When I heard of this (from my son, not from my ex or from his nanny), I wrote to my ex to ask him why he had done this without my consent and asking him for details of the orthodontist so that I can ask various questions about my son’s treatment.

My ex has not replied to my email and has simply gone ahead and has had the treatment started – braces fixed.

Now I’m really annoyed about this. I agree that my son should have the braces fitted but that’s not the point. The point is that my exhusband had no right to go ahead and give medical treatment to one of our children without my consent. I have parental responsibility, which means:

June 2006: 

Well, the Judgment in the Ancillary relief proceedings has been given after 14 months of finance proceedings involving around 6 separate hearings and a 4 day trial in the High Court. Further cross examination by yet another hostile and unnecessarily aggressive barrister, further humiliation and upset for me. Finally, the Judge awarded me 2/3 of the capital of the house, but only a small percentage of my husband’s income ie £35k out of my husband’s £142k. The Judge  accepted that, due to my Bipolar, it will be harder for me to get a well paid job so he gave me a higher proportion of the capital to try and ensure that I will be able to provide me and the kids with a house out of the balance of the capital of the sale of the house.

Great. In theory.  BUT He went on to say that my exhusband has total control over the sale of the house.

Guess what my exhusband does?

You’ve guessed it! He has agreed a sale on it which leaves me with a huge debt and no way to pay it. Although I appreciate that there is a credit crunch and the housing market is unstable, he has agreed an offer which represents a fall of 35% of the original sale value. Although this price means that he will also be left in debt, he has the lion’s share of his income with which to meet his debt repayments.

My maintenance doesn’t cover even half of the debt repayments on that kind of debt. I have no steady income and little hope at the moment of establishing one. I cannot buy a home for my children nor even rent one, despite the fact that I have Shared Residency  (definition in the Children’s Act ) and therefore a responsibility to provide them with a home. We live out of my brother’s spare bedroom with 3 of us sharing a bed whilst the other one sleeps on a single bed in the same room….I have now been living like this for 18 monts while he has remained in our 7 bedroomed house…..

He claims he cannot afford to give me more maintenance to fund a rental home for me and the children.

I have Shared Residency of the children. This means that the children have their home with me AND my husband. Even though he has been given the care of them for most of the term time week, the law states that the children need to be housed with BOTH of us.

Yet the Judge’s decision leaves my husband with £190,000k net per annum with which to house himself, his nanny and for his and the children’s living expenses. I am left with £35, 000 with which to house myself and the children, to meet the debt repayments of £100,000 and to provide my children with clothes, food and sundries. After paying my debt repayments, I am left with around £500 a month to meet their and my needs.

Now I appreciate that many people would say that they would be incredibly grateful for £500 a month and part of me feels ashamed at complaining about it; I know that a great number of people have far less than that to live on and many receive nothing at all from their ex spouse.

But that’s not the point: the point is the vast disparity between our respective levels of living from here on in. It is the inequality that I am upset by and feel that the whole result has been hugely unfair in what is supposed to be a fair system. 

Under the Matrimonial Homes Act 1973, section 25 states that the Court has to take the following issues into account when deciding how to distribute the proceeds of the family house together with making financial provisiong for both the children and the spouses. The considerations are as follows:

(a) the income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the forseeable future;

(b) the financial needs, obligations and responsibilities which each of the parties to the marriage has or is likely to have in the forseeable future;

(c) the standard of living enjoyed by the family before the breakdown of the marriage;

(d) the age of each party to the marriage and the duration of the marriage;

(e) any physical or mental disability of either of the parties to the marriage;

(f) the contributions made by each of the parties to the welfare of the family, including any contribution made by looking after the home or caring for the family;

(g) the value to either of the parties to the marriage of any benefit (for example, a pension) which, by reason of the dissolution or annulment of the marriage that party will lose the chance of acquiring.

The court has to exercise those powers to place the parties, so far as it is practicable, in the financial position in which they would have been if the marriage had not broken down and each had properly discharge his/her financial obligations and responsibilities.

I do not believe that the distribution of the income to this marriage was anywhere near being sufficient to meet many of the criteria set out in the above Act.

Given that I am now in such an untenable position, I am having to now go back to Court to seek a variation of the court order made so that the Judge can re-consider the maintenance and capital position.

