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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Refusing to share custody after seperation...

59 replies

ItsNotChristmasInOctober · 20/10/2019 13:41

This is completely hypothetical.

I know that when couples split, it's generally mum who takes custody with dad having DC's EOW and maybe an overnight or so during the week. (This statement is HUGELY hypothetical as I know every family is different and therefore every arrangement is different).

Can I just say, I know the reverse happens too. I'm just generalising.

What happens when a couple splits and they both wish to have visitation rights as the non-residential parent?

For example, Mary and John break up. They decide they both want to have DC's EOW etc but neither want to be the resident parent.

What happens then?

I suppose my AIBU is 'AIBU to ask what happens when parents both want to be the non-residential parent?'

Again, this is completely hypothetical. I've just always wondered this I suppose...

OP posts:

melj1213 · 20/10/2019 21:47

I think 50/50 is cruel though, poor kids mustn't know where they belong.

It's not cruel! My DD knows she has two homes and that she belongs in both.

I never understand 50/50 parenting. It comes up so often on here. Is it not unfair on the child/ren to be changing homes so often?

Not as far as my DD is concerned. I share custody 50/50. She spends a week at my house and a week at her dads. We live in the same town and we have a decent co parenting relationship so DD enjoys the fact we have structure, she gets to see us equally and loves having two homes.

Ex and I moved out to Spain before DD was born and I only moved back to the UK when DD was 7, but Ex and I split when she was about four and a half. He was offered a good job back in our home town but I didn't want to uproot DD and take away all of her stability to bring her back, especially as I would have been giving up my job, her school and friends etc. That meant DD only spent time with her dad in holidays and whenever he could get a long weekend to fly out and visit.

When we did move back to the UK DD was so excited to get to spend more time with her dad that we agreed to try 50/50. It took some tweaking, compromise and trial and error but we have a system that works for all of us.

separatedandseething · 20/10/2019 21:50

Mine lives 2 minutes walk down the road in a 2 bedroomed flat. DS sees him once a week, not even overnight. He does no laundry, no parent-teacher meetings, no cleaning up after him; no nothing really. When DS visits, they do have a nice time... He sits with him and watches old episodes of a comedy series about parents and the trials and tribulations of bringing up kids. Yep - he sits there and laughs at how hard it is - for two parents, never mind just one. Yep, he's doing his fucking parenting through Outnumbered.

Hesafriendfromwork · 20/10/2019 21:55

This is part of why I dont understand it though. This was my first thought. What if this happens. Surely 1 main, stable home is important to a child.

But a child can have 2 stable homes. This idea that all children must only ne happybif they have one main home, is based on nothing at all.

My kids wanted to share equal time with me and exh. And for a long time it worked. Kids were happy, well adjusted. They didnt feel they didnt have a home. They felt they had 2. One is now 17 and trust me, she would have told me if she wasnt happy.

It was only when one of the homes became unstable they didnt like it. 2 stable homes were good. 1 home became unstable and they didnt like it.

I think people also forget that just because a child has one primary residence, doesnt make that home stable.

Prepaymentfear · 20/10/2019 21:59

5050 when both homes are stable and the parental relationship is decent and stable is great. Problems arise when 5050 is attempted when the relationship is volatile or things aren't stable.

pallisers · 20/10/2019 22:39

But the practicalities....if one parent just moved out one day, the other would automatically be the resident parent. If they moved out they would then be abandoning their children and surely the police / social services would be involved?

This was a plot device in one of Laura Lippman's novels. The woman knew her husband was about to leave her and knew she would be left with her daughter so she upped and left him with the child before he could do it to her (there was a plot reason for all of this).

The best 50/50 I saw was a guy who was pretty well off. His wife had an affair with another woman and they split. He was pretty zen about it tbh - looking back I think he was happy enough to be not married anymore. He bought a second house around the corner from the family home so the kids could move easily between the 2 without it bothering them.

Marriedwithchildren5 · 20/10/2019 22:46

**
The best 50/50 I saw was a guy who was pretty well off. His wife had an affair with another woman and they split. He was pretty zen about it tbh - looking back I think he was happy enough to be not married anymore. He bought a second house around the corner from the family home so the kids could move easily between the 2 without it bothering them.**

Sounds awful! Always wondered about it but 50/50 definitely sounds like it suits the parents more than the children.

lyralalala · 20/10/2019 23:02

There’s a former couple in our village who own two houses really close to each other.

The kids stay in the bigger house all the time. The adults move between the two week about. Apparently they have a lounge and bedroom each in the other house and their own rooms in the kids house and it works great.

I think new partners might scupper that one in the long run

pallisers · 21/10/2019 00:19

Why does that sound awful married? The way it worked was the houses were so close the children could go home from school to either, play out with the same friends from either, pop around without any formal arrangements, go over to have dinner with dad and then sleep at mums and vice versa? Why is that awful?

Longlongsummer · 21/10/2019 00:20

Yep I was the new step mum in one of those 50/50 two houses around the corner scenarios... it was awful!

Their mother used it to kick out her kids whenever her boyfriend turned up, and as a SAHM I would suddenly have step kids who were used to having the house totally to themselves.

One DSD used it to invite all her boyfriends, and their mates. Thank goodness I started living there as younger step kids didn’t like it at all, one was 8 and a load of 18 year old lads drinking there during the day was not a good experience!

Lots of manipulation and using the houses, and kids being left to their own devices too much.

Really crap parenting in my book!

But to the outside world both DP and his Ex telling everyone what a fantastic arrangement they had. And the kids, esp the older one with all her boyfriend drinkers, saying how great it was too.

The younger ones stopped the 50/50 as soon as they were old enough. They were sick of it. They didn’t articulate it like that. They just stopped coming to one house and all settled in one or other.

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