Could really use some help

[Aegean]

Hoping someone can help? My ex fiance split up with me in December, whilst nearly 3 months pregnant. It was rocky for the remainder of December, whilst I tried to salvage the relationship, which didn't happen. And the beginning of January, things looked like they were turning around, however after I finished paying off a holiday that was booked for Feb, for her and her 2 boys, which we were all supposed to be going on, she told me she didn't want me to go. So I didn't, she went, came back, then again began making me out to be the worst person alive. Since then, I have not seen her, not spoken to her on the phone, and any messages I've sent have rarely gotten a reply of more than one word. I have been told during this time that I will be "put on a rota system once baby is here as I don't mind you seeing her once or twice a month". I've been told that I won't be put on her birth certificate as I can make make her life difficult. I've beenaccused of my home being unsafe for children, accused of having mental health problems, accused of being obsessed with her, accused of threatening her. None of this I have done. This all began when she realised I wanted 50/50 shared custody once she's old enough. We were best friends for 8 years before we got together, so I feel like I've lost everything here. She is not my priority, my daughter is and always will be. I was also told last week by her sister that for the first week once she is born I can to her house once a day for an hour, as apparently mother and baby and bonding time is more important. She is now due any day. Can anyone advise please on how I can go about getting 50/50?

Trying not to make this a long read, I can go into more details if anyone would like them. Thank you in advance for any and all help!

 

[Resolute]

You will get much more involved responses from others but a few pointers that come from experiences I have seen other dads go through and a little from my own experience.

If you are not put on the Birth Cert you will need to go to court in order to get Parental Responsibility. This need not be your focus for the immediate. You have time to try and establish the best possible position by agreement before battles in the court begin. If you are in a final hearing 12 months from now, it will really help to have already been involved with the baby.

If you are being offered an hour a day for the first week, I would grab that as quick as you can. It would be a strange thing for her to offer if you are not the father and it gets you in the picture.

If you have the means, I suggest you offer to source anything the new baby will need - car seat, stroller... "I am happy to source a good one, but please let me know if there is a particular brand/model you want." Even ask the sister if there is anything you could sort out, there are lots of little purchases you could help with - nappies, clothes...

Allegations, court orders, 50/50... are all going to be very important. But unless the mother is utterly unfit and demonstrably incapable of providing a safe environment for the child, they are for a little further down the line. Until the child is two it will be fairly easy for the mother to limit your involvement. Short, regular, and hopefully frequent, time with the baby is the aim to begin with.

Please take advice from the forum at large and other sources before responding to negative correspondence from ex.

In the meantime, make records! Pull together all previous correspondence, gather evidence, record everything. Allegations you mention are relatively narrow at present. The threats and obsession/harassment will likely have to be assessed by the court. Mental health and unsafe home are things you can prepare for. I suggest you make a Subject Access Request for your medical records and any records from professionals you have engaged with around emotional/mental wellbeing. Make your home baby safe and pristine, so pictures of the environment can be provided and it is ready for assessment.

It is not unusual for additional allegations to surface as things progress. If you like a drink, I suggest you limit yourself to two or three nights a week as the maximum. Otherwise it needs to max 2 drinks a day. Two large glasses of wine a day, or two cans of strong cider, would have you on, or over, the brink of "chronic excessive alcohol use." If you use illicit substances, beware that may also be tested. Up to now, anything you have done was before the baby's birth.

This is such a distressing time, just keeping myself going was as much as I could manage at points and I did not take my own advice around practical/administrative steps. Your future self will thank you if you do.

In solidarity.

 

[Resolute]

p.s. If drugs and alcohol stuff could be relevant, feel free to pm me

 

[Ash]

Excellent advice above. I was in your situation - not quite but similar. That was over 14 years ago when the legal system for Dads was worse than it is now. The legal position is shaky until your child is a bit older, if you're already separated. You need to take care of you too - it sounds slightly abusive, getting you to pay for a holiday and then saying you can't come. I guess you could have cancelled the holiday but were probably trying to keep the relationship going and not upset her.

