Am I been unreasonable? Child access

[pj722]

So, dad here

I have been separated from my wife for a year and a half. We have a 3 year old. We was together 10 years and married. She is 30 and I am 35.

The marital home is now sold, in the last few months and completed. I am still at my mums pending my new house being ready. My ex has now got a shared ownership 4 bedroom house on the same new estate as we lived on before, and as a father I always wanted her and my son to be sorted first. In order to do this, out about £27,000 equity, I ended up with 4k as we paid her car loan, PERSONAL loan, part of her credit card and enough for her a deposit for a new house. It was more than fair on her behalf and a year later until house was sold ive been with my mum. Not easy. I also took majority of credit card debt.

She works as a teacher, 3 days a week, earns about £1340 a month for that. She gets £300 CSA from me, and £86 child allowance, oh and she got some universal credit on top for nursery, but I still paid more than half of nursery on top of CSA. Thankfully our son is now 3 and from 7th sept he gets 30 hours free.

She regularly complains that she cannot manage financially, reasons such as smoking etc are a factor But anyway, that isn’t the point of this.

I work shifts. 6 days on, 4 day off, this is 2 earlies, 2 lates and 2 nights.

Since we split I have my son on 3 of my days off and sometimes after my second early and into the late shift.
So usually out of 10 days I have him overnight 3- 4, mostly 4. It has always worked well.

All of a sudden she has now decided that me working shifts doesn’t provide stability for our son. It would be nice to have more consistency, however he is a very happy boy and knows he gets 3 good days with his dad on his days off.

She doesn’t seem to accept this all of a sudden but maybe it could be because she has met someone new.
I have done a lot of research and it seems the amount of days that a) don’t see their children, b) see them one every 2 weeks is astounding. And I’m getting it in the neck for having him technically 4 in 10?

I would love to see my son more, however due to giving her most of the money from the divorce and having bigger debts I have no choice to carry on working what I do and what I earn. I also need a house now for me and my son too.

I think the question is, what can I do? I don’t think I’m been unreasonable.

The thing is, if she didn’t get the £300 a month CSA she would struggle, but if it came to the point it was half and half she wouldn’t get any CSA and I wonder if she should even get what she gets if I’m already having him 4 nights in 10.

I know this may sound ridiculous bit if I had to have him more and most of the time, then I would consider an aupair and give them £300 a month!

I have to work and do the job I do. I have no choice in the current climate to take pay cuts, change jobs. I did say to her we both need to be thankful we have jobs, and that I am very much part of my little boys life.

All he cares about is being happy, and he gets 4 days off with me so its great.

I don’t want to go to court, because I have never known people go to court because one parent in other parents opinion doesn’t have their child enough, It’s just ridiculous. Surely a judge would accept I’ve done what I’ve done to make sure she and my son are okay.

She isn’t the best communicator most of the time.

You have more income than her, so it isn’t totally unreasonable for you to help pay joint debt off. When you were together did you pay this off or was it 50/50 split?

I am not sure an au pair is always the ideal solution, if it’s a very young woman who is inexperienced this person isn’t the same as a qualified nanny or childminder.

I think the issue for her is that ex has to go nearly a week with no ‘break’ except for working/childcare and perhaps she is finding this a bit much. You should ask her. It could be social reasons, it could be that 6 days of a 3yo is tiring and he asks for you a lot. Talk to her!

Hi @pj722 at least you see your son, and are committed in his needs coming first, a lot of absent parents do not care or bother. If this was me and to keep it amicable, I would arrange contact via email only and see if you could both work something out to help each other which puts your sons best interests first.

Keep everything child focused, and should the issues not be resolved I would look into pursuing a Contact Order through the court, this then can be enforced on both sides.

I have to admit I’m a bit confused by all of this!

First off, though, you have to forget about the initial divorce settlement. It’s got nothing to do with the childcare / contact issue, and what’s done is done.

The two of you need to try to come to an agreement about how the contact schedule will work - try to engage with her and find a compromise. If not, mediation will help, and of course courts are the last resort to set an agreed timetable. Working together is much better if you can.

50:50 can work for some, but obviously it’s best for a child to be with a parent rather than an au pair where possible, and no court is going to give you 50:50 to remove the child from his mother just to be put into childcare during that time. Don’t suggest 50:50 to avoid maintenance as that’s just daft.

£300 a month isn’t much towards a child’s upkeep though, and if it’s the CSA minimum it’s worth remembering that’s a minimum not a target.

Okay, so what if I say 50/50, carry on working shifts and get an aupair?

You don’t get to “say 50/50” because children are humans with rights and needs, not possessions that can be chopped in half. His mother is his main carer as you only do between 3/10 and 4/10 of his care so you can’t change that in order to spite her and pay less.
BTW au pairs are like hen’s teeth at the moment because of Brexit/weak pound and anyway don’t do full days looking after toddlers. You’d need to employ a full time nanny which would cost a lot more than the extra you earn from working shifts.

