My ex is a critical, controlling, generally nasty person.
He took me to court for full residency citing in 20 pages everything that was wrong with me. A guardian was appointed and she quickly saw the reality having spent time seeing us both interacting with our son.
She said my ex was critical, unbalanced in his view of me and he pressurised me into parenting the way he wanted.
She said he wasn't a bad Dad, loved his Son but his upset with me was a concern. Her final recommendation was that residency should remain with me and his Dad get every other weekend contact.
My ex employed a really expensive barrister. I didn't have enough money so had to self represent.
There were no genuine safeguarding concerns and the advice I had was that my ex had no chance and to just remain dignified and calm.
I made no claims about him, made no allegations, did not respond to his allegations and decided the only effort I was putting into this ridiculous court application was to turn up.
His barrister someone managed to make it look like I was a liar who excluded my ex from important decisions in our son's life. Eventhough it wasn't true she cleverly questioned me in a way that made me forget dates and times and I appeared vague.
In the summing up the judge said my ex appeared critical but honest (eventhough the judge made clear certain comments were clearly fabricated by him) and that I was vague in my evidence and getting evidence from me was like 'pulling teeth'.
He said I appeared arrogant and complacent/over confident in my case. Believing that my ex's case was weak. He also accussed me of misleading the court (I am not legally trained and didn't know I needed to disclose this event).
He accepted my ex was very critical and it somewhat explains my behaviour.
His final judgement was that by a small margin our Son should remain with me as there were no safeguarding concerns.
In many ways I'm really pleased. My ex (well his Mum and Dad as he is unemployed) have paid out around 20k and spent hours building the case against me while I have spent a grand total of £20 on bus fare and the judgement has gone in my favour.
I am proud that despite depression I have self represented against a top barrister.I'm proud I've fought for what is right for my Son.
But I am so very sad that the judge failed to see the situation in reality. He got me wrong, saw me in a completely different way to the reality. Viewed my ex in a much better light than the reality and failed to take into account the huge imbalance in the case considering only one of us had legal representation. He viewed my confidence in myself as arrogance and my being dignified as not caring about the case.
I've been left emotionally scarred by the case. I keep crying while remembering the awful things my ex said about me. I feel terrified by the fact my ex came across so well despite the reality. I keep having panic attacks thinking about what would have happened to him if the judge had given my ex residence.
The judge has no idea the emotional harm he has caused me. My ex and his family are now extremely angry and see an injustice. They think I only 'won' as I misled the court and have been very critical towards me.
The whole court experience has quite simply left my confidence in tatters, broken my heart and brought my depression back after fighting recovery for so long. Does anyone know what support I could get or how to deal with this on my own?