Separated parents, father being selfish/unreasonable!

[highndry]

I have posted this also on the legal forum, hope it's not against the rules but there I'm hoping to get legal advice, here I'm hoping to get emotive advice to help me and my partner deal/help with the situation;

Posting this on behalf of someone close to me(SiL), looking for advice.

Basically we have a couple with 1 child who is at primary school. Couple separates and arranges 50/50 access(1 day about with alternating weekends?) with child, so far everything has been done through solicitors.
Mother requests to swap days around the last october break from school so she could have 1 week away on holiday(domestic, not foreign). This request was denied by father so mother had to travel back half way through holiday to pick up daughter so they could at least have a little break together.
All well so far,,,
Fast forward a few weeks and mother gets a call from after school club, daughter not present on the Friday, mother panics and calls Dad as it is 'his' day, he answers phone and calmly says he is away for the weekend with daughter, no real problem as it is his weekend but he has taken her out of school without mums permission. He says he'll be back Sunday. Turn out he was also away the Monday, another day off school but this time it is meant to be 'mums' day.
An argument ensues so mother gets in touch with her solicitor as the divorce proceedings are still ongoing. Solicitor says the father can do pretty much what he wants with daughter, including taking her out of school without mums permission, there wasn't much said about the fact the daughter wasn't brought back for the mother on the monday.

So, is there any advice I could give the mother, get a new solicitor?
Personally I don't think parents that have separated should be allowed to take kids out of school during term time without both parents consenting.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Does she have a residence order /contact order? I think that, without one, she is at the mercy of whatever he wants to do. In the same way, she can do as she wants. However both have parental responsibility so it is not as if she doesn't have a say on what he does (or visceversa)

My advice would be:

1. Get another solicitor (he should have suggested orders above, so if he didn't... get rid)

2. Apply for a defined contact order. If she is applying for the current agreement to be formalised rather than changed, it would be seen favourably by court. That should remove a lot of the problems, however, it will also may result in a very expensive legal battle so... don't go into this lightly.

3. Perhaps I should have suggested this first, she can invite her ex to mediation to negotiate a more thorough agreement of child care/ residence. BUT only attend mediation if there are no history of domestic abuse.

I would always try and work things out between you both, this is not always possible:

1. Emotional or physical abuse
2. New partners, who can cause problems from interfering and who carry their own issues into the mix
3. One of the parents who does not put the children first
4. hurt children lashing out
5. Interfering friends and family interfering and carrying their own issues into the mix

It is vital that you and your ex communicate alone to suit your children's best interests, if communication is poor or any of the above come into play your children suffer, there is nothing you can do about you ex oh allowing the above to spoil things, the courts won't help matters, the best way forward is counselling if your ex is not putting his children first!

Mummiehunnie, thanks for the tips but would like to remind that it's not me but my Sister-in-Law that has the problems, honestly ;-)
To be frank, the only reason that I'm looking for advice here is because my wife and I are starting to fall out over the whole situation. The couple in question are not pulling together for the sake of the child, communication is non-existent. We can see where some of the failings are but it is very difficult to highlight them without seeming judgemental, especially when 'we' are happpily married, it may come across as we are rubbing their noses in it, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Our primary concern is that the kid gets a stable upbringing and the best is made of a bad situation.

sorry, did not read all of the post properly x

Lets split this up a bit, you say your marriage is happy... you say you are starting to fall out with your wife over the situation in someone else's life? What are your arguments triggered by and what are you arguing about?

sometimes people focus on others and scapegoat them instead of looking at themselves... I wonder if that is happening in your marriage?

As for your sil and her child etc, it really is none of your business how she and her ex conduct themselves, if you want to judge them etc in the privacy in your own home that is fine... it is your business to make your nieces/nephews to feel loved and valued, and to give your sil lots of love and kindness as she is going through a very difficult time right now, rather than judge, interfer and fight, try some love!

highndry, I just want to come back on and say to you, that you are probably meaning well and caring about your sil and her dc x Having been in her situation the last thing you need is people interfering no matter how good their intensions are, it evevitably causes more trouble for the innocent children involved.

What is needed is for those around people going through trauma and berevement to be kind and loving, some divorces are deemed by psycholgists as worse for children than parental death, imagine that your sil and her children were going through that would you be judging etc as you are if death was the cause?

A lot of divorced children are badly damaged by interfering new patners, friends, family etc causing more strife and bringing in their own issues into a fragile, vounerable family, when they need to look at themselves instead of hurting innocent children, whilst deluding themselves they are helping the children!

