Australian Non-Resident Fathers’ Relationship and Ongoing Engagement with Their Children: A Critical Focus on Power

Abstract

Non-resident fathers are rarely researched from a critical perspective. Becoming a non-resident father often results in major dislocation, presenting challenges and hindrances to a meaningful relationship with children. Dislocation is increased by the involvement of the family court, legal issues, false abuse allegations, and ex-partners. Changing family configurations may marginalize non-resident fathers, with their own perspectives, voices, and lack of power remaining largely unmapped. This paper identifies what hinders non-resident fathers’ relationships with their children from a critical and Australian perspective. In-depth interviews using open-ended questions with 19 non-resident fathers were used to collect data, followed by a five-step critical thematic analysis to focus on the locus of power. Non-resident fathers’ perceptions included a lack of agency and decision-making power; the mother, legal obstacles, and agencies hindered their desired relationships with children. Hindrances were magnified by descriptions of false allegations and IPV from the ex-partner and/or her agents, resulting in a sense of marginalization, silencing, and disempowerment. Australian non-resident fathers in this study identified that desired relationships with their children were hindered by the roles of legal and welfare services, policing, and their ex-partners. The highlighting of these issues points to ways that non-resident fathers with similar experiences of a lack of agency and decision-making power might be better supported by more streamlined and balanced legal processes.

1. Introduction

Research with or about groups of people who are oppressed, disadvantaged, marginalized, or silenced by social policies and practices (Delanty 2020; Ryan 2018) and issues of power relations (Mazzone 2020) is most often referred to as a type of critical analysis. Such research is not usually applied to males, most likely because research about males has tended to focus on their individual or institutional power (Connell 1995). This perspective continues (Tarrant and Ward 2020) and is preoccupied with “the sources and manifestations of masculine power and domination” (Bhatti 2022, p. 1), placing the locus of institutional and individual power firmly within the realm of men and masculinity, a concept underpinning much of the writing on non-resident fathers after divorce (Cannito and Mercuri 2022). Consequently, research on non-resident fathers is often more concerned with impacts on others, such as children (Altenburger 2022) and ex-partners (Boll and Schueller 2022); compliance in child support (Cook 2022); and family domestic violence (FDV) (Chan et al. 2023), rather than the non-resident father himself or what power he may hold in the divorce process, especially when it is conflictual.

Power, in the context of this paper, is deemed to be the ability of a person to cause harm and to realize their will even if others resist it post-divorce, and powerlessness is deemed to be the inability of a person to realize one’s goals, as well as being vulnerable or susceptible to being harmed and/or victimized post-divorce (Davies and Wyatt 2021). The features of power affecting some non-resident fathers post-divorce have been reported to include a lack of decision-making power (Violi et al. 2023), lack of agency in childcare (Heers and Szalma 2018), loss of economic power (Maslauskaitė and Tereškinas 2020) and lack of resources (Whitley 2021), and lack of power in the divorce structures and procedures (Eardley and Griffiths 2009). Davies and Wyatt (2021) also indicate that there are invisible features of power, and it may be seen that many of these may have a negative impact on non-resident fathers. The invisible features of power include: a lack of public or governmental knowledge of the problems, a lack of statistics being collected, a lack of theory and/or research from their own perspective, and a lack of control over factors that may impact them directly. The lack of politics, from their perspective, may play a role through a lack of funding for social support programs and research, and there is no panic in relation to their experiences or the consequences for them. Nevertheless, as there has been limited research from the perspective of non-resident fathers, more in-depth research to describe men’s perceptions of how the listed power issues affect their lives is necessary.

Part of the problem of mapping and measuring non-resident fathers’ perceptions and reported experiences includes the difficulty of estimating the size of this demographic, since accurate statistics as to the number and other details of non-resident fathers are reportedly difficult to obtain, as data about non-resident fathers are not routinely gathered (Poole et al. 2016). This can potentially be linked to non-resident fathers’ diverse family configurations and/or the lack of flexibility of data-gathering systems. In the Australian context, of the very limited data that are available, it can be noted that in 2003, 87% of children with one non-resident parent had a father living elsewhere (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2006), and in 2009, 82% of non-resident parents were fathers (ABS 2009).

In Australia, being part of diverse family configurations may result in the marginalization of divorced non-resident fathers in relation to their children (Castro Torres et al. 2022). Further, these diverse family configurations make it difficult to conceptualize and explore what non-resident fatherhood looks like, how it is lived, and the challenges faced in maintaining ongoing relationships with children. Arditti et al. (2019) highlighted:

“the lack of conceptual and empirical clarity regarding the experience of non-residential fatherhood stems largely from the complexity of family arrangements associated with paternal nonresidence, the changing contours of non-resident status over time, and the failure of research to consider multiple relationships with the same father and complex kin networks”.

