Child contact and LIES... Really need advice please

[Homely1]

I have posted before and I have had great advice, support and a lot of love. Ex is pursuing the legal route for contact. DC is a toddler. He's been absent and not bothered. I have received correspondence with pure lies ... Not slight deviations of the truth. LIES on paper. He is a manipulator but how low can a person stoop. He has accused me of things that have NOT happened. It is his word against mine. He is a master manipulator and I worry that people believe him. What do I do?

How old do you think dc should be before having overnight stays with their df?

I don't want to alarm you but in cases where there has been no abuse it's unlikely the courts will take the view that 3 is too young for a dc to stay overnight with his/her father.

Is contact being negotiated as part of a divorce package or is he seeking a childcare arrangements order because of your reluctance to allow unsupervised contact?

What is your solicitor's advice in this matter?

You have posted a lot about this and have always been given the same advice. Sorry I know it's hard to let got but 3 is not too young for overnight stay with his father. You cannot ask a 3 year old what they want. That's far too much too put on such wee shoulders. A 3 year old will always want the status quo because that is all they know. You have to be the grown up here and turn this into a positive for him and a great thing that will be loads of fun.
If this ends up in front a court he will get eow and one night through the week and it's unlikely 40 minuted away will be considered a great distance.
He is unlikely to get every weekend without you getting a full weekend no matter how good a manipulator he is.
A court will not be concerned with your rights or your ex's rights the only thing they are concerned about is the right of a child to a relationship with both parents.

I know how scary this seems but you really have to do this and ad easily and pain free for you child as possible. If he takes you to court he will most likely get it so it would save a lot of time and heartache if you were able to agree to something together.

Thank you so so much. How do I tackle these lies about me. They are not deviations of the truth. They are pure lies to put me in a bad light in an attempt to justify his bad unfatherly actions.

I agree with others that a 3 year old is more than old enough for nights away.

I understand, though, that current contact may not be enough for her to feel at ease leaving you. Building up should be done, but perhaps faster than has happened so far.
And for your DD to be happy leaving you, you probably have to (show to) be happy leaving her too.

I'm also not sure if you are reading the posts properly or just reading what you want from them.

Thank you Lweji... I am a bit all over the place. Please would you tell me what you mean by not reading posts properly as I think it may help me X

For the most part, people are saying that you are being somewhat unreasonable and should accept more contact, including overnight contact.

Thank you.... Is a 3 year old really ok with that?

How do I counteract the lies?

Your 3yo will take their cue from you and if you present the prospect of their first overnight stay with their df as a pleasureable experience it will go some way to overcome any reservations they may have about being away from you.

Where are his alleged lies contained? Are they in correspondence sent from his solicitor to yours, or in affidavits or similar documents intended to be placed before a court?

Can you give an example of his alleged lies and your truth of the matter?

What is contact normally like, how often, and for how long?

If the lies you are concerned about a you stopping access like others have said is irrelevant in a sense..Make sure you are documenting your offers of contact offers of how to increase it...However reality is he will be offered contact so won't really make a difference who stopped it.

Xxx

DC sticks to me ESP when it is time to go home, alternate weeks. Documentation is from Solicitor. He had lied about behaviour which would make him
Look bad and he's turned it on me

My DS had overnights with his dad from 2. He was still breastfed and although I was tearful it all worked out for the best.
He has a fab relationship with his DF and is now a strapping teen who goes whenever he likes!

Just so you know..My Ex lied on court papers ...When I spoke to CAFCASS the lady said from the information given it was obviously not true what he had said... As she pieced together the information she had it became obvious he had lied..

Homely , you really have posted about the same issue many times but don't really seem to grasp what you are being told. The bottom line is this. It is your childs RIGHT to enjoy a relationship with his father unfettered by you supervising. You keep saying that you will agree to this after a period of time. You have also said in previous posts that this supervised access has already gone on for some months. I think you are very lucky that the wheels of justice turn slowly as no judge would deprive a father of overnight contact without exceptional cause and would only give a matter of a few weeks to 'build' up to it . You are focussing too much on 'him telling lies ' The courts are not remotely interested in how you each speak about each other. They are interested in your son enjoying an EFFECTIVE relationship with BOTH parents. You would be incensed if a court insisted your ex 'supervised' you with your child. It works both ways. Stop focussing on how you are trying to stop the inevitable. Instead focus on making overnights with dad something to look forward to. And NEVER ask a 3yr old his opinion on the matter, that is simply awful parenting and a very emotionally manipulative thing to do to a child (of any age)

I get the impression and sorry of I'm wrong that you are hoping if you can prove he's lying then it will work in your favour and will miraculously mean you get your own way. The fact is the judge has heard all the mud slinging before. He will now be an expert at reading between the lines and finding the necessary information to make his decision on contact which you have been told many times will be eow and one night in the week. He is very unlikely to give him a day in your weekend because 40 minutes away is not a prohibitive distance away for his dad to come to your area and take him out for his dinner or something.
You need to learn to go with this because if you flay around looking for ways to stop this when and if it goes to court you will look obstructive and possibly be taken less seriously if there are any real concerns you have not just that he is too young.
My youngest was two when me and ex split up and he has a great relationship with his dad and has been doing overnights with him since the beginning.

