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Hi All
Basically I'm here as I don't know where else to go or what to do for the best.
Long story short, when I met my sons mother she already had two boys. We never lived in the same house. We werent great together, and had many arguments, but after a while we had our son together. We argued a lot and she is very controlling.
When we broke up, initially I had all 3 boys every other weekend, but she didn't want me to have my son alone, and the older boys were naughty. She told me one weekend that they weren't keen to come to my house because I had told them off the previous visit, so I said 'ok if they don't want to come, then I'll just come get my son'. She then told me that I wouldn't see my son until things were 'dealt with legally'.
I sought legal advice and went to mediation. She initially attended mediation, and initially agreed to a two hour visit per week to see my son. Then asked about the other boys, and I said with two hours a week I need to concentrate on my son. Doesn't really give me much time to do anything! During all this time I didn't see him for two months except for a brief visit to a local garden centre on his 2nd birthday.
Mediation continued, but it was clear that she didn't want to be involved with the process, But she eventually agreed to me having him overnight, after she stopped attending mediation claiming illness etc
He is now 4 and a had, starting school in September. I now have him every other weekend, but now she completely controls everything, claiming I'm unfit to look after him, despite him coming home safe, clean, well fed and happy each time I drop him off.
Everything is on her terms and she is nasty to me at every given opportunity. I want to take him away for a long weekend and she is having none of it. I'd actually like to take him away for a week, perhaps even abroad, but I understand the need to compromise.
I try to be as nice as possible to her and avoid arguments but I want to see my son much more often than she 'allows' me to, and to be have much more freedom with him.
She doesn't seem to listen to anything i have to say and just keeps rakin up the long distant past.
Just looking for advice at this stage but I fear that more mediation (if she's willing), followed (probably) by court are my only real options, and that may even deny me access to my son again.
Thanks
Hi and welcome,
It does look like you have managed to get to a certain point through using mediation which is good, what sort of time are you looking for with your son?
.
If you are looking to increase then you're right you would need to try mediation first and then look at court if mediation didn't work, there would be a possibility that your ex could stop all contact whilst the process was hapening, but if you had to apply to court you could ask for an interim order to be granted at the first hearing.
.
there is no "normal" amount of time that will get awarded when you go through court for an order, but lots of dads seem to get every other weekend (fri eve - sun eve) and then maybe one evening mid week, you can also ask for long weekends to be added in for time away as well as holidays (inc abroad)
What level of contact are you looking for and in which ways does your ex control?
GTTS
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