Ex wife refusing to give her new address & adhere to contact order

[NorthernSpirit]

Can I ask for some advice (from anyone who has been through the same or similar)?

Some background - my OH’s EW wife is highly controlling & difficult about EVERYTHING. They have been divorced over 9 years, it doesn’t get any easier with time. In fact it seems to get worse.

For years she had used the children as weapons, years of stopping contact, years of parental alienation, years of taking her to court to see the kids. Years of her breaching the contact order. The courts slapping her on the wrists and not doing anything.

My OH was meant to have the kids this last weekend but she refused contact (as she had plans - that was the only explanation). My OH now hasn’t seen the kids in over a month. I can not describe how controlling & bitter this woman is. She thinks she’s above the law.

The kids are 12 & 15 - completely controlled my mum. They do as she says.

My OH has requested help from CAFCASS - they won’t do anything as the court order has been awarded.

He also has had social services involved - they just suggested the kids have counselling (he suspects years of parental alienation). They closed the case after suggesting school counselling and politely asking mum not to speak badly of dad and discussing adult issues with the children. They were next to useless.

Ex wife moved house last week (she’s moving in with her new partner who incidentally the first and only time my OH met him, the new partner was highly aggressive & called him a ‘shit dad’ and then threatened to beat him up. This was in front of the kids. My OH called the police to remove him from our doorstep.

EW sends an email the day of the move to say she won’t be providing her new address, her email account is being shut down and she has changed her mobile and will be deleting his (the dads) number. From now on the contact order won’t be used, contact will be flexible & the kids will decide (youngest is 12). Pick ups will happen on a street corner.

So my OH has no idea where the children are living, no way of contacting the mother.

The children do have mobiles - the 15 YO doesn’t contact him (as ‘mummy has told me not to contact you’).

The 12 YO does contact dad (he’s not as easily manipulated) but he won’t give his new address (mummy has told me not to).

There is absolutely no reason for her not to give the new address. It’s a control tactic.

My OH has spoken to his solicitor - apparently there is a huge backlog in the family courts due to Covid and even if an emergency specific issues order was issued today they advise it would likely be 6 months before it went in front of a judge.

Has anyone been through similar? Does anyone have any advice.

There is no reason why he shouldn’t have their address (and know where his children are living) and he wants to keep the contact order in place. He feels a 12 YO is too young to decide contact (for example he was meant to have his 12 YO son on Father’s Day but mum organised a sleepover for him with his best friend so he decided not to come).

Sorry for the long rant…. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

@bogoffmda it isn't the same situation at all.

If the OP's DP has messages from one child stating they can't give out their mother's address the judge will want to know why.

You don't prevent your children giving out your or any address where they are staying overnight to their other parent without a damn good reason.

It doesn't however mean one or both parents can go to the others address. Handovers are then done through school and where they can't be done from school e.g. middle of long school holidays, they can be done at a neutral location. (This is actually common.)

My own DP is in a situation where he doesn't have to give out certain addresses but he was advised by his barrister to give his ex an address to avoid being ordered to give one. (His ex wasn't bothered about anyone knowing her address but it's a long story.) My DP also knows he can't prevent their child telling his ex any addresses.

I had to apply for an emergency hearing in family court recently - it took only a few weeks

There is case law relating to this - believe me - had it quoted at me by solicitors enough.

Sorry haven’t been back for a few days…

To answer some questions….

He deals directly with the school & attends parents evenings separately from the mother. Years ago he suggested to his EW that they should be adult & show a united front for the benefit of the kids & attend together. She told him to ‘fuck off’ (in front of the kids) & removed him as next of kin (replacing him with her boyfriend of 3 months). Once when he didn’t get the children’s school reports ge asked them to take a screenshot & send to him (as they were really proud of them & said they wanted to share with him). The EW rung him up & screamed ‘go to the f’ing school yourself, now F off’.

That’s the women he is dealing with. An aggressive bully.

It took 6 months of wrangling with the school to get information & communication reinstated.

There is absolutely no reason as to why he shouldn’t know where his own children live (as one poster insinuated above). The woman has used her own children as pawns for years to get back at him as he fell out of love with her and dared leave her. He was only married to her for 8 years - 9 years of vitriol has followed.

The mother has changed his 15 YO daughter mobile number (she has stopped coming and doesn’t communicate with her dad as ‘mummy told me not to’ apparently (she’s a puppet and does whatever her mum tells her to). He’s kept the lines of communication open by writing to her. If he doesn’t know where the children live he has no way of keeping in touch with his daughter.

He’s spoken to his family solicitor who advised that he does have the right to know where the children live. He’ll be applying to the family court for an emergency order and she can explain herself to a judge (again).

His solicitor also advises that the contact order hasn’t stopped just because she has decided. It can only be discharged by a judge.

