COVID and the legality/ethics of isolation

[Rod]

Again write to the lawyer.

Be careful not to 'dob in' your daughters as your ex may then pressure them to stop talking with you. Possibly ask questions - has your daughter been to the doctor? Has she been out of the house? Is she going to school? seeing friends? Any visitors to the household? What medication has she received? Did she go to medical emergency because of the URTI? etc

Get names of the friends to verify attendance at the household.

Then say you expect make up days on days of your choosing and you will be in contact with respect to the make up days.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Thanks again Rod. What I would say, as I mentioned in my previous post, is that this isn't really about the make up time. It's about the fact that she has effectively said to me "I don't want to provide the children as per the orders. I want to make up my own schedule and I don't have a good argument for why, but you're going to just have to put up with it because I don't believe a judge is going to care if you try to take it to a contravention hearing.".

I already know the answer to most of the questions above.

* My daughter hasn't been to the doctor, my ex spoke to the Covid Positive Pathways hotline earlier in the week and received a prescription for my daughter for steroids to help with her breathing via a telehealth appointment. And then my ex had a further telehealth appointment for my daughter on Friday, I can only assume that it was solely to obtain a medical certificate to justify withholding. At no time has my daughter attended a doctor or hospital in person, and therefore no doctor has actually assessed my daughter. All medical care has been 100% based on what my ex has reported about my daughter.

* Both of my daughters, the younger who was officially released from isolation as of Friday (2 days ago), and the elder one who tested positive on Tuesday and therefore is only 5 days into her isolation, have been playing in and out of the house, climbing trees and otherwise completely unaffected. They have not shown any sign of being ill, both in terms of how they've described themselves and what they've told me they've been doing while in isolation.

Are you suggesting I ask the lawyer the above questions, or my ex? She doesn't usually take kindly to being questioned, and accuses me of being controlling. She'll just ignore any questions she doesn't want to answer.

 

[Rod]

I know you know, the issue is to document your concerns and her response. You are being a responsible dad and showing concern for your daughter.

Yes, ask the lawyer.

 

[sammy01]

I reckon you're throwing fuel on a fire. She is doing this to piss you off and you're getting pissed off. She wins.

I reckon she had a 'reasonable excuse' you disagree. Take it to court....
So this isn't about family law.... It is about dealing with a mad woman. All you have achieved is confirmed that there is a shitty power dynamic and you're at the arse end of that dynamic.

Where do you go from here? Stop throwing fuel on a fire and start putting cold water on it. BTW. I reckon you're irrational.
She does have a reasonable excuse according to the family law act. So you trying to impose your incorrect perspective abut the isolation rules, writing to her laywer etc etc is irrational especially when she was offering you make up time.

Now I reckon the way you've gone about this has pissed her off un-neccesarily. She is offering you make up time? but on her terms? Well mate. You're behaving like a pork chop and you want her to behave completely reasonably?

I can't be more emphatic about this. There is contradictory information out there. Some information says she can hand over the kids. Some information says she can't. She is choosing to focus on the information that she likes. You're choosing to focus on the information you like. Because she is focused on the stuff you wan't to ignore YOU appear to her to be the unreasonable one. You've just cost her a few hundred $$$ by writing to the laywer.

Probably a bit late, but how would this have panned out if you'd have just said - sweet no worries luv. What do you reckon IF I give you 3 dates for make up time and you let me know which one suits? What would have been wrong with that approach?

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Well, the thing is Sammy, yes I am pissed off about her attempts to control the situation and decide when and when not to follow court orders. I am pissed off that she is using the children as pawns in her power game that she seems to want to play with me. I want it to stop and I am taking steps to try to make it stop by making it very clear to both her and her lawyer that I find her behaviour unacceptable. It's not going to stop by letting her dictate terms to me in violation of court orders.

How precisely have I behaved like a pork chop? Originally, I asked politely if she would agree to exchanging the children in a covid-safe way during our mutual isolation in order to maintain parental contact according to our court orders, given we were both exposed to the same virus within days of each other and could not infect each other more than we already were exposed to in our own separate households. She didn't agree, and while I made arguments as for why I felt it was unreasonable given the exceptional circumstances, I accepted it and moved on. I didn't behave like a pork chop. You didn't see my communication with her.

