so frustrated really need to hear from the legal team on here. my x is threatening legal action about me schooling and on how many nights he has H not T (his other son which he forgets about!!!!)
Hello flowers, you do indeed sound very cross about this awful situation.
I have changed your boys' names to their initials as we keep things anonymous on here.
Our legal expert answers questions on a first come, first served basis and I am sure you realise that he gets loads of queries and each and every person who contacts him wants theirs dealt with quickly so it would be unfair to answer them any other way. It is virtually impossible to get free legal advice these days since the changes to the Legal Aid system, so this service is extremely popular with single parents. A case of sitting tight for a few days I think.
However, if you actually get a letter confirming legal action (rather than him, bluffing and blustering) then you may want to consult a solicitor in person and check whether you fulfil the strict criteria for legal aid, as you need to furnish proof of domestic violence with previous contact with support agencies such as Women's Aid, otherwise they will charge you, but they will tell you this when you enquire.
As Skyflower says, solicitors do advertise 30 minutes free advice but this is often quite minimal. Citizen's Advice services vary by area but you may take some time to get an appointment there.
oh thank you both for your replies.Im sorry had to get my anger out on here as needed to . he had just messged me and i needed to get it out of me. i know im not the only one and lots of people need legal advice instead of sitting an thinking about it all i got so angry got on here.im going to speak to my abuse councilor today and try and get something sorted that i can get some advice from solicitor. still waiting to hear back on legal aid forms gone in just need to wait. but am seeing solicitor nxt thursday just want answers now like everyone else. thank you and sorry. im calmer today .
Hi flowers, glad to hear that you are feeling calmer today. It is so frustrating all the waiting around. It sounds as though you are a pro-active person and understandably want this situation resolved sooner rather than later. Hold on in there and we are always here for you to vent. No apologies needed for ranting 
Hope you are getting on alright with your solicitor next Thursday, flowerswe will keep fingers crossed for you
aww thank you all .so kind. yes i certainly am a pro active person!!!! ha ha.
thats great haha 
Hope you get the answers you need from the solicitor flowers, were you able to speak with the counsellor yesterday?
yes i did Sally thank you, and she has been dealing with my solicitor as well . we seen her together once and she has suggested i give her a call to see if she can give me some advice be4 i see her nxt wk. so im going to b on the phone at 9 this morn he he!!! hopefully help me out with situation so i know if can start proceedings.Thank you again for all replies means alot to me.I shall update u if i get any answers today.
Hi Flowers, good luck today
Hi Flowers, good luck today
Good afternoon flowers, how did it go with the phone call this morning?
Did you get some useful advice?
Hi anna and Skyflower, not alot i spoke with her and she said if we cant agree amicably it will go to court but she will talk to me more about it nxt thursday. so still no answers today . just got to hold in there till nxt wk. bit deflated but never mind.
Sorry you were not able to get the answers you needed yesterday flowers, welldone you for trying to stay positive. Do you have any plans for today?
Yes i have got a busy day today with T. Got Nursery to sort out ready for him to start, then cab sort other issues out then hospital.so busy busy .Like these days as stops me thinking about other probs. need to keep busy is my answer. till nxt wk. also Sally how do i delete my 1st user name with posts on here just incase he ever comes on these sites as forgot he would associate that name with me . why ive changed it.? thanks Sally
Hi flowers, I know what you are saying, I had my name changed as I had published some things about Court on here, very recognisable as my case is so specific, then I deleted most of my posts with the edit button and putting a smiley on and changed other posts so it was not recognisable, so as not to be in danger of what you are saying.
It made it also at that point unrecognisable for others on here what I am going through.
Hope you get on with nursery, the hospital and your errands flowers.
hi skyflower thanks for feed back. the 2 iwant to edit havent got edit at the bottom .only reply , flag as offensive. so cant click on either one. can u help me out on this please if possible. glad u managed to do it. Ihave been reading other peoples post and a few have changed name just incase x goes on here . it didnt even enter my head till read that. all new to me !!!
Yes, ask one of the parent specialist to take both out, they can do it if you give them the specifics, like : under which heading, date and time you wrote it, write an e-mail to them and they will help you as long as they are not lots of them of course
at the home page (click on Home upper page on left) when you are on the home page go onto : contact us
then you can send e-mail
Hi flowers, as you have only written a few posts so far, I have removed your old username from other users responses. I will double check shortly that I haven't missed any.