(pp. 68–69)

Non-resident fathers’ perspectives and understandings of their own experiences in the face of structural challenges are rarely explored or discussed academically. These factors have often been reported by some non-resident fathers as limited options; lack of choice and decision-making power; and the impact of practicalities such as inadequate housing, mental health, stress and distress, lack of finances, and legal practices which involve the family court and Police on themselves and their relationships with their children, which in turn may lead to disempowerment and hindrance of their relationships with their children (Violi et al. 2022, 2023). Although it is not clear what proportion of non-resident fathers have such experiences, as this is an under-researched area, exploring perceptions of power in greater detail may provide a very different picture to the current discourse, making this an area of significant research need as the myriad of non-resident fathers’ experiences and perceptions deserve attention. Viewing non-resident fathers’ experiences and challenges through a critical perspective of power may assist in understanding power in relationships before, during, and after divorce, particularly how this power is used, by what means, and by whom. For instance, Avelino (2021) argues that social change can have dark and unintended consequences that can create new and different inequalities for some. Whether this is the case in relation to policy changes that have sought to empower mothers’ agency, protection, and welfare post-divorce remains open to conjecture; however, such unintended consequences for non-resident fathers, such as if they affect all non-resident fathers or just some with certain characteristics, warrant exploration and recognition. This, in turn, would add nuanced and important theoretical insights to our understanding of some non-resident fathers’ experiences, as well as the negative and unintentional consequences experienced by them.

The broad negative consequences of divorce for some groups of non-resident fathers are reported to be physical (Zineldin 2019), mental (Whitley 2021), social (Leopold 2018), and emotional dislocation (Kessler 2018). Ambiguous loss or grief is a stressor for non-resident fathers due to the loss or lack of meaningful relationships with their children based on a perceived variable known as boundary ambiguity (Tatton 2023). Boundary ambiguity is not knowing who is in or out of one’s family system (Priest 2021) and is exacerbated by the non-resident father’s involvement in diverse family configurations, as noted above, resulting in an incongruence in the individual perceptions of family membership and roles (Boss 2016). When these issues negatively affect non-resident fathers, any dislocation, marginalization, or decrease in agency they feel can be intensified with cultural (Shamma et al. 2023) and sexual diversity (McCaulley and Coleman 2022), making it important to understand how the complexities of social and sexual identity coalesce and compound with any experiences of social disadvantage and inequality. As Treloar (2018) noted,

“analysis of individual-level experiences must be integrated with attention to context, including their perceptions of power relations and social structures”.

(p. 342)

For non-resident fathers, these would include family law courts and associated structures.

The Australian Context

In Australia, the family court is established as an alternative to divorce via litigation by offering a problem-solving approach (Rhoades 2010), especially through mediation. Mediation as a process offers a less formal opportunity for parties to come to agreements and avoid litigation. The reported weaknesses of mediation as it is practiced in Australia are that it has moved from conference-style mediation to arbitration-style mediation with lawyers present (Howieson et al. 2016); the decisions made in mediation are not binding (Boulle and Field 2023); and the legal framework surrounding divorce still requires a court-based resolution (McGowan 2018), so decisions made in mediation are not binding until court ratification. This dynamic can result in the resident parent taking advantage of this structural flexibility for their own advantage. Through intransigence, lack of agreement, and false allegations, they can hinder, prolong, and/or continue changing arrangements without resolution, leading to short-circuiting of the mediation process, as has been highlighted by Avieli (2022) and Bates (2020).

Another structural weakness of mediation and family court orders themselves is that the court itself is not responsible for enforcing its own orders when breached. This is a structural reality that benefits the resident parent and disadvantages the non-resident parent. If the orders are breached by the resident parent, the non-resident parent must re-initiate court action with ensuing prohibitive costs, and, should they win the case, Hirst (2005) says the resident parent “will not suffer a penalty” (p. 5). As reported by the ABS, in 82% of cases, the non-resident parent is the father. In this way, the family court inadvertently hinders non-resident fathers’ relationships with their children (Seymour 2016) through the unintended and negative consequences that Avelino (2021) warned about. The experience of family law in Australia is a challenge to all involved, especially with the linking of family law, property law, abuse allegations, and domestic violence (Easteal et al. 2018). Both family domestic violence (FDV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) in Australia and in Western countries are characterized as disparately “gendered” (perpetrated by men on women), with little to no acknowledgment of FDV or IPV perpetrated by women against men. The latest data of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provide a figure of 65–79% female victims of FDV. No figure is provided for male victims of FDV, nor is it clear who is included in the remaining percentage. For IPV, it has been reported as 1 in 4 women had experienced violence by an intimate partner (23%) and 1 in 14 men had experienced violence by an intimate partner (7.3%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2023). However, these figures do not correlate with a significant number of studies from 1999 (Headey et al. 1999) to the present (Nuzzo et al. 2023) which report the incidences of FDV and IPV being about equal for both women and men.

It is not unusual for allegations of FDV and abuse to be made within family court proceedings, some of which may be false. False allegations (FA), also known as false reports or false accusations, are allegations of a crime filed to police by the complainant when no crime has been committed (Avieli 2022). Some allegations intend to deceive (Turvey et al. 2018), while others may be unintentional if the complainant believes the allegation is true (Burnett 2016). If the allegation is intentional, it is a criminal offence and a serious abuse of justice (Rumney and McCartan 2017). In the United States, it is estimated that 25–50% of child custody disputes involve allegations of domestic violence (Avieli 2022). A YouGov (2023) survey published by the Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance reported that 15% of Australian males are victims of false allegations of abuse. The same survey showed that false accusations are more likely to occur in child access disputes in Australia than anywhere else in the world, being 41% of such allegations, with 80% of victims being male. This survey involved eight countries, and Australia was the second worst country for false accusations. FAs of FDV have been described as the “silver bullet” in custody disputes (Harman and Lorandos 2021) due to their potential impact on decisions regarding access to children (Mares and Turvey 2018). Since, in Australia, the onus is on these non-resident fathers to disprove the allegations made against them rather than the police investigating their veracity, leaves them disadvantaged in the face of the court and legal proceedings. Further disadvantages for the non-resident fathers may result from the subjectivity of the criteria for police intervention. Police intervention is based solely on the complainant reporting feeling from “‘not afraid’ to ‘terrified’” (Leung and Trimboli 2022, p. 3), with no evidence required to support the allegation. In this way, the usual presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” is overturned within family law, with these non-resident fathers being guilty until they prove themselves innocent. This represents another example of the structural disadvantages and discrimination experienced by non-resident fathers.

