- promoting a clearer understanding of men's experience -
A NZ journalist would like to her hear from any men who might be willing to discuss publicly their experiences of having their wife and children relocate to another city or country.
If you can help, please contact me and I will pass on your details.
If you don’t feel able to share your experience publicly, feel free to do so anonymously in the comments below.
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….and what if the male is the only or major income earner and relocates to continue a career but the mother stays put and lays claim to the family home and the DPB.
Comment by Down Under — Fri 23rd September 2011 @ 4:29 pm
who is the journalist?
Comment by kiran jiharr — Fri 23rd September 2011 @ 5:04 pm
That’s an excellent safety question Kiran.
no point spilling one’s gut to a feminist journalist – pearls before swine as such.
Comment by Skeptik — Fri 23rd September 2011 @ 8:08 pm
Agreed. Please name the journo first! We’ve all seen the type of man hating spin that appears in papers and on TV.
Comment by Scott B — Sat 24th September 2011 @ 8:32 am
Not all journalists are bad. Stories like Court of Injustice in North and South Magazine come to mind. Contact with a journalist is not a bad thing; at least it is dialogue and an opportunity to discuss a point of view. Most journalists sit behind a desk, the news comes to them, they seldom need to go looking for it, so when they do perhaps one should be a little less cynical – just cautious.
Comment by Down Under — Sat 24th September 2011 @ 12:29 pm
JP,
taking you up on your offer, here’s my experience.
Years of my ex wife intermittently sabotaging prearranged phone contact and scheduled visitation between our child and I.
Several times at considerable emotional and financial expense I approached the family court to try and deal with her behavior. Each time she was treated by the family court with impunity and went straight back to her alienating ways.
My ex wife then moved without letting me know to another part of New Zealand – 250 Km away, a round trip of 500Km if I wanted our child to have contact with me.
The first I knew about it was after she’d moved seeing their house for sale in the real Estate section of the newspaper!
Imagine the shocking trauma of that!
I knew my only recourse to action was again to approach the NZ family court to schedule a hearing about the matter. I also knew that doing that would mean even more expense and waiting at least several months for the hearing to be held. Further time during which my ex could get to work on demonizing me and further alienating our child from me.
By that point I had completely lost faith in the family court process being fair towards me and other fathers anyway.
I say that in light of earlier comments in this posting, and because by that time I had several male fathers as friends. Every one of them was faced with similar circumstances to me to a greater or lesser degree. Alienation of fathers through the family court process appeared the norm.
I remember clearly getting drunk one night and sobbing in joint commiseration with a good friend, a father who had lost all contact with his three daughters after his ex wife had unilaterally moved them from Auckland where he lived to Christchurch.
I had seen him in action as a father on a couple of occasions when his daughters’ visitation with him hadn’t been sabotaged by his ex wife – we later discovered she used such times to set up her next relationship with the guy she moved to Christchurch with.
I would describe him as a great parent – attentive and involved, loving and generous, firm and clear as was sometimes warranted to protect his daughters from mistakes they would make without his paternal guidance. His daughters clearly enjoyed his parenting and seemed very happy and very well catered for with him. Aside from his fathering role he was a volunteer firefighter and staunch conservationist highly respected in his local community, however despite this he was by then a broken man having spent a fortune in court defending himself in the family court against ridiculous false accusations by his ex. Other friends and I had a hell of a time counseling him against the idea of suicide, but you could say he died a kind of death anyway as he turned to drink and drugs to try and numb the overwhelming pain.
We drifted apart due to his drug use, but I often think of him and the many other fathers whose awfully similar stories I’ve heard over the years.
When I do it is with a lingering sadness I shall carry for the rest of my days.
Comment by Skeptik — Sat 24th September 2011 @ 4:37 pm
I included all the information that I intend to in my post. Your curiosity will be satisfied in the fullness of time.
The subject of this page is child relocation; please keep discussion on-topic.
If anyone has anything interesting to say about feminist journalists you are welcome start another post.
Comment by JohnPotter — Sat 24th September 2011 @ 5:00 pm
JP You said…
men who might be willing to discuss publicly their experiences of having their wife and children relocate to another city or country.
now you are saying…..
The subject of this page is child relocation.
That is two different things.
