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Hey people, thanks for reading, i'll lead you in with the full events leading to me current situation.
At the start of 2009 I was working a good, well paid job (by 20 year old at the time standards) and was made redundant around May. A friend offered myself a job 500 miles away in Portsmouth, not amazing hours or pay, but job is a job. Basically myself and another employee of the newly opened club fell in love immediately and were inseperable. After a few months together we decided having spent time here in Dundee, Scotland where I am from that we were going to move and settle down as their were jobs available again in this area for us both that paid fairly, aswell as my family being kind enough to rent a fantastic 2BR flat at a steal of a price to us. We were in our element, everything was fine and sooner than imagined we were pregnant. During this time she was working furiously to find her grandfather as he is of a fair age and wanted to see him again. Rather quickly again, she managed to find him and I went with her for safety to visit him and his partner at their hotel. Very quickly they began to drive a wedge between us, for example by setting her up on dates when I had to go home for work reasons during the trip. This naturally lead to arguements and a few days apart to calm down and assess the situation. When I went back down to bring her home, I explained I would never stop them from seeing each other, despite the 300 mile distance from each other as she obviously wanted to see him.
Once we got back, the wedge continued to grow through her step-grandmother (much younger than her grandfather) texting her and telling her to leave me as she could do better. The thoughts continually grew in her mind and the first Friday of December, her granfather had a stroke, and was rushed to hospital. As I had drank a couple of vodkas my mother rushed us over to the train station and off she went to see him. I was calling her twice a day to talk and see how he was and how she was coping. Very early I started noticing discrepancies in her list of events. And eventually clicked this was a big story to be away from me. During the time we were still talking she went out on dates with a couple of guys set up by her grandmother. Eventually I just couldn't take the mental torture of my girlfriend openly going out on dates with other guys while stringing me along maintaining our home.
We broke up mid-December and I couldnt talk to her without going crazy in my head so told her I would talk in a couple of days after calming down. During this time she cancelled the flights I had paid for and booked for her mother to come stay with us over Christmas and she told me she was staying with the granparents and not comming back. Naturally I was heart-broken but quickly realised that I was trying to fix someone who doesn't want to be fixed.
While we lived in Portsmouth, her Dad and I got along very well and have several common interests. The problem being her father was "pushed away" from her by her mother. So naturally I decide against talking to my own family due to embarassment and talk to her father and explain the situation. Immediately he unravelled a lie she had been telling about her personal life. Intrigued I openly asked her father about everything she had told me about her personal and family life,and found out quickly that she had been playing me all along. As it turns out she has a history of lying and making up stories to get her attentioned.
This leads me to now. Since then I have tried to contact her several times to ask how she and bump are. After 3 weeks I have finally recieved contact, purely due to her needing family information for her mid-wifery notes. Anyway, she also adds that she will be looking for me to have Supervised Access, something that has pushed me in to orbit. I can't imagine being in the situation of living 500 miles away from my child,and when I do get the opportunity to see them having to be supervised?! Obviously I don't believe her to be a good person to raise a child with her morals and past of serial lying. So I am in a situation of deciding between living 500 miles away and seeing my child nowhere as often as I would like, or going for main parental duties as I can provide a stable upbringing with a good owned home.
Would anyone be able to give legal advise on whether the afore-mentioned events would have an effect on myself going for main custody or even split residency?
Thanks for reading, this is the first time I have been able to fully open up about what happened and it's gret to have got this and the questions out. Thanks again people.
Jamie.
Hi Jamie
First of all, welcome to Dadtalk and sharing your story here.
I'm really sorry to hear about this situation and I can imagine how upsetting it must be for you to realise that perhaps your partner hasn't been entirely honest with you about her circumstances and her family relationships. Whilst I don't want to cast doubt on you being the father of this unborn baby, you only have her word that this is the case.
Obviously I don't believe her to be a good person to raise a child with her morals and past of serial lying and making up stories.
I hope for your sake that you are the father, but if you do have any doubts then clearly the only way you can be 100% sure is to carry out DNA tests once the baby is born.
I am going to pass your questions on to our legal experts for their advice. This will take a few days, so hang in there, especially as it's now the weekend.
Hi Jamie
First of all, welcome to Dadtalk and sharing your story here.
I'm really sorry to hear about this situation and I can imagine how upsetting it must be for you to realise that perhaps your partner hasn't been entirely honest with you about her circumstances and her family relationships. Whilst I don't want to cast doubt on you being the father of this unborn baby, you only have her word that this is the case.
Obviously I don't believe her to be a good person to raise a child with her morals and past of serial lying and making up stories.
I hope for your sake that you are the father, but if you do have any doubts then clearly the only way you can be 100% sure is to carry out DNA tests once the baby is born.
I am going to pass your questions on to our legal experts for their advice. This will take a few days, so hang in there, especially as it's now the weekend.
Thanks for the quick response, I just thought i'd also add, does living in Scotland make it a more difficult case? As far as my understanding is, their are differing laws between Scots and English family law.
Going by the conception date I am 99% sure I am the father of the child as during this time we were pretty much inseperable and in the "true love" phase.
Again, cheers for the quick response and have a good weekend.
Spoke to my ex today. She still insists that the child once born will not leave Portsmouth and that she is going for supervised access.