I’ve just plotted it out on my calendar and sometimes the 3 days with you will fall on Mum’s 3 days at work, which means she then has no child free time for work prep (which teachers need) or to catch up on sleep that whole fortnight. And most of the time your 3 days split through part of a weekend, meaning there are very few whole weekends she will be child free and can go away, and not that many where she will have her child all weekend to take him away - and no full week (let alone fortnight) she can take him away on holiday. She can’t commit at more than a month or so in advance to events she wants to take him to nor to things she can do whilst childfree. Plus, he’s getting to an age where kids start sports clubs and classes, and she’d have to pay for eg swimming lessons never knowing how many she can take him to.

This is worth taking into account, I think you just need to be open minded about the impact it probably is having on her life and thinking about the future

For anyone advising you to go through the courts, be wary.
No court will agree to a situation where your Ex essentially has to schedule her life/childcare etc around YOUR shifts.
So you need to compromise before things get to that stage.
You need to arrange a regular split, and you need to sort childcare around it. When you work nights, can your parents help?
Or it may be that you have to use your annual leave to book one of your scheduled nights off. Have you even spoken to your employer about the issue? They may be able to provide even more flexibility in terms of shifts.
And lose the focus on the finances. Children are not pay per view.

@Menora

I’ve just plotted it out on my calendar and sometimes the 3 days with you will fall on Mum’s 3 days at work, which means she then has no child free time for work prep (which teachers need) or to catch up on sleep that whole fortnight. And most of the time your 3 days split through part of a weekend, meaning there are very few whole weekends she will be child free and can go away, and not that many where she will have her child all weekend to take him away - and no full week (let alone fortnight) she can take him away on holiday. She can’t commit at more than a month or so in advance to events she wants to take him to nor to things she can do whilst childfree. Plus, he’s getting to an age where kids start sports clubs and classes, and she’d have to pay for eg swimming lessons never knowing how many she can take him to.

This is worth taking into account, I think you just need to be open minded about the impact it probably is having on her life and thinking about the future

catch up on sleep? I work shifts, I work nights, getup at 11a, (after 4 hours) and have my son for 3 days.If I am not working I have my son, so when do I get a free weekend?

I am not sure this has been plotted very well. She gets more time on her own, than I do. Im either at work or have my son.

pj722 says a lot that youd rather give £300 to a strange young girl, who may or may not be interested in your kids than the mother of your children who clearly does her job well. I know a couple of men like that. The au pair does everything...

You and your ex needs to talk. Sort it out nicely.

But if you were still together you'd likely be seeing more of your son and doing things with him on your days off. So not sure how it's different? It might not be perfect but the alternative of a different job doesn't seem doable right now.

@Ickythumpego

pj722 says a lot that youd rather give £300 to a strange young girl, who may or may not be interested in your kids than the mother of your children who clearly does her job well. I know a couple of men like that. The au pair does everything...

You and your ex needs to talk. Sort it out nicely.

your clearly missing the point. 100% missing the point!

people on here are telling me to "Sort my own childcare" because its my fault i work shifts. So im suggesting that if she wants me to have my son half of the time (which i would love to do, THEN I have to arrange child care. ]

My god, I cant win!

OP you need to find a solution. You’re going around in circles and not facing the fact that the responsibility to find a solution for your child is between you. It doesn’t matter if you can do three days one week and none the next week.

If you go for 50/50 - you’ll need to find childcare for your son.

If you go for a court ordered agreement, this will be a set pattern of days adhered to. The days you are working may fall outside of this and you won’t control that, it will be ordered as so. You will be responsible for childcare for your son.

If you go to mediation, you will be expected to find middle ground and you will be in a similar position: finding childcare for your son.

You have dug yourself in as believing that this is the best for your child, but in truth it’s best for you.

It may well be straightforward to you to say it’s arranged a month or two in advance, but all parties have commitments here. Nursery hours, working hours...when your child starts school, after school club and wrap around care.

You can’t ask school to only do wraparound on every third Wednesday of months with r in, just because it suits your job. Life doesn’t work like that.

I’m aghast at some of the replies to your post.
For what it’s worth OP. I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I think you’re doing your utmost to care for your son.
The ExH and I share a 5 year old son. Whilst I have more than ‘50%’ of his time, we work together for what is best for all of us. There isn’t really a set schedule. We talk like adults, and decide a couple of weeks in advance who would like to do what and when. Son asks in the morning if I’m picking him up or daddy. He’s happy either way.
It can absolutely work with your shifts. But your ExW needs to be reasonable.

I am not sure this has been plotted very well. She gets more time on her own, than I do. Im either at work or have my son.

It’s not a competition. She’s arranged her life like that for her child.

Do you see the problem? She has arranged her life around the fact she has a child. You are not willing to. You want her to arrange her life and your child’s life around yours which changes every two weeks.

