My husband and I are both 33 and have a 6 year old daughter. We lived with my in laws and regrettably had my daughter early on in the relationship. I didn’t know how controlling they are. They pushed us out about 3 years ago when we weren’t financially ready. They were supposed to increase the days we had with her. Instead they didn’t. My husband didn’t care. We had money problems but I didn’t know where to go to for help. My parents were supposed to have meetings with my in laws- to prevent this becoming a mess. But all they cared about was themselves. We couldn’t afford the place. My in laws lied and filed for custody. I desperately want my daughter back. It has been 3 years of empty promises of getting my daughter back. Everyday is a screaming match. Please help
156 Replies
You've posted this before. The main responses still stand: 1. How did they get custody? Court? You signed it over? You were absent? Facs?
Those are the same people you need to contact to get custody back.
But you have to sort yourself out first. It's nobodys fault but you're own and screaming matches daily doesn't sound appropriate at all, gives off signs you still haven't matured enough to parent.
Pages
1. They used my mental health against me. I was blindsided and they lied about taking us to court. So of coarse I don’t was naturally distraught. How’s that fair? Yes it went to court. It was my husband who was immature and didn’t care about them taking over. When I brought it up, he told me to go screw myself/ starred into space. They gaslighted me about their intentions.
It was also made clear last time that having your kids tricked out of your care shows great concern for your ability to parent and keep them safe.
Is there a reason all this happened? Intellectual disability? Drugs?
I advise you to seek help in learning how to function as an adult and as a parent. Either a psychologist or speak to facs or a specialist for whatever the issue has been for you. Start from there and the rest will flow.
Wow you don't understand coercive control .
Wow you don't understand coercive control .
Wow you don't understand coercive control .
We all know mental health isn't a reason to take custody away from a parent unless the child is at significant risk of being harmed by the parent with the issues who are not dealing with them appropriately or seeking help for them selves to raise their child appropriately. Theres more to this story than you are letting on.
A judge will not take a child unless they are at risk or the parent is a drug addict refusing help and services.
You can represent yourself in court, you do not need a lawyer to do this. Your husband has something very obviously wrong with him for him to be so immature and not give a shit. In fact your relationship sounds toxic. Have you had yourself assessed for Autism? ADHD? ADD?
To let yourself get to a point where you cannot function well enough to raise your child and for a court to take custody from you, there is obviously a reason. Get yourself some help, get a job, go to parenting classes, do anything you can to better yourself so a judge can say that you are the right person for your child to be living with. 27 is not too young to have a child 27 is a perfect age to be having a child if you are emotionally and mentally mature enough. You've had 3 years to fix this and this is the second time you’ve posted about this. Nothing seems to have changed at all: If the threat of court is enough for you to sign over custody what were you doing that wouldnt have let the case go your favour??
She said they had their daughter early on in the relationship, not early as in their age and being too young.
Everything else you said is spot on!
Seek mediation and supervised visits. There's so much going on that you have left out, and if this toxicity continues , before you know it 10 years would have passed.
Seek services to help yourself first. Since 3 years have already gone by, what progress have you done during that time?
There's a lot of us out in the world raising kids while we struggle through mental illness. Mine in particular - depression, anxiety, PTSD. Possible personality disorder but at my age I CBF, I simply downloaded a DBT book to start working through. If it helps, it helps. The best thing is it can't ever hurt.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result.
Your story remains the same? Exactly the same.
It's been a few weeks. Who have you spoken to, what have you done to improve your financial ability to raise a child, where have you moved to, what have you decided or enrolled in to learn?
Basically, if you say you want this so badly why aren't you doing anything about it?
Hey OP! I understand what it's like to have controlling in laws, and gaslighting ones at that, I am still not OK 10 years later. My in-laws turned my child against me, though we have a good relationship now those years where I could hardly see my child or feel part of his life, let alone feel like his mother, were the worst years of my life and I'm lucky to be alive today. The only reason I didn't kill myself was because I had other kids and it got so bad I started to resent them because they were keeping me alive. Everyday was hell. Please get help! It can get better! You need to leave your husband. I'm unsure if you have a case worker but if you do find out what needs doing to get your kid back. Don't go through the in-laws any more, they don't call the shots here.
The courts DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT just take kids off of the parents without good cause. Mental health in particular - they try and facilitate and maintain a healthy relationship between the parents and child unless you are at severe risk of putting the kid in harms way.