However, when the time came for my younger daughter to exit isolation and come over as per our next scheduled overnight as detailed in our court orders, my ex then continued to withhold her because unnamed doctors at a hospital in a telehealth told her to. I contacted that authority and asked if that was something they would have told her and they said absolutely not.

Then the time came for my younger daughter to spend the weekend with me in circumstances where I hadn't seen her for two weeks when she was only supposed to have isolated for 7 days, and my ex said used the excuse that she still had 'symptoms' and implied that therefore she should be withheld in isolation FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES UNTIL THERE ARE NO SYMPTOMS. You know damn well that it's a ridiculous policy to have, especially when it's used to justify withholding children in violation of parenting orders. Meanwhile, my ex is having friends come over to visit and the kids are playing with said friends and last 3 video calls I've had with the children have demonstrated very clearly to me that they are PERFECTLY WELL, and not sick at all. This might not be the most serious of court order breaches, but she is actually outright lying to justify withholding.

And for your question below:

how would this have panned out if you'd have just said - sweet no worries luv. What do you reckon IF I give you 3 dates for make up time and you let me know which one suits? What would have been wrong with that approach?

I'm pretty sure I know how it would have panned out. She would have said she didn't to agree to my suggestions and would have made counter-suggestions that suited her and not me. And if I agreed to her counter-suggestion, I would have looked like I didn't care that she had withheld the children for 2 and a half weeks and missed out on 5 days and 4 overnights. I would have had very little to complain about down the track if and when she continued to withhold the children, because she could simply produce the email evidence that in fact I was perfectly agreeable to her suggested make up time when she decided to withhold. In fact, it would have looked very much like we had a mutual agreement to change the arrangements and that it wasn't withholding against my will at all. I had to 'look like a pork chop' in order to make it clear that I wasn't happy with what she had unilaterally decided, and I wasn't happy to not see my children when they were perfectly well and capable of being cared for by me.

 

[sammy01]

Ok so the pork chop bit relates to when you continued to try to have her accept your perspective regarding the safety of change overs. She had made her position clear and wasn't gonna be persuaded to change her mind.

Look, she has a decent argument that she had a reasonable excuse. Pushing with solicitors is only gonna make things worse.

Look if normal visits resume next week then put this behind you. I just reckon you could have gone with gently gently and if that didn't work then start with letters to laywers.
I do hope you get to see your kids soon.
cheers

 

[GlassHalfFull]

I don't agree that she has a decent argument and a reasonable excuse. Her arguments and excuses and justifications have fluttered back and forth like a leaf in the wind over the last 2 weeks.

* First it was "[Daughter 2] just tested positive. We all have to isolate for a further 7 days after the last person to catch covid in the household, so you can't have [daughter 1] after her 7 days." Then I showed proof that that each person's isolation is 7 days from day 1 of their positive test, given they can't re-catch it from someone who tests positive after them.

* Then it was "Well, the doctors were very clear that we all have to continue isolating together in a single household". I then called up the hospital where she supposedly got that advice and they confirmed they would definitely not have said that and they had no policy on isolation. I then asked my ex that if indeed doctors told her that my daughter could not leave isolation, then provide proof of it in a doctor's letter.

* Then it was "We're all recovering from Covid right now and we're unwell, how dare you ask me to provide evidence of doctor's advice to keep her at home and not follow court orders? Insisting on proof is harrassment, I won't hand over [daughter] this weekend." I re-iterated that I'm simply asking for court orders to be followed and she had not provided any argument or evidence for why my daughter could not be cared for by me if she was still unwell, and that unless she could provide said evidence, I would expect to have my daughter for the weekend per court orders.

* Then it was "Here's my GP letter. Here's my loophole. Get f$*#ed." Never mind that the letter still didn't provide any detail of any kind about the nature or severity of the illness, or even that the doctor had actually assessed it. The letter simply said "the mother told me the child is unwell".

So her arguments have never been consistent, and have been primarily based on the whatever counter argument happened to make me jump through more hoops in order to demonstrate that she was being unreasonable.

