To think I should be the one to choose my daughters nursery?

[turquoiseamethyst]

I am 4 and a half months pregnant and recently split from DH. I asked him to leave due to quite a lot of unpleasant behaviour.

We also have a daughter who is 1 next month.

I am struggling for money and also I have sole care of her and our other child who is at school. Eventually I asked STBXH if he would be willing to pay extra for her to go to nursery for a couple of days a week and he conceded to one day.

But he wants to choose where she goes.

There's something I really don't like about it - am I being unreasonable? I haven't chosen anywhere yet: was going to look round today but he just sent me a text announcing this fact.

What do you think?

The problem is, as the old saying goes, you can't please (or do the best for) everybody. To protect your children, you have to limit his contact. To 'please' him (i.e. get him to cooperate), you'd have to give him more information/access than would please you.

It sounds as if you possibly have, shall we say, ammunition that keeps him 'in check'? Do you trust that to always be the case? If so, then you can make the decision to offer him the 'one out of three' choice. Otherwise, you're back to the stalemate.

Remember though, that it is never vindictive to do something that would protect or benefit your children. It would be vindictive to make up or exaggerate your husband's behaviour to keep the children away from him. It would be vindictive to try to deny him access when supervised visits would be appropriate.

I realize that right now you've made your choice. Just be sure that you are capable of changing your mind if need be. And also realize that withheld information can be a blunted weapon when the time comes that you need to use it. Many courts feel that 'if it wasn't bad enough for you to do something about it then, it must not be bad enough for us to do something about it now'.

OP - you're obviously in a very difficult situation & I'm sorry you seem to be getting a hard time here, but it really is worth considering the worst case scenario.

I work at a nursery where one of our mums was taken suddenly & seriously ill. Luckily she had parents & siblings to help out, but because her arrangement with her ex was informal & he still had limited access things got very complicated.

He felt that with mum incapacitated he had an automatic right to the child (which legally he did) and after collecting them one day refused to return them.

They got the child back within a few days, but then there were court hearings & orders, issues with payment (he shared costs) and it was very stressful at a time when they should have been able to focus on supporting their daughter/sister & her child.

Obviously this is (hopefully) unlikely to happen, but it really is worth considering & investigating your options, if only from a 'belt and braces' point of view .