If your in laws did control and manipulate the situation, then that shows you did not have the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself at the time. (This is something you will need to work on - ensuring that you are of sound mind and capable to make your own decisions without being manipulated).
Can you enlighten us to more on the story? Why were you so heavily reliant on your in laws for financial matters? And your parents to meet with them..? You were 30 years old, not 13.. so why at 30 years old were you deemed not fit to be a parent? This can help with some more sound advice as I never saw your previous post I'm sorry.
Moving forward, you will really need to do some hard work. Enrol into council ran parenting courses, a first aid course, sign up to a budgeting program and show that you can be responsible for money. Hold a steady job and show that you can have a safe environment for your girl.
They need to see that in the 3 years you have not had custody of your child that you have made significant improvements and changes to your lifestyle. You need solid evidence of this too. Just remember that at the end of the day, there is an innocent child in the middle of this who right now thinks her grandparents care for her more so you need to be 100% that you can in fact care for this girl and not lose her again.
The main thing is stability for your daughter and a positive, safe environment :)
Good luck! I hope that you get to where you need to and can get her back. I would be dropping your husband though after his unsupportive ways!!!!
Bit of compassion wouldn't hurt ladies 😢 If you can't give advice on steps to move forward then perhaps don't comment. Implying OP is a shit Mum is exactly what got her into this situation to start with. Emotional abuse goes beyond husband and wife, anyone in a position of power can be abusive and controlling to someone vulnerable. If OP has constantly been told and made to believe she is an unfit mother from the start she may have got to the point where she thought in her head she wasn't good enough. Lift someone up while they're down, don't kick them.
Where on Earth are you reading that she was kicked down and a shit mum in these comments? As far as i can see everyone has offered good advice!
Nearly every reply has cemented in the gaslighting damage by the in-laws. Questioning mental health and her ability to be a parent. Just tell her what she needs to do instead of making her feel as though she doesn't belong in her child's life.
Thats not saying she's a shit mum though. I think its just hard for some of the commenters to get to the background of the story without bringing up the issues she herself has mentioned first to know what advice is best
Amen
I’ve tried and had nothing but 3 years of empty promises of getting this fixed from my husband. I’ve tried counselling and it was a complete waste of time. I just want a therapist who isn’t a complete waste of time and money!!
If your husband isn’t going to back and support you 100% fir your child then it’s time for you to leave him and do the best you can to put yourself in a good position to be the best parent you can be and get your little one home with you. Even if that means finding your own home away from the people that are bringing you down. I understand it’s really hard but sometimes staying is even harder.
Good luck mumma
Then leave your husband, he is clearly holding you back.
Why was counselling a waste of time? What are you seeking to get out of it? What do you hope to achieve? Was there something going on with your mental health to mean you lost your daughter?
Counselling was a waste of time because everyday is a screaming match and I don’t have her back yet. I wanted emotional support and to set goals in getting her back.
Or was counselling a waste of time because you refuse to listen and take onboard suggestions?
They didn’t give me many. I’m desperate and willing to take any suggestions on board.
Then set these goal:
Leave your husband if he won’t support you get your daughter back, you can not get her back if he’s going to put road blocks in the whole way (probably along with his family)
Get your own home, a job and stability
Get a lawyer and get legal advice and then get mediation and court
Get some therapy to help you for whatever your issues might be so you can function and become emotionally strong again.
A councillor’s role isn’t to give you the solution, you need to be able to find it yourself. They should just guide you.
Somehow DHS wasn’t even involved, which I didn’t think was even possible.
I strongly suspect OP and her husband left the child in the grandparents care when they moved out, while they got themselves sorted out/set up in a home.
I suspect the child was left in the grandparents care longer than what most parents would consider a normal time frame basically making it seem as the child was in effect left to be raised by the grandparents. In the judges mind he/she was formalising the arrangement that was currently in place.
I don’t think OP gets it’s that her husband doesn’t want the kid back. There for it would make them terrible parents while they are together.
I strongly suspect OP and her husband left the child in the grandparents care when they moved out, while they got themselves sorted out/set up in a home.
I suspect the child was left in the grandparents care longer than what most parents would consider a normal time frame basically making it seem as the child was in effect left to be raised by the grandparents. In the judges mind he/she was formalising the arrangement that was currently in place.
I don’t think OP gets it’s that her husband doesn’t want the kid back. There for it would make them terrible parents while they are together.
