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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

STBX wanting more contact with Daughter

362 replies

btsmummy · 12/09/2011 10:52

Hi,

Thought I'd post here as well s the Divorce section, hopefully it's OK.

I have been separated from my H for just over 4 years and have just started divorce proceedings.

He moved out when we split and paid the mortgage and all the bills, along with the running costs for my car as I was at home with our then 18 month old daughter.

She is now nearly 6 and he has seen her on a weekday and on a Saturday every week since, they have been on holiday together, so there have been times when she has spent a week with him. They have a great relationship and to be fair he is a very good dad and she loves her time with him.

We have always got on very well, and many times we did family things at the weekend when he came to see our daughter (i am still in the FMH), we also continued to sleep together up until the beginning of last year when it became obvious we weren't going to reconcile, thing have been a bit frosty since but got slowly better and we started having family days out again (tho not sleeping together), that was up until this May.

He is now asking for more contact with our daughter and is asking for overnight stays, one during the week so he can pick her up from school and drop her off the next morning, and overnights at the weekends, he has said he would like 3 overnight stays a week so he can spend more time with her, possibly 4 the next, amount to equal care. I have said he can't have this but I have offered him 1 overnight every other weekend, with the usual midweek after school and weekend daytime in between. I also told him I won't discuss it any further and that he needs to speak to my solicitor.

Do you think he has any realistic chance of this, as I've told him we'll have to go to court as I won't agree it?

Thanks

B

OP posts:
mayorquimby · 15/09/2011 17:39

Just proves that there's plenty of female twats around as well.
Also plenty of women disagreeing with the OP. I will however grant you that I don't think that there would be as many posts along the lines of "just rant/what's happened/sorry you're having a bad time of it" caveating their disagreement if they heard of a man who described all women as bitches except his mum.
They'd probably rightly slate him as being a dickhead and a pathetic mummys boy.

KeepInMind · 15/09/2011 17:50

You have admitted he is a good dad so why wont you let him have more contact??

You were happy enough for him to keep you and pay for everything, you were happy enough to continue sleeping with him but you are not happy to let him have more time with his own child.

Poor man,

perfumedlife · 15/09/2011 18:48

KeepInMind the key word you used there was let I think. If ex is the parent with residence, maybe she does feel like it's up to her to let him have more contact but how did that situation come about I wonder? Maybe the father felt he had to leave to allow continuity for his dd and ex. So, in doing the right thing, he has lost some control of his situation re dd. As in now, when it's clear they are not going to reconcile, it's clear the ex holds all the cards.

My dh fought a real battle through family courts to have contact with ss. Ex lied about so much, even her lawyer was aghast and apologised. It came out in the wash a few years later when she lost her other three kids for severe neglect and violence. But ss lost years of contact with his dad. It doesn't serve anyone well to assume that mothers always act in the best interest of their children. Those same children can pay such a price.

glitterkitten · 15/09/2011 19:52

perfumed further to your post, I'd bet that if, post separation he refused to leave as he didn't want to miss out on his daughter he would have still be perceived as unreasonable, controlling etc etc.

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 19:55

Look, in this case the OP's first post was a bit suspicious. A real woman who is upset with her XP would offer reasons even if those reasons are that she has a new DP and wants to push her XP out of the picture. She would, if asked, give reasons why the relationship fell apart in the first place. A real woman in this situation would not post 'My XP is wonderful but I'm going to refuse him access, just because I can.' So immediately, I started wondering what was going on. The OP has not, even when he revealed that he was in fact the Saintly Father, offered any reasons at all for bad feeling between him and his XW. Which does rather suggest that there are aspects of his behaviour that have probably caused the problems, that he either doesn't recognise as wrong or doesn't want to air.

Fontsnob · 15/09/2011 20:06

SGB, just wondering what you think about the other reverse AIBU that is running at the moment with a similar topic. {genuine question btw}

Tyr · 15/09/2011 20:07

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glitterkitten Thu 15-Sep-11 19:52:51

perfumed further to your post, I'd bet that if, post separation he refused to leave as he didn't want to miss out on his daughter he would have still be perceived as unreasonable, controlling etc etc.

Glitterkitten,

Had he refused to leave, he would not have been the first to find himself on the wrong end of an occupation order and non-mol.

glitterkitten · 15/09/2011 20:20

Abso-frickin-loutely tyr

Abso-frickin-loutely

It's a grim choice for any father out there these days.

glitterkitten · 15/09/2011 20:21

Bump fontsnob

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 21:24

FOntsnob, sorry, which other thread? I'll let you know when I've read it.

