brief history - BF has had court ordered EOW access for sd7 and sd5 for 4 years, ex would delay it sometimes and interrupted a time or two but mostly he was able to pick them up. 6 weeks ago went to court for variation of maintenance and got it reduced. Ex was demanding that one asset given to our child dd3 be handed over to her but judge refused. Ex shouted at him in court and the judge told her to shut up. Ex immediately stopped access and bf hasn't seen his children since.

He spoke to sd7 on the phone last week and she told him that mommy said 'daddy is too sick to be with us' which is not true.

A few months ago she and he wanted to take the children to child psychologist - we because they are suffering symptoms of PAS, she because she thinks a psychologist would recommend that the children see him less. BF agreed for children to go on the condition that they agreed on a counselor together and that a joint letter of introduction outlining problems be drafted. Ex refused and a month later informed him that she was already taking them to a counselor of her choice who she had been seeing and that he should join her for sessions there. He refused because of likely bias in the counselor. he phoned counselor and told them he did not give his permission and the counselor stopped seeing the children. Ex refused to find another counselor.

yesterday, at my urging, bf sent an email to ex asking her to outline what she wanted for him to be able to restore access.

She replied. These are her demands:

1. he must submit a gp report and a counselor report to her on the state of his health
2. his doctors must list (for her) every medication he is taking
3. he must agree to participate with her in family counseling at the counselor of her choice, the one she sees and has taken the children to before without his permission

she says that once he has done that then 'perhaps, access could be re-introduced on a level that the girls are comfortable with, for example, working around their schedules, ie parties, activities etc, which are very important for their development. '

bf has suffered from bouts of depression but it is not really bad. He does take medication for it but I don't think that is any of her business. In no way has it ever interfered with his treatment or care of his children.

All along she has thrown hissy fits about parties. If one of them was invited to a party over our weekend (we're talking 4 and 5 years of age here) she demanded that they be taken even though the parties are always near her home which is some distance from our home. I tried to calmly explain to her that we are a family of 6 people and that we can't expect everyone to drop everything to be so far away for 2 hour parties every couple of times they are with us. According to her, going to parties is the most important thing in life (well, tied with having highlights in your hair and a fake tan - yes, even the 7 and 5 year old are obsessed with these things). She has even scheduled a 5 year old for 3 different birthday parties on the same weekend. That's 4 round trips for us for 6-7 hours of parties in a city where we don't live. WTF are the rest of us supposed to do in between shuffling them between parties? I wouldn't go to that many parties!

I don't object to children attending SOME parties but not being able to go to everything you are invited to is a fact of life and there is NO WAY that everyone else in the family should forgo their plans to take a 5 year old to a party of some classmate that they probably don't even really like all that well. If it was a best friend or close family member fine, but not every birthday that every child in their class has.