It was done in a very mature way. She accepted an old friend request I sent on FaceBook, came on MSN, we talked for a few minutes, then she said it, I said it's not very fair on my family, then I had to go. Then she deletes me from FaceBook. Jesus, why does this have to be so hard?
Dear Jamie,
Firstly the advice offered below will only apply if the mother is living in England or Wales, as the Scottish law is different. If the mother is living in Scotland then you would need to contact the Scottish Child Law Centre on 0131 667 6333.
If the mother is living in England then the following advice will be accurate. The law that applies will always be the law of the country in which your child is living.
Prior to the child being born, no person will have any rights or parental responsibility regarding that child, as a child is not considered a legal person until it is born, and no court applications can be made regarding the child until it is born.
When the child is born, you can gain parental responsibility by being registered as the father on the birth certificate, which the mother would have to agree to. If you are not registered on the birth certificate then Parental responsibility can also be gained by entering into a Parental Responsibility Agreement with the mother, or if the mother will not agree to you having this, by applying to the court for parental responsibility.
All applications and court proceedings would take place at the court closest to where the child lives, which would be with the mother immediately following the birth.
The person that the child lives with will have the ability to decide on any and all contact that the child has with others, including yourself, and is able to make this supervised if they wish. This is because contact is the right of a child and not either parent, as your child will be unable to make such decisions for many years yet; it will fall to whoever that child lives with to make these decisions on the child’s behalf.
If you are not happy with what is being offered to you the first step should always be to attempt to resolve things amicable, suggesting mediation if possible.
If this is not successful or you are not happy with the situation, then you are able to apply to court for contact. You are also able to apply for residence or shared residence as well as Parental Responsibility at the same time, and the court will consider all these matters together.
With regards to residence, this is unlikely to be granted without exceptional reason. It is generally considered best for a newborn child to live with their mother where possible for practical reasons such as the possibility of breast feeding. There usually has to be rather extreme reasons for this not to be the case.
Shared residence will usually only be appropriate when the parents live relatively close to each other, as this would be very disruptive for the child otherwise to travel between the parents.
With regards to contact, the courts are of the view that a child should see both parents when it is safe to do so and will usually grant a contact order. A contact order states days and times that you are to see the child and this is legally binding – so the mother would be required to comply with the order.
Given how young your child will be, any contact granted is likely to be for shorter periods of time more often, rather than for a long period of time further apart, and if the mother is breast feeding these patterns will also be taken into consideration when deciding how much contact is appropriate. As the child grows up the court would often increase the amount of contact granted if you apply for this.
It is for the court to decide whether supervised contact is necessary or not based on the facts that they are made aware of during proceedings. If they do choose to make contact supervised then you would have to comply with this if you wished to see the child, and this would most likely revert to unsupervised after a period of time if you comply.
You are able to tell the court of any concerns that you may have regarding the mother, however as a general rule, what happened within your relationship prior to your child being born is often irrelevant and the court will not make orders regarding the child based on this unless the behaviour directly affects the child. It is unlikely that the court will be concerned with the lies that the mother may have told you and the other behaviour you mentioned as this does not have a bearing on her ability to raise your child.
The court can consider this behaviour, but an order would not be made to change the child’s residence based on this alone.
When it comes to Parental Responsibility, the court would almost certainly grant you this, and can order that you are named on the birth certificate if the mother does not agree to this when your child is registered.
Parental responsibility would give you the right to a say in the major decisions affecting the child’s upbringing, such as which school they attend and which religion they are brought up in, however the day to day decisions and contact (whilst there is no court order in place) would still be for the resident parent to decide upon.
Unfortunately this situation is very difficult as your child has not yet been born and it is difficult to predict what will happen, but it is always advisable where possible to attempt to negotiate with the other parent and come to a mutually agreeable arrangement as this will allow much more flexibility and scope for agreement regarding any issues.
We hope that this information is useful to you, should you require further advice on English Child Law matters then please contact the Child Law Advice Line on 0808 8020 008 and an advisor will be happy to help.
Kind Regards
Children’s Legal Centre
OK, this will sound really harsh and bad, but please hear me out.
My ex tonight claims to have lost the child, and has deleted me again from Messenger after the re-adding and is changing numbers so I can't speak or contact her. This sounds really unlike her to me, and after the past lies I can't fully trust her.
Legal standing if she is lying?
Hi Jamie,
I've tried to weigh up what the differences might be... and nothing jumps out at me right now.
If she is not telling the truth and she is still pregnant then I perceive that the expert's advice still stands.
Amongst the expert's response I saw it said:
- Prior to the child being born, no person will have any rights or parental responsibility regarding that child, as a child is not considered a legal person until it is born, and no court applications can be made regarding the child until it is born.
- ...this situation is very difficult as your child has not yet been born and it is difficult to predict what will happen...
Stating the obvious, if she is no longer pregnant with your child then I guess it brings your questions around custody arrangements to a natural end (as painful as that might be in itself).
Is it possible that over the next days, weeks and months you might gradually pick up on more details and therefore get a better picture of the situation and facts as time passes?
I note that the expert response finished by saying that they can be contacted for further advice at Child Law Advice Line on 0808 8020 008 (for English Child Law).
Please keep posting so we can all keep supporting you.
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