It’s so sad that a man who loves his kids and has always paid for them (not that payment has any relevance) has had to fight so hard to see his own kids.

The woman is poison. She’s so emotionally damaged she can’t put her own children first.

OP some posters don't realise that there are nuances in the law so it is not OK to tell a child they must give their one parent the others address for no good reason.

Plus lots of parents with CAO have a clause in theirs which means both parents must share their address with each other.

Also if the EW is a bully then it's clear she has bullied her own teenage daughter.

Remember not everyone is strong enough to stand up to a domineering person especially if its their own mother. There are plenty of threads other parts of MN from adult posters writing about their own controlling/domineering mother and asking advice on how to deal with them.

I hope your OH gets to see his son.

I guess he is just going to have to try and maintain letter box contact with his daughter once he does.

mustn't give address - rather

Thank you for showing me what type of mother I do not want to be to my child. No matter what happens I'll always put my DD first.

My ExH was abusive and that was proven in court (and it was bloody difficult to prove as well) but I'd still never stop contact.

Thank you. I hope it works out for your DP and he gets to see his DC.

Once again it seems that a mother can do whatever they like. I’d be careful of this statement. It’s untrue and not the experience of the majority of women who are almost always the victims of controlling behaviour. Please don’t support your DH against ‘mothers’ or ‘women’ - this will not help with any ongoing relationships he does have with his kids.

Same with parental alienation - if you bandy this around too much it won’t help with his long term relationship with the kids. The only people who can really use this term, are the children when they are adults and have some perspective. They can then decide.

I think that the best way that you can support your DH is by not fuelling his anger, even if it’s understandable anger. Or by fuelling long drawn out legalities. He can go to court of course, but as others have said, now the child is 12 this will have less bearing than before.

Whatever has happened previously, this now seems like a war. Your DH needs to try not to engage in a war. I’m not saying this woman is reasonable, but children do grow into adults so he has potentially a long relationship with them going into the future where they can make up their own minds about him. I think if I were him I’d be doing as much as I could without coming into conflict for his children. Starting savings accounts, writing letters to them each week even if they arent’ posted, he can give them later to show how much he cares, gently being a solid, secure and steady figure in their lives. It will have an impact even from afar.

Either HMRC or DWP can be ordered to disclose her whereabouts to the Court.

@NorthernSpirit so sorry you're going through this, but the best advice you have received here is from @Youseethethingis, @wisteriaandwhine & @Bananasinpyjamas21.
Given the children's ages what may or may not be legally &/or morally right is not necessarily what's best for the dc at this moment in time.
I mentioned on a different post the partner of a good friend who has the same sort of issues with his exw. He sees his dc but not regularly as he chose to step away from the conflict for the dc's sakes. He always calls for birthdays etc., txts regularly & regularly tells them the door is open to them any time they want. His eldest who is now 24 & who was previously very much under his mother's thumb is now actively seeking a relationship with him having woken up to his mother's 'carry on' & is assisting the 15 year old in coming to see his dad. If a dad stays open enough & in regular contact (whatever medium that might take) dc generally do see the actuality of what happened as they get older.
I think your dp may have to accept that his ex has won this particular battle but if he wants to win the war he needs to take a more long term view of things.

I do wonder if your DH would be better to have midweek contact straight from school even if it's not an overnight? I guess the problem is he can't write or send gifts without an address.

@Magda72 has good advice as always.

I’m sorry I don’t mean to minimise your DH’s pain, and the whole unfairness. I guess to turn this on it’s head a bit, does your DH feel

• that the children are being well looked after?
• what do the children need from him, their father? It could even be a list - someone who never gives up on them, someone who financially provides, someone who is stable, interested, someone who keeps up with their school and lives if able etc… there is a lot of evidence to show that it isn’t necessarily the amount of time the NRP has that make a positive impact -it’s what they do with that time. In that way perhaps your DH could take some heart that if he is the best Dad possible, in the (unfairly) restricted way he has, it might be a better use of his energy as the anger could eat away at him. Children have loyalties and so he can’t afford to wait until they ‘see the light’ - they might never do this.

@NorthernSpirit as an aside I was chatting with my 24 yr old yesterday. He was remarking on how much better his relationship is with his dad now that he (my 24 yr) is older. He also commented on how is anger with his dad has lessened over time & how, as he gets older, he can understand with & sympathise with his dad's idiosyncrasies more.
I know the two situations are very different but my eldest really did struggle with his dad as a teen and I think his attitude, while reflective of his own personality, is also reflective of the fact that most dc actively want a relationship with both parents & that time and maturity do play a part in this. My 24 year old says that he now realises that while his dad may not have shown up for him in the way my son wanted/expected, he can now see that his dad WAS there & was doing the best he could do.
Parental alienation is a very real thing but I think a lot of older dc see through it as time passes by.