Linked to FDV and IPV is coercive control. Coercive control is an aspect of IPV and “is defined as the use of abusive tactics to dominate and control one’s partner’s autonomy and independence” (Avieli 2022, p. 1392). FDV and coercive control do not always include physical violence. Coercive control can precede, be sustained without, or continue long after physical violence has ended (Stark and Hester 2019). The concept of coercive control holds a prominent place in the current understanding of FDV (Douglas and Fell 2020), and FAs are seen to be a form of coercive control. It is said that that “women use the criminal justice system through vexatious, unfounded, and protracted legal proceedings” (Avieli 2022, pp. 1392–93) to control their ex-partners’ lives and control post-divorce arrangements (Bates 2020).

Another aspect of FDV and IPV that is not usually addressed is FDV and IPV by proxy, that is, the perpetrator enlisting the help of others (friends, family, others) to take part in their abusive behaviors. Significantly, the witnessing of FDV and IPV, including IPV by proxy, by children is one criterion for child abuse (Haslam et al. 2023) and is a coercively controlling abusive dynamic involving the weaponization of the child (Russell and Hamel 2022). The structural ambiguities of this issue result in an asymmetry of power between the non-resident father and the resident mother involved in such situations. It is therefore important to understand what power is and how it may be used, and indeed how it may be experienced and perceived by the various actors. Power is the capacity to engineer outcomes (Avelino 2021) or to have the ability and capacity to engineer outcomes or to cause harm (Davies and Wyatt 2020). In this way, power is a relationship in which one side is seen to prevail over the other, and the powerful are those who can realize their will, even if others resist it (Blau 1964). These situations may include conflictual or violent aspects of power (Avelino 2021). Traditionally, power has been seen from two perspectives: “power over” something or someone (including causing harm) and “power to” realize or make something happen, or to have agency (Davies and Wyatt 2020). Partzsch (2017) highlighted a third option: “power with”, where the individuals willingly share power together for the greater good. These concepts and the way that non-resident fathers may experience them will be further considered below.

As there is little research on non-resident fathers that reflects their own lived realities and perspectives, these aspects of post-divorce relationships and the factors that negatively impact them and hinder their relationship with their children have been largely unexplored and undocumented. Exploring, documenting, and understanding what relationships non-resident fathers desire to have with their children from their own perspectives and identifying the impacts of their perceived lack of agency, choice, and power may reveal new knowledge. This may offer new insights into theorizing about non-resident fathers; broaden discourses concerning them, their relationships, fatherhood, and fatherhood role salience; and provide deeper understanding of how their desired relationships with their children are hindered and how this may be addressed.

2. Method

Research design. This study used a qualitative and descriptive design, which was appropriate to explore the perspectives and experiences of non-resident fathers (Jacob and Furgerson 2015). As this study sought to analyze these experiences through a lens of power using critical thematic analysis (Lawless and Chen 2019), the research question was: “How are facets of power perceived to hinder non-resident fathers contact and relationship with their children?”

Approach and recruitment. Participants were 19 non-resident fathers who did not live with their children after separation/divorce. Participants were recruited by purposive sampling and using social media, print media, and flyers. It is acknowledged that the sampling method used may have increased the probability that the participants in this research are not representative of all divorced Australian fathers. Interview topics were not advertised in the publicity. Prospective participants contacted the first author via official email, where the project and their eligibility were discussed before they gave consent to participate.

Participant description. Participants were drawn from across Australia and had a mean age of 42.8 years. Time since separation/divorce ranged from 1 to 38 years, ages from 32 to 71 years, and 37 non-resident children were represented. A total of 19 participants undertook an open-ended interview with the principal researcher via Zoom, which was recorded with their knowledge and consent. The interview enquired about becoming a non-resident father, the role and actions of the mother, any experiences of DV or IPV, experiences with the family court, lawyers, mediation, and the police. Four (4) gay men who came out of heterosexual marriages and four (4) from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds were included. Participants were recruited by purposive sampling as well as using social and print media and flyers.

Saturation. Data saturation is assumed when no new information, codes, or themes are linked to concurrent theoretical, data sampling, and analysis practices (Hennink et al. 2019). Determining sample size in thematic analysis relies on a mix of interpretative, situated, and pragmatic judgements (Sim et al. 2018), with Braun and Clarke (2019) noting that “saturation, code, theme—can have very different meanings”, (p. 212). Recruitment ceased when three consecutive interviews provided no new knowledge and a comprehensive understanding of participant’s perspectives and experiences by monitoring for recurrence, repetition, and forcefulness (Lawless and Chen 2019) was possible. To protect confidentiality, pseudonyms were used and relevant factors were de-identified. The symbols [ and ] are used where text has been inserted to aid clarity, and … is used to indicate deletions.

