Single mums UK

I'm coming to the end of 4 years stuck in family court (England), battle with ex over custody. Ex is abusive, has strong narc traits and very good at playing low level consistent subtle abuse. Our final hearing is in a months time and I'm so stressed and anxious about it, I'm not sleeping through the night, and not concentrating at work. It's like all I can do is parent and even with that I feel like I'm failing.

Has anyone been cross examined and have any tips please? I have no poker face, ex lawyer is a prick so I know he will say awful things to me, just to provoke me. They said they want to cross examine me for 3 hours!

My lawyer says she will stop them trying to destroy me, but ultimately a judge will decide what is and isn't allowed.

Any tips on how to survive this?

Has anyone recently tried mediation? My ex partner is trying to become main parent by requesting for an extra day - this came about since I applied for child maintenance. It’s currently 60/40. He doesn’t want to pay, so he’s currently requesting for an extra day. Bare in mind our sons had a perfect routine between us since October last year! And now my ex is unhappy with it! In asking for this day, he would become main parent. But I’m not okay with this. I do everything for our son, doctors appointments, dentist, nursery, nursery bills alone. I’m refusing this extra day each week.

So I had my first MIAM yesterday and I decided to try mediation. Hopefully he co operates🤦🏽‍♀️

Hi. We are a couple, not married and we got a 1 year old baby. The dad it’s on the birth certificate. We are at a breaking point, I verbally agreed to 50% child arrangement but then when it’s about discussing the days we can each have them he is being difficult, wants his own preferred days, he makes it difficult about nurseries saying you can look for this when you moved out and I can care about her during the day while you do that. I did go without telling him because he won’t accept coming and then he blamed me and behaved as in I am planning to take her away, being defensive etc and telling me he needs to agree which nursery I put her in. I agree about that but if he is not willing to accept we need to find one I went one morning and saw the most local one. It’s all very scary for me as I am the one who needs to move out and also he has been always a controlling person.

I think a legal consultation would help me at this point.

Is there anyone that can help? The anxiety makes me loose sleep and weight.

So my ex told me that his girlfriend is 4 months pregnant and I am struggling to process it.

Back story: my ex and I broke up initially when he left out of the blue when our son was 7 months old. He came back after having a fling with an 18 year old and then a few months later I found out that he was cheating on me with that same girl.

When they broke up, we would get together every now and then (dug my own grave, I know) until one day he told me that things were getting “more serious” with this other girl. I had no idea there was a girl that he was seeing. Nothing further happened until one day a year later, he randomly tried to kiss me. I assumed that he had split up with her but she was just travelling for a month. I told him to tell her and he refused. He introduced our son to her.

Now she’s pregnant, has no idea as to why we’re not together, no idea that he attempted to cheat on her whilst she was away.

The reason I am so hurt by this is because of the way he treated me after I had his baby. It was awful. He was so unsupportive and then left me on my own with no family or friends around me. I’m jealous that he gets to start again and I’m angry that she has no idea about any of this. I can hardly tell her. I’m trying so hard to be happy for my little boy to have a baby brother or sister but I am absolutely heartbroken by the news. I feel like all I’m seeing is babies, happy families and celebrations.

I broke up with my baby’s father during pregnancy and it’s just me and my baby who live together. I do everything to raise her except one weeknight when he comes for 3 hours to play with her and do her bath, and one weekend day when he comes to play with her. All the hard stuff (sleep training, making all her weaning food and getting her to eat, medical appointments, setting and keeping her routine and timings etc) I do alone. I feel so guilty as I’m constantly exhausted and sometimes I’m too tired to play with her and sit there like a zombie! She wakes 1-3 times a night to feed and we go out to do something every day but just staying on top of housework, washing, making her food etc I feel so tired. Is this normal?