Quote:
"The courts don't care about all this stuff, do they?"
I think I can confirm that the courts, court officials, judges and lawyers "don't care", at least if you mean do they care what is happening to you (or your husband as the parent concerned). Your interests only get consideration if they are felt to impact overall upon the interests of the child. That is if you can convince the courts ignoring your interests will negatively impact on the child somehow - one example of this is where custodial mothers get "distressed" when the father of their child comes to collect the children - the courts may decide this distress is having enough impact on the child to deny the other parent contact!
I just wanted to add I recognised alot of truth, or aspects I can relate to, in your appraisal of the behaviour of his three daughters.
I've noticed how as parents we can get sent round in circles, as it were, by our own children, or their teachers, court officials or government spokespeople. On the one hand it is asserted that "everything is about the child", or should be about the needs of the child, thus trying to make us feel guilty as parents when we try to get anyone to take any notice of our interests. Then when we plead that our child's interests may have been jeopardised we are told by the same officials where there is evidence of stuff going wrong:- "Oh children are quite tough you know, they will get over these things"!
In the UK parents are given "NO" rights regarding their children according to Clem Henricson of the National Family and Parenting Institute, and that this may contravene some aspects of human rights legislation. Having said that in practise, when parents are still together the law is said to behave as though they do have rights, thus the officers of the law don't tend to interfere unless there is concern of harm to a child (not simply whether their parents are acting in their best interests - there a very big difference here).
I won't bore you anymore with these details now, but thank you for posting your husband's story.
As a parting thought I would urge you to consider even your husband's ex. as having some justification for her behaviour. Children not respecting their parents is a situation older than the hills I guess. If your husband's ex. has lost it mentally, as anyone with eight children could be forgiven for doing (how many of us could cope with that assault on our mental well being?), then this may explain her behaviour somewhat. Added to that the vilification some children give to us parents is in my opinion, appoved of and encouraged by those in authority who say things like "The child's views should be listened to and taken seriously" (UK family law states this should happen). If you take the child's views over the views of the parent you are disrespecting the parent's views aren't you? That, in my experience is what happens to some of us parents, when we try to argue why our children saying they hate us, or that we never did anything to make contact with them enjoyable. They are saying all these things basically because they are in the uncomfortable position of being stuck between two warring parents, we all know that don't we.
I hope you and your husband luck with a very difficult situation, and I suspect you will both have to make some very hard choices.
Graham