Advice Please

[Celestine]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

Thank you for your letter, received 15/03/11. I welcome this opportunity to establish positive communication with Zoe XXXX regarding our shared parenting responsibilities toward our daughter (due xxxx). The current uncertainty and associated stress is harmful to Zoe's and our baby's welfare.

I note the allegations of bullying and harassment. Whilst I firmly deny such behaviour I deeply regret if any arguments over the last few months as our relationship failed have been interpreted as bullying or harassment, this was certainly not my intention.

I acknowledge that it has been a difficult few months for Zoe and for me, it is now very important therefore, to establish a peaceful and genuine friendship, so that Zoe may continue in her pregnancy without any stress or concern at all. I will do anything requested to ensure this happens, including respecting Zoe's wish to be left alone. There is no need to undertake injunctive proceedings against me.

However, if there is any practical way that I can offer support to Zoe, please assure her of my willingness to help; whether that be with items needed for the baby or help with hospital/medical checks. I would dearly love to attend our daughters birth but I will respect Zoe's wishes to arrange her birth plan as she feels most comfortable.

I believe Zoe will be a great mother to our child, I aim to be a great father and be positively and fully involved in our daughter's life. I sincerely hope we can all do the best for our child and communicate positively.

Something along those lines maybe, have a play to make it fit your circumstances anyway?

[Liam88]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

hi all been a while but as promised i have an update.

well, things are as bad as they can get unfortunately, i briefly spoke to zoe over the internet (only means of contact) about making some kind of friendship which she made quite clear she couldn't care less about, she wasn't nasty she just genuinely didn't care.

anyway, roll back a few months to march when i went to see a solicitor, i was offered 2 lots of monitored visits a week both of 2 hours which obviously isn't anywhere near good enough for neither me nor the baby so my solicitor went in with a proposal of me going to her everyday until zoe and the baby were well enough to visit me aswel.
Well i got my response to that proposal today, zoe will not agree to any form of mediation, she wont budge on the 2 lots of 2 hour visits per week, her solicitor has worded her reply so it sounds like i also wont get to see the baby when shes first born in the hospital and upto a week thereafter due to her being unwell to do so, i felt this had been said because its exactly what she intends to do, rather than a possibility which i would of understood and also the baby is to have zoes surname and my family aren't welcome to see the baby due to "relations being broken down" *rollseyes*

massively disappointed by this, shes doing everything she can to shut me out.
iv got another meeting with my solicitor on the 19th of this month which im eager for, iv got a lot questions id like answering, if anyone could help out and give their opinion on things so ive got something to go on until the 19th?

id like to know (if anyone can help),

have i got good grounds for immediate regular contact appointed by the courts?? if so how much contact would i be looking at getting?
will i stand a chance of getting shared residency? if so at what age of the baby would this be applicable?
does it go in my favor that zoe is being so unreasonable with her proposal? shes declined my offer of mediation, shes not allowing my family to have contact, surely this is not in the baby's best interests and that's what the courts will be most concerned with?
the surname is worrying me a little, id of liked her to of had my surname, that's the tradition after all, just seems zoes doing everything she can to shut me out.


thanks for reading (baby is due14th of june)

[Celestine]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

Hi Liam

I'll pop in tomorrow evening to reply properly to your last post.

Try not to panic or get wound up in the mean time. This is going to be a very LONG process, stay calm and you will get there.

Nice to see you popping back...good to get an update.

xx

[Liam88]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

hi all, thought id update this.

well my daughter was born on June the 19th and ive only seen her 3 times since, things got pretty ridiculous, almost every solicitor letter we received from my ex partner had accusations of this that and the other, some of which made no sense and other bits i could disprove, none the less even though i was threatened with an injunction at the beginning over the accusations neither mine nor zoes solicitors have acted at all on them so i guess that's something.. anyway after having all the trouble my solicitor finally referred us both to mediation and we both had our first joint meeting yesterday which went very well, in all honesty i didn't expect to make any progress via mediation but it did seem to on the face of things, (just have to hope she follows through on it) i have arranged 3 visits up until the 28th of this month where we will return back to mediation and look into increasing and moving contact away from her house/community centre by her to hopefully my home some of the time.

hopefully aslong as this all goes well and to plan and i build a bond with my daughter i want to be looking into applying for shared residency in the new year, hopefully a 50/50 split or as close as. has anyone here got any experience with shared residency's? what the general criteria is to obtain it? am i going to fast or expecting too much? from how my solicitor and the mediator were explaining things there's literally no reason why i shouldn't already be having lilli unsupervised and even over night so im convinced aslong as i can prove i have a bond, i am capable and can support my daughter that there wont be an issue in applying for this?

thanks all.

[leclerc]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

http://www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/pdfs...ders_4_web.pdf

Liam. this is from the rights of women website which is about residency orders and the law around this. I hope it's useful for you.

[Liam88]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

excellent, thanks for that

[Celestine]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter xxxx


Really glad the first mediation went well. Keep us updated on progress.

Regarding joint residency, if you want to learn as much as possible, join Families Need Fathers.

Families Need Fathers

Excellent website, excellent support and advice and local contact groups sharing experiences. I've attended a few myself!

Look forward to hearing more xx

[Liam88]

Re: Advice on shared parenting

Thanks Celestine

one thing id like to get a better understanding of, if and when i apply for shared residency how will that effect my ex partners benefits? and would that allow me to claim for working tax and child credits?

thanks

[Liam88]

Re: Advice Please

Hopefully this is the final update to my story.

I received a letter from my solicitor yesterday morning regarding the good progress ive made with my ex and my daughter and even giving me credit for seeing it through with a positive head. (in so many words)
At the moment contact with my daughter is 3 days a week for 3 hours at a time, 1 of these days are at my home and later this month i will be caring for her on my own for the first time which i cant wait for.
Next month we are due to discuss progressing contact arrangements further and altering things to suit us better on a more long term basis which will be brilliant.
we also spoke about the difficulties we had in the beginning of this and we both came to the conclusion that it was down to misinterpretation of what the other person meant, which im happy for in one sense as i can move forward with things now knowing its cleared up but on the other hand it cost me missing the first 3 months of my daughters life.. there's a lesson to be learnt in that.

Were bound to have problems along the way, one of us will inevitably do something that the other doesn't like but from what ive learned throughout it all im confident we can sort it out between ourselves from now on.

i hope anyone that stumbles across this thread for advice finds it useful, i was put in a very scary and depressing situation, something i don't usually handle well and i came out of it well, i kept calm, maintained the same attitude throughout, searched for advice and used the correct channels to resolve the issues and its paid off, the turn around from say 2/3 months ago is unbelievable.

Thanks everyone for listening and helping.

[Celestine]

Re: Advice Please

Awww Liam, I am SO pleased for you and your daughter xxx

You kept calm, despite severe provocation, thought things through, saw the bigger, longer term picture and kept your cool. Bloody well done xxx

The long term benefit to your daughter will be massive, she doesn't need to be another negative statistic of single parenting, she has TWO parents who will always be there for her and in many ways, for each other to her benefit.

((((HUGE HUGS)))))

[The Debt Star]

Re: Advice Please

Good for you mate and well done.