Re: A Difficult Personal Situation - Advice


<averagechapinthestreet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1192696822.889345.285750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,

Having a difficult time currently at home. I am married and have two
step children; been married for 6 years and we have a daughter between
us, so three kids in all. The stepchildren are close to their father
and I have always been as supportive as I could that they maintain
their relationship with him. He is a very bitter man because of how
my wife and I got together - he will not visit the house, he will not
speak to me and he basically refuses to recognise my existence even.

Last week I was bathing the two smallest children when the eldest
(stepson, 8) hit our daughter (4). She fell in the bath and went
under the water. I automatically and without thinking smacked him
(genuinely not hard) and shouted. He fell over as well, banged his
head on the tap (again not hard) so both of them were yelling. I
calmed everything down at the time and the kids seemed fine shortly
afterwards.

Yesterday, he went back to stay at his Dad's and his Dad went
ballistic. He has phoned the school told them I am not to have
anything to do with the boy; called my wife, told her I am not to be
alone with him or his elder sister at all, is going to call social
services, is going to 'have me' and generally making lots of noise
about it.

I do not have any parental status or anything with the stepkids, but
I'm not sure what I should do now. I'm thinking about seeing a
solicitor but I don't know what to say (not sure what the problem
is). Can he stop me seeing the kids or looking after them? I feel
very sick about this. I'd be grateful for any advice - if he
continues to spout off about this I will fully expect some unpleasant
graffiti to appear on my door and a whispering campaign to start. I
hasten to add that nothing like this has ever happened before - we are
a nice family.

Andy.


I don't see that he can stop you seeing the kids if they live with you and
their mum. If he's serious about taking the kids away, he can apply for a
residence order through the courts, but that way the kids would be
informally "interviewed" by the Court Welfare Officers (now CAFCASS) to
establish whether or not they would want to go and live with him, and
whether there are underlying issues. Which seems highly unlikely, and the
court would need very good reason to a) take the children away from their
mother and b) split them from their step-sibling(s). He'd probably be
advised by his solicitor that this would be fruitless unless there was
evidence of consistent abuse, or that you and their mother weren't going to
fight it.

If this does ever get to Solicitor stage, they might well advise mediation,
I'm told this solves a lot of problems between estranged parents, although
it didn't help me (the estranged father) regarding my contact rights. They
may well advise you to deal with the issues regarding the break-up of your
stepchildren's parents' marriage which is obviously still an issue, so that
you can all move forward for the sake of the kids (that's CAFCASS-speak for
try to get on even through clenched teeth).


.

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