Why is she struggling so much financially? Is she being upfront with you? If you have paid off her debt she should have a pretty blank slate. She may be getting tax credits on top of what you have listed.

Having lived on the estate she now lives on you will have some idea of what a mortgage would cost. Why has she took on a 4 bed house when there is only the two of them?

I personally don’t think contact needs to be on rigid days as long as the child knows what is going on. My ex used to have fixed days, now it works around his shifts. It means more often than not I don’t get any child free time because he often has him a couple of days through the week and I work full time, but there’s not much I can do.

She's a teacher and from September you get 30 hours....she needs to be in full time work. Your marriage to her doesn't give her the right to have a better standard of living than she could have worked for her in her own right

No court will agree to a situation where your Ex essentially has to schedule her life/childcare etc around YOUR shifts
That's incorrect. It is exactly what a friend of mine had to accept when her ex showed to the judge that he couldn't get a job that wasn't shift due to his profession and therefore could never offer regular days on a weekly basis.

The judge sympathise with the mum but insisted that the child having as much contact with his father took precedence over the needs of the mum and ruled that the shift pattern should remain.

Finances aside, your job is not family friendly for a single parent. It's unreasonable of you to expect your ex to constantly rearrange her life to fit your changing schedule. Try and imagine doing it in reverse. You wouldn't. So you need to change your job/hours.

Going for additional custody and recruiting the world's cheapest au pair will not get you further ahead financially, so focus on what's best for your son before you make any other decisions.

I think the arrangement you have now is fine for while your son is 3. I agree with others though that it won't be practical when he goes to school. It will be a pain for organising any youth clubs he is going to or any birthday parties he gets invited to. It will be harder for him to arrange to play with friends. As he gets older it will be much easier if he had specific days to spend with you and is able to understand and articulate these when making plans. It may be a long way off but there's a big difference between the social and hobby lives of a 3 and for example a 6 year old! How you sort it, I have no idea.... I just don't think she's being completely unreasonable planting the seed.

You need to agree a schedule with your ex and stick to it. If you have to work on any of your 'days' then you need to arrange care for you child just like working parents the world over, and just like your ex has done on the days she works.

Find a childminder that works nights and stop expecting your ex wife to facilitate your working patterns.

OP I think you're missing the point that although this arrangement has been working well for you, it has not been working well for your ex. You'll need to change the arrangement. You've had lots of suggestions for how you might change it. Now you're getting annoyed because you didn't want suggestions, you wanted us to tell you how ungrateful your ex is.

For those of you telling the OP to change his job/hours. How do you know he isn’t a Police Officer or similar? For some professions it isn’t as simple as just getting a new job.
He’s clearly not expecting his EXW to bend over backwards for him either. She knows the schedule a month in advance ffs.
Sorry OP. You’re never going to get a fair judgement on here, it’s a seemingly man hating community....

i Think the problem you have Op is that because your work is on a 10 day schedule you live on a 10 day schedule and you are expecting your ex-wife to work on a 10 day schedule. But Britain doesn’t work on a 10 day schedule - it works on a 7 day schedule.

When you are married to a shift worker then you do have to fit around it. But your ex isn’t any more. So she doesn’t need to.

She wants to be able to book your child into swimming lessons every Thursday morning. But she can’t because whether she has your child on a Thursday morning depends on your shifts.

She wants to be able to agree to stay late at work for hockey club every Tuesday afternoon. But she can’t because whether she has your child on a Tuesday night depends on your shifts.

She wants to be able to arrange to do a pottery evening class on a Wednesday night. But she can’t because whether she has your child on a Wednesday night depends on your shifts.

She isn’t married to you anymore. She shouldn’t have to fit her life around your shifts.

Unfortunately, OP you seem to be listening but not actually hearing.

Children benefit from, and need, routine.

Your ex is not obliged to provide childcare for you so you can work.

Your ex wants to get on with her life. She wants to be able to predictably plan what she is doing and when. She can’t do that on your work shift system because she is having to be available to provide you with childcare whilst you work. She can’t get a couple of weeks away (alone or with your son) because she is forced to be available for you. She’s not getting a full weekend either alone or with her son on a regular basis - this will matter more when he starts school. What she is asking for - predictability - isn’t unreasonable.

If you take this to court, I am afraid it is highly likely your ex will get what she wants. That’s your bottom line.

You could try mediation with a view to putting in place a parenting plan. You would likely pay less maintenance and you could stop contributing towards her childcare as you would have your own. You would need overnight childcare to continue working your usual pattern. You need to look carefully at the au pair situation - I think there are rules around sole care. Things may also change post-Brexit with the au pair scheme. Above everything, you really have to accept that your ex is not your childcare and shouldn’t be expected to sit around meeting your needs post-separation. I am not sure you really understand that yet.

Why did you split OP?