to think it's unfair how women hold all the cards in a situation like this?

[chickendhansak]

Yes I know there are plenty of deadbeat dads who don't step up, don't pay anything, barely see their DC, treat them as an inconvenience. Been there, got the tshirt etc.

But for the ones who do...the ones who want to spend as much time as they can with their DC, who pay all they should (and more), it still feel like they get the sticky end of the lollipop. Seeing the kids on Xmas and birthdays only if the XW agrees, missing out on all the everyday stuff because they can't see them every day. And having to the possibility when the XW starts a new relationship, of some bloke getting to spend more time with their kids than they spend with their own father.

I don't know what the solution is, I just think it's bloody hard, especially if it's the woman's decision to break up the family in the first place.

Who said anything about women should take advantage of the decent ones because a lot of men are lousy?

I was just wondering why you weren't up in arms about all the men who absolve themselves of their responsibility for their children (like your ex). You appear to be far more accepting of his zero contribution to your children than of your partners ex and her contribution to raising their children? Why is that?

Excellent posts from thecatinjapan and Annie.

I notice how in all the bleating on about how terribly disadvantaged women are, no-ones answered the question about how you'd feel about your Xs new partner spending more time with children than you do as a nrp. Probably because actually that IS a shit situation but it's much nicer to wring your hands over how hard life is for women who choose (aren't made, they choose) not to work.

LineRunner I started using childcare more than a decade and a half ago. I am aware of the various forms. My DP is an intelligent man and he is similarly aware. However, he's been advised by both his solicitor and barrister that he'd be wasting his time in asking for more time with the DC, because most of it would be them in childcare, their mother would object and the court would follow her, because the DC are used to being at home, not with strangers, and so on.

Re my X, I don't rely on anyone else to give me money, I earn my own. It doesn't bother me my X makes no contribution because I'm able to support myself, as most people should be.

I'd hate it, OP, to answer your question. But since I would ensure my DC got fully 50/50 time with DH if we should split, it's a moot point. He does half the work now, and I'll be damned if I'm going to do any more than 50/50 if we split!

Here's a thought though. You seem to think that life is a land of cupcakes and Disney movies for the women who get the larger proportion of residency. You realise that it really isn't, don't you? Yes, they get to spend more time with the DC but that time is stressful, fraught, exhausting, relentless and thankless. Quite how you think it's a privilege that women get to relish, I don't know. They're the ones living the life of a single parent with only 3 nights off a fortnight, juggling the school runs, the homework, the after school clubs etc with no extra parent there to tag-team them. Not to mention that they likely have a shitty low-paid job because they sacrificed their career for their family. Yes, that was their choice. But equally it was the choice of the NRP to prioritise career over family.

Being a low-income LP is also actually a shit situation but you feel free to keep "bleating" and wringing your hands over how hard life is for men who choose (aren't made, they choose) to work instead of putting in equal time as a parent.

"bleating" You really don't like women very much do you.

It wouldn't be particularly comfortable. But I don't have the right to 'bleat' about who my exes see/live with unless it is detrimental towards the children e.g. either of them are abusive. Plus the rest of what Annie says.

And it's not you that your ex should be supporting. It's your children. Do they not deserve his money?

Well exactly. My children receive money from their father.

As for the 'men should do 50%' stuff, I agree if both parties are working similar hours. But how on earth can they if one parent works Ft and the other doesn't work at all? Yes some women might be coerced into giving up work to raise their DC. But by no means all.

Where I live it is completely normal for custody to be split 50/50. Both parents are generally expected to work after a divorce, especially if they have qualifications (even if they haven't used them in years the assumption is that they can get some kind of job and work their way gradually up again). Almost every SAHM I know who divorced had to then go out and get a job of some kind. I'm not in the UK.

There are NRP who do 50% before the split so should rightly have 50% care post split. I doubt that anyone would argue with that.
I think that NRP who did 50/50 pre-split is pretty rare. You just have to read the forums to know that it's usually the woman looking into flexible working, organising post maternity leave childcare, taking time off to look after sick children etc. A NRP will often assume that RP will look into schools and apply or rearrange contact for a day that dc is better (when they should be mopping up vomit)

I suspect that the men who want to see their kids but can't due to spiteful women is a tiny proportion of the number of women who want their ex to see dc but they won't. It is the children who end up as the victims in both cases and I think that you should be angry on their behalf more than anyone else's.

