General Chat

I don’t know who else to talk to right now. Mr Owl is a father of four and none of them will talk to him now thanks to their mother, their aunt or grandparents whispering sweet nothings. Mr Owl still sends birthday and Christmas cards and money even though we don’t know if they get anything. When his eldest reaches 18 he will try and contact her and see how she feels but at the moment they refuse to see their dad and he would never force screaming children.

It has however coloured his view on us having children despite the fact that both he and I have good relationships with our dads. I’m desperate to be a parent and he cannot imagine anything worse at the moment though he says if I fall pregnant we’ll go with it.

He forgets one massive detail in my life is that I’ve seen the other side as my mum’s mother walked out when she was 7. I have told him I wouldn’t have married him if I thought it wouldn’t work and either way I would never put a child through what my mum has suffered. He will always have a relationship with our child as I would never allow a child to suffer as my mum has but it means nothing and I’m seriously considering an accident to force the outcome. I’m almost 37 time is not on my side.

Tawny only you & your partner can sort this out if you say have accident he might feel trapped. He should consider your feelings as well talk it through tell him how you feel you are step mum to four his children. Don't worry about the past this is here & now good luck x

Please don't engineer an accident.
That is not a truthful way to achieve something so important.

Did the relationship with the children break down before you got together and married?

This is not going to be resolved without a lot of honest heart to heart between you and Mr Owl.
Does he know how much you yearn for a child?
Only the two of you can work this out and I can see both sides of this situation, but your longing could turn to resentment in years to come.

Please sit down and talk calmly. This may mean revealing your innermost thoughts, but this is something so important to your relationship that honesty is the best policy.

I hope you can find a way through this.

When we met Mr Owl and his wife were separated and in the process of divorcing. The divorce came through almost a year to the day that he and I first met in person. When we first met he had a good relationship with his children and saw them every week.

I told Mr Owl on our third date that one day I wanted to be a parent. I made it clear that if he was alright with that I wasn’t going to tell him I was pregnant in nine months time but equally at 31 I didn’t want us to end up where we are now both wanting different things. He asked if I could be happy as a mother of one. “ If course I can.” “ I never sat down and planned how many children I wanted just that I wanted to be a parent one day.”

About 18 months after we got together things started going wrong with his children and his ex wife. One of the children was diagnosed with ADHD. Mr Owl said if Billy (not real name) needs medication the fair enough but did you mention diet to the doctor? The reason he brought up diet was when Mr Owl was a boy if he was given certain foods like Irn Bru and blue smarties you had to peel him off the ceiling. If he didn’t get those artificial stimulants though everything was fine and he appears to have grown out of it as an adult. He tried suggesting talking to the doctor and seeing if a few minor changes in diet might be worth a try before Billy ends up on medication for the rest of his life. His ex wife refused to countenance anything except what the doctor had said.

The following week only one of the children wanted to go out with him and a week later again none of the children would even see their dad. Now he sends birthday and Christmas cards and money but we don’t know if the children get them.

I could never/would never deny him access to our child even if our relationship didn’t last. Though I would never have married him if I thought that would be the outcome. My mum’s mum Iris (not real name) walked out when my mum was 7 leaving my grandad a single parent raising two children in the 1960s and 70s. Iris disappeared halfway across the world with another man for a few years. Iris came back to the uk with another man 10 years younger than herself and they had two children. Iris occasionally saw my mum and her brother but my grandad was so bitter he made it difficult. As an adult though my mum tried to have a relationship with Iris which Iris claimed she wanted. Iris quickly gave up leaving my mum feeling rejected again.

As a result my mum smothers us her children, children in law and grandchildren as she doesn’t want any of us to feel unloved or unwanted. I could never let my child experience that kind of pain.

It is a difficult situation Tawney, but not an unusual one. Without knowing why your OH and his wife got divorced it is hard to know why she is so bitter about him. Of course it is wrong of her to turn the children against their Dad and you won't know what she has told them. How old are they. it is instinctive for children to protect the parent they are living with I think. But that and your longing for a child are two separate matters. You do need to sit down and talk together, maybe even get counselling. Your OH married you knowing that you wanted a child so he is not really being fair, but you need to talk to resolve it, you do still have a few years yet to have a child so don't panic, and please, as others have said, don't have an accident. That would not be fair on the child.