I hope your day was productive?
wow, so great Anna
why thank you! 
oh thank you Anna your a star. now i can relax abit .thank you as well skyflower.A productive day . hope every one else had good day as well.
Hey flowers, great you had a good day ! How was nursery did he like it? was CAB helpful ?
I had no energy today, so tired, hope tomorrow to have more energy
Glad Anna was able to help you feel more relaxed about the posts, you had a busy day i hope you had a restful evening flowers.
Good morning skyflower and Sally yes all good and productive yesterday. Iwasshattered by 9pm Sally so early night for me!!!! ha ha. Today we are going to group and i have a friend coming round to night for a good old natter pizza and bottle wine , so looking forward to that. Have a good day all.
Sounds good to me Flower, I would join you ! Have a lovely day
Have a nice evening flowers :)
Hi flowers, hope you had a good evening on Thursday. I do empathise with you as I am also a pro-active person and it is very frustrating when things seem to happen slowly and people want to go through loads of different stages before anything gets resolved.
What plans this weekend?
Hi louise thank you for support. i have my daughter and her friend staying this wkend so busy. Ido need advice though is this me am i in the wrong??? my x husband has h and t on a saturday then h stays over but he will never have t to stay over . so i asked him if he is going to have t tomorrow as its not fair then he comes back with loads of excuses why he cant have t tomorrow. yet he will still have h and bring him back tomorrow tea time. i m so so angry and going to show txt to solicitor because he has 4 kids . he has his favourite j and h and cant believe him itso sole distroying for me and t when they all go off together with out him. t is 2yrs and yes he hard work but he is his son for god sake argh!!!!!!my family say dont react to him but its bloody hard when he wont except he has 4 kids!!!! .feed back would b great please guys.
Hi Flowers it is very frustrating because you don't want your son hurt and you want to protect him from pain from his father and you want his father to not have favorites.
You can talk about it with your ex, but you can't make him do anything, unfortunately. You can only be there for your son when he needs you and give him lots of love and hugs, so he will grow up confidently and not with a low self esteem.
Louise is on here later, she always has such good and practical answers
big hug for you xx
Hello again, I totally agree, how hurtful for little T that everyone else goes off with dad but not him. All children his age are hard work and you're right, his dad needs to keep a relationship going with him, too.
Skyflower is correct in saying you can't make his dad do anything, and even showing the solicitor is unlikely to change anything. The only way you can change this is by goodwill.
Now I am guessing you may be thinking something along the lines of "huh, he is hurting our son and as for not being able to cope with all the children, how the heck does he think I manage it then?" but rather than saying what you think, consider what you want to achieve. Ideally you would like to achieve both boys going together but this seems unlikely at this stage, therefore let's think of what would be second best, and I am wondering if that would be that T got some one to one time with dad. So (keeping all sarcasm from your voice, haha) say to him "T loves to see you but I know he can be a real handful but I find he is quieter and behaves better when it is just him so it would be great if you had an hour with T". If he says no, say that T is sad that he does not see his dad much and at this age it is important he sees him regularly so that he understands who his dad is. Even one hour of individual time would make all the difference to T.
aww thank you skyflower it so so hard , we dont talk we txt as cant bear to hear his voice or see him this is what he has done to me .i shake every time i hear his voice when kids call him up so i hace to go in another room. it just reminds me of what he was like at home if that makes sense.hi louise thank you for your feed back ive tryed with t with his dad and hes always got an excuse hes busy but he only works two days magic 16hrs so what does he do with rest of time lazy B*****D . why should i feel i should force him on him this is not fathers love!!!! sorry im so angry on this subject when it involves my kids i d die for them!!!they are my life and i cant bear anyone hurting them. im going see what solicitor says also im making our time very special when he doesnt go to dads. sorry all i see is red at the moment with this.
Hi Louise also forgot to say its been well over 10days and still havent heard from legal team on here. should i message them again i knnow u said they are very busy? Thank you
Hi Flowers,
He will come back to you. The last time I e-mailed it took well over 2 weeks, which I thought was because it was the Christmas holidays. He does get your e-mail I know how hard it is to wait because you desperately need the answers, unfortuantely it depends on how many others have e-mailed before you. Feel for you and thanks for your support flowers xx
I know how scared you are, I always prepare mentally in Court and that helps but when I saw him just outside at the school where no one could help me I was terrified, just terrified. xx
Hello flowers, you are feeling so angry and frustrated about a lot in your life at the moment, poor you, it's not a nice place to be.