Fontsnob · 15/09/2011 21:33

Sorry SGB, this one.

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 22:13

OK my take on that is that I am always Hmm about posters who pretend to be whoever their enemy is. However the OP in that one at least gave more factual, relevent information - that the XH is low-waged as is his new partner so they think they can't afford to contribute more. Whereas the OP in this one offered no actual reasons at all, just suspicious gaps.

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:18

solid Are you for real? No reasons?

Did you ask if there were any reasons, there may well not have been, and I'm also assuming you have let the OP of the other thread know that she is a deceitful, manipulative, self righteous, see you en tea, that has painted herself in a saintly light and that her EH is better off without her?

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:19

You have also assumed that her 'factual, relevant information is somehow better than the OP's facts in this thread, you have proved his point in my opinion.

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 22:20

What reasons did the OP on this thread offer for the XW's behaviour when he was posting as her? Nothing that added up to anything at all.

Fontsnob · 15/09/2011 22:27

Despite this she's booked a holiday abroad for next summer hols and no doubt we'll be expected to contribute towards that too despite the fact that we, as a family can't afford to go anywhere

Really, factual and relevant?

DH earns minimum wage and we also have a DC to support. I have no problem them being involved in his like but she's obviously living beyond her means and expecting us to fund it.

If she's struggling maybe she shouldn't be booking foreign holidays when she can't afford to pay for school trips.

She is blatently painting her xp and his nw in a totally biased manner and putting words in their mouth.

If she had turned out to be a he then all hell would have broken loose after the big reveal, much like it did here.

I apologise if it is bad MN etiquette to quote from another thread but I do get annoyed at the blatent double standards.

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:32

Read between the lines solid

'we also continued to sleep together up until the beginning of last year when it became obvious we weren't going to reconcile' Why would he make this bit up, before you say it's BS!

Would you say it was he that stopped the sex, or she? I'd guess it was her, because she realised they were not going to reconcile, there's a few men that wouldn't turn down readily available sex, so most likely her that stopped it.

Maybe, just maybe, he is OK and she didn't want it to end, maybe he has moved on quicker than she has, maybe she thought he was using her for sex and she realised it. All it takes is for him to have found a new partner, or maybe just for her to think he has moved on and is happy, for her to become hostile?

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:36

Fontsnob You are absolutely correct, and the only reason that I can see that the OP on the other thread is not a deceitful, manipulative, self righteous, see you en tea, that has painted herself in a saintly light and that her EH is better off without her, according to solid, must therefore be gender related.

Fontsnob · 15/09/2011 22:37

^I have been separated from my H for just over 4 years and have just started divorce proceedings.

He moved out when we split and paid the mortgage and all the bills, along with the running costs for my car as I was at home with our then 18 month old daughter.

She is now nearly 6 and he has seen her on a weekday and on a Saturday every week since, they have been on holiday together, so there have been times when she has spent a week with him. ^

Factual and relevant?

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 22:46

Those are reasons why she shouldn't have a problem. The big howling gap at the centre of this scenario is why the XW has suddenly become obstructive and filed for divorce.

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:57

I'm not saying it's OK to treat her as RAS, but, she also was getting something out of it, she must have been willing, unless your suggesting he's a rapist too, she was getting all of her living expenses paid and enjoying quality time with their daughter during her pre-school days, how many single women enjoy that?

I also wouldn't be surprised if she is hurt and angry about it, and it's this last part of your post that answers the first part about why she's maybe now become obstructive and filed for D.

appeegolucky · 15/09/2011 22:58

While I enjoy debating this with you solid I have noticed that you do not answer questions that other posters and myself have put to you?

solidgoldbrass · 15/09/2011 23:43

Oh and what questions would those be?

Fontsnob · 16/09/2011 00:02

sgb the point that I'm trying to put across is that in both reverse aibu the op has posted pretty much in the same manner, with about the same amount of 'fact' and putting their own slant on thier situation and they have both put words into the mouths of their exp to influence our opinions. We know nothing of the reasons behind either seperation or how the situations have resulted in the point they are at now. They both lied as to who they were in the OP.

However, on this thread the man has been slated and called devious etc, yet the woman on the other thread has not been. You have been one of the posters to perpetuate this inequality of treatment. Please could you explain why.

solidgoldbrass · 16/09/2011 00:16

The OP on the other thread has provided (in both her incarnations) a coherent structure of the situation: the XH and his new DP consider themselves too insolvent to pay for the DCs' school trips. The OP on this thread is conspicuously silent on what the motivations of his XW might be.
ANd the OP on the other thread got a fair old bashing as well for posting as 'the enemy'.

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