To think DPs ex is ridiculous?

[DrMaxwell]

So, DP and his ex have shared care of their 3 DC, a week at a time. During termtime they swap on a Friday with one parent dropping at school and the other collecting. The arrangement is to swap back around 3ish during holidays.

Last week the DC said that their mum had gone to her home country to visit her parents as they are unwell. Might have been helpful to know in case of emergency but otherwise not our business.

She emailed telling DP to drop the kids at a childminder at 3pm. He replied asking if she could confirm when she was returning to the country and he was happy to drop them home when she got back, but didn't feel comfortable leaving them with a childminder with no idea how long they'd be there. She wouldn't give any information and insisted he drop them off at 3pm. He said no and that he'd drop them back to her. 3pm came and she said she'd called the police saying he was refusing to return the children against a court order. We didn't hear any more until 8pm when she messaged saying she was home and wanted the kids back.

I know this is a really petty issue but it's been irritating me all weekend.

I've answered.

When you're dealing with an abusive or unreasonable person, being flexible with the court order is a stupid thing to do.

Well, good luck coparenting with zero flexibility as the kids get older anyway. 😆

You said you'd agree to extra days. That's not what I asked. The day he wants to keep them is not convenient for you, you have something important arranged to do with the child/children. You want them back.

Or are you saying what you want to do with your children on your time isn't important if your ex decides he's going to do what he wants?

I didn’t argue that flexibility isn’t the way forward.

I argued that it’s preferable but not always possible. You then agreed (by accident) by talking personal experience where flexibility wasn’t appropriate in your case.

But you were the one that said the mother here should be flexible. Which is a judgement you can’t make because you don’t know her pov. Yet you don’t want people making judgements on your actions that you brought into the division.

We know very little detail either way. And yet you have decided that while you made judgements that you felt were best for your situation and went against court orders, that the mother shouldn’t be making her own judgement calls that are in line with her court order.

There’s so little detail that no one can say wether it’s her or him. So can’t say wether flexibility was appropriate or not. It’s not always. You seem co convex in this situation it definitely is. I don’t get how you can think that.

Your dp is in the wrong here. Sounds like not only did the mum have to take a trip abroad to deal with her unwell parents, which is stressful in itself, she then had to deal with letting her childminder know (and possibly still being charged a fee for late notice?) that the dc wouldn't be coming and having to commutate with your dp who wanted her to justify her decisions. So she'd put in place a perfectly stress free plan, and your dp managed to make the whole situation more stressful at a time she was already dealing with the stress of unwell parents.

I would actually prioritise the children and think about what they want. In your head, what's going to happen for them when their parents can literally never agree on anything? Even parents who have been through a 'messy' separation are eventually capable of behaving like adults.

Why do you think the children in this situation should have been with a childminder over a parent? Would you say the same if the ex was male?

My kids are older. Ones an adult. Been there and done that. There’s a difference between working with your kids, as to what suits them and working with your ex. Especially, if there’s real toxicity.

You could be flexible as to when the kids come and go. But still not have to see the ex.

Arranging these things is infinitely easier with older kids and late teens.

I think I'm with the father in this one. Sometimes you need to put a court order to one side to make sure your children are safe.

Unfortunately in the real world, post separation, some couples are unable to find a common ground and build on it. Even for the sake of the children. Even when they both know that the situation is horrible and needs improving. When abuse is involved, when trust has been eroded, when family, friends and new partners demonstrate never-ending support when someone is clearly in the wrong....you just can't make it better.

Parenting without flexibility, at least in my case, has limited the children's exposure to anger and abuse. It has meant I could rebuild my own life with strong barriers that hold. It has limited my exposure to anger and abuse. It works. I know it's not ideal and that we could do better but it takes two people to engage, to not need to get one over on the other, to not hate the ex more than they love their children. It isn't something you can do on your own. So you build your barriers and work within strong boundaries and long-term, that works.

I agree. It's not the way I co parent with my ex, but that's our situation. However, when I think of my ex dp (not my kids dad) who co parented my ex step child with his ex, flexibility was absolutely not the best way because he was so unreliable. Set times/dates was the only way forward for them and she had to be strict with it, otherwise he would take the absolute piss (he was a really scatty/unreliable and shit dad who was impossible communicate with maturly) so I see his ex wife's reasonings. What a catch on my part eh 🙄

YABU. Your partner doesn't get to dictate what childcare his ex uses during her time. This is controlling and coercive behaviour.

None of his damn business. Why is he monitoring her location/movements.

They were safe. She wasn't leaving them with Fred down the road, they were going to a childminder. Childminders are a perfectly safe form of childcare.