Try contacting Relate to see if you can get counselling. They talk to you separately, then as a couple. My next door neighbour used them and they were very helpful. I think there was a bit of a wait for the sessions

His children are 11,10,7 and 5. The youngest two haven’t had their birthdays yet this year.

There is 11 months between the first two, the third child was born when the second was around 30 months old and the last one around two years later.

As far as his children go as soon as his eldest turns 18 he is going to look for them and say I’m here, I’d love to see you here’s my phone number and leave the decision on more contact up to them.



One day Mr Owl is looking at what private (public in England) school we would send our child to if we could afford it, then he’s talking about fostering, then adopting and then he doesn’t want children. I think it all points to he probably does want to be a parent but he’s scared of being hurt again. Only counselling can sort this out I suspect.

Thank you all for replying

Yes it does sound as if he is scared, the children are young and in the case of the two youngest not really old enough to make their own decisions, they will definitely be led by their Mum but only your OH will know why she is so bitter. I wonder if she has found a new partner, not easy when you have four young children and some sympathy must be given to her, so hard bringing up 4 children on her own. You need to talk about your feelings and his, strange as it should be you being nervous about the fact that he and his wife got divorced. It depends how much you know about their story.

I don't think Mr Owl can start to even think about another child at the moment, he has so much in his head to deal with.

No doubt he is worried about Billy, whose future could be so drastically affected by the way his ADHD is managed now and he ha no control or even input into that situation now and probably will not even get to know if any of the others are affected.

It sounds like he is a responsible sort of dad and he has four to provide for in a very dodgy time as well. They were no doubt, all conceived in the assumption that they would grow up in a stable, settled environment so he would be very wary of conceiving another in a situation that is as fraught as the current one is with his older children.

He needs to straighten out his can of worms a bit before he takes on ore responsibility and I hope that you married him rather more because you wanted to be the wife of this honest man rather than that you wanted to be a mother.

I married him because I love him. We other that this problem have a good marriage and have only had six arguments since we met in 2016. We talk about everything else it’s just this one major sticking point.

This is huge issue if you talk to each other that's the main thing you wanting a family is understandable he has children & should understand you love him & want s family. As I said before think to the future the one you & Hubby have don't live in the past if possible he can't forget his family but you are his here & now be positive best wishes..Barbarax

With regards his children, personally I would look at not sending money directly to them but if possible set up bank accounts for them and regularly deposit money in for Birthdays etc. Then when they're 18 or whatever the money is there for them to use.

As for the both of you all you can do is have an honest talk be "armed" with all your facts/views and hope for the best.

Good luck

I think the accounts idea to be a good one. Hopefully Mr Owl will be able to let the older child know.

I have an older friend whose daughter in law cut her OH and children from her. Friend continued to send cheques for birthdays and Christmas. They were rarely cashed as it was too difficult to pay in (really, they were teenagers), daughter in law wanted cash sent in the post instead. We all wondered if cash was sent whether it would get passed on.

Thank you all. Monday for a talk I think. It’s the Old Firm (football) game tomorrow and he will be in no fit state after that. He’s off work on Monday though. I will suggest the idea of the bank accounts though. In Scotland I think they can get access from 16 but only if they know about the accounts. We’ll tell them when the eldest reaches 18 and thinking what they might do when they leave school.

At least with the accounts you know the money ends up with them at some point :-)

The accounts for each child is a great idea ........ but do be sure to check what you need to have to open such an account.

I send money intended for accounts held by my grandson, 4 gt-nieces and 2 gt nephews, and have been doing so since the eldest was born almost 13 years ago. But I have to send cheques, not direct to an account, so it is a little bit more cumbersome than if I could have opened an account myself for them.

I could not open the accounts myself ................. it had to be opened by a parent-in-trust-for xxxxxx.. They needed to show the child's birth certificate, plus one or two other pieces of ID. So we had to send a cheque when the child was born, and the parents then did the rest.