I think you are naive, tbh, and basing your world view on your own and your partner's situation.

Other things happen too.

Take the cases on here, and in RL, where an abusive partner goes to court to insist that he needs contact with the child, and the judge awards it to him because "the child needs to know its father". Unless the father is a proven danger to the child - and sometimes not even then! - the child's "right" to know its father is given precedence. Sometimes the judges take this too far, and you get cases where the mum has been physically assaulted by the father but is still expected to facilitate contact. Some judges fail to take into account recommendations by Cafcass and mediators, SS etc. and just decide that he's a "poor father" who needs to see his child.

Open your eyes beyond your own/DP's situations and see what happens in other people's lives too.

I do think its very unfair when good dads are prevented from seeing their children by spiteful exes.

However, I like in the real world - & 9 times out of 10 the "my ex is a bitch" story given out by men to their new partners regarding their ex and why they aren't able to see the children, is bullshit. New partners always seem to side with the "oh so perfect" men. Im not saying mothers are necessarily right to prevent fathers seeing their children. Just that there are 2 sides to a story...and you just never know, do you...? If there are any "unusual" revelations the new partner either conveniently brushes over them, or doesn't admit it. Just a thought.

Purely anecdotal evidence here, but the men I know that want to be fathers are there for their kids and set aside their differences for their sake. Men that don't want to be fathers don't.

It's rarely the woman refusing them access. In fact, most women I know wish their baby daddy gave a shit.

In a split women only hold all the cards if their exP lets them.
They can have the DC 50/50 if they want.
They may have to adjust their working hours or arrange other day care but the courts will always go with 50/50 unless there is a good reason not too.
I know a family where the wife left, didn't take the DC because she couldn't straight away and her XP wanted to keep them.
They had to go to mediation and get it hammered out, wasn't easy but turned out she only really wanted them 50/50 so SHE didn't have to pay support.
Luckily the Dad is SE and can arrange pick up from school and it's getting easier as they get older but very hard to start with.

Possibly I'm lucky in that in my family, women are expected to earn their own money and not depend on a man or the state.

Possibly I'm lucky in that in my family, women and men are expected to work as a team and do what is best for their family rather than be forced to fit someone else's idea of what is right.

However, he's been advised by both his solicitor and barrister that he'd be wasting his time in asking for more time with the DC, because most of it would be them in childcare, their mother would object and the court would follow her, because the DC are used to being at home, not with strangers, and so on.

I may be misunderstanding, but are you saying you want him to get more time on paper, even though that time is currently spent with their other parent and it would mean not much more time with him, but lots more in childcare instead? That doesn't seem to be in the interests of the kids, does it?

Such a ridiculous thread, only posting to say I knew you were going to say you had a DP who has kids with his ex. You say he 'physically' can't have them anymore than he does - it's up to him to sort that out. Oh and that's DS's dad's excuse for not seeing him more than once a year. Not a great excuse.

Looking at the longer term would be sensible. Rushing tinies from place to place so that both DPs spend time wiht them might not necessarily be the best nor putting them in different childcare.

Likewise rushing DCs around on Xmas Day (as is done by my non-direct family) just seems exhausting to me. Make Boxing Day the lovely nearly Xmas day with second family.

As DCs grow they will be able to stay up later, voice what they want, describe school events, be taken to sports/swimming etc.

Spending happy times with a relaxed cheerful DP is more important than quanitity.

It's pretty sad if a relationship breaks down and children cannot live with both their parents in a happy harmonious home, but unfortunately relationships do break down. Personally I think that growing up missing one parent completely is a great deal sadder than knowing and being cared for by both parents, just not at the same time. I also think that adding additional people into a child's life, so long as they love and care for them is entirely positive. Decisions about bringing a step parent into the family should be made by each parent separately, thinking about the well being of the children. The hurt feelings of the other parent are I think fairly irrelevant.