I don't know your relationship but it's hard when it ends and it was a one-sided ending, especially if you were friends for 8 years first. All I will comment on is, your ex appears to have previous experience of having children with another man who is not involved. She knows the ropes. What was her experience there? Was she divorced?

We can analyse till the cows come home as to what made things go wrong, but pregnancy has hormones and emotions raging all over the place and can trigger all kinds of fears and feelings about the future. I am also somewhat of a cynic actually - there are women who just get pregnant and leave and know you will have to pay child support.

The legal situation is not simple. Yes you are legally the Father and should have parental responsibility. You don't at the moment because you weren't married to the Mother and she is not putting you on the birth certificate. Even if you did have PR now, the way the law works is in favour of the Mother for the first two years due to the possibility of breast feeding for up to two years. It's the way it is. The most a court would order would be a few hours a week with you - maybe a couple of hours two days a week. At least until the child is one. There have been cases where it has been successfully argued that the Mother is not breastfeeding and more time was ordered. And also cases where it has been successfully argued that the Mother can express milk if she is breast feeding. But every case is different and in those cases separation has usually been after the baby was born. Your ex is being clever and as I said, seems to know the ropes.

In my situation, I had only dated my ex a handful of times over 2 or 3 weeks. She made quite a play for me (and a lot of other men too I found later!). She had big financial problems I didn't know about. I also later found out from one of her friends, that she had planned to get pregnant because someone told her - as a single Mum you'll get loads of money from the Government and the Dad. She broke it off a couple of times in that 3 weeks and moved onto someone else who was quite wealthy. I was quite relieved as I saw she had a very nasty side and would send abusive messages. Six months later contacted me and told me she was pregnant (she had told me she was infertile). You can imagine my immediate reaction. But at six months it was too late for a termination. So after a lot of support from friends I accepted upcoming Fatherhood and co parenting with a woman who carried on bullying me and controlling me for years.

Anyway. The point is - once I accepted being a Dad, like you, I wanted to be fully involved and emotions kick in. I decided to bend over backwards to be helpful and supportive to see the child as much as possible. In some ways I was lucky she didn't have family around as needed support. So I paid for ante natal classes and attended them with her, gave her lifts, took her shopping for baby stuff. Bent over backwards basically to be a friend. I was also lucky that she was not inclined to sit at home with a baby and liked her nights out. Every Saturday night and one night during the week. So I went to her house to babysit. By the time my son was a few weeks old I was having a Saturday overnight every week until Sunday tea time - to give her a break. Then a midweek overnight as well. By 6 months she was needing to earn and put the baby in nursery. On my nights I kept him out of nursery next day - I was self employed so could work time around. I continued to ferry her about, pay child support, help with nursery fees (some of this under duress- she would regularly threaten to stop me seeing my son if I didn't pay more money). I chose to suck it up and bend over backwards to be a friend. It wasn't good for me but I had friends and support. She had told me I had no legal rights or PR. I didn't find out that was untrue until my son was about 18 months old. She was keen to put me on the birth certificate because she wanted the Child Maintenance. But basically I had two nights a week and half a week-end until my son was 2.5. By keeping amicable and being treated like that, I gained another night a week as she met her new H and was keen to have time with him. As luck would have it, he had two kids and a sensible schedule with his ex, so I got the same schedule - she wanted all the kids away at the same time and there at the same time.

I am not sure what the situation is with your ex. But things can settle down. Don't ever mention court. Or 50/50 again. Just say you want to be a good Dad and you know that a Mum is important (lie if you have to - not great I know but we are at a disadvantage and she has the power right now).

Is she not wanting any child maintenance paying? It sounds like she is determined to ensure you have no legal rights and is willing to forego CM for that. Because if she's not recognising you as the Father, by putting you on the birth certificate, then my understanding is she can't claim CM payments. If she does! Telling CMS you're the Father, then you have your evidence for later! That you're the Father. Also do you have anything in writing? A text? An email? Mentioning she is not going to put you on the birth certificate. Because that is also evidence that she knows you're the Father.