You also need to be honnest with yourself if you and your wife have underlying issues in your marriage that you are using your sil's situation to hide behind, be honnest with yourself and loving and things should calm down for you x

Mummiehunnie, thanks for the advice but honestly honestly honestly, my marriage is good (I know you're probably thinking he doth protest too much but I don't want to go down the road of over-analyzing everything.).
The reason that I say we are falling out is because we find it hard to sit back and do nothing but we can't seem to agree on the best course of action.
It's my wifes sister that is in the predicament, before the seperation my wife and her sis were uber close. Now they hardly see each other. I've already said I'm not going to fall out with my wife over this and if I have to, I will sit back and say nothing, do nothing and hear nothing. But I find this very difficult. I think my sister in law needs support, a friend, I'm not trying to come over all alpha-male and fix something because it's broken, I'm trying to be there for her if she needs us.
The 'soon to be ex-husband' has already showed he can be over bearing so the last thing I want to do is bully or harass my SiL more so.
As for the intimation of our judging her, this is not the case, I said that we think we can see a few things that aren't right, perhaps you could say we see things from the outside that seem wrong, but we know that to highlight this from our position would seem like judging, and nobody likes being judged so we just sit tight and say nowt!
I really don't want to get into too much of the detail there is a lot and I don't think it would be too helpful to have every facet analysed, but one of my main concerns is with the child who we adore so much. Although the parents (to our knowledge) don't argue in front of the kid, they are starting to regress, the first sign was the wetting themselves, now they are at school and up until recently had never had this problem since being potty trained. I'm well aware this is something we don't make an issue of, the kid doesn't need us to patronise them and say "don't worry, it's gonna be alright" but the mum is beside herself with worry and shame.
How do we offer and emotional crutch to her if required?

sorry, yeah, back to the main point, if indeed this relationship isn't going to get better any time soon due to lack of counselling, do we, the sister and brother-in-law to the mum, auntie and uncle to the kid sit back and do nothing until asked?
I'll be honest, I find that very harsh but if those that have went through similar could offer some advice from the 'inside' it would be greatly, greatly, appreciated.

Thanks again!

the thing to do is to give love....

how does giving love translate to you and your wife?

ok lets work on walking in your bil and sil shoes here:

Their relationship has broken down for some reason, they have a child...

Each will have some varients of, I don't want to loose my child (if he is normal some don't want their child)... I feel bad for my child in this situation... We have messed up our child's life and damaged their family because of xyz..... I don't know if leaving is the right thing.... I am angry at ex for leaving or for making me leave... I am guilty... I am in denial and don't want to deal with the reality of things... I am confused how I should adjust and behave with someone I used to shag and tell all my secrets to who is now my enemy... I feel scared and lonely...

that type of thing is normal for both sides ... things get worse when one side gets a new partner WHO is the type who interfers... we all know how manipulation of the vounerable happens and have seen it.... or if freinds and family start to interfer, or solicitors interfer... the drama escallates as the sort of people that want to interfer are lovers of drama and are attracted to vounerable people for a reason... normally to avoid their own issues and start to focus on vounerable people and judge etc to make themselves feel better about their stuff, it avoids their bad feelings, distracts them from their bad feelings and unites them in a common goal...

actually it was you that used the word intimidate and denied controlling behaviour not me, is that the real issue here, your wife is feeling rejected by her sister and issues in your marriage mirror your sil's marriage and you see some things in your exbil that you know are in you that upset you.. do you want to fix it by trying to control your sil's situation?

Mummiehunnie, I appreciate your comments but feel we are going in circles a little.
I have never used the word 'intimidate', I have also never said I/we judge them, I said we can see things that aren't correct, but feel for us to mention this, especially at this time, would 'seem' like we are judging them, which we certainly are not.
I'm not sure if my wife does feel rejected by her sister, I know she misses her dearly she doesn't see her as much as we used to, but seeing sister-in-law is trying to hold down a job, keep a roof over her head, be a full time parent but only see her kid half of the time, it is completely understandable that we have been put on the back burner, we have no problem with that.
What we are concerned with is the fact that my wifes sister has become very insular, her child has regressed in behaviour. If there is nothing we can do but be there when they need us then fine but without sounding selfish(probably too late) we find it very hard to sit back and do nothing. The soon-to-be-ex is running rings round the sister-in-law, he had friends and family onside, my wifes sister seems very lonely.
Final point, I can't stress enough how off the mark you are with concerns for my marriage. Our relationship bears no resemblance to the Sil's/BiL's. We are perfectly happy with each other, devoted and still in love after 20 years together. We just find it upsetting when someone close to us is having an undeserved, torrid time and there appears to be nothing we can do to help :-(

As for the intimation

I apologise I mis read again, intimation as intimidation x

Mummiehunnie - you are suggesting he doesn't interfere or judge yetyou are repeatedly implying facts about his marriage and behaviour which sounds just like ..........er interfering and judgement?

highndry - I am the SiL you describe. I am divorced and have an overbearing ex. You sound like a perfect BiL.

I have been verty hurt by my own Sis who cannot accept my marriage breakdown to the point that she has sided with ex at times claiming it's important to keep in contact with him. I'd much rather she had stood firmly in my camp and championed me when I was going through a rubbish time.

To aid my children.... I'd have appreciated someone to talk things through without criticism. I'd have appreciated practical childcare. That would have given my DC good times with you, given me a break and enabled me to be less stressed with them.

As regards contact - I am constantly messed around. Can you be a go between or proof read mails for her? A friend did that for me. All his mails went to friend. It meant ex really considered what he wrote rather than his usual abusive drivel