Slightly long story, in September my ex partner and I split up as he cheated on me. There was a lot of bitterness and problems from there. It was agreed between us that I would have my daughter 4 nights a week and he 3 nights a week. This has been maintained since then. He moved in with his parents and I continue to rent the family home.
The beginning of January we decided to give things another go, he stayed living with his parents, it was all going well until the night before last I found he cheated on me again since we had got back together. We had a massive argument, he has quite a bad anger problem so he was hitting himself and the door before he eventually turned on me and threatened to 'smash my face in' pushed me around and slammed my head into the microwave. I've suffered with depression for years and I've been waiting for months now for my medication review as I had a bad reaction to my previous anti-depressents, I've kept calling because I know I'm not well and the CMHT keep promising to get back to me and they haven't.
I was left in a lot of debt from the previous split and Tax Credits have made a mistake that has left me with next to no money as it has in turn stopped some of my other benefits and the appeal will take 12-14 weeks to process. It doesn't excuse this, I know, but I began to take an overdose, the cheating just pushed me over the edge. I stopped because I realised it was stupid and didn't take enough to do any damage. My ex partner watched our daughter while I stayed in for observation and was discharged.
I text him saying I'd pick her up normal time tomorrow and explained that I was sorry, it was stupid, but after the cheating I don't want to be with him anymore. Then he text back saying he thinks it's best that he takes her for a while and I can only have access to her some days in his presence. This is ridiculous, he knows I'm a perfectly capable and good mum, I don't want to be around him as it makes me anxious because of the violence.
I've contacted a solicitor to get the ball rolling. I never even wanted this, I was quite happy with our joint custody arrangement and that's all I want. I'm just worried that because of what happened the night before last he will get sole custody.
I know that I can just take her and he can't do anything about it, my friend said she would go with me to the baby group that they will be attending at his workplace tomorrow, I know that if I want to have her in residence with me again I'll have to stop him seeing her until the court decision but I'd hate for her not to see her daddy. I'm not like him, I want him to be active in her life and I liked the joint custody we had going, but I feel like I don't have a choice?
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Custody - help.
19 replies
Catticus · 07/02/2013 00:00
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