Re:Help!!

Was due to attend 2nd joint mediation this week to discover that he has had his solicitor contact mediation service to advise that he won't be attending this week or any further mediation meetings.

I have made myself ill over last week or so gearing up to going to the meeting and a few hours before being due to go he pulls a stunt like that and cancels.

Mediation service say they are sorry, but obviously matter now passed back to solicitors, I was so upset on phone when they rang me. I just wonder when this nightmare will end. He obviously thinks I should vapourise and disappear and allow him to carry on with his happy life with the OW. Depression has now kicked in again and I am just worried as to how to proceed.

Hello larkin - no easy answers on that one. My ex and I had one very successful mediation session and he wouldn't go again. He has never said why - although probably something to do with the mediatior not telling him what he wanted to hear (which was me having to disappear into thin air and him getting everything!).

I am afraid you are back in the hands of your solicitors and there's not much to be done. I made sure that with every written exchange that was personally made between us, I made the last paragraph say 'and I am of course still willing to mediate and will organise this if you let me know'. It never worked but ex is now openly saying he wishes he had listened (huge legal bill he can't pay). Be as reasonable as you can, don't let your solicitor get carried away with holding out for the best possible settlement - take what you consider reasonable and/or that which allows you to start again. Give him something to allow him a 'win' if you can - worked wonders with my ex!

You can't mediate with only one party so try and keep the channels of communication open and he may come back to it when he realises how different the final costs will be.

I am due to attend a pre mediation session with CAFCASS.My ex stated last year that she wanted to mediate, and when I arranged it last year she refused with no explanation. Again tried earlier this year but refused again. Think she is only agreeing to mediation now after CAFCASS spoke to her. (her reason to CAFCASS was that mediation was prohibitivly to expensive) I was taken a bit back by her statement as surely court would be even more so. So going see what she has to say at the pre mediation meeting and wait with baited breath as to what she has to offer. She keeps on saying she is offering an olive branch to me (dropped the kids off one sat morning and said they can stay with no notice, Babysitter springs to mind) Some poeple you can mediate with some you cant, think mine will be the latter, but hoping she will see common sense. Have always wanted to avoid court but sometimes no other option other than walking away is available, when it comes to our children. Never walk away, they deserve two parents.

Hi and thanks for your response. Yes, I will just have to go in hands of solicitor as far as moving on, to the next level.

I have no communication with 'him' he left me for someone else and then started divorce proceedings citing unreasonable behaviour, which to be honest were stupid silly reasons and even my solicitor and friends say he is tapped. He has now said I can divorce him and pay for it but not to say he has committed adultery, I work part time (struggling to pay all the bills he has put into my name) he is in a middle management job earing 8 times as much as me. What is painful is finding out that he has committed adultery time and time again in previous relationships, so feel he won't change, but its funny how you think you know someone inside out when you don;t know them at all.

I have bent over backwards for him, allowed him access to our fmh and clear out thousands and thousands of pounds worth of his possessions (my argument being well they were his) but now feel he has walked all over me and has treated me appallingly. Sorry for the rant, I know there are two sides to every coin and our marriage was in problems for him to do what he did, he had it planned for months to leave and once he has left he thought that was the closure of that chapter.

I am sure I will get over this and become a stronger person because of it, but like many people on here cannot see when this will happen, its a dark place to be in, isn't it.

I am a lot better at just walk away, forget posessions, think when you get your new stuff he will never have touched it, sat on it slept in it. Was so glad it is this way, she has all the items from the FMH, but start again, there are nice people out there, since my seperation have met some really nice people and life is getting better. Hard at first but sooner you detatch yreself from the past the better it gets. Took me 9 months to get my arse into gear but now not looking back

I am pleased to hear you have got past the stage I am at, its really awful.

I guess I am gutted at the fact that he didn't want to attend mediation to come to some sort of amicable solution, but should have known better as he has lied about everything to them, think it will be worse for him at court to be found out for hiding a lot of the facts regarding finances.

I want to be able to move on, I'm at the fmh and I guess part of the problem is being on my own and trying to cope on what I have to live on. He is upset at having to pay the mortgage, but then again his girlfriend left her husband for him and she was clever enough to get him to sign a pre-nupt to say she gets everything.