First Steps

Okay, so you have pulled yourself together and are working out a plan for your next move. What should that be?

Well first of all, you need to contact your ex and ask if she will be willing to let you see the children. It might feel demeaning to ask permission to see your own children, but swallow your pride and go for it. If you simply collected them from school for instance, she would call the police and they would arrive, remove the children and take them back to their mother*. I suggest you do this first contact in writing - email, text or old-fashioned letter. But whichever way you make contact, always, always keep copies. Don't make any accusations - remember, everything you say and do can and will be used as evidence against you in Court, so make sure you are squeaky clean in all your dealings.

Give it enough time for a reply to be received. If there is no response, ask again. Say something along the lines: 'It's not good for the children not to see both their parents; they must be upset because I am suddenly not around any more. Can we get together to discuss this?' 

Bear in mind that all of this takes time - time your children are not seeing you, time they are missing you, time they are missing your half of the family, grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins etc. The trick is in making contact without waiting too long before the next contact. I suggest if you send a text or email, wait a couple of days for a reply; probably no longer than 3 days. If you send a written letter via Royal Mail, I suggest you wait at least a week or ten days. Do the same with the second contact if there is no reply to the first.

If she replies positively, then all well and good. Choose a neutral place to meet - a quiet cafe somewhere perhaps. You can offer that she bring someone with her if she wants to, in case she feels uncomfortable. Such a meeting is not going to be easy. I suggest you record the meeting from a device in your pocket somewhere. You do not have to say you are recording it; just do it. You might not need it, but it is there if you do. I have known such meetings take place and then the allegations that have come afterwards seem like the two meeting are on different planets. If you have recorded it, then you will be protected.

The meeting is solely to discuss arrangements for the children - do not get into the whys and wherefores of her leaving; and don't make it about trying to get back together. Focus on the children having a relationship with you now that you are no longer together.

Whatever you agree, put it in writing there and then (go armed with pen and paper). If you can do so without appearing too controlling, both of you should sign it as an agreement you have both come to.

If you do not know what kind of arrangement will work, or what to suggest regarding contact for the children, you can put together a parenting plan. There are several available on the net, or if you want to see the one I use, which is very comprehensive and sadly out of print, then please contact me through my website leaving your email address and saying you would like a copy of the DCA parenting plan, I can then send it to you.

If, after the second attempt at contact, you still get no response, or the response is entirely negative, then you will need to take the next step.

Of course, none of this will be possible if you do not know where your ex and the children are. More on this in a later post.

*Disclaimer: While I have written as if it is always the father who has been removed from the children, be aware that this can happen to mothers too and is not a gender issue. It more often affects men, which is why I have written this way, but the advice can be applied for either mother or father.

A Word on Gender

This issue does not just affect men. 

I have used as my primary example the traditional scenario of Dad coming home from work to find his family has simply disappeared, because it appears that the majority of people who are alienated from their children are fathers, but women can also be affected along with grandparents, aunts, uncles, those in same sex relationships and so on. 

When women leave the family home, they often take the children with them. Not all, but most do. When a father leaves the family home, he thinks the children need to stay where they are as they are settled - besides, where is he going to live? How can he look after children if he is homeless or sleeping on his mate's floor? The difference is the mother plans what she is going to do and where she is going to go (and has probably been doing so for months); the father often ups and leaves on the spur of the moment.

Most importantly, it affects the child. Suddenly, a whole half of their family is no longer around. They no longer see one of their parents. They miss their grandparents and cousins etc. How do they react? Often they think it's their fault - 'If only I'd kept my bedroom tidy, Mum would still be here'; 'If only I hadn't told Dad I hated him for not taking me to the match on Saturday, maybe he wouldn't have left'.

At Family Matters we assist both men and women, without prejudice based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any disability they might have. None of these precludes a person from being a good parent. Our primary focus is on the children and getting the best outcome for them in the circumstances. The one thing we do not do, is help one parent remove the other from the lives of the children unless there are good and proper reasons for doing so.

Where do I go from here?

Of course, not everybody's situation is exactly the same as I described in my last post. But for many, that is the reality. For others, they were both aware that the relationship was not working and made the decision to separate. Arrangements for the children to spend time with both parents were discussed and agreed and life continues. But after a while, you notice that other things get in the way of your contact - a party, a football game, spending time at a friend's house, grandparents - there's always some excuse, until you realise you haven't seen your children for over a month and there is little prospect of anything changing.