Your partner was wrong, and you seem to support that. Why does she need to tell you she isn't in the country, when you have the kids that week? As long as she is contactable by phone, her location and plans are none of your concern, same as your plans are none of her concern. He was told where to drop off the kids, and didn't because he was making another smug point- much like your comment regarding her not telling you she was visiting her parents. Sounds like she was trying to Greg rock him. Not engage and just reiterate that this is the arrangement, please follow,it and he wouldn't. I assume it's quite high conflict between them?

Parenting without flexibility, at least in my case, has limited the children's exposure to anger and abuse. It has meant I could rebuild my own life with strong barriers that hold. It has limited my exposure to anger and abuse. It works. I knowit's not ideal and that we could do better but it takes two people to engage, to not need to get one over on the other, to not hate the ex more than they love their children. It isn't something you can do on your own. So you build your barriers and work within strong boundaries and long-term, that works.

So when flexibility really is impossible, this is obviously the healthiest approach. Many separated parents seem to be incapable of putting their differences aside though. From what OP says (and assuming there is no history of abuse) it seems very petty and unfair to refuse the kids a few more hours with their other parent and to call the police (who can't do anything). How the hell does any of that benefit the kids?

It gets easier as they get older because the kids tend to communicate directly with the parent and you end up not having to talk to the ex at all. Lifts can be dropping them outside and not having to even get out the car.

And the courts would tell the father that he has no legal right to know where the other parent lives, let alone inform him if she is out of the country, when she's collecting from childminders etc. they'd actually laugh him out.

Fred might be a child minder. Bit sexiest of you to think only men are a danger and only women can look after children safely.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/tears-flow-as-childminder-is-named-and-shamed-952037

It gets easier as they get older because the kids tend to communicate directly with the parent and you end up not having to talk to the ex at all. Lifts can be dropping them outside and not having to even get out the car.

But what if they decide one day that they don't fancy going to mum's/dad's? Or they want to go a day or so sooner? Do you just say 'court order says no' even if there are no safeguarding concerns? Given that more 'weight' is given to the wants of older children.

Not all parents are eventually capable of behaving like adults, some will always make everything an issue and even the smallest things will be impossible to agree on.

This is why some people need to rigidly stick to court orders.

But you are just inferring that there is no history of abuse so you don't know the full context.

Abuse can manifest in many ways, and wanting to know where someone is, who they're with etc can fall into that category.

In this case the OP is presenting it that her DP wasn't bothered about leaving his DC in paid childcare until it was clear that she was out of the country and he didn't have information about her movements, at which point he used the DC to try and coerce her into giving more information than she wanted and when she refused, as was her right, then he started changing arrangements, not for the children's benefit, but because he wanted to assert control over the situation. If he does this today, what about next time she doesn't give him a full breakdown of her plans when he has the DC? Will he try the same thing again? What about if her plans change, will he try to use that against her? There are so many variables when you start using flexibility in a case where there's no amicable co-parenting and it can cause far more issues in the long run than saying "This is the plan, regardless of the situation, stick to it".

This wasn't a case where he'd said "Hey, don't worry about getting back by 3 for the kids or paying for childcare, I'm more than happy to keep them a bit longer, just let me know a general ETA/text me when you're home and we can figure out getting the kids to you either tonight or on the morning, depending on the time". He essentially said "Unless you give me all the details about your trip that I ask for then I will not be following the court ordered agreement to take them to CMs and will be keeping DC until I am ready to hand them over at whatever arbitrary point I determine".

It sounds like she was reinforcing the boundaries. She arranged perfectly adequate childcare, his "opinion" on it meant the plans were changed. The OP (quite rightly) didn't need to divulge her plans to him, so he kept the dc. It's very controlling. She (again quite rightly) doesn't have to go along with his controlling narrative of "tell me when you're back or I'm keeping the dc until you're home" and nipped it in the bud by saying she will call the police.

So instead of going away to see her unwell parents and coming home from what may have been a stressful/long trip to the dc settled with the childminder, she's now had to have back and forth emails with her ex and come home to now having to recieve the kids from her ex and settle the kids after her trip. All because the father couldn't just drop them off as asked and do ultimatums knowing she may have already been stressed from her unwell parent Yes, the mum could have asked the dad if he could have had them longer, but that doesn't sound like an appropriate option in this situation, and the mum had perfectly adequate plans in place instead.

Whilst I believe that your partner should have dropped his child off at the childminders at the court ordered time, it also wouldn't have hurt the mum to reassure dad that she would be home that day. The whole issue could have been avoided.

I still doubt that everyone here who has decided that dad is in the wrong would be comfortable dropping their children off with someone they don't know for an unknown amount of time. In fact, if a woman posted 'am I unreasonable to refuse to drop my kids off until their dad is available to have them (he won't tell me when that'll be)?' She would have a few 'none of your business' type responses but I think generally people would be on her side.

You keep saying that but the father in this case wasn't concerned about the person being unknown or the length of time the children would have to stay there that day. He would have happily dropped them off at this unknown person's house and left them for hours.