# Contacting ex's



## riley (Sep 22, 2008)

Hi 
Can anyone help me. I've been told by my very unhelpful LA that they would like to contact my husband's ex wife. He has not spoken to her for over 7 yrs and she has a history of mental health problems. She lives in a different country to us and he has no children with her. Is this normal practice? I don't really know what they are trying to achieve from this.

We applied in Dec 2008 and they have still not decided whether we are going to go to assessment yet due to my medical problems and yet they are wanting to contact his ex. Does this seem strange to anyone else? I am meeting with sw tomorrow and just wondering what I should say?

Thanks for any advice
Riley
xx


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## Boggy (Dec 13, 2006)

Hi Riley 

Sorry you are having a frustrating start to the process.  I'm afraid that it is fairly common practice for social workers to contact ex-partners - I don't have any personal experience but I have heard of it happening.

Social workers know that partners are EX for a reason, most can see the bigger picture.  I'll see if I can find any older threads that might give you a better answer.

Bx

P.S.  If you go to "search", type Ex husband into the box and tick "adoption and fostering"  you will get a few results.  Some of them are written by people still on this board so I didn't want to post the link, but if any of those people wish to do so then please do!  

Bx


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2010)

Its standard practice to contacts significant exes, but sw are also very aware that current relationships may not be great.  If anything negative came up they would cross check it, but really they are checking there are no appalling skeletons in the cupboard that might endanger a child.  

They contacted my ex and, much to my amazement, he apparently gave me a very nice reference.  I suspect if you strongly objected they might be concerned as to why, but do clarify with them why they are making contact and raise your fears, as they are valid points.  Few people feel comfortable about contact with exes.    

Bop


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## Camly (Dec 12, 2006)

hiya

our sw'er contacte my dh's ex wife, but they have 2 kids together. again, like Bop she was unusually nice about the whole situation.  as boggy said, ss are not silly and they know how to handle 'ex's' etc. best of luck and try and not worry.    x x x x x


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## Tarango (Nov 3, 2006)

Hi, 
Just to add to the others, our SWer contacted my ex - no kiddies or anything. I was with him from 16 - almost 21 so almost half my life ago! But they considered it a 'significant' relaitonship.  

Swer just sent him a questionnaire thing but did say that if he came back with anything negative, she would speak to me about it but thankfully all was well - you don't get to see what they write so in our case no news was good news.

You might want to ask SS if you have concerns, especially health concerns.

take care 
T
xx


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## Pink Lady 66 (Sep 3, 2008)

i have been divorced 16 years no children, and have not a clue as to where he might be living !  All i can give them is his name and that is quite common, i cant even remember his date of birth.  Surely they wont expect me to track and trace him and find out where he is ?  Unless they have ways of finding him. Would they want to contact him after all this time ?


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## Tarango (Nov 3, 2006)

Hi

I was expected to search for my ex. 
I also had to track down a teacher I worked with over 10 years ago as SS wanted a reference from her.

I'm not sure if all SS would want you to track them down - our SS seemed to be very thorough and we went to panel with 15 references!!

xx


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2010)

Lady Pink said:


> i have been divorced 16 years no children, and have not a clue as to where he might be living ! All i can give them is his name and that is quite common, i cant even remember his date of birth. Surely they wont expect me to track and trace him and find out where he is ? Unless they have ways of finding him. Would they want to contact him after all this time ?


Yes they would. Isn't his date of birth on your marriage certificate? You would also need to give his last known address and details of parents etc if known. You would need to show you has taken all reasonable steps to trace him.

Bop


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## Pink Lady 66 (Sep 3, 2008)

Bop said:


> Lady Pink said:
> 
> 
> > i have been divorced 16 years no children, and have not a clue as to where he might be living ! All i can give them is his name and that is quite common, i cant even remember his date of birth. Surely they wont expect me to track and trace him and find out where he is ? Unless they have ways of finding him. Would they want to contact him after all this time ?
> ...


I dont have the wedding certificate now after all this time i am remarried everything relating to our relationship was ditched. we were only married 13 months !!!


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## Pink Lady 66 (Sep 3, 2008)

Lady Pink said:


> Bop said:
> 
> 
> > Lady Pink said:
> ...


my new marriage certificate doesnt give our full dates of birth only our ages i know how old he was he was the same age as me.


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## coxy (Aug 4, 2005)

Hi
i had the same dilemma, i was with my ex for 13 years and he was an absolute head case towards the end of our relationship and he went off the rails etc and so when they said they had to contact him it scared me as he had taken to phoning my mum every so often and i was worried it would all flare up again and that my mum would be stuck in the middle.  In the end i explained to the sw's that by contacting him it could open a can of worms and i explained what he was like and how weird he had gone when we split and basically i managed to convince them that it was bad if they contacted him, so it was agreed that they wouldnt. It was such a relief to hear that.

Julia


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## crusoe (Jun 3, 2005)

I reluctantly had to track down my ex which was tricky as I really had no idea where he was and he has several personas (one of many reasons I divorced him). I have to say he came good, answered all the s/w's questions honestly and was really quite supportive. 
I dreaded being in contact with him but our S/w's were very insistant that I made every effort to do so. I tried to wriggle out of it but couldn't!
Good luck!
Crusoe x


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## Lulu40 (Nov 20, 2009)

I was told that they'd want to contact my exes.  

I explained that one chap I'd lived with in my mid-twenties I'd fallen out with over the proceeds of a house sale and we no longer spoke and things turned out to be quite acrimonious in the end.  I Googled him, though, and gave the social workers his details.  I figured that I had explained things ended quite acrimoniously and they'd interpret whatever he told them in that context as they have sufficient experience to know when someone's just being spiteful and malicious.  Not saying that my ex would definitely say something to try and put a spanner in the works, as I don't really think he would, but just in case...

Another of my exes lives in a foreign country, because I used to live overseas, so I just gave them his email address, as we're in occasional contact still.

I do feel a bit weird about them contacting my exes, but understand it's just what they need to do and don't really have a problem with it.  It's weird because they're wanting to rake over my past, when to me it's in my past and I'd rather the exes stay there, but what can you do?


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## kittykat1234 (Jan 15, 2010)

Hi there,

I may be able to help on this one . . . . .

At my info meeting a couple of weeks ago this topic came up. The sw who was taking the meeting explained that it hasn't  always been  common practice to contact the ex's and it came about due to a man who murdered his adopted child!! The ex partner of this man later on said ' well if you had questioned me about him i would have told you that he was often violent towards my children'!!! It was then that this contacting the ex's policy came into play.

When i made my initial enquiry i was told that any previous relationships that involved children would be contacted - not all my ex's as there is only 1 that involved children and that was the last one that ended new yrs day and amicably - luckily!!

Hope this helps xx


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## nic68 (Apr 13, 2007)

Hi Riley,

Our social worker contacted my husbands ex wife but he has a son. i was guttered when they said as my husband only speaks to her if he has to and they also wanted to speak with his son, and we were not going to tell either of them about the adoption until we had been approved. to be honest very surprisingly she was fine, they just sent her a form which was like a ticky sheet just to make sure dh was a good dad. they did speak to son which was no bother at all.

nic x


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