Starting overnights

[Bee9328]

Hi everyone looking for opinions.

I have a child who's 4 and who's father has been very inconsistent in thier lige. He will go from showing most weekends, others my child won't see him for 3/4 weeks at a time, many different excuses. We tried mediation this year and this has to stop as he became absusive and I no longer wanted to continue. I left him as he was emotionally absusive and controlling and still very much is even though we've been spilt and divorced for over 2 years now.

Anyway he has said early next year he wants to start to have our child overnight. Yes, he has a place and a bed for them, child has never stayed though.

He is still very inconsistent, will ignore that child exists for days on end even when I've passed on information they are unwell. He misses important meetings etc yet he's adamant he should have these overnights.

He sees our child one day a week when he can be bothered and I just don't feel it's right to start overnights however he won't ever be consistent and everything is a constant battle with him. Opinions?

I think you have to be careful how much you push back so as not to end up in court. They seem horribly in favour of 50:50 as a starting point regardless of the circumstances.

This is exactly what I'm worried about!

I would tell him to put a plan in place where you set out exact days and times that he sees the child so that they are absolutely the same every week or fortnight or whatever on repeat and then say after three months of sticking to the dates every single time without excuses (unless totally legitimate of course) then he can add in an overnight on one day per week/fortnight and build from there.

He must show consistency and willingness to compromise to make it work otherwise you’re potentially sending your child off to him when she may not have seen him for a month!

I've tried to do this since September and for example he's ment to have seen child 15 times and it's been 7. Again not reasons that are justified

Then you just tell him no, he can’t do overnights until he shows consistency with the contact arrangements he has now.

Provided you’re not unreasonably withholding contact, you’re not doing anything wrong and it certainly isn’t unreasonable nor withholding contact to ask him to stick to the current schedule for a while before asking for more