Father Gaining Contact After Eight Years

[leclerc]

Re: Father Gaining Contact After Eight Years

Apologies for this, but I don't agree with a letter to the parents of your ex. To be honest, you need to go through the process of trying to get contact and trying to do so through the back door so to speak may not be the best thing to do.
If the parents are close to their daughter then you are alerting them to possibility of what you intend and furthermore, they might, regardless of how you write a letter, think that you are threatening them.

MissFM, I disagree strongly with what has been advised. The object is to get contact with the child and NOT to have a nice friendly relationship with the maternal grandparents of the child or to attempt to sweeten them up.

[MissFM]

Re: Father Gaining Contact After Eight Years

Apologies for this, but I don't agree with a letter to the parents of your ex. To be honest, you need to go through the process of trying to get contact and trying to do so through the back door so to speak may not be the best thing to do.
If the parents are close to their daughter then you are alerting them to possibility of what you intend and furthermore, they might, regardless of how you write a letter, think that you are threatening them.

MissFM, I disagree strongly with what has been advised. The object is to get contact with the child and NOT to have a nice friendly relationship with the maternal grandparents of the child or to attempt to sweeten them up.

Hmmm - bit of a misunderstanding here. I understood the letter to be to the OP's ex-wife and fellow parent, not to the ex- in-laws as you understand, according to your post above, Leclerc.

Also - my contributions to this thread and others are not "advice" but an opinion, based on personal experience - so not disagreeing with your last sentence at all - it doesn't reflect any suggestion I have intended to make.

Differing opinions are of just as much value as those that agree, IMO.

Where we maybe do genuinely disagree is that I absolutely support the OP's decision in going the extra mile for some sort of reconciliation and agreement BEFORE positions are entrenched (escalated) in legal conflict, in the hope that the child maybe can be spared warring parents with intrusive officials deciding her fate.

I don't think the importance of the OP's immediate actions in terms of his future relationship with his daughter can be overestimated - hence it's entirely his decision and probably any results are not written in stone, whatever he chooses.

These conflicts (relating to children of estranged parents) require Biblical doses of wisdom, forgiveness, patience and love - none of which any of us is able to provide - so we are only able to offer our best..

[leclerc]

Re: Father Gaining Contact After Eight Years

Hmmm - bit of a misunderstanding here. I understood the letter to be to the OP's ex-wife and fellow parent, not to the ex- in-laws as you understand, according to your post above, Leclerc.
It may not be clear who's parents the OP is referring to: is it his daughter's parents(surely he is one of them), the ex's parents or something else
Also - my contributions to this thread and others are not "advice" but an opinion, based on personal experience - so not disagreeing with your last sentence at all - it doesn't reflect any suggestion I have intended to make.
I'm not going into semantics on here with you as a forum is usually called an advice forum but I accept it is your opinion which I disagree with.
Differing opinions are of just as much value as those that agree, IMO.

Where we maybe do genuinely disagree is that I absolutely support the OP's decision in going the extra mile for some sort of reconciliation and agreement BEFORE positions are entrenched (escalated) in legal conflict, in the hope that the child maybe can be spared warring parents with intrusive officials deciding her fate.
In all honesty, MissFM, the child is 8 years old and their opinion will come into this via the CAFCASS evaluation. A letter can have one of two consequences: it may entrench an opinion that may have been given to the 8 year old when they ask about their father or it might(which seems unlikely from the scenario given above) cool the embers. Asking for contact under section 8 of The Children's Act whether we like it or not will have to be done. A previous attempt by the OP to the ex was rebuffed out of hand ie Facebook. A Section 8 application is, from what I have read, the only way forward. Even if the OP fails then he has documentary evidence that he tried to have contact. On these kinds of scenario where there may potentially be an allegation of previous volatile behaviour then perhaps some form of supervised contact might be the way forward initially, and with someone neutral to the situation ie not the ex.
I don't think the importance of the OP's immediate actions in terms of his future relationship with his daughter can be overestimated - hence it's entirely his decision and probably any results are not written in stone, whatever he chooses.

These conflicts (relating to children of estranged parents) require Biblical doses of wisdom, forgiveness, patience and love - none of which any of us is able to provide - so we are only able to offer our best..

see above....