A quick update from me.

On Friday the EW gave her address. We had actually figured it out the day before. A stern letter from his solicitor telling her that if she didn’t provide the address the children were living she would be taken to court.

On Friday his 12 YO son came for the weekend (the mother had stopped contact for 5 weeks). He seemed to really enjoy himself. He did say his mum had told him not to give dad ‘any information’ - I’m not sure what she thinks dad would ask? He (my OH) reiterated how much he wants to see him. They agreed he would come in 2 weeks time.

We’re waiting for a vitriolic email to follow today from the mother (there’s always a rant post contact). But of course she’s deleted all of my OH’s contact details (we could only wish).

For the time being we are going to see how things go. I realised some time ago this had erupted into a war. No one was really going to win - only the kids loose.

He wrote another letter to his daughter at the weekend. The mother changed her mobile number and she hasn’t visited, or spoken to her dad since Jan. He’s kept the lines of communication open - it’s up-to her.

Thanks for the advice all.

OP.

Best two pieces of advice I was ever given when going through family court for bat shit exes:

• Escalate. Escalate all the time. Demands should be reasonable but you should not roll over to bullies. Demonstrate you’re reasonable, and use the escalation to demonstrate she is not. We had weeks of ‘you can’t do this, I’m going to get a solicitor’ GO ON THEN: do it. Then you’ll see how utterly crazy you actually are and how that doesn’t wash.

• keep your boundaries high and tight. Pick up and drop offs from school. No sharing ‘stuff’. No badmouthing Mum. No over sharing with the kids. Do what the order says when the order says it. Record every instance where the other party falls short.

Because, at the end of the day:

• ignorance may take the wind out of their sail, but their behaviour the next time is always worse. They assume they can press the nuclear button, and you will react. When you don’t react, you don’t say ‘hey that’s wrong don’t do that’ you’ve just written a blank cheque to keep going.

• if you always go high, when they go low. You’ll be seen as reasonable by a court. But moreso, if you have to respond to difficult questions from the kids in ten years time, you can easily demonstrate what you did and why you did it.

Oh Northern I'm so sorry you are going through all this yet again with the EW. I have always read your posts with huge interest (and sympathy) because my poor DH has an EW who seems as batshit as your DH's.
You have done brilliantly keeping things so together. My DH has had to withdraw from the nearly 4 year legal battle with his fucking crazy manipulative bitch of an ex due to waking up every day wishing he was dead and having anxiety attacks every time the doorbell rings, the postman delivers or when emails come through.
We just hope when the girls are old enough they will understand that he fought long and hard against a master manipulator and deceiver but had to admit defeat in the end.
There are way too many women out there that think the children are their property and tools to be used in their hate campaigns against their ex husbands. It's so fucking unfair on the children.

@NCforsafety

Thanks for the message.

You think it’s calmed down and she raises the batshit bar every time. It’s now gone on longer than they were married. I wish she would find some happiness instead of trying to spread her poison.

All the man has done is try to see his own kids. Spent thousands on court costs and has had little support. CAFCASS don’t give a shit, social services are so stretched and seem to have little knowledge of parental alienation, time and time again she takes the piss out of the court order & does whatever she wants. He’s completely worn down from it. He says when he sees a text or email from her he feels physically sick. The woman is a manipulative bully.

Like your OH - mine is completely worn down by it (it’s been 8 years now).

She has a new partner now (no kids of his own) who came round, knocked on the door, told him he was a shit dad and threatened to beat him up. He’s as bad as she is. No kids of his own - he has no idea…

His 15 YO daughter has stopped coming and hasn’t spoken to him for 6 months. After years of her mother telling her what a shit dad he is, I guess she can’t be bothered anymore. It’s so sad to watch and I feel for him (and her). All he has tried to do is be there for the kids and see them. They have no idea what he’s had to do or deal with to have a relationship with HIS OWN kids. The contact order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Woman like her do what they want as they realise they can.

I agree. These woman disgust me. How you can use your own kids to punish someone else is so wrong. He left you (because of your behaviour…. Deal with it). I can only hope that one day the kids realise what she has done and they distance themselves from her. Then she’ll know what it’s like no to be able to see your own kids. I really hope karma is real.

Good luck.

I agree. These woman disgust me. How you can use your own kids to punish someone else is so wrong. He left you (because of your behaviour…. Deal with it). I can only hope that one day the kids realise what she has done and they distance themselves from her. Then she’ll know what it’s like no to be able to see your own kids. I really hope karma is real.

Ditto - I hope against all hope that when DH's children are old enough and can properly understand the court papers, that they will read them and disown the bitch. One of my sisters says it would be unfair to show everything to them as it will destroy their relationship with her but I feel so evil about it most days I want her to feel the daily pain of what she has done to my husband and their children. Fingers crossed for karma!