Or do you also believe that when I have the children, if I decide that in my humble opinion (since her opinion is all that this has been based around as she has never obtained an independent physical assessment of a doctor, merely told the doctor what she has supposedly observed), the children are suffering the 'lingering symptoms of Covid' and therefore 'might be infectious', I should withhold them for their health and safety for a week or two until I'm absolutely sure that no symptoms remain? C'mon, you know how ridiculous that sounds, and you surely know deep down it was ridiculous for her to have withheld for that reason too. We're living in a post-lockdown world now. Every other child with Covid that doesn't have a power-hungry mother trying to find reasons to withhold their kids from their father is released from isolation after 7 days, straight back to school without even having taken a RAT test on day 7 because it's ASSUMED that after 7 days you are no longer infectious. My ex has used an obscure recommendation buried deep in a DHHS web link that is very poorly thought through and was surely never intended to be used to justify contravening parenting orders on a 'hunch' that a child might be infectious.

As I mentioned at the time, if you think your child might be infectious and are therefore concerned that they should not expose the public due to the potential health risk, the logical next step is to TEST your child to see if they are still infected Covid via a RAT test. Not to just withhold that child from their father when they already haven't seen them for 2 weeks. To have withheld without even attempting to identify whether in fact my daughter might still have been infectious or not is a deliberate and gratuitous breach of the orders. How you still believe she was being reasonable is beyond me.

Her actions and your defence of them are also contemptuous of the fact that this should in fact be about the children's rights to an ongoing and regular relationship with both parents, not one parent's desire to punish the other parent in some way by digging through government websites looking for justifications for why in fact isolation should not end after 7 days like everyone else. Even if I was being a pork chop, and I don't agree that I was, that's the reality of the situation here. It should never be about how one parent acts towards the other. We can talk about best practices for how to deal with difficult and obnoxious ex partners if you like, and maybe there are better strategies, but don't let that distract - our primary obligation to our children in situations like this is to actively ENCOURAGE them to have an the best possible relationship with both parents. I think you're solely missing that point here Sammy.

 

[sammy01]

ok slow down. I'm not defending her. She is a pork chop. But an obscure reference in the Covid paperwork and the link I sent earlier in this thread that says something like a reasonable excuse to breach is for health and safety means she has an argument. A convincing one? well Yeah I reckon... But, that said I see your point of view too.

She is a twit. But I don't think your strategy here is well considered. Once she tells you she is gonna use covid as an excuse, you really needed to sigh, go for a walk, kick the dog then calm down because you were always on a hiding to nothing. IF you can't win the fight, don't have it. But instead you pushed back against her. That pissed her off so she is not gonna use this covid excuse for as long as possible and you and i both know her reason is to punish you.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Well, it might be a reasonable excuse if there were no counter-arguments made about why her reasons for withholding were unreasonable or that there were alternative solutions offered to the 'problem' that didn't involve withholding, like testing our daughter to confirm one way or the other if she was still infected/infectious or not. Because her ultimate argument was simply that the DHHS website said she MIGHT be infectious after 7 days if she still had lingering symptoms.

So she could have avoided the need to contravene orders by giving her a RAT test. Simple solution to the problem. But no, she wanted to withhold and she was going to find a way to withhold come hell or high water. So given all that, do you STILL think it's a reasonable excuse to have withheld? I don't. She had options that would alleviate her 'conscience' that breaking our daughter's isolation might leave her infectious in public, and she chose to take the option that contravened our parenting orders because, as you rightly recognise, it would piss me off more. But trust me, regardless of whether I pissed her off by pushing back or not, she was always going to withhold if she could. It had nothing to do with how hard I pushed. This is a women who told a family consultant during our 3 year family court case that if it were up to her, our two daughters would have nothing to do with me whatsoever until they were old enough to make the decision for themselves. So this is why I push. Because if I don't, she will do whatever she can to ruin my relationship with the kids anyway.

 

[sammy01]

Hey I agree. There were options and she is being a twit. She chose the option that best suited her and can defend it with some dodgy assertions. Further, she assumed that this isn't a good one to you take to court.

When you're dealing with a twit you've really only got two options.
1. Push back with maximum force. I get that. Mate with my first set of orders I refused any proposal to change orders, not even for 1 nights AND I refused to ask for a change, not even a small one. The orders are orders.
2. Act like you don't care. Be ambivalent because when she pissess you off she gets a thrill out of it. That is basically where I'm at these days.

Give us an update. If she resumes visits as per orders then happy days...