Is the worry of men getting 50/50 in court ,making women stay in abusive relationships

[Summerwhippet]

Just from reading some threads on here , it made me think ,how awful it must be to know your in an abusive relationship,but then also know if you leave he can go for 50/50,.
Do the courts listen to the woman,in this situation?
I can't imagine an abusive husband would make a great father ,mine certainly didn't,thank goodness I only had to go every other weekend.
When did it become normal for men to get 50/50

I only have experience of being a child of a divorce ,and 50/50 would of been a disaster for me

I'm so glad to see this being discussed.

Women are so often told to LTB in the assumption that's the end of the problem. But people advocating this don't understand.

As many on here know, it can be "out of the frying pan into the fire", in terms of abuse and risk to the dc.

I'm sure many women stay to protect their dc from being alone with their abusive father at all, let alone 50:50.

I wish courts would consider evidence such as abusive text and videos of abuse (if it's safe for women to record them), to allow only supervised contact, at most, with an abuser.

I wouldn’t say hen’s eggs are particularly rare 😂

Clearly that should have been teeth 😁

The family court system really needs to look closely about what is happening to children who are stuck with a 50/50 life in the name of fairness for the father.

I grew up going back and forth between my parents houses - neither felt like home and I hated it, from 5 years old to 17 when I’d had enough and moved out, I craved a proper home which I then made.

I watch my nephew, split in half to the minute and he hates it, he cries and says he hates it, both parents know but the court has decided years ago what is best for him and his wealthy father would prefer him to be unhappy then pay a penny to his mum - not that I think she would even take it if she could have her son more.

It absolutely has been part of my thought process around separating and I’m only properly considering leaving now that both children are (almost) out of primary school. I would not risk 50/50 when they were little. I am and have always been the primary carer, that’s not to say my DH doesn’t love his children, he would of course want to see them often and play a big part in their lives - he doesn’t need 50/50 care to do so.

50/50 should only be grated where both parents can demonstrate they have always played an equal role in caring for the children and the consistency for the child is best maintained by ordering this continues. They could literally draw up a check list - Do you or have you ever taken your child to the dentist? Do you or have you ever filled in a school permission slip? Who reads the bedtime story? Who cares for child and takes time of work when they are sick? Etc etc

it’s an absolute injustice to the primary carers - largely mothers and the children concerned.

Why is it okay for her to use childcare to work but not him?

She doesn't.

So you think working to provide for your children should mean you are awarded less contact time with your children?

It isn’t ‘contact’ if he isn’t actually with his children.

@loongdays My DD is a family barrister. There are many cases where it’s not 50/50 she tells me. Fairly standard is 5 nights out of 14 for dads if they are competent Fathers with a job (the non resident parent).

Courts are aware of the needs of dc and coercion by parents and manipulation. A mum telling a dc to sue CAfcass is one such example. Courts don’t have to agree with CAfcass either. Judges look at all evidence.

Lots of dads work and accept they are not going to be the resident parent or organise their life around DC. However people recovering from, say, mental health issues, are given time to recover and be a parent.

The 50/50 arrangement can work for some. Both parents with enough bedrooms for dc and living near each other can work. Living 25 miles apart and 50:50 is a nonsense. Dc need stability and seeing school friends and having activities at weekends is all part of that. Often parents don’t have enough money in one house to stay local so compromises have to be made and one of those is providing a stable life for dc not dividing them up like a cake.

I absolutely agree with this and see it all the time in my work. System needs to change to recognise that people are being coercively controlled via their children after a relationship ends.

‘providing a stable life for dc not dividing them up like a cake.’

That is the obvious requirement. Sadly it’s one that many parents don’t care about. The ‘hate’ for their ex, or the need for themselves, is more important than their children’s needs.

I don't think 50-50 is desirable for kids even outside of abuse. Yeah, yeah, joint rights, equal responsibility, even stevens. But I think children deserve a main home residence, a main home bedroom, a main home where the routines and the rules stay the same for more than half the time.

I see the argument about it being fairer to each parent but I don't think it is fair to kids to schlep between two homes to facilitate this fairness to their parents.

Summerwhippet, thanks for bringing this up, as a child who’s been through it. I have one DS, aged 5, and I know that a divorce / staying in the marriage will impact him either way.

Staying for the children… Many kids says divorce works have been better. But, then 50/50, staying with Dad. So many women feel they would have no control over their child’s life.

I just want a happy family home. But we haven’t got it. I’ve seen my SIL stay with BIL (v similar to DH) & how he is with their son. But I understand why she’s done it. She’s a shell now…

But, she knows he would have turned nasty… Called her “mad” & got custody. DN would have endured to BIL full-time. It’s my main worry with DS, what happens when I’m not there?

Sadly, if parents were able to sort out child arrangements amicably and both work towards ensuring that the children’s needs are met, emotionally, financially and in terms of accommodation…….. they would most likely not be getting divorced…

I have often wondered this. Is there grounds for legal action? IANAL but would have thought there would be as it caused harm.

How will it be manipulation to tell my (by then) adult child to sue cafcass, when he asks me why he had to go back to spend time with his dad after he had disclosed to school and me that his dad had done something that put his life in grave danger?

100% If the marriage was working / the partner wasn’t abusive there would be no problem. We love him, wish he could be a nice husband / good dad. But that, sadly, isn’t the case.

