Arrangements with Ex

[AeroFX]

At the moment my EX is doing a Nursing course and while i promised to be as flexible as possible to allow her to do the course i'm at my wits end.

I have told her that from now on i will not have the children Sunday or Monday but that any other day of the week i will have them gladly. This means i can have some me time, make plans in advance and see my girlfriend too.

Generally speaking we have them equally, but there are times i have them a little more because of her course. The major issue is the unpredictable timetable. This weekend from Sunday Night till Friday Morning she wanted me to have kids. These days are set by her every week and i'm tired of not knowing when she's on placement where i'm going to be. I'm only asking for two days set. Is this unreasonable?

"I don't see why they can't coordinate days to make sure that the children get reasonable contact with both parents and then on days both parents are working, arrange alternative childcare, perhaps with the cost split between both of them. "

how can they co-ordinate days if she doesn't know what days she will be working? also- the days that they are both working aren't going to be the same every week so how do they plan childcare for that? unless they put the dcs in full-time childcare and split the cost?

YABU!! You have the kids registered as living there with you, yet you expect her to possibly risk her career so you can have 'me time'.

Um, you get the money for them, you have custody! You should look after them the majority of the time. She should be able to do her training, which is not flexible to suit her ex, and see the children when she is able. Not when you demand!!

She really is unable, not unwilling to meet your demands. Get over it!!

A1980, the child care allowance would only be paid if she was the parent with care. She seems not to be.

MammaTJ did you even read the OP properly? he wants 2 days a week where he knows his ex will be having the dcs. he doesn't her to do most of the care. he will be looking after them the majority of the time. five days out of seven. he also has a career.

She can't do that!! She gets her shifts set for her, she does not get to set her shifts.

so she arranges childcare and asks her ex if he can have them on the evenings. she has to accept that she is responsible for some of the childcare for her own children. you dont just get let off because you've decided to pursue a career! (despite what my ex thinks)

on the evenings of her two days

My friends training similarly and in her final year of the course. Her shifts are not given her with ages in advance, and altho she's the main carer and has very good care in place sometimes she doesnt and her ex the father the other parent with care steps in.

If you want two days 'me' time, get childcare?

Or would you be prepared to let your ex have full time residency of the children along with the child benefit, tax credits, CSA, so she can have paid care put in place and you could have the children the days you feel appropriate?

I applied for a nursing degree at uni (didn't get in :() and it was made very clear that shift work could only be rearranged in extreme circumstances. For this reason my ex is not plan a, or even plan b for childcare.

That said, there needs to be a little give and take. Ex is self employed, and a couple of weeks ago got some work in on the Friday, to be done on the Sunday, which is his contact day. I switched days. I had to cancel the plans we had, but no major biggie.

As the parent with care (although I am meant to have my dc 11 out of 14 days, but realistically I have them 12out of 14 most if the time) I don't have a social life, or a partner because I have the dc. That doesn't mean to say I shouldnt have, but that's the reality, and if were to ask anyone to have them so I could have a regular social life/relationship most people would decline.

I've also had problems with ds1 resulting from the fact his dad is in a new relationship, and never spends time with him without the gf and her dc being there, and he has on occasion cancelled contact to spend time with her, making a child feel they are second best is very very IMO. I'm not saying that's what op is doing, its just my thought.

So, aybu? I don't know tbh. I can see both sides. A bit of flexibility on your side should be there, although not so you can have 'me time' or a gf if I'm honest. But your ex would have known in advance that she would be working shifts, and should IMO have made sure she had childcare in place (by which I mean you being flexible)

TBH I don't think nursing is a great career if you have children and are not with someone to share the burden of working shifts.

Nursing surely is going to be a lot of shifts and this will have an impact on the children and consequently on the other parent.

Why should the R suck it up because the NRP wants to work shifts and seems to want other people to work around them.

To take on this course as a parent without support is not ideal.

Looking after three children as a single parent is hard going, having some time to recoup is needed and that rest time me time is needed to carry on being a good parent.

To say she is unable is fine- but she choose that path - not the RP, not the children and they are the ones that seem to be suffering at the moment. Why suddenly change carers when you have small children to consider?

Why has the NRP decided to take up nursing? what carer did they have before?

She must get her days/hours some time in advance, they don't just phone her up on the morning and say "We need you to come in today", that's called being on call.

So as soon as she gets the rota, she calls her ex, they sort childcare for the week/rest of the placement/however long it is. If they have clashes which neither can rearrange then they have to sort out ad hoc childcare.

I work in retail and my childminder is happy for me to tell her my days on a Friday that I'm going to be doing for the next week, because she prefers to be under numbers so she always has a space. (I try to tell her on the previous Monday which is when the new rota is done.) After school clubs also often work on an ad hoc basis. It might be a little more difficult to find this kind of childcare than other kinds, but it does exist. I don't pay loads for the privilege either, my CM is very reasonably priced.

What would happen if someone is already working as a nurse and they split up with their partner? Should they just quit their job and retrain? I don't see why it's such a big deal, especially since she's not even the RP. She's not asking anybody to work around her, she's just saying she can't necessarily commit to seeing the DC on the same days each week. It shouldn't be a problem for them to arrange between themselves some time when the DC can see their mum.

I would say you set 2 days that are her responsiblity, if she's working on them, then she sorts childcare for them. She might well have family who can help out or hire a childminder, but it shouldn't just be dumped back on her ExP to fit around it.

It's also worth noting this isn't just a 2 year issue, she's about to embark on a career that's shift based unless she makes an effort to find one with set hours - and she's unlikely to do that if she doesn't ever have to worry about sorting childcare around her shifts if she's just used to informing her ExP and expecting him to fit his career around it.

What would happen if someone is already working as a nurse and they split up with their partner?

Think very hard about how they were going to make their work life fit with their children's life and how to get good childcare to fit around shift patterns the other parent and make sure the children were happy.

This isn't a job she had before they had children together. She has actively chosen to do a course which means she isn't going to be a reliable source of care for her own children!

They try to split time equally, so OP has as much right to a say of when that time will be as the ex does. She doesn't have some trump card just because of the career she has chosen. It is better for the children to have set days when they will be with each of their parents, that way the ex can arrange childcare of she has to work on her days, as can OP.

FWIW I really do thing the consensus would be very different if the OP was a woman complaining about her exh.

What's the situation when she's not on placement? Will she commit to set days then? I can understand your frustration, you didn't choose for her to persue this career, but maybe it's best to compromise purely for the children's sake. I'm sure they WILL thank you for it when they're older.

The reality is, when you are an RP you are subject to the whim of an NRP when it comes to pretty much all aspects of raising your DC. It makes absolutely no difference if that RP is male or female - if the other parent is child focused, they'll bend over backwards to make sure they make time for their DC. If not, then you are screwed because you cannot force an NRP to agree contact, stick to it, agree finances and stick to it, agree parenting strategies and stick to it etc. The best you can do is proceed on the basis that you depend only on yourself and make whatever arrangements necessary for your DC to allow you to function as required. There is no point thinking about how 'unfair' it is that the other parent has all the freedom to come and go and few of the responsibilities. Because therein lies the road to eternal misery.

We can all post 'nodding' comments about how unfair it is that the OP has to live life one week til the next not knowing when his ex will be seeing the kids, and how crap it is to have no social life welcome to my life but it doesn't change the fact if you are the RP then there isn't a way to force an NRP to be reasonable, considerate, understanding or sympathetic to the difficulties that come with being an RP. And yes, it pretty much comes down to having to 'suck it up' and get on with it.

There have been plenty of threads on the LP boards that say exactly that and it has nothing to do with the gender of the RP.