My lawyers are so horrified at the debt position that I am left in, together with my homelessness, that they are going to act for me for nothing as, in their words what has happened to me “ just doesn’t feel right”.

The fact is that the result of this whole case “just doesn’t feel right” and my children and I have suffered and are continuing to suffer hugely.

We are now in a position where my children do not have a home with me despite the fact that there is a Shared Residency Order in place.

I’m intending to appeal this decision so watch this space….

No little person creeping into my room in the depths of night scared from a nightmare and wanting to snuggle up to mummy to comfort them and take away their fear.

Nobody running into my room in the morning to tell me that they managed to tie their shoe laces for the first time, that they’ve got themselves dressed without being asked, to ask me for their favourite breakfast, to ask me if they can sit next to me at the table as it’s their turn to sit next to me…..No chasing around trying to find a mislaid tie or a beret or the other plimsoll……No practising spellings or times tables over the breakfast table, answering the hundredth “why” question or explaining why God doesn’t have a mummy, or trying to work out how far we are away from the Sun, or why some people are mean to each other……..or why mummy and daddy can barely talk to each other…….or why they can’t see me more often…..or why the CAFCASS think mummy can’t see them more often…..

Nobody.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Just an empty house. The television adverts show me all the family adverts: adverts for family cars, adverts for washing your children’s dirty clothes, family holidays, family home insurance, children’s medicines to stop them coughing at night, calpol to help your baby sleep………I have been deprived of my “Right to live a family life” which, by the way (or at least in my case its “by the way”) is one of the Rights set out in the Human Rights Act…..

No family for me anymore.

Just an empty house. And silence.

I can’t bear it – it hurts too much…….It really hurts….

 http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Legal/Legal+briefing+The+Human+Rights+Act+1998.htm 

In April,I was forced to leave the family home following my husbands Occupation Order to get me out on the basis that my presence in the house was causing the children “significant harm”. I didn’t agree that it was my “continuing presence” that was causing them harm, but the arguing and bickering was distressing for them. My own view though was that it would be even more distressing for them if I left, especially without another home to go to and for them to call their own too. But I was advised by my lawyers that the Judge would force me to go so, rather than spending another £20,000 of wasted legal fees, I was told I should go. So I did, very unhappily. Not surprisingly the children were terribly upset. They told me they kept going into my empty room and couldn’t believe that I was gone………..and so was my bed that they cuddled up to me in.

However, I have Shared Residency Order which states that the children are to live with me for half the holidays and every other weekend during term time, and another afternoon or possibly two each week for the mother as agreed between the parties. So my solicitors wrote to his, suggesting that the kids and I should see each other every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon after school – an arrangement which the Judge had said in the Court Order that she would “welcome” but it would have to be with agreement by both parents.

However, I thought at the time the Order was made that the reality was that my husband wouldn’t agree to it and, sure enough, he is still refusing to agree to an afternoon after school so that the kids and I can see each other. His reasons are still the same as they were 6 months ago: “the children need routine and stability.” Well, surely the same afternoon each week for contact is “routine”. Surely the children will feel more “stable” if they see their mother once a week? “The children have a very important year ahead of them at school.” Oh, and not seeing their mother is going to help them with that??

Where are the children’s rights here? Or their Human Right to have a family life (one of the Rights set out under the Human Rights Act). Or my “mother’s rights”…..Who says there are any such things???

Herein lies one of the biggest problems with a Court Order in Family Law which leaves any kind of extra time with either parent to the agreement between them: it was so obvious to me that my husband wasn’t going to agree to any extra time. When he and his barrister both made oral promises to the Judge that he would definitely encourage and facilitate as much time as possible with me, I could see through his charm, but the Judge was convinced by him. The Judge, however, didn’t go as far as to enshrine any right of the kids to see me mid-week so my requests for more time will continue to be met with refusal.

(To give him his due, he did allow the kids and I to celebrate my birthday together last Thursday which was absolutely brilliant! They got me a Scooby Doo birthday cake with more candles than space on his vast face………yes, I’m ancient……Best birthday I’d had in a very long time. Just me and the kids. Bliss). But that is one rare occasion of “extra” time.

What can I do about it?