One extra piece of identity that each child had to have was their Social Insurance Number (SIN), a 9 digit number that needed to work in Canada or to have access to government programs and benefits. A SIN is issued to one person only and it cannot legally be used by anyone else. It took several weeks to get each one of those through from Government Canada! Not many new born babies need a SIN number that early! :-D

The system works fine for the gt nieces and nephew. I enclose a cheque with the birthday/Christmas card, the 4 eldest now put the money in the bank themselves. I think the 2 youngest (5 and 7) still depend on Mum to do it for them.

My grandson is the only one that we do not post a cheque to. We send much more Christmas and birthday money to him and his parents, and I did not want to be sending such large cheques by mail, particularly as they do not have postal delivery to the door but to a Community Mailbox that stands in the open at the edge of a park almost 1 km away from them.

So we opened a new bank account in our bank here with myself, OH and daughter as joint owners. She went into a branch of the same bank in Nova Scotia and gave them all the necessary details needed by banks over here to be recognised as a Joint Owner. Then we were all set.

I transfer birthday and Christmas money from one of my accounts here in Vancouver, she draws it out from any branch of the same bank in NS. Then she puts it into his bank account that they opened in his name when he was born.

At one time, we transferred money to her by getting a bank order cheque from our bank, then walking across the street to a branch of their bank, and depositing the bank cheque in to their account directly. But then they had to wait up to 10 business days to be able to take out the money ........... designed to prevent money laundering or transfer of stolen money :-D

That was even though a Bank Order Cheque takes the money out of your account immediately and holds it in "reserve" until the bank cheque is deposited.

Different banks different management.

My bank treated Ban Order Cheques the same as cash, as the money is no longer available. The other bank treated as an ordinary cheque, where time is needed for the actual amount to be transferred over electronically.

Mr and I are talking. If we cannot open accounts for each of them then Mr will open another account for himself but all that will go into it will be the money for the children. We will then divide the total as appropriate when each child needs. No doubt we will have more headaches to come as I have nieces who will inherit part of our estate each if mr and I don’t have any children. That though is a worry for another day.

Tawny .......


that sounds a very good idea.

You do need to both write a will, preferably NOW, in which you state very clearly your intentions.

For example, that the money in such-and-such account is to be divided between Mr Owl's children, and why (if you think your family will contest it), and that the rest of your estate is divided as follows.

When we wrote our most recent will, it was recommended that we do NOT say £xxxx to so-and-so, etc, because you do not know what your estate will be worth in say 10 or 20 years. It might be worth much more (if so how is the excess divided??) or very much less.

Instead we divided it into 10 parts, you could choose any number of parts that you like

So many parts to daughter, so many to grandson, so many divided between the 5 nieces and 1 nephew that we have between us. Also we had to name their children, if known, so that the parent's share could be divided among the children if that parent had died. One of my nieces has already died, so it is her only child who will get her share.

But do think about making a will soon, just in case something happens to you or Mr Owl. You can always re-write or amend as your circumstances change.

But do remember that nieces and nephews do not have to inherit anything from you, especially if you do succeed in having your own child.

Get the lawyer to make your wishes crystal clear so there can be no disagreements later.

Sylvia's advice is good Tawny. There is an example in my family of how not to do it which was beneficial to myself actually. My Mum's brother and his wife's wills had something like '£XXX to be given to each remaining brother/sister and the remainder divided between *names*' i.e. the *names* were his nieces and nephews of which I was one. My Mum got £XK a smallish amount I got £YK. quite a bit more this was in the 80s so a while ago now, Oh and my sister also got £YK

We did exactly what Sylvia did as far as our grandchildren are concerned - and faced the same difficulty when rules changed regarding parents being the only ones able to open a child's account or to deposit into it.

(Your OH, being the father, will be allowed to open accounts for his offspring, Tawny.)

We have both used percentages in our wills as it is crucial not to put amounts.

I know this first-hand from the will of an elderly lady who left £££££ to two charities (one small, local one and a huge national one) and the remainder to her two nearest relatives (one, a daughter). She had made her will years previously and had lived a long time afterwards so the remainder had been eaten away.

The solicitor of the two individual beneficiaries appealed to the charities and the decision of the smaller, local charity was to forego in favour of the two relatives.

I have to say that I was dismayed and shocked that the larger national charity wanted its piece of cake at first! It took the local charity standing firm before the national charity acceded to the request.

Quite damnable evidence of the ethos there, I thought.