How do we get parental responsibility for my DH when ex being difficult?

[ParentalResponsibilty]

Hello,

I have 2 DDs 10&8. We want to get my DH parental responsibility for them however my ex husband is ignoring every email, calls, text, Fb message I send to him. I know I need his signature on the normal form. He is a nasty piece of work but I thought he may do this considering he did agree to a name change (girls took my DHs name and double barrelled).

We live in France so it's difficult with regards to attending court but doable if I need to. Can anyone help with the procedure?

Thanks. Xx

Having been through this (painfully) ourselves, I would ask why you feel you need it. In reality it does not change much and if your ex is being difficult it really may not be worth the bother expense and general aggro - especially given the additional complication of where you live.

Thank you for your reply. My biggest worry is that something happens to me and the girls get sent to their bio dads house. They have been with my DH since 5&3 and all would be devastated if they had to be parted.

Is their father involved in their lives?

We went for a residential order alongside a parental responsibility.

The court contacted ds dad and we didn't have any contact at all.

Do you all live in France ie their dad as well?

We are having similar trouble with DS1's dad. I cannot fathom why he won't agree. We haven't pushed it in the last few months as ultimately DS1 is our concern and whilst gaining step-parental responsibility is clearly in his best interests in our situation if his dad were a reasonable man, that has to be balanced against the pain of further conflict and worsening of relations between his (bio) dad and me.

Bonkerz - I will look into residential order. That sounds useful in case of unexpected events.

Sorry I havent been on for a few days.

The girls bio father lives in England. We have only recently moved here and he did sign to give permission remarkably. He has spoken to them on skype 3 times since September. He is a waste of space.

so what contact arrangements were made prior to you leaving?

We didn't have any arrangements because he hardly ever saw them. The girls went to his parents every thursday for dinner, he turned up maybe 1/6.

I got pr for my dss via a residency order too. Dss' bio mum lives in another European country and is 100% NC. RO sounds like a good route for you too. We are starting the adoption process next.

Do you get a residency order which then incorporates a step-parental responsibility or do you apply for both in parallel?

ladydeedy - how did you get it sorted? In our case, DH, DS1 and I have lived together since DS1 was 17 months and he's now 12 and we have 2 more kids together (9, 4). We have always promoted and enabled DS1 contact with his (biological) father doing long journeys etc but he has had diminishing contact over the years as his dad moved far away and then dropped the weekend visits he used to make and was very slack with skyping DS1 allowing weeks to pass with no contact until I got v stroppy last year. Anyway, I trusted ex to do the right thing by DS1 in the event of my death for years but in the last 2 or 3 years am uncertain he would. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want DS1 to live with him anyway but obvs it's a ghastly risk as we (DH & I) are and always have been DS1's home and family. With the step-parental responsibility - it's things like school parents evenings and forms, rugby injuries, paintballing/climbing waiver forms etc which are supposed to be signed by someone with parental responsibility. DH not having it is very inconvenient and complicates our lives as well as not reflecting the reality that DS has lived for years (I work nights quite often, DH take DS1 away for weekends etc) but ex won't agree for reasons I can't really understand. DS also does not want to be different from his siblings here and does not like that DH can do these things for them but not him.

Is anything likely to happen to you in the next 10 years? Presuming good health etc the chances are miniscule, and in 10 years the issue will go away as your daughters will both be 18+.

That seems a slightly irresponsible attitude green worm! I have life insurance and a will set up in case I die - for all our children's sakes, we have life insurance set up so that if one of us dies, the mortgage can be paid off and at least the kids won't have to lose their home as well as their parent. V unlikely, but in those horrific circumstances, I want to mitigate the impact on my children as much as possible.

I've seen threads on mumsnet where couples are writing their wills and it comes to who they want to look after their children if they both die, eg in an accident, and it has caused upset because they've asked this person instead of that one. I remember a professional will writer saying that she herself had seen this issue cause a lot of drama and bad feeling in her career, and when weighed up against the likelihood of the parents actually dyingvwhile the children were under 18 it really wasn't worth addressing it a lot of the time. So that's what I was thinking of when I posted that.

Of course this is a bit different as it is one parent not two, but if it's going to cost a fortune in time money and effort to go through courts to get it sorted then it is worth thinking about whether it's worth it in the face of the likelihood of anything happening. Different of course if parent is ill.

Also worth checking if you live in France whether this issue would be subject to French law or British law.

Even if your DH gained parental responsibility it wouldn't assured that he would get residency of your children. By default they would go with their dad and your DH would have to fight for that right. Many factors would then taken into consideration. Maybe the reason why you want you ex to agree to it is the exact reason why he is refusing.

Did you not agree to bring back your children to the UK so he could see them when you asked his permission to take them to France?

Swing the issue here is nothing to do with his access. He doesn't want to see them! We go back every 6 months during schools holidays. We are going in Thursday, I have made arrangements for their grandparents on his side to see them on several occasions during that week. He knows we are back yet has ignored every communication from me. You make it out like I want to remove them from him. It is far from the truth. I have done everything I can to involve him. For years before we moved to France he would see them maybe 7 or 8 times a YEAR for a few hours if he turned up at his mums when they were there. Initially he had them over night at weekends but that stopped when I received a phone call from school on a Monday when he hadn't taken them to school because he couldn't be bothered to get up.

I have spoken to his mum regarding the PR and she agrees it need to be done, however since she hasn't seen him since Boxing Day she cannot talk to him either.

Green I hope that nothing will happen to me within the next 10 years but I cannot take that chance! I don't want to die and then my children have to leave their 'Papa' and go and live with a man who smokes weed, doesn't work, lives on his sisters sofa and has had his phone cut off. He cannot look after himself which is why I am worried for what might happen.