Måste jag delta i samarbetssamtal?

Question

Hej,

I have a 15 months old child with a Swedish women. I have Swedish passport & we live in the same city. We are separated 2 years ago. We were not married. After child is born, we signed paper that I am father of the child & I agreed sole custody to the mother to avoid any conflict with mother as I knew she don't want to agree joint custody & also the child was small. During past 15 months, I have approximately 100 visitations to the child (1-2 hours visitation). To solve child visitations, we had 7 meetings with familjerädevening from January 2018 to July 2018. However the mother did not agree to increase visitation days & hours. She never allowed me to bath the child. She never allowed me sleep with the child. She never agreed to bring child to my apartment.

So I sent a legal notice to mother in July 2018 requesting for joint custody & 4 months plan to gradually increase visitations. After receiving legal notice, she bring the child to my apartment first time (July 2018). However the visitation has been poor in August so far. So I (my lawyer) sent application to the court to start the process. Now the mother wants samarbetssamtal. I feel she is deliberately doing this to delay court process. I had bad experience with seven meetings familjerädevening - There was no improvement in visitations hours, days or child's visit to my apartment, child bathing etc. Please advice if I should agree for samarbetssamtal or continue with the court process ? Tack !

Answer 1

Hi and thank you for your question! My interpretation of question is that you want to know whether you have to participate in a "samarbetssamtal" or not, since you and your child's mother have already begun a court process.

The simple answer to this question would be yes. Since it is considered to be in the child's best interest that his or her parents are getting along, a court process is something that should be avoided as long as it is possible. If you choose to not participate in the meetings and discuss your child's situation the court may take that as a sign that you are not putting your child's best interest first and that may speak against you in the custody battle. The court may even assign you and the mother to participate in a mandatory "samarbetssamtal" before the court process begins if you have not had one before.

My advice to you would therefore be to show your cooperation by participating in the meeting (samarbetssamtalet) before the court process begins.

I hope that this was a satisfying answer to your question and I wish you the best of luck!