I will keep asking, just keep writing, keep writing, keep writing with the same request hoping that he will eventually realise that it isn’t kind to either the kids or me to keep us separated from each other.

The only other option is to go back to the Judge and ask her to adjudicate again on the issue of these after school times. My husband must surely be expecting that I will have to do this; he can’t think that I wouldn’t want to keep asking to see them or that the kids won’t keep asking to see me?  It makes so much more sense though to just be sensible rather than going back to Court again. That would be distressing for all of us, but maybe not as distressing as the continuing absence of my children and I being able to spend time together. 

The thing is, my Bipolar is completely under control and has been ever since before the Court hearing started; I have repeatedly been given the all clear by my psychiatrist who says I am perfectly stable. So it’s not like I’m manic or hypomanic or severely depressed or alcoholic or abusive or anything else – I’m just a really decent, loving mum who wants to see her kids and, most of all, give them loads of love and hugs………..I’ve even told him that he can insist on making me have a psychiatric assessment of my mental health every 6-8 weeks if he needs any reassurance, so why’s he refusing to take me up on it?

His latest reasons are that I have been “turning up at the kids schools and this has distressed them.” What I have, in fact, been doing, is to attend every single school event that I can so that I get to look at the kids even if I can’t hug them or talk with them. So I go to all the school masses, services, sports events, coffee mornings, kids parties etc. I am fully legally entitled to go to these, so I’m not just “turning up”. Also the kids want me there at their sports matches, their masses, concerts etc. The only reason they are distressed is because they’re not seeing enough of me, not because I’m there!

He then cites the fact that on around 3-4 ocasions, I have dropped the children back between 15mins – 1 hour late on a Sunday night after my long drive back up to Kingston through Sunday afternoon, London-bound traffic. This is “proof” that I am unreliable and irresponsible……………..clearly.

So, I just have to keep asking. Most importantly, the kids keep asking me why they can’t see me more often and they ask me to ask him. So I do. And he says no. So I ask again. And he says no. When the children ask me why he says no, I simply have to say “I don’t know why, you’ll need to ask him yourself.” What else can I say?

My eldest daughter (frighteningly mature and perceptive for her age) said: “Mummy, you have to stand up to him. If you don’t, he’ll just keep treating you badly and ignoring you. If you let him get away with it, he’ll carry on doing it. You can’t let him carry on like this.”

Well, that may be the truth and I want to stand up to him for her and my sake. But just how do you stand up to a parent who is determined to put you down and stamp on you? I can only think that I have to be as level headed as possible and appeal to his legal/rational mind. So I keep writing to him.

Unfortunately, due to the incredibly strategic manner in which my husband ran his case (he’s the head of a litigation department, so he knows all the tactics), I have learnt to ensure that there’s a paper trail of correspondence so that he can’t claim that I haven’t requested time with the kids.  I send the emails with the “Read receipt” and “Delivery report” option so that he can’t say that he didn’t receive it (which he has said in the past about emails that he’s denied receiving). When he doesn’t answer, I just keep forwarding the email asking him to reply. If this goes back to Court then I will have all my requests documented that I have continually asked to see the kids and he is persistently refusing. By asking him to reply by email, he has to put his reasons down in writing. Which of course are then also documented so there is no way that he can argue that he didn’t give the reasons that he has, in fact, given. Our whole relationship has always been plagued with the “you said “x”" , “no I didn’t – I said “y”", “no you didn’t” etc. We even discussed this in our 2 and a half years at Relate: how can 2 people sharing a conversation remember totally different things about what was said, in what tone, with what expression etc? Even before we divorced, we agreed that we would write things down in emails to send to each other so that we had a record of what each of us had said in a vain hope of avoiding rows about who said what. Clearly it didn’t work, hence the divorce……..!

Oh, and I forward all the emails and the replies to my lawyer for safe keeping in case there’s any denial that these requests were ever made……………….

However, I am no longer able to afford to instruct a barrister to represent me; therefore I am a “litigant in person”and don’t have to pay any more legal fees. That being the case, any correspondence or further Court applications won’t cost me any more money so I don’t have to worry about the fees. I think my husband will still be paying for his though……

Any other parents out there also having similar problems? Did any of you manage to find a clever way of solving this issue?

Please let me know or just keep hoping for me……………