3. Data Collection

In-depth interviews were conducted with a semi-structured interview guide used for data collection. Questions covered how participants became non-resident fathers, involvement with the family court, actual and desired contact time with children, how and by whom the amount of contact was decided, and whether IPV or IPV by proxy had been experienced. This identified shared experiences, but remained sufficiently flexible to address individual narratives (Lindlof and Taylor 2017). Interviews occurred between May and September 2022. Interviews were conducted via Zoom due to the participants’ varied locations, and “face to face” interviewing enabled the establishment of rapport and the identification of distress, providing an opportunity for support. Interviews lasted between 55 min and three hours, and were recorded for accuracy with permission and professionally transcribed.

4. Data Analysis

Critical thematic analysis was used for data analysis by the principal researcher using the following steps. Step 1. Transcripts were read through at least twice to gain understanding and identify the scope of the data. Step 2. Codes were identified and recorded as they emerged from the transcripts, revealing 40 codes. Step 3. Codes were sorted into five “categories”: relationships, legal aspects, community, mental health/psychological effects, and responsibility. Step 4. To address the academic and wider acceptance of institutional and individual power being based within masculinity in general and men in particular, as outlined above, each code was reviewed and assigned a locus of power, identifying “power with”, “power to”, and “power over”. Step 5. The categories were scrutinized for themes, which helped to explain the meaning, significance, and interactions revealed in the data (Braun and Clarke 2022), and particular attention was given to patterns of what was important, salient, or meaningful for participants.

5. Ethical Considerations

The study had (removed for review) approval. All participants provided written consent and consented verbally to the recording of the interviews. Participants were alerted to the sensitivity of some questions and reminded they could stop the interview at any time. No adverse outcomes occurred, and no participants withdrew from the study. Participants have been assigned pseudonyms for confidentiality.

6. Results

Figure 1 conceptually illustrates the results of this study, mapping the journey from relationship decay to the factors that led to the non-resident father’s loss of or hindered relationships with children.

Themes began with the decay of the relationship, establishing dynamics that continued after separation/divorce. FDV, IPV, and IPV by proxy were perpetrated against the non-resident father before and after separation/divorce. These factors influenced and extended the negative impact of legal processes, mediation, and police (in)action and underpinned negative outcomes that hindered non-resident fathers’ relationships with their children.

Theme 1.

Relationship decay results in decline in power and agency for the non-resident father

Relationship decay included married and common-law relationships, and only one participant reported a mutually agreed-upon ending of the relationship. All other relationships were ended by the mother, often without prior warning and with little negotiation. Many admitted they had not foreseen the breakdown or realized that they were victims of DV and/or coercive control at the time of occurrence. Several participants monitored and limited their behaviors, modified their attitudes to please partners, feared outcomes, and tried to avoid arguments and conflicts. Of the 19 non-resident fathers, 18 reported feeling a lack of control or agency within the relationship both before and after separation/divorce, coalescing to hinder their continuing relationships with their children.

6.1. Decaying Relationships, Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, and Coercive Control

The dynamics in the decay of relationships varied, with friction and conflict escalating for all but one during the relationship breakdown. DV and IPV included physical, psychological, financial, and emotional abuse and gaslighting, resulting in feelings of disempowerment for the victim. Both DV and IPV were reported before, during, and after relationship decay.

Physical abuse included: “she physically assaulted me by trying to break my nasal bone… [she] physically assaulted me multiple times” (Bruce). Another, “I woke up on the floor. … My front teeth were knocked out” (Cameron) and “She broke my finger” (Neville).

Verbal abuse and controlling and isolating behaviors were reported: “there [was] verbal abuse and lots of controlling behaviour…. that I was a useless human being and she was going to send me back to [Country], that I’d never see my kids. She … bought the return ticket and was trying to force me to go back.” (Corey). Another reported the following: “being yelled at, put down … I wasn’t allowed to see my friends.” (Craig).

6.2. Ending of Relationship Meant Lack of Power and Choice in Child Contact Arrangements for Non-Resident Fathers

The ending of the relationship often led to non-resident fathers having no or limited contact with children due to restrictions imposed by the mother and when the non-resident fathers perceived themselves to lack the power to realize an alternative. Participants reported: “She hasn’t let me have any contact with them at all” (Corey) and “she stopped me from seeing the kids completely” (Sylvain). One consequence was: “In the time that I wasn’t allowed to see my kids, my ex-wife had poisoned them against me.” (Craig); another feared that “by the time I get to see them, they will not recognise me” (Corey).

Severely limited or controlled contact with children was reported: “She has pinned me only with seeing them in a supervised contact centre or over Zoom” (Corey) and “she made it really complicated for me to spend time with them.” (Kaarle).

The use of telephones, technology, and social media is essential in contemporary families and an important means of contact for the non-resident father, especially when significant distances are involved between them and their children. These means were reported to be restricted and controlled: “I had demands put on me that I was to only contact the children through a landline telephone number at certain times.” (Neville) or totally blocked: “She refused me to have contact with them and she blocked my number from the kids’ phones. She’d threatened the kids that they were not allowed to contact me.” (Sylvain). Further: “her default … [form of discipline] is just to remove all electronic devices from [the] children’s possession” (Neville), thus removing the non-resident fathers’ means of contact with the children.

Lack of cooperation by the mother limited and hindered relationship with children, highlighting the non-resident fathers’ perception of a power imbalance in favor of the mother: “she’s definitely the controlling entity, because she has him physically. If she doesn’t want to go and meet at the prescribed place [and] time, then there’s nothing I can do about it… And she thrives on that power to just say no, and just outright refuse” (Oliver).

