, taking them to after school clubs in some cases, preparing their dinner, doing the bedtime routine.

Time to go on a fun day out for the two of you: 0 hours.

Time spent on the drudgery getting child ready for school, picking up and dropping off: 10 hours (2 per day).

On the weekend neither you nor your child have to work or go to school, so you have 8 lower stress lower pressure hours to spend with your child. Your time is unburdened by the need to get them ready for school, in their uniform and drop them off, pick them up. You get to spend 8 uninterrupted hours for two days straight having fun days out with your child.

Time to go on a fun day out for the two of you: 16 hours.

Time spent on the drudgery getting child ready for school, picking up and dropping off: 0 hours.

Now is it clear why one parent only spending weekdays with the child whilst the other spending only weekends with them is a problem?

Of course this will affect the child and damage their relationship with a parent.

They were downstairs. The camera faces out of the window to see the front door

So no visual reference just random sounds, which could be tv, gaming, outside etc.

So you didn't see anything? No wonder you got sectioned.

I have been in Exactly this position and he insisted he would go to court. I ended up relenting on both points - he is now on the bc and very sadly my sons name was changed to double barrel with exes name at the point of resigning it. This was on legal advice as I was advised that he would definitely get the birth certificate and quite likely he'd be given the double barrel too as he can argue it's in the child's best interest to feel connected to both families.

As it was almost certain he would win both, they advised me not to go to court as there is a months long back log- if at any point over these months we disagreed about overnights etc then he could also add 'child arrangements' into the court agenda to the existing date and who knows what he might get given. To me it wasn't worth the risk. At least now if we disagree and he takes me to court then he'll have to wait several months and I can make a plan in the meantime.

I think you need the other parents permission to take the child out of England and wales. Try to agree this in a parenting plan. If he has parental responsibility and just takes him and doesn't give him back then you can do an emergency court order to get him back (whether in England or NI).