50:50 with an abusive partner

[Parttimermom]

So we've had some conversations regarding splitting. I am formulating a safe plan to leave. He says he will want kids 50:50. When I spoke to my Solicitor I mentioned the classic EOW, but they have strongly advised I go for less than every other weekend for the wellbeing of my children (he is verbally abusive to all of us and also he has never looked after all of them by himself for more than half a day on less than a handful of occasions - oldest is 9, youngest 3). He acts like he can't stand to be around them most of the time, they irritate him and he doesn't understand how kids behave but thinks they should do as they are told...as soon as they are demanded to do something.

Anyway any stories from people who have left a guy like this and he's actually turned his parenting ways around. Or is it more likely to be the 50:50 thing is just a threat to try and get me to stay and he will in fact see them alot less when he realises he can't do it.

Obviously I would like to make the split as non acrimonious as possible and have been warned against going in all guns blazing with a solicitor. He's a nasty piece of work verbally and very manipulative. Being told that he can not see his kids as much as he wants to will put his back up big style and make him very angry. But obviously the kids are at the forefront of my mind.

My ex started with an hour of supervised contact a fortnight. That's how awful he was. Over the course of 5 years he now has 6 nights in 14, just under shared care. It's OK at the moment as it doesn't affect DDs after school activities as they're all on her dad's with me. Its hard though as he doesn't prioritise anything important to her. She's missed shows, parties, activities simply because he will absolutely not go anywhere if I ask him to even though it's our daughter who misses out.

He also doesn't provide school uniform and think that's my job to do so I pack extra and washed uniform in a back pack on DDs days with him because he knows if I don't she'll be left with possibly dirty uniform.

He does try to alienate her from me by saying mean things but at a years old she's got a pretty good idea of what her father is independently. Don't get me wrong, she enjoys her time with him, he has Friday to Monday EOW and 1 midweek overnight.. DD says by Saturday night she just wants to come home. You just have to positively encourage.

The worst thing is having to communicate with him.. I've learnt to just grey rock his nonsense and answer what I need to which infuriates him more.

You can't co parent with an abusive man who isn't willing to change. They hate you more than they love their children and the only thing you can do is have control over the time your children spend with you and lessen the impact of any conflict.

My outlook is very much nobody can prevent my DD from getting older and forming her own opinion.

Contact the National Domestic Abuse helpline for advice and support around leaving. You need to do it safely and they'll be able to talk you through how to do this.

Their number is 0808 2000 247.

They'll also be able to advise you on your rights relating to custody. As I understand it, you can refuse to allow face to face contact and could limit contact to video calls on safeguarding grounds. The onus would then be on him to go to court and apply for more than that although he'd be unlikely to get 50:50 (think of all the divorced couples you know, do any of them actually have 50:50?). However, get advice before acting.

Insist on supervised contact and when he proves himself it can be built to there. EOW as a max following this.

He likely wants 50/50 so he wouldn’t have to pay maintenance. However, make sure you DO claim maintenance.

He will absolutely hate supervised visits. He doesn't believe he is abusive. I dread how he will react to this.

And I feel like he has done some research or someone else has informed him of the 50:50 maintenance implications!

He can hate it all he wants, do what’s best for your DC! If he doesn’t think he’s been abusive he can prove it by meeting the conditions of supervised visits until they feel he is a safe and reliable parent

Who decided the hour of supervised visits to begin with? And then the increase in hours?

Exactly. The things I am dreading are communicating with him as he can be so nasty.

And the after school/weekend activities. Like you I do all of that and some of them he doesn't agree with (but the kids love) so they wouldnt happen if he wants one week on, one week off.

Thank you. I am working with a DV charity but noone has started formulating a plan with me. I'm so nervous about leaving maybe they think I'm not too definite about it yet. Will ask next time .

I know I know. He will be Disney dad at the visits, won't take long for them to say he's ok. None of his friends or family have seen his abuse, they all think he's a good dad 😭

IMO he won't actually want 50/50 because he can't be bothered. Abusers often make a lot of threats especially around children in order to control you.

To tell you the truth, I'd just agree to anything he wants if you're still living with him because this is when you're most vulnerable. Do what you need to do to leave safely.

The obvious solution once gone is supervised contact. It's good you have involved a DV charity as evidence is useful.

Once separated use a video doorbell, keep a diary of his behaviour and involve the police should he make threats. Download a co parenting app as all communication is recorded.

Gingerbread have a good helpline should you have further questions.

That's what I'm thinking. The 3 times he has looked after all of them have been emergencies and even then he has said 'can you at least take one of them with you'!!! Erm no!

He used to threaten to not let me see the children if we split so he's realised that he couldnt manage full time at least!

That's a good idea re a ring doorbell. I'm not allowed anything that records at the moment e.g. an Alexa.

He never abuses me via email or phone (it would be evidence!) but this may change once we are split so it's good to know there are apps.

You can find apps here.

What kind of work does he do? Does he have time
consuming hobbies ? See his friends regularly ? Likely to date? Those kind of factors are often why men don’t want 50/50. He probably doesn’t realise that he has to pay 50% of the childcare (unless he has someone who will do it for him) and if he has a job that’s nights or involves travel then there’s no paid childcare for that. Is he likely to do the school run? Save his annual leave for school holidays (14 weeks total so 6.5 weeks each) ? Does he work 9-5? Can he get from school to work on time ? He can’t drop the kids off at yours on his way to work if it’s his day.
As he’s abusive, you could also play him at his game. Pretend that you’re looking forward to going out and having fun, enrolling in regular night classes or hobbies… many abusive men would rage at the thought that you’d be fine and want you to have the kids more so you can’t have a life.