Not respecting contact arrangements was reported as another strategy employed by the mother that led participants to feel disempowered: “The few times that she’s … made some plans, she just back pedalled out of them at the last second, every time.” (Corey); and “[for] hand over [of] the children … she makes it … difficult. At the 11th hour, … she’ll change locations, change times, change conditions, change whatever she … can” (Neville). Or: “She’d … deliberately arrive late, she wouldn’t turn up … often arrived late to drop them off [or] ringing me and say that I had to drop them off early because she’d arranged to go somewhere with them” (Sylvain). Non-resident fathers perceived these actions to disempower; destabilize; foster insecurity; and, according to them, ensure the non-resident father’s compliance, which can be deemed coercive control.

6.3. Ending of Relationship Means Dislocation and Loss of Decision-Making Power for the Non-Resident Father

The ending of a relationship disrupts the established order of a family, dislocating the non-resident father, with the family order unable to continue physically, emotionally, psychologically, legally, and socially.

Physical dislocation occurred with the ending of relationships, often happening without discussion or prior warning: “She basically said, ‘I want you out’.” (Bruce), leaving the father with a perceived lack of choice and the experience of having no decision-making power. Two participants were removed from the family home without warning: “the [State] police knocking on my door … I was not allowed to go anywhere near my property or my kids until further notice.” (Kaarle). This made him homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic, having no family in Australia, and hotels were closed for lockdown. Craig reported “the police came around, said, ‘You’ve got 15 min to pack up some clothes and you’re out and you’re not allowed back.’”. In this way, the use of false abuse allegations rendered the non-resident fathers homeless, without rights, treated as criminals by being handcuffed, and they developed of a sense of powerlessness to redress their situation without resorting to legal action.

Homelessness was part of ongoing dislocation: “there was a 12-month period that I lived in my shop slash office after I was ejected from [the] house” (Nick). Others reported living on people’s couches or moving from friends to friends as necessary. Homelessness and inadequate housing were underpinned by a lack of financial resources, resulting in non-resident fathers being dislocated from their children’s lives: “I was living at a boarding house for a number of years, … that’s not ideal scenario to have children with you” (Steve).

Dislocation, social disadvantage, and inequality was intensified for participants not born in Australia, who were without family, kin, or social support systems: “all [our] friends, … they just cut me right out instantly” (Corey). Others were affected by cultural background: “I have to acknowledge that it’s different country, different culture” (Kaarle) or sexuality (after coming out as gay): “My family became extremely distant with me … My ex-wife liked to use it against me” (Sylvain), increasing non-resident fathers’ senses of vulnerability, financial insecurity, and powerlessness.

Theme 2.

Non-resident fathers’ lack of power in post-divorce childcare and contact arrangements

A major reason divorcing couples resort to family court action is an inability to agree on childcare and contact arrangements. Little attention has been given to how and by whom care and contact arrangements are initially established prior to court action and the short- and long-term consequences of these “interim” arrangements.

6.4. Lack of Power in Conflict over Contact Arrangements with Children

The decay and ending of the relationship, for most participants, involved conflict over contact arrangements with children. Often, fathers reported that the mother made a unilateral decision with, they felt, no room for compromise: “By my ex. Solely by my ex, [she] decided [there would be] no contact” (Vince).

Where there was not total denial of contact, any agreement was reportedly made difficult by legal means: “Countless times I’ve had to [legally] fight tooth and nail just to stay a part of my kids’ lives.” (Eduardo). According to some non-resident fathers, contact was deliberately made difficult through interference: “the last thing my daughter said to me was that ‘It’s very difficult because Mum doesn’t want me to see you anymore and she’s stopping me from seeing you’” (Vince). Another participant reported his perception that the mother applied to the family court to prevent the children from staying overnight because he was in a gay relationship: “To start … they were staying with us, but the court made a … judgment that as we were gay, the children couldn’t stay with us [overnight]” (Victor).

The place of contact and who could be there caused conflict for some non-resident fathers who felt disempowered by the arrangements: “she said, ‘If I can’t be there at your place, or you at my place, then you won’t see him at all” (Nick).

Overcommitting the children during contact time was also a means which participants perceived prevented or made contact difficult: “there’d be always an excuse: ‘Oh, they’re not even here today’ … They’re with their grandparents’” (Larry), and the children were kept highly engaged outside the home during contact times: “she likes to run … on a very tight and organised schedule. [which] caused a few little niggles [conflicts] …” (Marcus), which the fathers experienced as a lack of agency and lack of power.

6.5. Non-Resident Fathers’ Lack of Power through Continuing Coercive Control by the Mother

While physical DV experienced before separation and divorce ceased afterwards, the perpetration of coercive control continued, began, or escalated: “it’s still going on …” (Steve). Coercive control included cutting off all contact with children or the threat to do so: “she completely shuts me out” (Corey)”. Other issues involved how often contact occurred: “Not allowing me to see my son on a regular basis” (Nick); under what conditions the father could see his children: “she wanted to have actually professional supervision by government agencies to supervise” (Kaarle); what he was allowed to do during visitation: “She [told] me what they can eat, what they can wear, what they can do, where they can go, who they can see, when they can go overseas to see the grandparents, if they can see the grandparents” (Craig) so that: “it always feels like it’s on her terms” (Marcus); monitoring the children during contact visits: “The kids, … have tracking devices in their shoes..”; sending fake text messages: “She’d actually intercept my calls from the children then send them text messages as me …then delete the messages so that I didn’t see them, … [the texts] were, ‘I don’t want to see you anymore’” (Nick); and using phones to intrude into the fathers contact time with children: “They have [given] them mobile phones and iPads and … continually in my time, contact them and message them” (Craig).

