Partner threatening to take our babies

[Grufallo15]

Hi I am reaching out in the hope that someone can give me advice on my current situation with my partner, the father of our 6 month old twins. Our relationship isn’t very good at the moment but I’m afraid to break it off if couples counselling doesn’t work as he has already threatened in the heat of an argument to take the children to Scotland with him (his place of birth), if we were to split. In many ways he is a decent man but he has a temper (not physically violent but gets wound up very quickly and has tantrums) and I worry that he is capable of such a stunt out of spite when angry. He has parental responsibility on the children’s birth certificates so if he did try this I don’t think the police would be able to do anything. My mil thinks my partner is perfect and would just love to put him and our children up if this were to happen, I’m sure she’d relish the opportunity to be a surrogate mother to them. My own mother is toxic so I don’t have the same support network as he does. Is there anything that I can do to protect myself in this event? Currently we live in rented accommodation with the contract solely in my name.

I am a reasonable person and my partner is a good father to our children so I would never stop him seeing them. However, I am not sure that my partner would behave as fairly if we did split as he can be spiteful when hurt/angry, so I am afraid that he would try and take them away from me. I do suffer from anxiety and worry that he may use this against me to try and get full custody.

While he is a good father in many ways I would worry about him taking on full responsibility for the children as he is a bit clueless at times with poor judgement - I basically have to manage everything. I am also breastfeeding (partly-I combi feed) and co-sleeping with them on my own. Under normal circumstances I would be the main caregiver, but due to COVID he has been on furlough since their birth and been hands on with their care (he has to be its twins). He is not due back in work for another few weeks.

Has anyone been in a similar situation before? If so, can you help? I want the best for my children and having grown up in a toxic family environment don’t want the same for them. I’m hoping some
counselling will help but I am at my wits end with his inability to take responsibility for his temper (it’s always my fault for ‘winding him up’). Please don’t judge me for getting into this situation, he wasn’t always like this but has become depressed and angry since the twins were born and AD don’t seem to be working. Quitting smoking seems to have made things worse. I am hoping that we can work through it, but I am finding it hard to trust him because of his temper and how unreasonable he is becoming when angry. I know that I am
worrying about a lot of things that may never happen but I can’t shake off what he has said and, like I mentioned, I already suffer with anxiety.

I think you should speak to a solicitor to allay your fears.

It's really unlikely he'd get "full custody" < that's not really a thing. Residency and access is usually agreed between you, and if the courts got involved, it's massively unlikely they'd separate a breastfeeding mum from her infant twins. Worst case, you might be looking at 50/50 but you would be able to argue against it. Anxiety really isn't enough reason to be stripped of your parental responsibility or rights.

You can also speak to a solicitor about a prohibited steps order which would legally prevent him moving with the children.

You sound like you might be living with bullying or abuse, you might find speaking to domestic abuse services beneficial.

Technically you have 50:50 rights over the children, so in theory your partner could argue that if he took them you wouldn't be able to do anything. In practice the police would take a dim view of very young children being removed from their mother, I've known police to return children to mum (with a lot of persuasion to dad) in similar circs.
It is a worry though that he's using this over you in your relationship already. That's not the sort of thing people normally say in the heat of the moment. I agree with the PP that you might find it helpful to speak to DA services, like women's aid.

I’d get some legal advice asap as it will make you feel better. Parenting is 50:50 but your rights are more important as mother to breastfed babies. He is using his temper to control you which is not right.

Was he supportive and enthusiastic throughout the pregnancy OP? Has the dynamic changed radically since the twins were born?

It's possible for men to get PND and although it's a sweeping generalisation, I would say that IME men can often present as angry when they are suffering from depression (equally women may present as depressed when in fact they are suppressing anger.)

Could there also be a lot of stress and anxiety about if/when he will go back to work? As he is currently the SAHP is he finding that too much (with twins I'm sure most parents would find it overwhelming at times and with lockdown there is no support like NCT groups or whatever.)

From your post it sounds like he was a decent bloke prior to having children and I think its worth ruling out a medical/MH cause for this change before leaping straight to splitting up.

That said, you also need to protect yourself and your DC and his threats are very worrying. A prohibited steps order as mentioned by PP is a possibility - so in your shoes I would make it a priority to get advice on that asap.

Regarding housing - as you are the sole named tenant and you are not married, he has no automatic legal right to live in the property and legally you can force him out if need be.

I would not undergo any form of joint counselling with him; its not recommended where there is abuse of any type within the relationship.

Domestic violence and other forms of abuse can and do often rear their ugly heads after marriage and or children being born; they are flashpoints. My guess too is that he was not all that nice to you prior to your children being born either but those red flags were either minimised or simply not recognised mainly due to what you learnt about relationships as a child.

Women in poor relationships often write the good dad comment when they can think of nothing else positive to write about their man.
He is not a good father to these children if he treats you (and in turn them) so abysmally. Threatening you also with they being removed from you is abusive behaviour. He in all likelihood wants to use these children as a further stick to beat you up with; he is not bothered about them at all really, only his own self.

Your own toxic family background sadly has likely played a huge part in you being with this man at all in the first place.

I would contact both Womens Aid and the Rights of Women here to discuss this (the latter organisation can give some legal advice).

Good fathers don't threaten to take children away from their mothers.
He is not a good man, or a good dad. I'd be doing my own disappearing act. See how he likes that. You sure would, your life would be better for sure

I would think that he and his own inherent behaviours are the root causes of your anxiety now. Children as well are not removed from their mother anyway merely because the mother is anxious so please park that worry.