Make sure he knows what 50/50 means. No maintenance but he’s the one who has to do things like take time off work if the kids are too ill for school/childcare if it’s his day. He can’t expect you to do all the work in the day and pick the kids up for bedtime because child maintenance is calculated on overnights- he has to rearrange his life (if necessary) because he’s volunteered to do half of the graft.

He's in a basic full time admin role working from home and barely works maybe 3 hours a day (then games and watches TV! Dunno how he gets away with it!) But of course he's too busy to do school runs, needs to be at home in case he gets a call (he never does!). Plays football 3 times a week. Goes to pub 2-3 times a week. That's where it'll hit him, his hobbies.

Erm his annual leave is for him to have time to himself...and he refuses to pay for holiday clubs as they are too expensive and I should work less or his mother should do more childcare (she already does too much!).

My ex made threats to take the kids too. I agreed 50/50 verbally to call his bluff as I'm sure he wouldn't want it if he thought it would make me happy. Its been a loooong time and I am still waiting for him to apply to court...

I can't offer much advice, however I am in an abusive relationship. My "partner" is emotionally abusive, tells our child I'm crazy, angry, psychopath etc. Our child has also witnessed me being pushed across the room and shouted at that I'm a "fucking twat and fucking bitch". Partner says he wants 50/50 if we split. I spoke with a solicitor who basically said this would be the case, it's usually 50/50 and I can't really do anything about it. It put me off leaving in the end.

So he hasn't asked to have them since then? Does he see them at all?

I have been told to keep a diary of everything and also try to make voice recordings in secret (easier said than done!). Also if your partner has ever been for therapy my solicitor said they could ask for the records to see if he said anything that may back up the abuse. Was the solicitor an expert in DV? If not try and find one that is, they know how to fight these guys. 🤞 You get help. I spoke to school this week and they are putting in extra help as it's effecting the kids. That's evidence too, when you speak to school. We did kind of have SS involved too who spoke to the kids and raised some concerns but then dropped it when he wouldn't engage. Also at the very beginning I went to my doctor's as I was sooo tired all the time and she asked me about any stress in my life as I had nothing else wrong with me. She has marked on my record what is going on. All of this helps build a case and I hope will help me in the future. Someone else told me the more people you tell the better.

I'd be careful about requesting therapy records if you or your kids have ever been in therapy as they're likely to realise they can request yours or the kids if you go for theirs.

XH is emotionally abusive, he has DC 2 nights a week, and can have them for an extra week in summer holidays. He said he wanted 50/50 and told our kids he was going to get that and he deserves 50% of everything. Our eldest was really worried by that, I couldn't call his bluff like people sometimes advise in these situations or she would have fallen apart. We had 2 lots of mediation, the second was shuttle mediation so we were in different rooms. First was a disaster. He didn't bother fighting for 50/50, I suspect he never wanted it, just wanted to be able to tell the kids I was stopping him seeing them more and being unfair to him. Younger two parroted XH for quite a while, he was going on and on about it for over 12 months, how unfair it was, how I wasnt letting him see the kids, but all very twisted and bitter wording. Now if rarely comes up with kids and only one of them wants to see him more, or thinks he does. The other 2 don't want to see him more than they do.

Extra curriculars are stacked on my nights or he picks up after they're over if it's his night, but I try to avoid the later. He's very much a disney dad, no real parenting. He does do some of the things he refused to ever do like school runs and making lunches on his days. He magically gained the ability to make lunches when we seperated, didn't know how to do it before 🙄.

I would honestly be surprised if he ends up with only supervised contact, a parent can be a really really shit nasty one and still end up with overnights. You might get lucky and he won't take you to court. There's always a degree of risk going to family court and outcomes can be very dependent on specific judges. I agreed to more than I would have ideally liked, but on balance I was willing to give a little more to keep things out of court so my kids wouldn't have to go through the process of talking about everything that went on. If he had pushed for more than the 2 nights I would have gone to court. Eldest is of an age now where her voice would be heard, but the longer we stay out of court, because court is risky, the more she'll be able to make her own choices. She knows if she wants to reduce or stop contact I will back her and make it happen, but she's happy with the current arrangement.

Sorry I don't understand why? All mine talks about is the abuse really so wouldn't back their case at all!!!

This is all really useful thank you. Will look at moving club days around once I know what the arrangement will be.

I just feel so bad for all the kids. Why couldn't we have just met a nice guy :-(. It's them that suffer :-(.

Oh yes the blaming you. Mine has said he won't end it out of spite so he can then tell the kids I destroyed our family. (And I have abandonment issues so me leaving isn't going well!). Also that whoever ends it should leave the house as they decided they want out (will have a battle on my hands 😔).

I can see mine parroting him too especially my son. I just hope they realise its for the best in the end.

And I can completely understand the avoiding court thing. As unpredictable as he is sometimes I can see him quickly realising he could never do 50:50. I just hope he realises this before the kids start going to him as they don't need anymore upset from him not coping/changing their arrangement.

Call his bluff, say that's great as you can organise hobbies and things for yourself.

Start now. He'll soon change his mind.

50/50 means he pays for childcare during his hours, clothes, uniform etc.

Mine made threats too, even if he had our DD whilst I went out for a few hours he'd dump her on his mother. This man was going to get custody of her and be Superdad if we split up. Flaming knob.

Bless you ❤️

🤣😂 he just wouldn't take them!

It would be interesting what he does what it gets to the holidays. He'll only book time off during holidays when I'm off say when we go away. Otherwise he uses his annual leave outside of school holidays. He doesn't agree with paying for holiday clubs but I have to use them as I obviously still need to work during the holidays!!!!