Are you sure you are the Father? How were things between you before she got pregnant? Did anyone else go on holiday with her and the kids?

Sorry. What you really need right now is a plan.

And I agree with Resolute. You need to be strategic about this. Don't fall out with her. The only way you'll build up time and a relationship with your child is by bending over backwards to be nice and helpful. Let your feelings out on here, and it may be case of having to "act" for a while for the greater purpose in the long run.

Of course if she has plenty of support - family and friends, she may not want any help from you, but offer it anyway - gradually.

Is she going to ante natal classes? Offer to pay for some private ones (if you can afford it) saying you know it's important things are the best they can be for her for the birth. Remind her you were friends for 8 years and you still want to be her friend and support her in any way you can through this time. Accept the couple of times offered in the first week. Take a gift for her/the baby. You need to win her over basically by being perfect.

I know this is really really tough, but if we want to be involved with our kids there are a lot of sacrifices including emotional.

But I will just say - finally. Are you sure you want this? You could just walk away. Let her pursue you for CM if she wants - she has no proof you're the Father. Get on with your life and don't have this woman ruin it for years. It is an option. I suspect, like most Dads - you can't do that, because once you know a baby is your own flesh and blood you want to be involved.

Something else I later found out after my son was born when he was about a year old. My ex had been two timing during our 2 to 3 week dating. And before she told me she was pregnant, some months later, she had approached the other man first and told him it was his. He had told her to get lost and said he wanted nothing to do with her or the child. She then came to me - number two. I was the mug who got emotional about having a child having never been a Dad before. So when my son was a year old and I was incredibly bonded with him, I then had information that basically told me - he might not be mine after all. Can you imagine? I went through hell. I came to the conclusion he was mine anyway because I had such a bond with him and loved him, but always had it hanging over me that he might not be. There is no way my ex would have agreed to a DNA test (I was advised to do that when she was first pregnant but she made a huge drama so I let it drop). She would have just stopped contact (as she did many times to get me to do what she wanted).

The end to that is, by the time my son was 18 months old I knew - various physical genetic traits the same as mine. It was a relief.

I don't know your situation, how much you earn, whether you have a home, how old you are. But all I do know is my ex has been making my life hell ever since. Even after 14 years she still blackmails me. And I have a very good court order. She uses all kinds of dirty tricks. She has tried to disrupt my current relationship many many times.

So how old are you? What were your plans in life? I think what society and courts fail to recognise, is that many Dads feel the responsibility for their unborn child even when separated - whereas single Mums think "child is mine".

Assuming you want to be involved - just remember, your ex is HIGHLY hormonal right now! And will be for the next 6 months probably. Tread gently. It's frustrating, it's emotionally devastating being apart from a child when you want more time. But don't mention 50/50 again - she will have irrational fears of losing her child. And believe me these women are way ahead of us sometimes - she is probably already thinking about how it will be when you have a new partner and another woman is involved with "her" child.

 

[Ash]

So I'd say either win her over, be perfect, win her trust and friendship (and I know it's always unequal and she has all the power but ,...) or decide to walk away. If you decide you want to be involved with your unborn child, accept it is going to take time to have regular time.

When going to court, it's the history that counts. The more time you've had, the more you're likely to get awarded. So you need to build up that time. Accept whatever is offered. Offer to babysit. Go on a childcare nightclass. Go to ante natal classes with her (if she'll let you - say you want to be the best Dad). Impress her. If none of that works, just take whatever time you're offered and do NOT get into arguments with her.

The history of regular time, however little, will undermine any allegations she might make if you apply to court in future.

The goal you should be aiming for right now is - seeing your child at least twice a week. Even if it's only an hour at a time. Gaining the Mother's trust (they think no-one can look after babies like they can). Don't fall out with her or it'll just get harder and harder.