Divorce / Separation

I have a 6 year old son who was diagnosed with ASD when he was 4 years old. He has been living with me and my wife throughout his life, however; at the end of October 2019 my wife and I separated. My wife moved out and moved into her mother's home and she has taken our son with her.

My wife initially refused me access to our son and from my side I have done everything by the book because I don't want to cause any distress to our son. For example, I am in constant contact with his school to keep up to date with his progress and I can quite easily walk into school and take him out as I have joint parental responsibility and the school will not stop me from doing that. But, as I said before I am making sure I do everything by the book to not cause any distress to my son.

6 weeks after moving out and refusing access, my wife agreed to me visiting my son at her mother's house. This arrangement was made through the solicitors and I was meant to go and visit my son at her mother's home. On the day I turned up to find my wife, my mother in law and my son sitting in my wife's car parked outside her mother's home. It was obvious from the moment I saw this, it was a setup designed to ensure the visit was a failure. I only saw my son for a few mins and had to call the police as the mother in law became aggresive.

I am now not going to attempt any further visits as they will pull further stunts to ensure the visits fail and it is my son who will suffer the most. I am pursuing this via the courts but that takes time, a long time...

Just wondering if there are other people out there in the same boat as me? I have said to my solicitor that I want time with my son where he comes over at weekends and stays with me, that I want holidays to be split equally so that I get my fair share of time with my son.

Anyone out there who has been through something like this, is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Parents
  • I am so sorry for the attitude of some parents in such situations. We should understand that the child suffers, but we should not put our interests as a parent first before the interests of the children, especially for those diagnosed with ASD. Your only solution would be to get a lawyer and settle this in court. I recommend you have a lawyer from [Removed by Moderator] who defended us in court when we divorced my ex-wife. We, as parents, have been quite supportive of our children, and we did not want to make them suffer more. So the kids stayed with her, but I visited them weekly.

Reply
  • I am so sorry for the attitude of some parents in such situations. We should understand that the child suffers, but we should not put our interests as a parent first before the interests of the children, especially for those diagnosed with ASD. Your only solution would be to get a lawyer and settle this in court. I recommend you have a lawyer from [Removed by Moderator] who defended us in court when we divorced my ex-wife. We, as parents, have been quite supportive of our children, and we did not want to make them suffer more. So the kids stayed with her, but I visited them weekly.

Children
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