aibu to refuse swapping weekends with ex

[MagsRiff]

How do you ladies approach this?
My ex has our DS8 every other weekend. He wants to swap a weekend round (So I end up with DS 3 weekends in a row then he takes him 2 in a row) because he wants to go on holiday with his GF. He says because of work commitments that's the only dates they can both go. Well IMO he has more important commitments (you know, being a father) and should either arrange a holiday around the eowe schedule or just accept he can't go. I don't think it's fair to ask me to accommodate a private holiday.
Any separated mum's out there been in the same scenario?

The court will be child friendly which is more than can be said for you, OP.

He can just "not turn up". Why do you think there are so many deadbeat dads out there who get away with never seeing their kids at all let alone pay maintenance? Not that I class your ex as a deadbeat. One holiday request per year...how very dare he?

As said by others OP, it matters not a jot from a legal perspective that you disagree - especially in this instance he has given you ample warning. Plus you'd need to attend mediation and the mediator would see he is being more than reasonable whilst you otoh are not. Chances are it wouldn't even progress to court.

Well all I can say is I hope the court is more woman and child friendly than most of you!!!

I hope it’s not as ridiculous as you appear to be.

Whether or not you can get a court order that puts him in breach of it, if he doesn't show up, is completely IRRELEVANT. No parent in the UK has ever been arrested for missing a contact weekend with their children. It is unenforceable. Just read through the millions of threads on MN about parents not seeing their children.

So he can go on holiday and there is nothing you can do to stop him.

You just never know when you may need to do the same!

Actually, I find the idea that pandering to such bitter inflexibility is “woman friendly” appalling.

Can’t believe I’m writing this.

I feel for your ex and his new partner. Whether you are together or not parenting is suppose to be a two way thing. For one party to be so inflexible is ridiculous. What happens when the day comes when your child says he wants to go to dads on a non Dad weekend for any particular reason, will you tell him no? What about if Christmas lands on you ex’s weekend - will you be an inflexible then????

I don't think the court would be in your favour on the fact your ex wants to miss one weekend which will make up for to go on holiday once a year and his work commitments mean he can only do it this way. Not when there are so many deadbeat fathers out there who don't see their kids nor pay for them which the courts see day in day out.

I just want to make sure he can't just 'not turn up' regardless of me disagreeing. That's for my child's sake.

No court order can force him to turn up.

What do you think is going to happen? Do you honestly think a court is going to give you an order that means he can be arrested if he doesn't? Do you think the police or courts or prisons have the capacity for that to be judged as a crime?

All that will happen if you go to court is that you'll get a standard order and nothing, absolutely nothing, will happen to him if he breaks it.

People who have their children witheld from them have a hard enough time trying to get enforcable orders.

URBVU

OP, the courts don’t go near this kind of thing these days without very good reason. Your ex is more likely to stand a chance of getting in front of a judge because YOU are so inflexible and unreasonable, than you are, wanting a ‘just in case’ court order. The courts stay out of contact arrangements and residency unless they really really have to.

As your child gets older, s/he’ll want to stay at home on ‘your’ weekend, as it’s so and so’s birthday party or x has invited them for a sleepover. You will then have to go to your ex and sort something out so your child doesn’t suffer and miss out thanks to slavish adherence to weekend rotations. You’ll realise that birthday and Christmas both fall on ‘his’ weekend this year, and feel like you’d like one of them.

Don’t be such a dick.

Another yabvu vote here. At the most tell him he can miss a weekend and then not have him til the next weekend after his child free holiday that he would have been due to have him anyway. You sound pathetic tbh

Actually you sound more than pathetic. You are being bitter and twisted, selfish and vindictive and do you know what... you sound jealous. I think YOU need a holiday

With your attitude your Ex, must be so relieved to be your ex!!!

I think you may well have been the abusive one in the relationship and he quite rightly ran for he hills!

You may find your son distances himself from you when older. If you're so strict and unreasonable he's going to have a miserable upbringing.

Courts child and women friendly, they may be! Mad unreasonable controlling mother friendly, I doubt!

My dp's ex did shoot herself in the foot on one note actually. Before the court order she made demands that my dp cut his weekend short with their dd because she had a class birthday party to go to (so instead of 4.30pm drop off it would be midday drop off and they live an hours drive apart.) She would basically threaten to not let my dp have their dd if he didn't agree to the party. Bearing in mind he only sees his dd once every 2 weeks and does a 2 hour round trip to see her and forgive me but class birthday parties are 2 a penny in infant school. Then she got this court order saying he has her from x time on Friday until x time on Sunday. She shot herself in the foot because now she can't threaten to withhold their dd if he says she can't go to a class birthday party during his time with her because she's agreed he can have her at set times!

Who are these women that threaten to withhold their children as a means of controlling their exes? I really hoped it was a minority caricature. Christ.

Have you ever heard the word co parenting. It means you don’t get to decide what is and isn’t ok .

I hope your ex or his g/ f Read this and take comfort from the fact not everyone is like you .

You really need to take a very hard look in the mirror .

The court will tell you that you cannot turn down a reasonable request to swap just because you feel like it.

And this request IS reasonable!

Cauliflower sadly they do exist and the only ones who truly suffer are the children.

I'm sorry, OP, not only do you come across as vindictive and jealous, but you also seem to be somewhat unbalanced in your insistence that your ex must be in the wrong and that you are not going to accommodate him and will get a court order to stop him. Why? What's the point?

I've not RTFT but you are being hugely unreasonable. He could have just said that he was off on holiday and that was that- he's not seeing DC but he's offering to swap weekends so he can have a holiday and you're begrudging him that? Crazy.

@CauliflowerBalti sadly my DSC's mum was just one of those. Luckily things have mellowed out a bit over the years but she had no shame in either withholding access or dumping the kids on us depending what 'point' she wanted to prove.

Why would you want to have such a horrible, avoidable, needless mess when all you need to do is say, sure, we can do that? You do know the single most damaging thing for a child is conflict between parents, yes? So why are you going out of your way to create it?

I don't get it. You talk about being child-centred, and then refuse absolutely to try to make the most important relationship any two adults in his life can have as cordial as possible. Why? Is there a back story here? (One that justifies this, I mean, and whatever happened between the two of you doesn't, short of abuse.)

There is no court order that forces a parent to see their child, for the very simple reason that a parent so shit they needed one would be really unlikely to make that child feel good in any such contact.

And you seem to be under the impression that you can just rock up to court and get a child arrangements order, or whatever they call them these days. You can't. Mediation is mandatory first, and you'd need something better than, well, he wanted a swap for a single weekend, two years running, because there is something called the No Order Principle. A judge can only make an order relating to a child if they are confident such an order is better for that child than none. Here, you have a contact arrangement that seems to work, and you're having a hissy over a single request to alter a single weekend - why? I really don't get it.

Does he pay child support okay? Honestly, I'm trying to establish why you are so angry. You've written nothing that's bad about him at all. The fact you're so bitter over a single request indicates he's incredibly reliable the rest of the year.

Do you never have a wedding or a party or anything you would like to go to child-free? Why not just agree to this, and say you'd like the favour returned some time? Again, I just don't see where the issue lies. And for the record, I can't remember the last time I didn't support a mother in a contact issue. Most seem to have men who never turn up, don't pay child support, sneer at the mum and/or try to insist their new partner is called Mummy... and you're angry he wants to swap a weekend for extremely good reasons, once a year.

It's just... weird.

Go on, go and find a solicitor, tell them you want to get a court order that forces your ex to show up every other weekend.
Let us know how it goes