I am a mother of a daughter and a son. The oldest of them is my daughter. My current husband is not her biological father.
The decision to divorce after more than 11 years, living abroad with a house and a beautiful daughter is not an easy decision. But after all those years I realized that I could not change his psychological problems and his urge to drink.
And even though I will never be total free from his problems, I fully support my decision. But if I had known everything beforehand, I would never have gone for joint authority. And not for co-parenting.
At the moment that I made the decision to leave my ex, we were still living in France. I decided to go back to the Netherlands, and my ex followed. This is to be able to be a part of the life of our daughter.
At first it all seemed to go very well. And my daughter had both me and her father in her life.
Then came the period that my ex started to drink again. In my opinion he also put my daughter in danger here. He only denied everything.
I started calling several agencies for help and to see what I could do. They all thought it was a difficult situation because you obviously have to have proof. Well, my ex was just not stupid enough for that. But I still received the message that I, as a mother, was responsible for ensuring her safety, but on the other hand, me as a mother was not allowed to deprive the father from his right to have contact with his daughter. Because this was laid down in the contact procedure. But otherwise there was not a single body that helped me and my ex cried very loudly that it was not so bad with him.
Then an anonymous report was made with concerns about the safety of my daughter at my ex home. The reporter added that mother was not in the picture.
Fortunately my ex thought that I had made this report and so I found out when he called me. I immediately contacted the care provider who was on this file. And good because they were already about to place my daughter out of the house! This while if they had done some searching, they could easily have found me as her mother.
I kept my daughter with me and she was not allowed to see her father without supervision.
In the meantime my ex had had himself taken in to rehab center to sober up. There they came to the conclusion that he is also a bipolar.
For me ex and my daughter I found this very annoying but also had the hope that something would change now. Within no time my ex had 6 health workers around him. Very nice for him.
But there was no one for me and my daughter.
As a result of the report, we naturally ended up in youth care. I have made it clear from the beginning that I want my ex to be part of my daughter's life. This is because I think she has the right to know who her biological father is. They all found it very nice to hear, but that was also the right he had emphasized.
I sat there with my current husband at the table in front of my ex, who had taken four care providers with me. Since this was a voluntary process I could not expect too much from the youth care agency and that took on a mediating role!
This surprised me a lot. It was here about the safety of my daughter? But it was not the right thing to work against the system.
That's how we entered the process. A lot of conversations where in my husband especially got the compliments about how he handled his problems. He managed to pack everyone. And my concerns were not taken seriously.
In the meantime, I am calling a lawyer to see if I could get the entire authority. This is not so much to deny my ex the access to my daughter but to be able to easily intervene if It would go wrong again.
The lawyer wanted to make a case of it. But in this country the legislation around this is very vague. And it's about how the judge sees it. And almost no longer the whole authority was given to a parent. Apart from the fact that you get a lot more authorities that will ruin your entire life to see if you are a suitable mother yourself. Since my ex had his life back on the road at that moment, the lawyer did not give it much chance. Certainly not without hard evidence.
To also keep the peace in our family and to be able to offer my daughter the peace and stability that she so desperately needed I decide not to go that way.
The first stretch of youth care has finally been closed and my daughter was allowed to go to her father without supervision during the weekends
Very nice for him and of course my daughter because she absolutely loves him. And till today I don’t speak evil about him when she is around.
Unfortunately, it went wrong two times after that. With another notification. But still no one made a hard point against him. And nobody knew what to say to me. This mainly because every time things went wrong, time passed before the authorities had time for us.
That time my ex used time and time again to turn his helpers back on and to shape his life again.
Every time I stood alone again. But with all the obligations that I have.
For my daughter, I like that her father is in her life. And as long as he is sober, he is a good loving father. And my daughter's happiness goes for everything.
Here in my house I had help to support my daughter in the vicissitudes of her life. Because that has done a lot with her over the years. I felt really helped and understood by this person.
I do not know what I'm doing when the weather goes wrong. And do not know how wrong it must be before they help me. You hear a lot of stories about it really going wrong before anything happened.
I'm scared every time she visits her father. But know that I should also give her the opportunity to be with him. She is now 8 years old. Despite the many tears, pain, grief and fear it cost me, I am glad that she has her father who is sober in her life right now.
But that is not due to the youth care, because said let me stand in the cold.
To tell me that I am obliged to guarantee the safety of my daughter, but also to respect the right of the father to contact does not go together in this case. And now I am the one who has to constantly assess how things are going. Whether he is sober and stable enough to have his daughter with him. And I know better than anyone how he can manipulate things.
I wish I had help in that. But until someone sees how it is here, I will insist. Despite the sleepless nights, the doubts as to whether or not I have done well. I can at least tell myself that I have tried that. And now my ex has really had enough chances to be a part of his daughter's life. And to him to stay sober now.
The tip that I have in such a situation for mothers or fathers. Follow your own intuition and keep your child unjustly wrong with you. Try to collect evidence no matter how difficult. And do not expect anything from youth care!
