[Solved] Wife says my 10 yr old son doesnt want to see me

Hi Andy,

I'm very sorry for what you are experiencing. Unfortunately your situation is not much different than what a lot of us experience.

I think at this point your first priority has to be to protect your child. I imagine you will be hurting from this, but to put it plainly, someone has to step up and be the adult in the room, so that means that when you inevitably see your child, you need to be at your dad-best and try and keep him out of the conflict.

Unless there are safeguarding concerns, your ex-wife cannot withhold your son from seeing you. If she doesn't agree to making him available to see you, your first step is to contact a mediation service and book a MIAM. You should be able to do this at a cost of £50.

You also want to be extremely careful and not do or say anything that she can claim is harassment or domestic violence. Just to give you a flavour, mine claimed I was pestering her when I gave her a box of chocolates 🙂

Start keeping a diary with what's happening. Record the dates when she said you couldn't see your son and the reasons she gave. If this was via written message, make sure to keep the message.

And do pay maintenance. You'll be shooting yourself in the foot if you stop paying maintenance now. Just suck it up and pay it.

It looks like you are just starting what could be a difficult period, but here you'll find lots of people who have already been through this, or others like me who are moving along the process a few steps ahead. Not gonna lie to you, it hurts as [censored], but I think we can come out better men and even better dads on the other side.

Hi there

Without a court order your ex can do more or less as she wishes I'm afraid. It's been 8 weeks, barely any time really and there could be all sorts of reasons for her behaviour... the reality of the situation is probably just starting to set in. Breaking up is painful, she will be experiencing a tumult of emotions and wanting to hurt you is a distinct possibility, getting at you through your son is a sure fire way of achieving that, but it's shows a lack of insight into the impact that would have on your child.

Are you able to talk to her? Could you both have a civilised conversation? If not I would most certainly consider starting the process of mediation as SPD has advised. If things aren't too good between you, I would speak to the mediator first and leave it up to them to make contact with her to ask her to attend.

It's best not to leave things too long, as contact has stopped, its best not to let it set a prescendent. Besides, he will be missing you, and even if he's told his mother he doesn't want to see you, that might be him telling her what he thinks she wants to hear, or just trying to protect her if he's seen her upset.

He needs both parents in his life, it's his right to have you in his life, whether you are with his mother or not.

There's lots of info about the court process in the stickys at the top of the legal eagle section that you may find useful and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to,ask.

All the best