# Bitter ex wife! Please help



## Kilmoregirl (Mar 13, 2008)

We are half way through our assessment for adoption. My husband was divorced 15 years ago. The SW needs to contact the ex-wife but she is refusing to cooperate unless my husband asks her face to face. This he wont do.  What if she doesn't cooperate? Does that mean we cant finish our adoption asessment? Would love to hear from anyone.


----------



## Maccer (Feb 2, 2010)

Hi Kilmoregirl,

 I don't have any advice but I know further down the line I will be itn the same shoes as you are, so will be watching this post, I hope a solution can be found to your problem, did they have any children together?

Mx


----------



## Tarango (Nov 3, 2006)

hi, 

 for the additional stress and worry.

Our SWer just wanted the name and address of the people to contact. They dealt with the person from then on. I did not have to speak or contact the person who I was in a 'significant' relationship with.

Can your DH just pass on her details and let SS deal with her?
I think you just have to give the person's details not to make sure they respond. 

Some people!!  

HTH in some small way xx

T
xx


----------



## nic68 (Apr 13, 2007)

Hi Kilmoregirl,

When we started the adoption training i was really guttered that sw would be contacting my dh ex wife as we didn't want her to know anything as hubby only speaks if need be (he has a son with her). anyway they said that all they did was send a form which is like a ticky box which basically just asked if he had been a good father and had not been abusive etc. no probs with that, she did ring up sw trying to be funny about things, but didn't make any difference as sw said that they understand ex partners can try and be funny. they also spoke face to face with his son so we had to tell him about adoption ( we didn't want to tell him until we knew we were gonna be placed). only thing now is he keeps asking have we any news yet bless him.

hope this helps 

nic x


----------



## Kilmoregirl (Mar 13, 2008)

Dh and ex have no children so I really dont know why SW has to contact her.  SW just met with DH's sister (she was one of our referees) and now wants to meet with him again on his own because apparently there is an issue. We dont know what she has said and she (SW) hasn't even talked to the ex wife! Really feel like packing the whole thing in. Another thing is she said that if we tick too many boxes about the children we would not accept then we will never be picked but really do we want to choose a child whose parents are drug addicts! Especially with all this contact allowed.  We live in a small community and there is every likelyhood that we could bump into them. Could somebody please come back with something positive as I'm fed up with the whole lot of it.   Every now and again we both say why not get 2 dogs instead. We are real animal lovers and have 2 cats. Our SW has a real aversion to them and spent a half hour qizzing us about them, which personally I think is getting off subject a bit. Any feedback would be gratefully appreciated. xxx


----------



## Camly (Dec 12, 2006)

hi

sorry ur feeling dis-heartened about everything at the moment.  there were times when hs got to us too but try and stay focused.  with regard to your choices.....i know when we originally looked at the 'tick' list we had quite alot of 'no's but once we discussed these with our sw'er it made us open our minds up abit more to what the 'choices' meant i.e problems with eyes could mean anything from blind to a squint, walking issues could be from great difficulty to turned in feet etc.  with regard to drugs issues, i think you have to be prepared that (well in our area and hope not speaking out of turn here) a few children may be looked after due to this reason.  try doing some research on the effects of drug misuse and then you may have a clearer idea as to what types of situations u may face.  

sorry if this doesnt help any, just wanted to say that try and keep positive.  we are now mummy and daddy to 2 little girls, who have not had the best start in life but we hope to help it get better.  they just melt our hearts and we love them to pieces.

best of luck with you journey    x x x x x x


----------



## Iman (Oct 11, 2007)

Hi Kilmoregirl

Sorry to hear you are having these isses with the ex-wife. Would your DH definatley not contact her himselef to ask her to co-operate?? He might have to bit the bullet and do it, no matter how awful she is back in return. 

Re your comment:

" will never be picked but really do we want to choose a child whose parents are drug addicts!"

I dont understand this - perhaps you could explain because Im getting the wrong end of the stick perhaps. Yes I understand why you might not want to have face-to-face contact with an existing drug user parent but other than that - why would you not want to parent children whose parent used drugs 

Drug dependent birth issues (health issues) aside - they themselves may be unaffected in their health and other than that, i couldnt see a problem myself. Have you been on Prep group? ( presuming so)  Our Prep group gave a very good detailed and realistic explanation of the affects of each drug which may help clarify or as Camly says do some research. Many children have had some contact with drugs in their lives so you might be hard pushed to totally avoid that area.

I symptahise re feeling fed up with it all because it is a very long process that at times really drags and can seem very overwhelming but I know it will be worth it in the end. I also have come to conclusion stuff what anyone else thinks (i.e in ur case the ex-wife), we will prob be hot topic of gossip for a little while but people soon move on to something else and essentially its no-ones' business but yours.

good luck!!

xxx


----------



## kittykat1234 (Jan 15, 2010)

Hey Kilmoregirl -  

I have no advice to give re the ex situation but i do on the drug use of the birth parents and effects etc.
I rescently went on a auk 'parental misuse of drugs and alcohol' which was amazing, maybe you could see when their next one is as this is a reason why a lot of children are in care and definately something i am very interested in as it's something i do feel i could deal with.
Drug misuse has much less effects than alcohol, something i was very shocked about!! That's not to say there aren't effects (not all the time), but in some cases there are. This can be things like short concentration span in the child, aniexty,having to remove labels etc of clothing as this bothers the child etc. There is a post on here about it from a nurse and it's brilliant! Have a look for it!

Hope this helps xxx


----------



## kittykat1234 (Jan 15, 2010)

Here is the link - http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=192661.0

Hope this helps xx


----------



## katie c (Jun 15, 2009)

Kilmoregirl said:


> but really do we want to choose a child whose parents are drug addicts! *Especially with all this contact allowed.*


i'm not an expert but i honestly don't think there would be a huge amount of actual physical contact. just letter box and so on. especially if the parents are serious drug abusers.

a few years ago i hated the idea of adoptiong due to the open adoption policy, and felt that 'well it would be my child now, why do they need to know of their old family?' but having read about it i can see what value it has...if for no other reason than that the children know who they are, aren't yearning for david and victoria beckham to come and reclaim them...

just because the child knows about their background, it doesn't follow they'll reject you


----------



## Ruthiebabe (Dec 15, 2003)

Hi Kilmoregirl,

i agree with what's been said before, if you limit yourself to only those with no drug exposure you may well be waiting a long time. And as a mother of a child born addicted i can say that he is no different from any other adopted child, or non-adopted child for that matter. Maybe a bit of research into the area might make it seem less black and white for you.

As for living in a small community, you won't be placed with anyone from your community. It is something they are very careful about. And direct contact is quite rare, and highly unlikely to be with someone still using drugs.

good luck with the ex-wife!
xxruthie


----------



## Camly (Dec 12, 2006)

me again  

just wanted to add re the face to face contact - our girls had not seen their bp's for months, then when we bought them home face to face contact was reinstated!! after 5 months we have finally been able to get this cancelled. apparently our case was very rare for the contact to be reinstated but just wanted to let you know that it can happen  

best of luck with your journey.

x x x x x x x


----------



## Kilmoregirl (Mar 13, 2008)

Thanks to everyones replys they have been really helpful.

At first we didn't actually say we wouldn't take a child with drug addict parents - we actually said we would discuss it first.  It was when we said that we would agree to have contact with the bps that was really my family's concern at bringing them into contact with us. It was just a bit of a shock. We have discussed it since and have agreed not to reject a child on these terms.

Once again thanks everyone.
xxxxxxxx


----------