Oh and when dh and I separated for a couple of years we parented them together, and they split their time with us 50:50. It was an agreement we came to privately but if we had split acrimoniously and gone to court dh would probably have had them for more time than me. Which would obviously have been hugely upsetting for me, but closer to the status quo for our children.

Radical thought: your dh could cut down his working hours and see his children in this time. The whole malarkey with '...and the courts will do this, that, whatever' is sorted; dh sees the children that his heart so longs and yearns for...
Admittedly, he will have to take a financial hit, but women do that all the time - and you seem to think that this means that women do marvellously out of it, so who's to say your dh won't?

Actually, that is such a simple solution, I am astounded your intelligent dh didn't think of it while the expensive barrister was telling him he wasn't currently around enough to be granted access to.

The principle is supposed to be the solution that is in the children's best interests. If this is usually that they live with their mothers, then maybe fathers should ask themselves why. Children are not things to be fought over, they are people to be looked after.

Wreckingball, I suspect you're bot an expert in family law so I'll take your assertion that the courts always give 50/50 with a pinch of salt. My DP has had very clear advice on that point from his legal team,and that echoes advice my family member has had from different lawyers at the opposite e d of the country. If one parent works FT and one doesn't (and has no plans or need to return to work) achieving 50/50 care is unlikely.

I don't dislike women per se. I dislike any parent who takes advantage of their position.

As for abuse, I was abused by my X. I referred to that upthread. I also said that I would not have left him if I'd been at any risk of getting less than 50/50. I've never stopped him seeing our DC because he hasn't abused them. My own issues with him are entirely separate from my DCs right to know their father. As for his money, he's not willing to pay, and his income is hidden for tax purposes. We are fortunate to be able to live fairly comfortably without his money, so why bother chasing him for what at best might be (given his declared income) would be maybe £50 a month?

I am a LP. I've always worked FT, I have no local family support, I know exactly how hard it can be. But I've still always appreciated that overall I am lucky in getting most of the week with my DC, getting to make a lot of day to day decisions for them, for this to be their home.

I understand it doesn't fit the script that any man who finds himself divorced is clearly a shit because otherwise he'd still be married, but some men really do lose out, as do their DC. The kids of feckless dads (like my X), they don't seem to lose out as much, because their dads weren't doing a great job in the marriage/ relationship. They're unlikely to improve after a split. I'd have liked my DC to have had a better father from day 1, but they didn't and have never known any different. It's not quite the same for others.

Ok, thecat: So when he reduces his hours how does he pay his mortgage and other bills? Child maintenance? Spousal maintenance?

He has a huge mortgage in order to provide a home for his DC where they each have a bedroom of their own,and a garden to play in. It is important to him that their home with him is as nice and comfortable for them as their home with their mother. He also lives in an expensive part of the country because that's the area where the marital home was. He could move 50-100 miles away to somewhere cheaper, but he didn't want the DC to spend ages travelling to his house.

He couldn't manage financially working pt, even assuming his employers would allow a reduction in hours.

Seriously though - who is giving cards to WOMEN to hold?!

Women are not meant to get any of the cards. The cards are for men.

It's really outrageous that when men leave relationships that the women act as though they are independent people who get to make their own decisions.

It like "I'm leaving YOU. I'm not leaving my right to tell you how to live your life."

Of course I'm not an expert on family law but I do know hat courts will give 50/50 unless there is a good reason not too.
If a Father wants to have more time with his DC and he feels his XP is being obstructive then he has the option of going to court and asking for more, there will be processes to go through but I suppose the decision to do it depends on how much he does really want it.
I don't for one minute assume every divorced man is a shit.
Having somewhere nice and comfortable to live doesn't mean you have to live in an expensive area.
I live in the South, yes it's more expensive here than some other places but we don't live in the dearest part of town and we don't live in a hovel.

How on earth would it make any sense for the kids to spend 50pc of the time with a nrp who works ft if they have a non working rp? As someone said, why would you think it's in their interests to spend more time in childcare just so you could 'win'?