This is my view to
And why I didn't get divorced

As others have said I do think there’s lots of reasons women stay in abusive relationships, financial reasons, stability reasons, lack of support, and yes, the worry that dad could get 50/50 or any time alone with the children really.

One of the problems is that while a woman is living within an abusive relationship, especially with children, they are very unlikely to be reporting the abuse they suffer for fear of their safety. This means that while they HAVE been being abused, potentially for years, there’s no record of it to support her arguments in family court. It becomes a he said she said, she says he’s done xyz, he says “wheres your proof, she’s crazy, she did xyz”, and ultimately the court has nothing but words to to on. I don’t know what the way around that is really, it is just a really difficult situation.

In general though I don’t think 50/50 is a bad thing and while there are lots of men who absolutely just want it to avoid paying maintenance, there are also lots of genuinely good dads who do it because just like us mum’s they don’t want to only see their children every other weekend. If my husband & I were to split then I know he would want 50/50 or close to, he’s a brilliant dad and he deserves just as much time with our children as I do.

I too absolutely reject the idea that it is always men who are the abusers. However, I think you are horribly wrong about several points.

The idea that women receive gentler care for one (find this frankly offensive following what I have been put through by CAFCASS and the courts over the last decade, I know it’s not unusual too) Please see assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ef3dcade90e075c4e144bfd/assessing-risk-harm-children-parents-pl-childrens-cases-report_.pdf .

Also the idea that 50/50 is better for children and that this has been settled- it hasn’t. There is limited research, we need to understand more and it has the potential to be very harmful to children if the adults cannot manage it properly. And if you have one adult who is determined to be hostile, it doesn’t matter what the other person does, the child will be affected negatively.

Imagine being forced to send your child somewhere where you know they are being harmed, but because it doesn’t make the threshold or you’re not believed or there’s been a brief period of calm you have no choice but to continue to do it. So many people, mostly women (see the report if you don’t believe me) are in this position and it is extremely traumatic.

So a lot of posters are saying dad is a good dad ,dad deserves 50/50.
Does the child not deserve a stable base
Why not leave the child in the home and parents take turn living in the home with the child .
Easier to move a child half a week ,than move an adult

But what about the child going between two homes
How can anywhere feel like home when your half your life in one place and half in the other .
I spent a lot of time going between dads house and mum's house from age 14,I moved between the two houses a lot ..it caused me to have a lot of mental health problems.but to be transparent,I also had to move schools as well.so that won't of helped .
But having half my possessions in each home ,and the change in different ways each family did things ,with step siblings in both houses , having to share a room with step siblings.. absolutely nowhere felt like home ,this was way before the days of 50/50.

There’s a lot of misinformation about the family court online which in itself can raise women’s anxieties, such as 50/50 being the most common outcome among other things.

I have worked in the family court arena for 8 years and can count on both hands the number of cases I’ve been involved with that ended up 50/50. It’s far from the norm. By the time families end up in court that’s an indicator that things are not rosy in the coparenting relationship and it’s very difficult for a child to live 50/50 between parents who can’t communicate (or indeed at all, as you say), and judges do recognise this (though sometimes need reminding!)

in short, while I understand your point, threads like this are not actually helpful as women reading it would get the impression that the courts favour 50/50 and may get more anxious about this, when this is absolutely not the case in reality.

I'm really glad to hear this
I don't think 50/50 is good for children,and I had got the impression from , Mumsnet and just in general really,that it was the norm now .
Happy to hear it's not

Okay then to play devils advocate, if you are saying a child needs just one home, why do you assume that home should be with mum rather than dad?

Nesting is a great option for kids absolutely, which is what you reference where kids stay where they are and parents move in & out. But how practical is that long term, financially & physically? Both parents have to stay on the mortgage & paying for the family home but they also need to pay for somewhere else to stay, how many families can afford their full family home PLUS another home, without selling the original & buying/renting two smaller properties?

Even if you can afford it, how does that work practically when mum meets a man or dad meets a woman and things start getting serious, they want to live together, are we really going to have mum & dad each with new partners sharing the same two properties week in week out? What if one of those new partners has kids, or if mum or dad has another child with a new partner, do those kids not also deserve one “stable” home, rather than having to move between two homes to keep the original kids in one place? It simply doesn’t work long term.

If done properly then 50/50 is NOT having “half your life/possessions” in each place. In a real, good 50:50 set up, you have a WHOLE life in both places, you don’t have half in each, you just have two homes, each with everything you need in.

Yes, this worry does lead to women staying in abusive relationships. There were many times when going through divorce that I wished I had never tried to end the marriage despite the many forms of abuse I was suffering, because I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect the children anymore. The reality is that when you go through family court, the results are incredibly variable depending on the take of one individual judge, and there’s no guarantee that the situation will be understood. Neither Cafcass nor the judges have an adequate awareness of different forms of abuse and control, and contact with a father who wants it (for whatever reason) is prioritised over safeguarding. Abusive behaviour happens behind closed doors so is hard to definitively prove, and on top of that you are expected not to be negative about the other parent, so explaining the risks to the children can backfire. The result for my children wasn’t 50/50 which is a relief, but still holidays are and concerning things continue to happen.