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Hi,
I am after some clear advice please. My husband is a father of 3 and since he split and divorced from his ex she has caused unnecessary suffering by not allowing contact.
My husband had serious accident in March and was hospitalised for 3 weeks..... and is still off work.... he was unable to see his children whilst in hospital as he was too poorly. However after his discharge 3 weeks later I collected and dropped off his youngest and this continued for 4 weekends on the trot. We then got married and since then she refused contzct saying she had plans.
We did have her for 2 nights last weekend and it was lovely and my husband was due to have her last night so drove to collect her to be told she wasn't coming. This is because his ex wife does not want the youngest mixing with my husband's sisters.
His ex made him choose 16 years ago her or his family..... he chose her and had no contact until this year after his accident. Sadly both his parents have passed away in the time of no contact. My husband is thrilled to have his sisters back in his life and they both have daughters of the same age as his daughter.
My question is can his ex wife state who my husband chooses to socialise with??? He is named on birth certificate.
There are lots of other issues surrounding the care his ex gives his children and he has driven over there (30 minutes drive) in middle of night to sort out fights between his eldest 2 children and his ex.
His youngest is struggling in school and can't read or write. His ex blatantly says she has no patience so doesn't read with her but expects the older 2 to do that. We read with the little one when she is here.
My husband is frightened to do anything because she will stop him seeing her
..... this is outrageous...... please help
hi and welcome on here.
To be honest, I would say that your husband doesn't have much to lose whatever he does as his ex is controlling contact to the extent of it being likely that there will be none at all in the not to distant future, so he needs to start to take action, which is going to start with mediation - www.nfm.org.uk - this is a requirement anyway before he can move on to court if it needs to go that far, hopefully his ex might see some sense if she realises that he's being serious about pursuing contact, but there's no guarantee of that of course. If it does go to court, unless there are concerns for the child's welfare with regards to his sisters, then the court will certainly not place any restrictions on his children seeing his sisters.
Hi there
I'm sorry to hear about your husbands accident, just glad he is on the mend.
Is there a reason why there's this animosity between his ex and his family?
Generally speaking, who children are introduced to and, what they do whilst with the separated parent, can't be controlled by the other parent....although many try.
As actd has advised, mediation must be attempted before court action can be taken, but if that fails, the mediator would sign off the form to enable an application for a Child Arrangements Order.
It's best to attend at a mediator in the ex's location and that applies to the court too.
There's plenty of info about the process in the stickys at the top of the legal eagle section. We have many members that have chosen to,self represent, as solicitors fees can be in the thousands and we can offer advice and support should your husband decide to go it alone. Some member do the first hearings themselves and use a barrister for the final hearing.
All the best
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