Fortunately for you, the rental contract is in your sole name so he can be removed far easier. It would also be an idea as category 12 advises for you to contact a Solicitor re obtaining a prohibited steps order.

See a solicitor and look into two things:

• a prohibited steps order, as above,

• a residence order that states that the children live with you. Not sure of the detail of this, whether you would be able to obtain one without being officially split from him. But that's the piece of paper that allows the police to intervene and return a child to the mother when a father plays arse like this.

They all threaten this though. Stay calm and just comment that if you did split, and he was such a horrendous father as to promptly kidnap his children and separate them from their mother, he'd most likely end up on the sharp end of a court order giving him supervised contact - and he'd thoroughly deserve it. 'Maybe you should start concentrating on the ways in which you can be the best father you can to them, not thinking of ways in which you would choose to completely traumatise them in order to hurt their mother. Not sure that in 20 years' time that kind of father is actually likely to have a good relationship with his children'

It's a really bad sign that you're thinking all these things when your dc are so young. The thought never even crossed my mind about my dh. The fact that your DJ has done this means he is not a good man, husband or dad.

You've had good advice here. This behaviour is not normal or acceptable; don't put up with it.

Thank you for all of your responses. I do appreciate you taking the time to read my story and offer advice. @EvenMoreFuriousVexation DH is definitely suffering from some mental health difficulties. He contacted the Dr himself secretly (I only recently found out) and has been put on AD but I think that he needs a higher dose as they don’t seem to be working. We had an honest conversation this morning and he said that he asked the Dr to prescribe something to ‘chill him out’ and recognises that he has a problem. We read the symptoms of male depression together and he agreed to discuss these with the GP at his medication review. He also thinks he might have undiagnosed ADHD as he experiences a lot of brain fog, frustration and other symptoms. Not that I am saying that people with ADHD are abusive, I’m just mentioning it as a contribution to his own personal difficulties.

He was very supportive throughout my pregnancy but since the babies were born there’s obviously been a lot of added stress, including COVID and work problems, social isolation. He has always had a temper and can become emotionally charged and fraught very quickly, but never spoke down to me or said spiteful things/made threats before.

He did apologise for making this threat and said it was thrown at me in anger and he realises that it would be an incredibly selfish thing to do and devastating for the children. I guess with the type of anxiety that I have, now the doubt is there in my mind I find it hard to trust him and let it go. I think talking to a solicitor is a good idea to put my mind at ease.

Having said all of that, I do recognise that this kind of threat and anger is abusive behaviours and I’m not going to put up with it. I don’t want our children to grow up in a similar environment to what I had to put up with as a kid. At the moment I have made sure that any arguments have not been around the babies, but I am more than aware that they will be picking up on tension (and will probably internalise it as I did as a child). I also know that DH’s anger will start spilling out in front of them if he can’t learn to control it.

@tenlittlecygnets thanks for your response. Yes I do feel very sad for the situation that we are in and feel incredibly guilty about it when it comes to the children. I want so much for them to have a good start in life and if that means without DH at home than that’s the way it has to be. I want to support DH but the children come first, always. They deserve so much better and their health and happiness is more important to me than anything. I will speak to some of the DV charities mentioned about all of this, thanks for the signposts.

Firstly they are both of your children, equal rights. If you split and cannot decide amicably the court will decide custody and he wants to relocate they will take this into account. He cannot just run off with the kids but equally you don't have ultimate rights either. A court decides what is best and ideally its access to both parents!

Thanks @minniemomo I know my last post probably sounded like I think I have ultimate rights so thanks for pointing that out. I was just trying to highlight that if DH can’t control his anger then I am willing to ask him to leave if needs be as I don’t want it to negatively impact the children. Of course he is their father and has a right to see them (live with them if courts were to decide) and of course I have my own issues that contribute to the atmosphere at home. I wouldn’t want to take their father away from them and I would hope that we could come to some arrangement for joint custody. What I was afraid of was him kidnapping them in the middle of the night and refusing to engage with me around access. I do actually love him and don’t want to break up our family, I was just trying to reinforce to those that mentioned DV that I would try and protect my children at all costs, even if that meant splitting up.

Well not ‘try’ and protect. I would protect. They come first.

I like what you've said in your update and hope you follow through with getting legal advice and so on. You don't have to do anything with the knowledge, but just having the facts should help.

But if you grew up with this kind of environment, you need to be really on your guard with it, because it's very hard to break the conditioning of childhood through no fault of your own and you don't want to repeat the pattern for the next generation.

Get legal advice now.

If he wasn't honest with you about his need to see the Dr for medication then what else is he being secretive about. He's sought help which is good but the secrecy isn't good. He could be making plans right now without your knowledge. You cannot trust him.

Seen legal advice asap.

I agree with everyone else that you need to get legal advice.

However, do please bear in mind that threatening to take the children is in the abusive man’s script. They say it because they know it’s the worst thing that can threaten you with. It’s a way to try and control you and keep you in your place.

My ex said he would take our children abroad or ‘fight me though every court in the land’ for full residency. Did now happen. He has then EOW - if it suits him.

Threatening to take your babies away is abuse. This would be a deal breaker for me and I would try to get out of this relationship as soon as possible- I would never ever forgive him this.

But first as everyone else has said : legal advice. I hate to use the MN cliche but LTB after you get your ducks in a row.

Good luck OP

This thread is 3 years old yet you were still compelled to write a bitchy little post to OP. Sort yourself out.