The conditions imposed by the mother changed over time according to the experiences reported by some participants, becoming more severe, increasing the disempowerment and hindrance of the father’s relationship with his children. For example, “originally, she wanted to have somebody available to be there with me to see them and then she escalated that to … she wanted to have actually professional supervision by government agencies to supervise” (Kaarle), with the result that: “[it] made it very difficult for me to have meaningful and easy relationship with my children [and] I was unable to see my children on the weekend when I couldn’t find supervision (sic)” (Kaarle).

6.6. Non-Resident Fathers’ Lack of Power Due to Continuing IPV and IPV by Proxy

IPV by proxy is IPV perpetrated by family or agents of the mother, and may be physical or verbal, involving text, threats, and lies to assist the main perpetrator to gain or maintain power over the victim.

One participant reported he believed that his ex-wife had planned to commit IPV towards him with her parents: “I [believe] … she got together with her parents maybe three months before our separation and said, ‘here’s how we’re going to do it.’ I think that she planned it out with them” (Corey). Evidence for this was: “her parents constantly telling me that I wasn’t doing enough … that I was a deadbeat … they kept saying for me to leave” (Corey), culminating in “The dad kept threatening me. … like he was going to fight me” (Corey).

Another participant reported: “her father pointed a loaded 0.22 rifle at me and chambered a round. … her brother threatened to bash me” (Bruce). Still another reported: “I’ve lost count of how many times … he [father-in-law] became violent. He tried to run me over one night” (Neville). Phone calls and texts were other activities that participants experienced as IPV by proxy, often by the mother’s mother. Nonfamily members undertook what participants perceived to be IPV by proxy, with one participant reporting that for more than six months, he and his partner were subjected to “harassment and verbal abuse when picking up and dropping off the children by the bikies next door. My son told me years later that his mother had asked them to do this [because I was gay]” (Vince).

Theme 3.

Systemic and structural obstacles that hinder non-resident fathers’ power in their relationships with their children

Obstacles that hinder a non-resident father’s relationship with his children may include official systems and processes, including the family court, mediation, and lawyers.

6.7. Systemic Obstacles Hindering Non-Resident Fathers Reclaiming Power in Their Relationships with Their Children

Resorting to the family court was reportedly difficult for some participants and was based on the hope of gaining regular access to children, but was accompanied by doubtfulness regarding achieving a desirable result: “I think court is the only way to get some custody orders in place … what’s stopping me from going to court is that I don’t feel like … I would get what I wanted” (Corey). This included the family court process: “I had the false belief that if you’ve done nothing wrong then court is where you want to be, … the truth will come out … That’s not how Family Court works. Family Court is the most destructive, dysfunctional setup” (Eduardo).

The significantly lengthy time taken to reach court and the continual postponements resulted in disadvantage and disempowerment for one non-resident father: “it kept getting postponed, [it was] over 10, 11 months before I had my first actual day in court [then] I spent nearly two years fighting in court” (Craig). Delaying and complicating proceedings was seen by some participants as a means of hindering the non-resident father’s relationship with his children: “it was touted by the registrar … as not being a difficult or complicated case [but] I still have not [been] able to see my two-year-old son … after two years in court” (Nick). This increases a sense of estrangement for the non-resident father from his children and increases the fear they will not know him when regular contact is established: “I noticed that big gap, … he didn’t even know who I was at that point” (Corey).

The attitudes and behaviors of magistrates were perceived by some participants as negative factors in gaining access to children: “the magistrates and how they behaved and how they acted and how they spoke, nothing was impartial. There was no fairness in the entire system” (Craig) and included reports of verbal abuse: “I was yelled at by the judge … the magistrate called me ‘a bloody idiot’” (Craig).

Lawyers and their involvement in the legal process were seen to be particularly hindering and disempowering factors by non-resident fathers. This included the perception that they were encouraged to accept intervention orders to gain quicker access to children although no offence was committed: “I was actually legally instructed to just accept the intervention order” (Eduardo), but doing so resulted in immediate restrictions: “basically the legal system was put in place to stop me seeing them without any basically resolution provided on how to resolve that. (sic)” (Kaarle). The legal profession was viewed as being more focused on making money than achieving solutions: “the solicitors. … it’s just a money thing for them. They’re always pushing for more. … [they] just seemed to stir the pot” (Larry).

Mediation is promoted as an alternative to court involvement. However, mediation was reportedly subverted by the ex-partner, which resulted in a sense of feeling disempowered for non-resident fathers in the decision-making process regarding contact with the children. This was achieved by what participants described as repeated delays: “I got confirmation, ‘Yes, … mediation’s going to take place’. … within 21 h, I got an email … saying that she’d pulled out with giving no reason.” (Bruce) and intransigence: “I was negotiating, and she was saying, ‘you are going to, you are going to, you are going to, you are going to’ but not offering any solution. So, she wasn’t negotiating anything” (Bruce) and “it was her way or no way. She wouldn’t give an inch” (Craig); further: “During our mediation, she didn’t agree to any of the visitation things that I suggested” (Corey).

Mediators were seen as biased against the non-resident father by some: “I’m done with mediators. I am … so done with the bias. … I’ve tried four [times]” (Neville). This is seen by some participants to enhance and compound the mother’s power over the non-resident father and his choices: “The first [mediation] … felt very heavily weighted or skewed in favour of the mother, just in terms of the mediator’s approach” (Oliver), leading to disillusionment with mediation: “I thought we were actually trying to mediate; she was just using it as a further tool to get more control of the kids” (Eduardo). Another saw it as futile given what the participant described as the mother’s refusal to cooperate: “the mediator said, ‘Well, you reached the end of the road. Here’s your certificate and good luck.’ So, it’s a tick in a box, [and] a waste of time and money once again” (Kaarle).