They basically lied they were giving her back and gaslighted me. My husband didn’t care.
That is such a cop out! If they hadn’t taken you to court yet, you could have walked in and taken your child back at any point in time. We’re you waiting for your mum to do it for you?
No I wasn’t. I thought my husband would at least have cared though. I didn’t know it would give them the rights to win for custody.
For grandparents to gain rights over a mother, even without the support of your husband you must have put up a very poor fight. People don’t just get handed your child for no reason
I didn’t know I would have this outcome. I thought being the biological parent would’ve meant something.
Not if your not capable, show no signs of wanting to or abandon your child.
How long did you leave her in there care “to get set up” before you decided to go back for her?? How many days/nights did you have her in your care in the time to get yourself set up. Where is the self acknowledgement that a 27 year old you, 30 year old you, 33 year old you are the person that should be accepting the blame for the situation you are in. For goodness sakes. You are a 33 year old woman not a 13 year old girl. If you were not regularly attempting to make contact on a consistent basis being a proper parent then the blame does not lie with your mum or his mum it lies with the person that is to immature to look after their own child.
How did you not know about centre link or government payments?? With your whole the world owes me a favour attitude id assume you would probably get govt assistance because no where on this thread have you mentioned you've had a job.
If my child left me with a kid they expected me to raise and left them with me whilst they get themselves sorted out after having 3 whole years to sort themselves out and not doing it. Id probably refuse to give them back too. Who takes 6 years to sort themselves out if they aren't an addict or don’t have significant other issues to deal with.
I didn’t expect them to raise my daughter. My husband just didn’t care. I asked when the hell they were going to increase the days and my in laws just stared into space and didn’t answer.
A good parent would not blame anybody else, and would not accept no answer. Yet you do. What is wrong with you? In the kindest way, look at yourself and be honest, what is wrong that you need all these other people and can't do it yourself?
I didn’t abandon her. They gaslighted me and wouldn’t leave until I handed her back. I didn’t know what to do and my husband didn’t care. They manipulated the whole thing. I didn’t know who to turn too and my family don’t care.
This reply is just insane. You wont get her back by continuing to say the same lame excuses , blaming everybody else and doing absolutely nothing else. It's appalling. I would like to question though, why you never respond about what the other causes are though? It would help you. People have questioned your intellect, medical and mental condition, addiction... Your poor excuses and lack of ability to function independently is that extreme.
You still never said what lies the in-laws apparently used against you in court to gain custody of your child?
They lied about my mental health and they lied that I was involved in illegal drugs, which I never had. I’ve never done drugs in my life.
So youve had 2 days and a lot of great suggestions. Moving forward instead of harping on about something that happened years ago, what have you done?
If they accused you of drug use to win custody, then you would have been drug tested. If you passed then they had nothing to lose. If you failed, well that’s pretty obvious
You could have also fought the mental health claims with supporting documents from your dr, phsyc, councillor. Again proving them wrong.
I tried but didn’t know my old therapist was going to write such a negative review on me. Otherwise I wouldn’t of asked her to write one. I wasn’t asked to drug test, but would be more than happy too because I’ve never done illegal drugs
Blindsided again! Im very concerned about the way you dont understand whats actually happening and you're not in control ever. Even now. You're still commenting the same old lines. Lady, you want to parent a child!!! This is not helping you.
Go to a psychologist but dont waste your time flogging this, first you need to ask them to concentrate on helping you understand what is going on WITH YOU.
So now it’s your therapists fault as well? She wrote negative things about you. I’m guessing she is also a lier. Can you actually take any responsibility for your own actions
No but she wasn’t honest with me about what she was going to write. I wanted strategies and advice to get out of this mess. She did neither.
I psychologist can’t tell you how to get out of this mess.
They can’t tell you to leave your husband, they can’t tell you to get a lawyer, they can’t tell you that the day you were kicked out of the house you should have called the cops to get your daughter back. They can’t tell you to look for a job.
They can emotionally support you through things as you decide you need to take those steps.
I think at the end of the day you need to work with your psychologist with being assertive, standing up for what’s right and learning to make decisions and take actions for yourself.
The psychologist has to write the truth. It is in the best interest of the child. You dont want to hear it or face it is a separate issue, and as said many many times now, is the exact reason you make no progress and keep being surprised and blindsided and feeling gaslighted.
Go back and keep working with them.