You also begin to notice her attitude towards you is changing. If you have a new partner, jealousy often rears its head. Not that she wants to get back together with you, but neither does she want anyone else to have you. And, more importantly, she does not want to be 'replaced' by your new partner in the lives of 'her' children. Sometimes it is that she is the one with the new partner and you have become something of a nuisance. She knows you are the children's father, but why can't you just go away and stop bothering her? She would prefer to start afresh with 'her' children and the new partner.

Little by little, or sometimes all at once, your time with your children is eroded, until there is nothing left. What can you do?

Managing Expectations

1. There is no easy fix for the problems you are now facing
2. Things can - and probably will - get worse before they get better. In some cases, much worse.

The first thing to realise is that your relationship is OVER. Accept it. Get on with your life. And concentrate on being a good parent to your children. That might sound harsh, but it is the reality. There is, in all probability, no going back.

Secondly, there might be - and probably will be - some allegations made against you. Some of these might be utterly false; some might be half truths; others might be genuine. Domestic abuse is real and affects a great many people. The difficulty is in sorting out the fact from the fiction. You might even be arrested, depending on what is said and to whom.

Finding Support

Often, you are embarrassed, so you will keep things to yourself and internalise them. This can do more harm than good. You need to talk about what has happened. For the first few days after 'the event', you will be walking around in a thick fog. Your work will suffer. There is no shame in taking a day or two sick leave. On the other hand, keeping busy might be more what you need. But do go see your Boss and explain what has happened. He has a right to know why your work is under par - and believe me, it will be.

Talk to your friends and workmates. I don't mean bore them to tears with your woes, but you need to have some support. When you talk to others, you might be surprised to find others have been through the exact same thing.

Join a support group. You don't need to face this alone and so you don't alienate all your friends and family discussing your problems, you need to find others who have been there, done that. And there is a ready made group called Families Need Fathers, which has support groups all over the country. Here you will find other people who have worse situations than yours, making you feel that maybe yours is not so bad after all; and people whose situations are just starting; others who have been in and out of Court for years and still have no contact with their children. You do not have to join the organisation to be a member, but if you do, you can then have access to the FNF forum - invaluable for getting help and advice from people anywhere in the country, many of whom have been through the system and some of whom are now McKenzie Friends (more about these in a later post). The forum is especially useful if you do not have a meeting local to you or you can't attend for one reason or another.

Welcome

One day, you go off to work in the morning as usual. Your wife or partner waves you off the same way she always does. You don't notice anything odd, but today is different. When you arrive home that evening, she is not there to greet you. There is no noise from the children to welcome your arrival and no toys on the floor for you to trip over. You call out their names - there is no reply. The kitchen is cold and quiet - no dinner is simmering on the cooker. Puzzled and beginning to panic mildly, you head upstairs. There is no sign of them there either. A wardrobe door is hanging open and you realise, with a shock, that her clothes are missing. In full panic mode now, you rush into the children's bedrooms - their clothes too are absent from the drawers and cupboards. You pull your mobile phone from your pocket and dial her number. It goes straight to the answering service. You try again, with the same result, so you try calling her mother. Her phone is switched off. Frantically you call her friends - no-one seems to know anything about it. You contemplate calling the police - has she been kidnapped along with the children? Has some terrible accident occurred? But no, accidents don't usually empty the wardrobes. This was deliberate.

Eventually, the truth dawns on you. She has left you and taken the children with her - and you have no idea where she has gone, or even why. You feel sick, you have no idea what to do or where to turn. 

But, while it was a huge shock to you, she has probably been planning this for six months or more. And what's more, this is only the beginning of the nightmare.

This is a typical scene that is played out time after time throughout the UK. Men (and some women too) are left bereft of their families and have no idea what went wrong, or why she couldn't just talk about whatever it is that was bothering her.

So what do you do about it when confronted with something like this? That's where we come in - welcome to Family Matters - a place where you can hopefully find light at the end of a very dark tunnel and learn how to wade through the system that is our Family Courts. We can help with everything from writing parenting plans, to filling in application forms for a Court order, to preparing you for attending Court and going to a final hearing and all points in between. We focus on the children and arrangements for them to have a full and proper relationship with both parents - and encourage you to do the same. This is not about the person who is now your 'ex'; it is solely about the children and how they can have a relationship with you, the 'other' parent.