Systemic practices may compound experiences of powerlessness and vulnerability. One participant with a non-English-speaking background (NESB) reported “the fact that they have to handcuff me just to go to a police station even though I was willing to just cooperate and go with them” (Kaarle). This occurred despite the participant’s claim of no violence, threats, prior convictions, or apprehended violence orders (AVOs). Systemic practices resulted in one participant reporting: “I got to the breaking point. I got to the point where is it better to go to prison, is it better to go to jump off this cliff, or is it better to fight? That system drove me to that point” (Craig).

6.8. Agency-Led Obstacles That Hinder the Non-Resident Father’s Power in Determining His Relationship with His Children

As a result of separation and removal from the family home, the non-resident father often experienced dealing with police, schools, and welfare agencies. These agencies reportedly played a disempowering role for the non-resident fathers and hindered their relationships with their children through their actions, as well as what participants experienced as hostile attitudes and/or omissions.

The police were seen to be unhelpful and unwilling to become involved when the non-resident father found himself in need of assistance: “I went to the police station a few times and asked them what to do [after the removal of the children from the family home]. They just dismissed me and said… ‘Sorry, it’s not in our jurisdiction’” (Corey). Another participant seeking assistance reported: “I was ridiculed, I was laughed out of a police station, heckled” (Eduardo).

Omission or failing to inform occurred with the serving of interim intervention orders in one participant’s experience. He reported: “then I was told that I had to now agree to the intervention order, which was in place until the final intervention order would be made” (Kaarle). This participant reportedly was not informed that, being interim, it could be challenged, and, being unfamiliar with Australian practices, he expected that the allegations would be investigated with police impartiality. This perception was challenged when “I came to the sad reality and it still sometime baffles me to see how it works, that they actually don’t do any investigation (sic)” (Kaarle). Disbelief and disappointment with the (dys)functioning of the system, resulting in feelings of disenfranchisement and disempowerment of the non-resident father following abuse allegations, was expressed: “to actually have a prosecution and a police system paid by taxpayer to do everything they can to exclude a father, even though they got zero proof whatsoever for that [alleged abuse] (sic) (Kaarle).

Behaviors by police officers that participants experienced as menacing were reported: “the senior officer … basically just walked at me and at me and at me until I was up against the wall, … I actually had my hands up … he’s going, ‘You’re being very aggressive’. I said, ‘I’m trying to do what you’re directing me to do’ That was a really negative experience for me” (Vincent).

Schools are an important part of family life, and their role can have broad positive or negative impacts. Participants reported that schools hindered their relationships with their children by omission and non-inclusion rather than overt actions. Non-inclusion took the form of ignoring non-resident fathers’ requests: “the primary school basically ignored all requests by me to be kept informed … if they [children] got injured…the school never contacted me” (Craig). A lack of cooperation was reported despite direct requests: “I don’t get academic progress reports and I don’t get … anything. … I’ve asked them. I’ve made requests… my experience …is entirely negative” (Neville). Experiences of disenfranchisement and frustration are reiterated: “I had to explain myself every single time, ‘I’m their father’ and basically get permission from my ex-wife to speak to the school about my children. It was extremely frustrating” (Sylvain).

Similarly, welfare agencies were perceived by participants to negatively impact their relationships with their children through omission: “I found it difficult to get help … I felt that they either didn’t want to help or that they were not [willing]” (Brad). One participant sought counselling help as a result of DV: “I knew I was breaking. I walked in and I see all these pamphlets of men bashing women and violence against women and this psychologist said, “You’re a man. Suck it up” (Craig). This was reiterated: “I struggled. Most of the supports were set up for single mothers and women fleeing domestic violence, etcetera. There … was nothing for me” (Sylvain). Another reported: “I did try [to get help] but then I realised it was just a complete lost cause” (Corey); still another stated: “As a single father there’s very minimal places to turn to” (Eduardo).

7. Discussion

Since power is the capacity to cause harm and effect outcomes (Davies and Wyatt 2021) and is seen as a relationship in which one prevails over another, the powerful are those who are able to realize their will, even if others resist it (Traeder and Zeigler-Hill 2020). This may include the use of conflictual or violent aspects of power to realize their objectives (Avelino 2021). Interviews with participants (despite being a comparatively small sample) for this study revealed that they had experienced feelings of being disempowered, which suggests the possibility that the political, structural, and social policies and practices designed to protect and give the mother greater agency can, in some circumstances, enhance her power to realize her will with respect to relationships and children after divorce, according to the perception of the non-resident fathers. This was experienced by the participants as a disadvantage and a form of disempowerment. Participants described experiencing a lack of decision-making power in ending their relationship with the mother of their children, and in making arrangements for contact with their children after separation/divorce. The family court and mediation structures were perceived by participants to have enabled the resident parent to be intransigent, avoid agreement, and make false and continually changing visitation arrangements. Evasive behaviors such as these have been referred to as stonewalling (Brown 2022) and were experienced by participants in this study to negatively affect their relationships with their children. This offers new insights for theorizing and widens the scope to include broader discourse on intimate partner relationships; their dynamics; fatherhood; post-divorce contact arrangements; and how non-resident fathers engage in, maintain, or lose contact with their children in the short and long term in future research on non-resident fatherhood.