Comment by Down Under — Sat 24th September 2011 @ 5:46 pm
my x gave me full custody and moved towns and when i wanted to and did move myself,she had me court ordered to take the kids back to the town she had already left..she wasnt even there..hows that for bullshit
Comment by Ford — Sun 25th September 2011 @ 8:26 am
Sorry to confuse you Down Under, I should have written: “the subject of this page is men’s experiences of having their wife and children relocate to another city or country”.
Comment by JohnPotter — Sun 25th September 2011 @ 9:46 am
NZ is a small country and who knows who reads this site. Plenty of stories have been canned because influential people have threatened editors in advance of a story – I’ve seen it happen, it does happen, especially with Men’s Issues. Plenty of rubbish can be written without even talking to men to gauge their opinions. Sometimes the only way these stories get published is working through a mediatory process. Of course this is just one small factor in dealing with the democracy we live in. It would be unfortunate if an opportunity was lost through the influence of this little standoff. It is an opportunity not a cause for issuing demands, and I’m not confused JP, just surprised that you were a little ambiguous given the need to consider the point of view a journalist is adopting.
Comment by Down Under — Mon 26th September 2011 @ 11:09 am
Ford that is shocking, I’ve never heard of that before. I have the majority of custody for my son but still feel imprisoned in this city which I would like to leave. Good to know even if the ex pisses off to aussie I’m still stuck here!! 🙁
Comment by Jack — Mon 26th September 2011 @ 6:39 pm
For the next month new zealand will have more global exposure than ever before and is likely to have for many, many years to come.
NOW is the time to confront the corruption, oppression, human and legal rights abuses (past and present) of the new zealand government.
Peter.
Comment by Peter Bell — Tue 27th September 2011 @ 9:43 pm
jack..i have lots of bullshit stories the wanky judges supported the x with..pack of arseholes…the whole lot
Comment by Ford — Wed 19th October 2011 @ 6:44 am
Hi
My ex had day to day care of my two children,she then put an application in to relocate as she had met a guy on the internet,she realised the process was going to take to long so she moved on her own the children were then in my full time care,after 22 months she put an application in to relocate the children to the town she had moved to.
At the hearing the psychologist stated to the judge that the children in her opinion should remain with me as there were happy and doing well the counsel for child also agreeed with this all to no avail as the judge belived this would be a great opportunity for the children to move to a new school,new town,and aguy they did not know.
Andy
Comment by andy denny — Sat 12th November 2011 @ 10:37 am
The law gives women the ability to erase fathers from their children’s lives as easily as submitting a new parenting plan and moving to the next district.
If the father is too poor or too busy to show up and fight it in court, he’s out of luck.
If he already lives elsewhere, he’s pretty much screwed.
And even if he can fight it the first time, the mother can simply repeat the process until he gives up.
For all the talk of progress in father’s rights and equality, the brutal reality is that a determined woman can still remove her children from their father’s life simply with some persistence and knowledge of the law.
Men have the option to fight it, but realistically speaking, most men don’t have the means.
The typical separation and/or divorce happen when both parents are young.
All the young single mothers clogging up the hookup/dating sites are clear evidence of how common this is.
In most cases, they left their children’s father; they were not abandoned.
Young men in particular, especially these days, do not generally have the wherewithal to fight for their children, and if they don’t fight for them they will lose them.
I really feel for young men – there’s often nothing they can do.
This is why I will always give the benefit of the doubt to men who are estranged from their children.
And yet we still have politicians, pundits and producers bemoaning the plight of the poor, abandoned single mother and fatherless child, pointing the finger of blame at men, despite the fact that women are given options all along the way.
They have the option to leave their children’s father, they have the option to continue to demand support from him, and they have the option to cut him off from his children.
Not one of these options results in a penalty, so a great many women pursue them.
The unspoken truth about fatherlessness is that in most cases a woman chose to remove the father from his children’s lives.
Fatherlessness is not, when it comes down to it, about a problem with men, but rather a problem with women.
There may be some men who willingly abandon their children, but these are a small minority compared to those who have been disposed of by the mother.
Our society needs to stop asking “what’s wrong with men?” and start inquiring into what’s gone wrong with women.
Fatherlessness is a major crisis in our civilization, and the blame for it lies almost entirely at the feet of our women.
Comment by Skeptic — Sun 4th December 2011 @ 2:21 pm