Our legal expert works Mon-Fri so his ten days is two weeks if that makes sense, however I will flag it up with Anna, OK? I notice you mention a solicitor above, have you got someone you are seeing?
Hi Skyflower and louise, thank you for replies i am going to see my solicitor thursday yes , we have put in the paper work for abuse and hopefully i will get legal aid my solicitor is happy what she has so far and has asked to see me on thursday so not long now. counting down days.probably happen on same day the legal advice will get hold of me not to worry i just got b patient but so flaming hard. ive been keeping myself busy and ignoring x nasty texts. as dont want to play his nasty games . i just get angry where he cant see me . I hope it will get easier for us both Skyflower seeing x who know s cant see that day for a long time yet. ive got my sons birthday coming up in march im dreading it as he wants a party naturally and im thinking i cant b in same room with him even for my son . i know this sounds awful because my kids come 1st but im going to have to do one with out him coming and he can do what ever for h.Does that sound awful ? am i wrong?Yes we had a lovely day thank you weather was great and stayed light till 5 pm. i hate the darker nights. Hope u all had great day as well.
Also thank you Louise for flagging Anna for me.x
is there any way you can celebrate birthday on neutral grounds and you can pick up and go when you need to ? is there anyone that can be with you that day to help you ?
i think it will only get easier when they move on or when children are of certain age flowers it is awful right now I know and will support you xx
What about having 2 birthday parties one with his dad and one with you so you don't have to be there ?
Good morning flowers, I hope you had a nice weekend, although I can hear your worry about your son's upcoming birthday and T's contact time with his dad.
If you don't want to see your ex, then you don't have to see him, you have lived in fear of this person and you need to heal.
You have made the hardest step separating from him, I know that you want your boys to see that 'everything is fine' especially on birthdays, but it isn't. It may be in 5/10 years time, but right now things are not ok. The children will manage as I am sure you will give them a fabulous day :)
The contact time with your youngest. Do you think your ex isn't having him because he is only 2 and harder to handle, or do you think he is deliberately trying to get at you?
PS: I will get in touch with the legal team today and find out where they are with your response.
Hi flowers, I have been in touch with our Legal Advisor, who assures me that he will get back to you shortly. He has been inundated with requests for legal information recently and is plowing through them.
We used to have a note on the Ask the Expert form saying 'responses from our Experts could take up to 10 working days, although they do endeavour to respond earlier than this if possible.'
So apologies that this information wasn't passed on to you.
I do understand how frustrating it is when we want answers now, but we have to wait for others. I hope you will receive a response over the next couple of days.
Thank you all for messages will reply to them later in middle of cooking tea atm. yes i had a email from legal team. Thank you Anna and Louise.x
Hi Flowers, 3 more days and you can talk with your solicitor, keep my fingers crossed for you xx
O that is great news flowers, great news
Glad that you have heard back from the legal Expert flowers, hope he has some answers for you? Hope you enjoy your evening.
Great news girls . the legal team contacted me thankyou so so much made my evening. He was fantastic. He said i can put H into new school as he will b going with his youngest brother who at nursery there. and if x wants to take me to court over it then he really wont have strong case im not taking h miles away only 5 mins up the road to where i live. plus he would have to pay court fees.as no legal aid anymore. Also hes still trying to control me over all this. I hope im allowed to put all this . So onwards and upwards. so so happy. Had a bit of a downer today as had a txt off x saying he taking j a h on holiday in half term but not t . if he took t the others wouldnt have a good time. What sort of a father says this !!!!!! Skyflower and Anna yes i totally agree with u i have to do something seperate for h Birthday. Thank you all im so Happy!!!xx . Ihope u all had positive dayx
Great that he got back to you quickly flowers, i don't see any reason why you should not write what the legal expert suggested you never know when it may help someone else.
Sorry to hear that your ex is being awful to T i'm totally stumped as to what to suggest you could do, other than refusing to let the other 2 go which seems unfair to them, you could make that time an extra special time for T, maybe a trip, like the zoo or something.
So happy for you flowers, so happy for you !! xx
Hi flowers, the legal expert takes 7 to 10 days unfortunately, they do give good advice but it does take some time.
Do you think he would really do it or might it be just a threat ? Is it about taking the children to another school?
What about the 30 minutes free legal advice some solicitors give? Or the Citizen's advice Bureau? Louise might give you some good advice, I am sure she will come on a little later