Another major finding is that, despite the family court of Australia reportedly adopting new approaches to conflict resolution (Rhoades 2010), participants in this study experienced interactions with the family court, as well as mediation, to be unsatisfactory. If the experiences of participants in this study were typical of those of Australian non-resident fathers more generally, the introduction of the most recent procedural changes to family law, as outlined above, might deepen and exacerbate dissatisfaction. Likewise, the various legal, social, community, welfare, and other structures, such as lawyers, police, schools, and counseling agencies, who are supposedly neutral entities, were at times perceived by participants in this study to be co-opted by the mother to distance the non-resident father from his children. The result of similar activity has been described as a continuum of estrangement (Scharp 2019), one which the non-resident father appears to have little power to counteract.

If, as a society, we are serious about assisting non-resident fathers in remaining engaged and involved in their children’s lives, which is also generally seen to be in the best interest of the child, then non-resident father-affirming actions must be taken. One means of affirming non-resident fathers and addressing the lack of power that some of them perceive, as expressed in the findings of this study, is to ensure that the legal, welfare, and community agencies that are involved in the divorce process act with real impartiality and with structured educational action to counter personal sexism that may influence their actions. The power of the gendered perception of males as perpetrators of FDV and IPV (Nuzzo et al. 2023), and of having institutional, personal, decisive, and financial power, can be seen to be reified to the point where achieving the elusive goal of neutrality might be a challenge in some circumstances.

Linked to the gendered perception of power may be the disparity in the reporting of FDV and IPV by social agencies (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2023) and researchers (Easteal et al. 2018), which is significant and needs to be accounted for and explained. From our findings, although open to conjecture, it is reasonable to conclude that the disparity is probably based on several important factors. Regarding participants in our Australian study who experienced IPV: 1. They did not always see themselves as victims at the time of perpetration. 2. Some only became aware of the abuse during the research interview. 3. Those who attempted to report the abuse to the police were ridiculed, demeaned, dismissed, and not believed. 4. Participants reported a lack of crisis information and support. 5. Participants found the overwhelming focus on “Violence against women” in the media, police stations, and other organizations to be a deterrent to reporting their abuse. These are important findings, as they reveal significant gaps in both our knowledge and the justice processes which come together to disempower and silence some non-resident fathers in certain circumstances, thereby hindering their relationships with their children.

Another finding that needed to be considered was the experience of ambiguous loss or grief and boundary ambiguity (Carroll et al. 2007), which were noted to be significant stressors for the non-resident fathers who participated in this study due to the loss of contact and lack of meaningful relationships with their children (Tatton 2023). As indicated above, boundary ambiguity has a strong impact on non-resident fathers, as it highlights the uncertainty of who is inside or outside of a family system and can be exacerbated by being involved in several family configurations at any one time. This boundary ambiguity has social, welfare, political, and structural bases. Socially, the non-resident father is not seen as part of the “resident”, family which now comprises the mother and children (with perhaps a new partner). The non-resident father continues to have limited parental rights, some duties, and increased financial responsibilities but is no longer seen or treated as part of the “family”. Within welfare contexts, the non-resident father is not part of the “family”, as the mother is the usual focus for communications regarding the children with schools, doctors, and other health or welfare agents. Politically, non-resident fathers hold an ambiguous role in the family, as they are rarely included in official family research profiles from government departments since these generally focus on who is in a particular “household” and not the wider family composition.

Finally, this paper has presented the negative impacts of the lack of agency and lack of choice experienced by participants in this study. Given that agency is a feature of power (Davies and Wyatt 2021), it is important to address agency to some degree. Agency may mean that one party’s “power to” may result in “power over” the other. This research highlights that “power over” and “power to” were experienced by participants in an environment which lacked structural and theoretical approaches that emphasize and enable ways of achieving equitable agency outcomes (power with) for all parties. This highlights the need to foster power sharing, or “power with”, as a major focus of the divorce process, which, in turn, may result in better and less conflictual outcomes for all stakeholders in the minority of cases in which separation/divorce is not amicable. Through “power with”, neither party loses agency, but both gain agency through actively enabling the realization of the other’s agency, as illustrated in this study by the one participant who experienced no conflict in the divorce process. How this power sharing may, in fact, look and how it could be achieved will require further empirical and theoretical research and a lessening of the application of ideological perspectives in the process.

8. Limitations

There are some limitations to this study. Nineteen men who self-identified as non-resident fathers were included; the majority of the participants experienced issues with the ex-partner, the family court, and other agencies. While these experiences were not part of the selection criteria, they may have had an impact on the findings. The purposive sampling strategy, common in qualitative research, means that given the sample size, this study may perhaps be best seen as a pilot study that could lead to a much larger, more comprehensive, and more inclusive study. Only non-resident fathers who independently volunteered to participate were included, and therefore, it is not possible to generalize our findings to all non-resident fathers. While Australia is a multi-cultural country, this aspect was not fully reflected in the sample.

9. Conclusions

Through a critical approach, an understanding of the social construction of shared realities, the influence of power, and how domination enabled the disempowerment of non-resident fathers and, in turn, hindered their relationships and ongoing involvement with their children was identified. Participants overwhelmingly reaffirmed their self-perception as fathers, strongly reinforcing their commitment to fathering their children. They desired systemic changes that would empower and enable them to maintain and sustain involved and engaged fathering in a non-conflictual way.