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.