My DH pays maintenance every month for his one DD with his ex. The contact had been 3 days with us 4 days with ex.
She changed jobs about 2 years ago now and works longer irregular hours.
Since about this time last year we've had DD 4 nights a week 9 times out of 10 and on the weeks we haven't, we usually pick up and do tea for ex to come at about 7pm to collect her from us.
We do everything on those days and it's even been us doing school runs on exes days occasionally to help with her work commitments etc...
My DH is self employed and is struggling a little at the moment with the work flow. He's thinking about reassessing or stopping maintenance if it carries on the way it is of us having DD 4 nights a week most of the time (it's about one in every 4 weeks that we'll have her 3 nights instead of 4 but has been purely down to exes discretion so far as in she asks us each week for the extra night).
We don't mind AT ALL having DD most of the time, there's no problem there and with his (and mine sometimes) work flexibility it's usually us that do school runs etc... Anyway.
WWYD? We don't want to be unfair and certainly don't want to cause upset as we get on with ex well and have always been as flexible as possible, myself included. But it does seem to be the case that we have been having DD for over 50% of the time for quite a while now so we aren't sure what is right. We've suggested before having DD officially with us for 4 days so it's a set routine for her but she (ex) gets upset at the suggestion so on paper she's still the RP. We're not bothered about CB payments or anything like that but it would really relieve some of the financial stress for him and I'm not sure that's unfair considering the amount we have DD?
Because I know it'll be asked, he pays £300 per month at the moment which was the calculation when he was having 3 nights a week along with 50% of school costs, activities etc... which he always pays without fail and always contributes to extras.
It's nothing to do with us having a baby and reducing money or anything like that (we don't have kids), just want to know what's fair especially now we are in a rough spot at the min.
Please go easy, I'm honestly not a wicked SM who wants to erase his ex! She's a perfectly nice woman! Just don't know what to do here.