Wishes and Feelings. There is hope.

I know that i will get alot of peoples backs up for this but i also know it will give some people some hope.
After a year of back and forward to court we have finally had a final order done on the wishes and feelings of my girls 13 and 10 , NO CONTACT my ex is aloud to email them at most 2 weeky, he has told lies shouted and just been a horrible father and that is only after not wanting contact for 9 years. So anyone out there worrying , CAFCASS and court services have been fair , at times i thought a little to fair on my ex but i stayed strong for my girls , while he told lies and made up stories. The courts see it everyday.
We asked that the courts listen to the girls and respect them and this is what they did. Hope in time my girls do build a relationship with him on their own terms, not because he feels that he owns them and they have to because he says so.
So have hope , what goes around comes around.

I am a great advocate of shared residence but always add the codicil where there is no DV, drug or alcohol abuse.

It is very sad when any parent cannot maintain a relationship with their children, and doubly so when they are the author of their own misfortune.

I am at a loss to understand how your girls can build a relationship with their Father, at 10 and 13 they barely know him if he has not tried to contact them for 9 years, and their contact is restricted to 2 e-mails a week.This is a real Catch-22 situation and you will have your work cut out to try and rebuild it.

So often there are cases of RPs, on here and in real life, who try every trick in the book to block or restrict contact, but equally there are rare cases where sadly it is in the best interests of the children not to see a parent.

Do the girls have contact with their paternal grandparents, cousins or other relatives to ensure that they have a full understanding of that half of their genetic make-up to avoid any self-identity and esteem issues later in life?

I will start by answering your question about the rest of his family, its a short answer no as they have never tried to have any contact they have always had all my details.
They have lots of memories of they father during our marriage he was very abusive towards me and sometimes to the girls, we married very young and had the girls i had to grow up he chose to live his life. The girls have met him 9 times in 10 years sometimes with year breaks between contact. The last 2 times in put them both a risk and i asked at court that he have contact centre visits only the courts agreed !!
I have since moved to Cyprus for 3 years with MOD its started that he had weekly phone calls and 2 visits a year , he used the calls to shout and abuse the girls and a way of controlling them ( he wouldn't change calls even 10 mins so they could continue with clubs) yet changed his calls days /days when it suited him. He would shout and swear at me . He emailed them about all the court details and put me down. I have tried very hard not 2 bad mouth him in any way around the girls and encouraged calls and this was all noted by CAFCASS.

as a father it is very sad and I hope in future years he can turn around this awful state of mind and realise he has two beautiful daughters growing up without him.
I have few sentiments for parents like this and do not believe they look at the long term. I fought for a year to see my kids on a stable term and would do ANYTHING to secure my future with them so its very hard for me to understand why people are like this.
You know I can only surmise he had done it to hurt you, but it only hurts the kids long term, and himself

It is very sad and although i can see at present it is best for the girls , i dont know what i would do if i was told the only contact i could have with my girls was email. But on the other hand i would never chose to not be part of their life every waking hour. They are not here to be picked up and put down when it suits, i was 19 and from the moment i had my first daughter she was my world, it is a shame he didn't think the same , the more people in their lifes loving and supporting them the better i would love for his family to want to be a part of the fun and would never stop this.

You must be relieved that the constant disruption to your family life is over. I think it's important to remember contact frequently breaks down because of the behaviour of the parent without the majority of care and it's not just parents with the the majority of care who are responsible. Of course it is best for children to have good relationships with both parents, but sometimes courts are convinced that the benefits of the children having contact are outweighed by the harm they suffer as a result of a contact arrangement and no contact or indirect contact only are seen as the lesser of all evils . All parents need to know how awful it is for children when they behave badly.

In the absence of direct contact children may benefit from support in piecing together fragments of information about their lives, particularly the relationships within them, and from increasing their understanding of the nature of families and life changes eg thinking about families, charting the significant moments in their lives, looking at family pictures, being told stories about the family, looking at physical similarities between family members etc.