Let him have his lies.

My XP (split in 2006) did exactly the same. Disappeared for 9 months, told his family and friends loads of lies about me, was warned by the police about harassment so stopped and then started legal proceedings for contact.

I was seeing women's aid and so I went to the MIAM and they said mediation was not appropriate because of the abuse. It went to court.

He was also a master manipulator. I was terrified. He initially got supervised contact building to unsupervised but when it got to there he kept breaking the contact arrangements even though I had let him pick the day time and place. New orders kept being made, he kept telling loads of lies in court, I worried he was being believed.

Eventually after a number of years the judge ruled that he was a liar and had brought the suit vexatiously, dismissed it saying I had never obstructed contact and ordered him to apologise for 'saying the worst things you could say about any woman, never mind the mother of your children'.

It was unexpected as the whole way through there was no indication of the impression the judge was getting. I was vindicated in the end, though angry at all he had put us through.

So my advice is to be calm, reasonable, honest and firm and ride it out. Let him make himself look like the ridiculous and vengeful liar he is by not reacting.

And it's really irrelevant what anyone says to you about standard contact arrangements and him being entitled to overnights.

They don't know you or your family. The judge will simply look first at whether making an order is necessary (he decided in my case it wasn't) and then if it is felt it is necessary they will look at what kind of order is in the interests of the child. Guidelines say very young children benefit from more regular short bursts of contact, they don't just order all NRP every other weekend and one midweek night irrespective of the interests of the child - they look at the full picture and make a decision about your child's welfare. It is perfectly reasonable to say someone who has been out of a child's life for months needs to build up contact slowly.

As long as you are able to articulate reasonable reasons about why something is/is not in the child's interest and show that you are not obstructing contact you will be fine.

And it is nothing to do with age necessarily. My DS was 2 by the time they were looking at contact, I simply argued that going straight to overnights with someone he barely knew (he had left when DS was 9months and hadn't spent any time with him for years, had been unreliable when he did see him) was too much and that I wanted them to build up a relationship through smaller contact before moving to overnights to avoid DS being upset and seeing times he spent with XP as stressful events. This was accepted and is what happened though eventually the overnights stopped when XP couldn't be bothered anymore and called me an hour before one to cancel when DS was 3 and dd was 2.

In my case, aside from one night every Christmas, it took XP 9 years to be capable of having overnight contact. We tried on and off over the years, there were times he left them in the house alone to go out drinking, gave them alcohol etc. since he married he has been more stable and consistent and he has managed weekly contact for a couple of hours for the last 3 years building to one overnight every other week which started this summer.

In some cases you have to just keep trying, taking steps to prevent harm, trying again from the start etc until it works.

If he has been fine with supervised for a while try around a month of unsupervised before he tries overnight then when that's ok you can try more overnights.

Unfortunately his family is his family even if they are toxic, he will take him to see them. There is nothing you can do about that unless they pose an actual risk. My xp's mum is an alocoholic. About 5 years ago when he was not seeing DC regularly he wanted to take them to Portugal with his mother for a week - I explained why he couldn't do that; he isn't able to cope with regular contact at home, has not been able to manage one night, his mother is an abusive alcoholic and he has issues with alcohol. He accepted that. Suggested he could build up regular contact and try taking DC on hols in the UK without his mother before planning a trip abroad.

You can't protect DC from all hurt and I feel you shouldn't. They need to learn who their dad is good and bad as they do through living with you. They need a separate relationship with him away from you, your job is to equip them for that. I have noticed my older two apply the skills they have learned from having a shit father in other aspects of their lives - my friend offered them a cup of tea when she picked them up from school because I was on a course the other day, they said no and then asked me later about whether tea was bad for children. They know how to and will say no to things they aren't sure about if adults offer them to them.

• as they do about you through living with you

Sorry for multiple posts!!

Excellent advice from Offred to stay calm and don't react to any lies other by stating your truth in a clear and concise manner.

However, should this matter go to court, nothing you've said on this or your other threads shows reason or cause to object to your ex having unsupervised contact with his dc including overnight stays.

You'll be able to express your views during mediation but, on the content of the posts you've made to date, I would suggest you neogtiate contact along the lines of every other weekend, a mid-week early evening or overnight stay, together with half of all school holidays and an equal share of the annual Christmas/New Year celebrations.

This may not be what you want to hear but the family courts take a dim view of any parent who obstructs or otherwise impedes their dc's contact with the non-resident parent and, to my mind, you're best advised to resolve this matter through mediation and in accordance with your solicitor's advice.