What do I do?

[Wishiwaswidow]

So, ex has just called as I requested to change days with the children to ever other weekend. He has disagreed and now said he will have them 50% of the time and not pay me maintenance.

I’m fine with whatever but I just think every other weekend. He has been the one calling the shots to be honest. It is best for everybody involved to do it this way he is just being an arse

He can do 50:50 if he likes

So what was the point of your thread?

He says he wants to do 50/50. You say he can do 50/50 if he likes. So put plans in motion for him to do 50/50 with the accompanying reduction in maintenance.

He is refusing every other weekend

OK, so work together to find a pattern that works for both of you.

Presumably you both want quality weekend time with the children.

If you work on Sundays then I guess it makes sense for him to do Sundays and you to do Saturdays if you're splitting every weekend rather than the whole weekend every other weekend. (Not sure how you'd cover every other Sunday whilst you are working if you did every other weekend anyway,) Is there a reason why that would be a problem for you? He could do Sunday to Wednesday one week, Sunday to Thursday the next. The good thing about this is that it covers all of your working days so you don't need to worry about childcare for work or taking time off if the kids are sick/school holidays as all of your working days are his responsibility to cover.

If he's often late picking the kids up on a Sunday and it's hindering you getting to work on time, why not drop the kids off yourself on the way to work?

He won’t tell me where he lives. I just think it’s fair that we both get time to spend with our friends ie, Friday or Saturday

Then he does Saturday afternoon to Tuesday and Saturday afternoon to Wednesday. He gets every Friday you get every Saturday and he gets 50:50.

I honestly believe you should do it on a trial basis as if he as useless as you say he won’t want to do 50:50 in the long run.

Unfortunately you can’t make him do EOW if he doesn’t want to and it sounds like he’s not going to do it just because it’s what you want.

I did ask earlier, but are the kids old enough to have a say?

You can let him take you to court but if there’s no reason not to he will get 50:50. So may as well give it a go and let him hang himself with his own rope. If it goes well then no harm done. If you can’t agree on what days 50:50 then let him take you to court, he would have to pay nearly £300 and you can make a formal agreement that neither of you can just change on a whim.

The kids are 4 and 7 and they say they only want to stay at dads one night per week. Ex will just say they don’t have a say. He contradicts himself as he has always said he couldn’t do 50:50 due to work commitments. It will cost him a fortune in wrap around care and the holidays

OK, so we're now getting down to the real issue, this is about your social life. You can get a babysitter! You can't cover every other Sunday anyway, so every other weekend is a non starter really. I actually find this really sad - most parents want the weekend days because they want the opportunity to spend quality time with their children, rather than not wanting them so they can go out.

At 4 and 7, the children don't really get to choose that they only want to stay over one night a week. Are you sure that's what they want or what you want - because you are going to be the biggest influence on them right now. Quite unusual for children of those ages to say stuff like that unless they're parroting what they've been told by someone else.

I think it's reasonable for you to know where your children are staying.

But 50/50 with no maintenance and weekends split down the middle (since you can't do Sunday anyway due to work commitments) seems a reasonable enough ask to me. He might well not be asking for it for the right reasons, but that's not really the point. At the moment it does seem like you want him to be your childcare whilst you're at work and to cover your social life at the weekends, and that's what's your main driver rather than thinking about what's best for the children, which is to have good relationships and plenty of time with both parents.

I get that but the reason he won’t do weekends is because of his social life too.

So. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Well no they don’t

Thing is, your every other weekend idea is a non starter anyway, because you work on Sundays so can't cover every other weekend yourself. So what you're really saying is you want him to cover childcare for your social life as well as your work days, he doesn't want to do that, which is his prerogative.

If you want a Saturday night out, just get a babysitter. Even if he did agree to every other weekend, you can bet your bottom dollar he'd suddenly let you down if he got wind of you having plans to go out.

I'd also tell him you're OK with him doing 50/50. If he thinks you don't mind, he probably won't do it anyway. He's using it as a threat

But I'd stop going on about EOW, and just accept it's not going to happen. You can't do it, he doesn't want to do it, so it's a non starter.

Yes you’re probably right. I just think people should be fair to each other and I don’t understand why he wouldn’t love a full weekend with them. I do.

He says he doesn’t give a shit what I do with my life , well that’s fine, I just can’t think of any other reason why he wouldn’t want the weekend with the kids. I’m not going to push it now. My mum would happily have the kids on a Sunday whilst I work so that wasn’t a problem. I’ve actually got a migraine thinking about this today.

Your posts make no sense. So right now he has them overnight on a Sunday, then drops them back to you after school on a Monday? He also does the afternoon school run on a Tuesday?

And you want EOW instead ie he takes them on Friday night/Saturday morning and returns them on Sunday?

And he is saynig that in that case, he will have them 50/50? Abnd your issue is that you want time off from kids for a social life?

So what is his proposal re 50/50? Because that seems like it would, theoretically, work as you'd both get 50% of the time without the DC. However, based on what you've said about him, I assume this is just so he can make your life difficult in which cas, cal his bluff - ask him to make a fair proposal re 50:50, including ensuring that the DC have a decent place to sleep as obviously an air matrress is not sustainable long term.

So? His costs aren't any of your concern.

He needs to have a bedroom for them if he wants 50/50. Tell him you're happy to do it once they have a bedroom.

Expecting them to have the insecurity of airbeds in the living room on school nights is ridiculous.

I'm fairly sure he's just mucking you around, but to a point I can understand where he's coming from.

He's already covering Sunday, Monday school runs and after school, Tuesday school runs and after school every week to facilitate OP working.

OP is now saying that she also wants him to cover Friday and Saturday EOW in order to facilitate her social life.

So if he was doing Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday evenings one week followed by Monday and Tuesday evenings the next week, then he might as well have them overnight on Mondays and Tuesdays which would make it 50/50, formalise that and not have to pay OP child maintenance. Without the overnights he's still having to pay the CM but to all intents and purposes he's having them 50/50. If he's doing the school pick ups and after school care then them sleeping at OPs is really neither here nor there in practical terms even though it matters for CM

The whole set up, both the existing arrangement and OPs proposal is based around what days work for her to facilitate her work and her social life. I suspect that's pissed him off.

I suspect that he doesn't really want 50/50 and wouldn't do it and that's just a threat. But at the same time, he's already working to a timetable set up to suit OP's working hours and it's OK for him not to want to change what he's currently doing in order to facilitate OPs social life.

I don’t need him to have the children on Sunday Monday or Tuesday? If they were with me they wouldn’t need breakfast club/after school club. They have to get up at 6am it makes no sense when I can take them?